THE

INTERNATIONAL

MONTHLY

MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Science and Art.

VOLUME I.
AUGUST, 1850.

NEW-YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY.
FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
BY THE NUMBER, 25 Cts; THE VOLUME, $1; THE YEAR, $3.

VOLUME I. AUGUST TO NOVEMBER, 1850.

[Pg 1]

INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. I. NEW YORK, JULY 1, 1850. No. 1.

CONTENTS: THIS ISSUE

INTRODUCTION.

Of the revolutions of the age, one of the most interesting and important is that which has taken place in the forms of Literature and the Modes of its Publication. Since the establishment of the Edinburgh Review the finest intelligences of the world have been displayed in periodicals. Brougham, Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, Mackintosh, Macaulay, have owed nearly all their best fame to compositions which have appeared first in journals, magazines and reviews; the writers of Tales and Essays have uniformly come before the public by the same means, which have recently served also for the original exhibition of the most elaborate and brilliant Fictions, so that we are now receiving through them by almost every ship from Europe installments of works by Dickens, Bulwer, James, Croly, Lever, Reynolds, Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Ellis, and indeed nearly all the most eminent contemporary novelists. So complete is the change, that all mind, except the heaviest and least popular, is likely to flow hereafter through the Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly Miscellanies, which compete with universities, parliaments, churches, and libraries, for ascendency in the government of mankind.

In this country we must keep pace with the movements abroad. It will not answer that we issue literary productions as soon as possible after their completion. The impatient readers demand chapters by chapters, as they are spun from the brain and the heart of the author; facts, upon the instant of their discovery; and suggestions, as they flash from the contact of imagination and reflection.

The International Weekly Miscellany will be a result of efforts to satisfy a plain necessity of the times. It will combine the excellencies of all contemporary periodicals, with features that will be peculiar to itself.

I. A leading object will be to present the public, with the utmost rapidity and at the cheapest possible rate, the best of those works in Popular Literature which are appearing abroad in serials, or in separate chapters. With this view, we print in the first number the initial portions of the brilliant nautical romance now in course of publication in Blackwood's Magazine, under the title of "The Green Hand," by the author of the most celebrated fiction of its class in English literature, "Tom Cringle's Log;" and other works will be selected and carried on simultaneously, as they shall come to us with the stamp of sufficient merit.

II. The foreign periodicals are continually rich in novelettes of from two or three to a dozen chapters, which—being too short for separate volumes—are rarely reproduced at all in this country. Of these the International will contain the choicest selections.

III. Of the Quarterly Reviews the most admirable papers will be presented in full; and those works will in all cases be carefully examined for such valuable and striking passages as will be likely to interest the American reader, to whom the entire articles in which they appear may be unattractive.

IV. The Literary, Religious, Political and Scientific newspapers and magazines will be consulted for whatever will instruct or entertain in their several departments. The leading articles in the great journals, upon Affairs, and Philosophy, and Art, which are now very unfrequently reprinted in America, will appear in the International in such fullness and combination as to display the springs and processes of the world's action and condition.

V. But the work will not be altogether Foreign, nor a mere compilation. In its republications there will be a constant effort to display what is most interesting and important to the American; and in its original portions it will be supported by some of the ablest and most accomplished writers in all the fields of knowledge and opinion.

VI. As a Literary Gazette and Examiner, it is believed that it will equal or surpass any work now or ever printed in the United States. It will contain the earliest announcements of whatever movements in the literary world are of chief interest to general readers; its Reviews of Books will be honest and intelligent; and its extracts, when they can be given in advance of the publication of the works themselves, will be the choicest and most valuable possible. Without cant or hypocrisy, or the influence of any clique of feeble-minded and ambitious aspirants in letters, the International Miscellany will in this respect, the publishers trust, win and preserve the respect and confidence of all who look to published critical judgments as guides for the reading or purchase of books.

With a view to the more successful execution of the design to make the International Miscellany of the first class in Original Periodical Literature, as well as in Selections and Abstracts of what is already before the world abroad, contributors have been engaged to represent the various departments of Science, and to furnish sketches of manners, &c., from other countries, and the different sections of our own; the proceedings of Learned Societies will be noted; History, Biography, and Archæology will receive attention; and in foreign and American Obituary, such a record will be kept as will be of the most permanent and attractive value.[Pg 2]

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.

The recent appearance of some half dozen editions—some of them very beautiful in typography and pictorial illustrations—of The Proverbial Philosophy of Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, reminds us of the observation of Dana, that something "resembling poetry" is oftentimes borne into instant and turbulent popularity, while a work of genuine character may be lying neglected by all except the poets. But "the tide of time," says the profound essayist, "flows on, and the former begins to settle to the bottom, while the latter rises slowly and steadily to the surface, and goes forward, for a spirit is in it." We are not without the hope that Richard H. Dana will one day be in as frequent demand as Martin Farquhar Tupper is now.

The merits of this "gentleman of acknowledged genius and sovereign popularity," we have never been able to discover. If oddity were always originality, if quaintness and beauty were synonymous, if paradox were necessarily wisdom, we should be ready to grant that Mr. Tupper is a wise, beautiful and original thinker. But thought, after all, is an affair of mind, and though a man of genius may write what is far more brilliant than common sense ever is, yet no man can utter valuable truth on mortal and prudential subjects, unless he possesses a vigorous and powerful understanding. Now Mr. Tupper's art consists in contriving, not thought, but things that look like thoughts; fancies, in imitation of truths. The Proverbial Philosophy, in fact, appears to us one of the most curious impositions we have ever met with. When you first read one of the aphorisms, it strikes you as a sentiment of extraordinary wisdom. But look more closely at it; try to apply it; and you will find that it is merely a trick of words. What flashed upon you as a profound distinction in morals, turns out to be nothing but a verbal antithesis. What was paraded, as a kind of transcendental analogy between things not before suspected of resemblance, discovered by the "spiritual insight" of the moral seer, is in fact no more than a grave clench,—a solemn quibble,—a conceit; arising not from the perfection of mind, but the imperfection of language. Those conceptions, fabricated by Fancy out of the materials that Fancy deals in, and colored by the rays of a poetic sentiment, wear the same relation to truths, that the prismatic hues of the spray of a fountain in the sunshine bear to the gems which it perhaps outshines. It dazzles and delights, but if we try to apprehend it we become bewildered; and finally discover that we were deceived by a brilliant phantom of air. You may admire Mr. Tupper; you may enjoy him; but you cannot understand him: the staple of his sentences is not stuff of the understanding. Take one of Mr. Tupper's and one of Lord Bacon's aphorisms; they flash with an equal bravery. But try them upon the glassy surface of life. Bacon's cut it as if it were air: Tupper's turn into a little drop of dirty water. One was a diamond, the other but an icicle: one was the commonest liquor artificially refrigerated; the other was a crystal in form, but in its substance the pure carbon of truth. If these bright delusions which Mr. Tupper turns out to the wonder and praise of his admirers, were really thoughts, is it to be supposed that he would go on in this way, stringing them together, or evolving one out of the other, as a spider weaves its unending line, or as a boy blows soap bubbles from the nose of a tobacco pipe! Fancies, conceits, intellectual phantoms, may be engendered out of the mind, brooding in self-creation upon its own suggestions: but truth is to be mined from Nature, to be wrung from experience, to be seized as the victor's trophy on the battlefield of action and suffering. The flowers of poetry may bud spontaneously around the meditative spirit of genius, but the harvest of Truth, though, to be reaped by mind, must grow out of Reality.

RICHARD HENRY WILDE AND DANTE.

It appears that our accomplished and lamented countryman, Richard Henry Wilde, whose "Researches and Considerations concerning the Love and Imprisonment of Tasso" have been made use of with so discreditable a freedom by a recent English biographer of that poet, is—if another pretender prove not less successful—to be deprived also of the fame he earned by his discoveries in regard to Dante. A correspondent of The Spectator, under the signature of G. Aubrey Bezzi, writes as follows:—

We believe Mr. Bezzi is in error as to the incompleteness of Mr. Wilde's Life of Dante. Mr. Wilde, more than a year before his death, informed us that his work was nearly ready for the printer; and at the same time he confided to us for perusal his admirable translations of specimens of Italian Lyric Poets. We hope the descendants of our learned and ingenious friend will place these works, so creditable to his temper, scholarship, and genius, before the world.

GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS.

A work on The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion has lately attracted much and apparently well-deserved attention in England. It is by George Cornewall Lewis, M.P. for Herefordshire, and Under Secretary of State for the Home Department. He is the eldest son of the Right Honorable Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis, Bart., M.P. for Radnor District, was born in London, in 1806, and received his school education at Eton, which he entered in 1819, and where he was a pupil of Doctor Hawtrey, the present head master. The Illustrated London News furnishes the following particulars of his subsequent career:

At Christmas, 1824, he left Eton, and in the following year entered Christ Church, Oxford, where as a student he was one of the few who gave attention to modern languages, and especially German, from which, jointly with Mr. Tufnell, he translated Müller's "Dorians." In 1828 he took his University degree as a first-class man in classics, and a second-class in mathematics. In the same year he entered the Middle Temple, and in 1831 was called to the bar, and joined the Oxford Circuit. He had studied for the bar with no less diligence than at the University; but in consequence of weakness of the chest, was obliged, after his first circuit, to abandon the profession, in which, had health allowed him, his success was certain. In 1835 he was placed upon the commission of inquiry into the relief of the poor, (on the report of which was founded the Irish Poor-law,) and the state of the Church in Ireland; and afterward drew up an able report on the condition of the Irish in Great Britain. In 1836 he was appointed, with Mr. John Austin, a Commissioner to inquire into the Government of the Island of Malta, especially as to its tariff and expenditure. The Commission laid an elaborate report before Parliament, in accordance with the recommendations of which, such reductions were made as rendered the tariff of Malta one of the least restrictive in the world, and materially extended its trade; and they succeeded in establishing the freedom of the press in the island.

In January, 1839, Mr. Lewis was appointed a Poor-Law Commissioner, and held the office until July, 1847; when, determining to enter Parliament, he resigned, and was returned, with Mr. Joseph Bailey, Jr., and Mr. Francis Wegg Prosser, both Conservatives and Protectionists, without opposition, for Herefordshire. In November, 1847, he was appointed joint secretary of the Board of Control, with Mr. James Wilson, M.P. for Westbury, and early in the following year made his first speech in the House, in opposition to a motion for the production of papers in the case of the lately deposed Rajah of Sattara. In April, 1848, Mr. Lewis was appointed Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, and was succeeded in the secretaryship of the Board of Control by the Hon. John E. Elliot, M.P. for Roxburghshire. In his present office Mr. Lewis has served on the Smithfield Market Commission, appointed in November, 1849, which has just brought up its report; and upon that subject, the Irish Poor-Law, and Mr. Disraeli's motion as to local burdens, has spoken in the House. Last year he brought forward a road bill to consolidate the management of highways, and dispose of the question of turnpike trusts and their advances. The bill was not proceeded with last session, and has again been brought forward this year, with reference, however, only to highways. Mr. Lewis has earned reputation as the translator of "Boukli's Public Economy of Athens," which, as well as the "Dorians," has become a textbook, and passed through a second edition; and is known as author of an able essay on the "Use and Abuse of Political Terms," published in 1832; on the "Origin and Formation of the Romance Languages," published in 1835; on "Local Disturbances in Ireland, and the Irish Church Question," in 1836; on the "Government of Dependencies," in 1841; and "On the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion," in 1849.[Pg 5]

ORIGINAL LETTER FROM DR. LAYARD UPON ANCIENT ART, &c.

We present in this number of the International a communication from the most celebrated traveler of the nineteenth century, Austen Henry Layard, upon the sources of Ancient Art. It was addressed by the distinguished author to his friend and ours, Mr. Minor K. Kellogg, the well-known painter, who was for some time with Dr. Layard in the East.

My Dear Friend:

I frequently wish that you were here with me; I could find you subjects which would astonish you. However, I suppose you are desirous of hearing something about my proceedings. When I said that the arts may have passed from Egypt into Greece, I merely alluded to the popular opinion, without adhering to it. It is not altogether improbable that they came from another source. Phœnicia was too much of a trading province to devote any great attention to the higher branches of the arts, and I am not aware of any monuments existing which can be traced to that people, and show a very high knowledge of architecture or sculpture. The designs we have on their early coins, and particularly if the coins called "the unknown of Celicia," and those belonging to cities on the southern coast of Asia Minor, were introduced by the Phœnician colonists, evidently show that Phœnicia had borrowed from the Assyrians and not from the Egyptians. Indeed, as their language and written character (for the cuneiform, you must remember, appears only to have been a monumental character, perhaps Semetic, like the hieroglyphics of Egypt), coincided with those of the Assyrian, it is most probable that their sympathies were with that people.

I assume that the language of the two nations was the same; this may have been the case at one period, but whether throughout the existence of the Assyrian empire, may be doubtful. At any rate, I believe the real Assyrians and the Phœnicians, like all the nations occupying Syria and Mesopotamia, to have been of the pure Semetic stock. I regret that I have not time to make you a sketch of a bas-relief. A specimen of this kind would at once show you how much nearer allied the arts of Greece are with those of Assyria, than with those of Egypt. One thing appears now to be pretty certain—that all Western Asia, Persia, Susiana, Media, Asia Minor, &c. were fundamentally indebted to Assyria for their knowledge of the arts. Persepolis is a mere copy of an Assyrian monument, as far as the sculpture and ornaments are concerned, with the addition of external architecture, of which, as far as I am yet able to judge, the Assyrians appear to have been almost entirely ignorant.

There is no reason, therefore, to reject altogether the supposition that the Arts may have been transmitted from Assyria, through Phœnicia, into Greece, or, indeed, that the Arts may have passed into that country through Asia Minor. The Assyrians, in the extreme elegance and taste displayed in their ornaments, in their study of anatomy, and in their evident attempts at composition, had much in common with the Greeks. I think artists will be surprised when they see the collection of drawings I have been able to make, and that one of the results of the discoveries at Nimroud will be new views with regard to the early history of the arts.

When I first came here, all the Arabs around told me that Nimroud was built by Athur, or Assur, and that it was the ancient capital of Assyria. Great faith may generally be placed in such traditions in the East. In Mesopotamia, and in the country watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, it is astonishing how names have been preserved, even when, during Greek, Roman, or other dominion, other cities were built on the site and named anew. The new names have long been lost, and the old are this day to be found in the mouth of the Bedouin. I need only mention Tadmor and Harran. In a religious point of view, there is no doubt that much important information may be expected from a careful investigation of the monuments of Assyria. During my labors, without being able to devote much thought or attention to the subject, I have been continually struck with the curious illustrations of little understood passages in the Bible which these records afford. In an historical and archæological point of view, I know nothing more interesting and more promising than the examination of the ruins of Assyria. One of the vastest empires that ever existed—the power of whose king extended, at one period, over the greater part of Assyria—whose advance in civilization and knowledge is the theme of ancient historians—disappeared so suddenly from the face of the earth, that it has left scarcely a trace, save its name, behind. Even the names of its kings are not satisfactorily known, and out of the various dynastic lists preserved, we are unable to select one worthy of credit. As to their deeds, we have been in the most profound darkness, and were it not for the record of their strength and greatness which we find in the Scriptures, we should scarcely credit the few traditions which the Greeks have preserved to us. After the lapse of two thousand five hundred years, a mere chance has thrown their history in our way, and we have now their deeds chronicled in writing and in sculpture.

Were I much given to the explanation of such things by a reference to superhuman interference, I should be inclined to think that the Almighty had designedly kept these monuments buried in the Earth, until the time had arrived when man had sufficient leisure and knowledge to discover the contents of records, written in an unknown character, that He might prove to them how great was the power which He so suddenly[Pg 6] destroyed, and how fully the prophecies upon the subject were fulfilled. Had these sculptures and inscriptions remained above ground, they would have utterly disappeared long ere any records could have been made of their former existence. Had they been casually discovered before the present century, they would most probably have been used for cement in the construction of the walls of a city. In fact, the moment for their discovery has, in every way, been most propitious. However, I will not enter into such speculations, but leave them to those who are that way inclined. A. H. L.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

WANDERINGS IN THE PENINSULA.

Grenada, May 18, 1850.

My dear friend—It affords me much pleasure to write you from the midst of the terrestrial paradise into which my romantic wanderings have at length brought me. Almost every one who sets out from home with the object of travel, looks forward to some one or two spots, which, in the light of imagination, glitter like stars in the bright prospective. To me, the two cities which most aroused my curiosity and pleased my fancy, were first, Grenada, in which I now am, and Venice, to which I still look forward with a brighter hope, gilded with the rays of memory, and clustering with the rosebuds of coming days. In Grenada, my expectations, sanguine as they were, have been more than realized. It is the nearest approach to paradise that I have yet seen: a spot that cannot disappoint any one, as the best part of its beauty, like that of a beautiful woman, is of a nature, that not even genius itself can describe. I visit the "Alhambra" daily, and write a letter within its sacred precincts. Externally the "Alhambra" has a severe and forbidding appearance, like that of an ancient fortress, but within, it exceeds in beauty all one's preconceptions, however warm and extravagant they may be. The terrace which conducts to it, after having passed through the huge gate which opens into its jurisdiction, is embowered with tall, straight, and overhanging elms, nicely trimmed and of the richest foliage, while here and there a fountain marks the bends in the road. Along this enchanting walk marble seats are arranged, where one can repose for a moment to listen to the notes of the nightingales in the adjacent groves, and charm his fancy with the melodious rippling of water at his feet. If one has any feeling in his soul, in such a spot as this he is sure to find it. If he has a woman with him he is certain to fall in love, and if he has not, he may perhaps fall—asleep!

Besides the "Alhambra," there are numerous objects of peculiar interest to be seen in Grenada. The Cathedral, though inferior to those of Seville and Toledo in magnificence and grandeur, is nevertheless a splendid edifice, and is rendered particularly interesting as being the last resting-place of Ferdinand and Isabella, the wisest sovereigns who ever ruled over Spain. Yesterday we visited the royal chapel, and beheld the beautiful monument erected to their memory. In its architecture it struck me as being exceedingly unique, the work of consummate skill and exquisite taste. It is of delicate alabaster, and was wrought, it is said, at Genoa, by Peralla. It is about twelve feet in length by some ten in breadth, profusely covered with figures and ingenious designs in relief, while upon it, as upon a bridal couch, the statues of Ferdinand and Isabella, in their royal robes, are extended side by side—their faces like those of life, in calm and beautiful repose, elevated toward heaven. Having examined the monument for some time, we descended into the little arched vault beneath, which contained the coffins of the deceased monarchs. These were of lead, strongly bound with iron, and the letter F., upon that of Ferdinand, was the only sign which distinguished them from each other. While in that small chamber of the dead, my memory ran back to the great events of the fifteenth century—the discovery of America and the conquest of Grenada—which owed their origin to the enterprise of the two famous personages whose ashes were inclosed in the heavy leaden cases at my feet; and I never felt more profoundly the insignificance of earthly renown, or the vanity of individual glory. "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Coming from the tomb, we were next shown a sceptre and crown which had been used by the illustrious dead. Also a sword which Ferdinand himself wore in his battles with the Moors. Leaving the Cathedral, we proceeded along to the Moorish palace called "The Generaliffe." This edifice is not far from the "Alhambra," and is separated from it by a deep and romantic ravine. Passing through a level avenue of cypress and rosebushes, we arrived at its main entrance. The first view of the interior was ravishing. The virgin stream of the Daru, here collected in a narrow canal, was rushing with a musical sound through arbors of cypresses and files of flowery trees, arranged like fairy sentinels on either side. Passing on, we soon reached the "trysting-place" of Zoraya, the frail Sultana. This spot certainly is too exquisitely beautiful for me to describe. It is of a rectangular form, and bordered with beds of flowers and handsome trees. On one side is an arbor of gigantic cypresses, beautifully trained, the trunks of which were tastefully enamelled with delicate vines, laden with blooming roses. Within the square is an artificial pond of water, sparkling with golden fishes, in the centre of which is a fairy-like island, teeming with flowers of numerous kinds. The general effect of the view was like that of enchantment, or like one of those indescribable scenes that sometimes visit us[Pg 7] in dreams, the beauty of which surpasses reality. But my time will not allow me to indulge very largely in detail. From the "Generaliffe" we proceeded to several of the churches, and afterward to an extensive mad-house. We were not a little amused. One old gentleman, about the "maddest of the lot," who had formerly been a general in the Spanish army, told me he liked his present quarters very well, but that his companions were nothing better than a pack of fools! The grounds about this humane establishment are prettily laid out in gardens and handsome walks, and the patients themselves have a spacious and pleasant yard for their exercise and recreation. All this reflects favorably upon the character of the Spanish people, who are ever kind to such as are afflicted or in distress. They never scoff at human suffering in any form, however fond they may be of the savage ferocity of the bull-fight. They are compassionate to the poor, and even when the request of a beggar is denied, it is done in such gentle terms, that the denial is robbed of its sting. "Pardon me for God's sake, brother," is the usual form. I have found much to admire among the Spaniards. No nation, not even the French, exceeds them in true politeness or good breeding. When I left Madrid, a friend of mine procured for me an introductory letter, from a lady whom to this day I have never seen, addressed to her children living at Grenada. To my great surprise, the ladies called in their carriage yesterday and inquired for me, although I had not then presented my letter of introduction. To-day I called upon the family, in company with Mr. Wetmore, (a young American from New York, who has just reached Grenada from Madrid,) and was most hospitably and kindly received. One of the young ladies has perhaps the sweetest face I ever saw, and to her beauty her graceful manners add an indescribable charm. I am quite certain that it would be impossible for me or any other man to see her many times with impunity. The influence of such attractions with me, I confess, is quite irresistible. Beauty is more potent than any other agent of human power, and he who is able to resist it must be a heartless Samson indeed.

Truly yours, John E. Warren.

Blackwood on Dancers in Smallclothes. —For a man to be fond of shuffling and twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave him—picking his way through a quadrille like a goose upon red hot bricks, or gyrating like a bad teetotum in what English fashionables are pleased to term a "valse"—I never see a man thus occupied without a fervent desire to kick him.

Sincerity is like traveling on a plain beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves.

"MARKS OF BARHAMVILLE."

We were summoned one evening some three or four months ago to the house of an eminent New Yorker to hear read the manuscript verses of a gentleman from South Carolina, who was quite sure that he had earned for himself a name that should endure forever as a part of the national glory. We had good wine and the choicest company, and these kept us from sleep through numerous scenas and cantos, and if we formed any judgment in the premises we believe we did not express one. In due time Messrs. Appleton published the book, and as it has not been noticed much here, we copy from the June Fraser the following paragraphs about it, premising that our author had no faith in American criticism, but was quite willing to abide the decisions of English reviewers:

"The general fault of carelessness and clumsiness runs through the volume of poems, apparently, of a Trans-atlantic author, 'Marks of Barhamville.' The book is just three times as large as it should have been—as is usually the case nowadays. When will poets learn that 'brevity is the soul of wit:' and more, that saying a thing in three weak lines is no substitute whatsoever for the power of saying it in one strong one? Of the first poem in the book, 'Elfreide of Guldal,' we are unable to speak, having been unable to read it; but it evinces at least more historic information than is common just now among our poets, who seem to forget utterly that ex nihilo nihil fit, and that the brains of man may be as surely pumped dry as any other vessel, if nothing be put in to replace what is taken out. Mr. Marks cannot avoid, too, giving us, like every one else, a set of clinical lectures on the morbid anatomy of his own inner man, under the appropriate title of 'Weeds from Life's Sea-shore;' forgetting that sea-weeds must be very rare and delicate indeed to be worth preserving in a hortus siccus, instead of being usefully covered out of sight in the nearest earth-heap, there to turn into manure. He is, however, more objective than most of his self-exenterating compeers; but he wants the grace and cheerful lightness of the American school. A large part of his volume is taken up with 'Maia, a masque'—an imitation of Milton's manner, but not, alas! of his melody and polish; as, for instance:—

"'Not a warbler wakes his lay,
Not a dewdrop pearls the spray,
Not a fleecy cloud-rack sails
'Fore the warm-breath'd summer gales,
Shedding blessings on the earth,
But heavenward points its primal birth.

"Hark! the green-sedg'd chiming rill,
Weeding down yon cot-crown'd hill,
The torrent's dash, the river's gush,
The mighty wind-resounding crush
Of the fallen monarch of the wood,
Re-echo'd by the distant flood.

"However, this masque is readable enough, though Flora and Zephyrus, Oberon and Titania, not much wanted anywhere in the[Pg 8] nineteenth century, seem oddly out of place amid 'whippoor-wills,' and 'mockbirds,' and other Yankee nationalities, pleasing and natural as they are in themselves. How did they get into the Alleghanies? By liner or steamer? In the main cabin or the steerage? And were they, were they sea-sick? One would fear it from the unwonted huskiness of their new utterances.

"The best thing in the book is 'Semaël,' though the plot is neither very apparent nor very novel, the imagery as trite as need be, the blank verse heavy and monotonous, without breaks, grouping, or relief, and the accents as often as not on the prepositions:—

"'Thé felucca there
With lateen-sail, seen ín th' horizon-skirt
Shaping its course t'ward thé Egyptian shore,

"(Which Egyptian shore?)

"Gives tó the moon the silv'ry foam, which breaks

"(Could it give the foam from the moon?)

"'Gainst thé sharp keel, and tracks the wave with light.
While just beneath him bounds the lighter skiff
With bird-like speed; and darting tó the shore,
Lowers íts white sail,

"(Not another bark's, mind!)

and moors its painted prow

"(Oh, schoolboy's phrase!)

"Close tó the cliff. Disporting ín the sheen....

"And so forth.

"And yet this whole passage, and what follows, is really imaginative and picturesque, but spoilt by carelessness, carelessness, carelessness. Either write verses, we say again, or prose. And unless the metre and accent coincide with the sense, and make music when read merely as prose is read, the lines are a makeshift and a failure, and neither worth writing or reading, though they were as fanciful and overloaded as Mr. Browning's, or as grandiloquent and sugary as Mr. —— Who's?"

Lord Brougham, who next to the Duke of Wellington is now unquestionably the first man of the British Empire, a few days ago in the House of Lords complained of an instance of libel of a species which is extremely common in the United States, and which is of all species the most irritating and offensive. Lord Brougham observed, that no one who had lived so long as he had in Parliament had ever taken notice so seldom of any libellous matter published, or of any breach of privilege committed against him. He might also add, that no person had ever been more the object of the most indiscriminate, and he might say the most absurd and the most unfounded abuse. Nevertheless, in all such cases he had adopted a neutral course, and had left the truth to come out in the natural lapse of events. There was, however, one species of breach of privilege which he had never been disposed to pass unnoticed. Attacks one must undergo. To be exposed to attacks was the fate of all men who lived in public. No man ought to shrink from or be too sensitive to attacks; but, under pretence of stating what a lord had said in Parliament, to put words into his mouth which he had never uttered, for the purpose, the express purpose, of calumniating him,—words which the writer of the calumny must have well known that he had never uttered, to put such words into his mouth for such a purpose, formed a case in which he thought that the party calumniated was bound to bring the party so offending under the notice of their lordships. Lord Brougham proceeded to arraign the Daily News for an example of this crime which would have done no dishonor to the inventive faculties of the Literary World.

A Mock Guillotine.—Delirium Tremens on The Stage.—It is stated in Galignani's Messenger that at the end of the late carnival two married women of Vidauban Department of the Var manufactured a lay figure, entirely in white, and, after attaching a chain round its neck, placed it in a small cart. Many of the inhabitants then paraded it through the village in solemn procession, accompanied by a crowd of men carrying axes, &c., and singing revolutionary songs. After a while they formed a sort of revolutionary tribunal, and the figure, which was called "Blanc," was gravely tried, and, by the majority of the votes of the crowd, condemned to death, the principal judge, a man named Arnaud, saying, "Blanc! you prevent us from dancing farandoles, and therefore we condemn you to death!" Thereupon, a man seized the figure, placed it on a plank, and at one blow with his axe severed the head from the body. A bottle of wine had been placed in the neck of the figure, and, this having been broken by the blow, a resemblance of blood was produced. The head was then cast into the crowd and torn to pieces by them. This scandalous scene created a most painful impression throughout the department. A few days afterward, four men who played a principal part in the affair, and the two women who made the figure, were brought to trial on the charge of exciting citizens to hatred of each other. The men pleaded drunkenness as an excuse—the women declared that they had only intended to amuse their children. Four of the accused were acquitted, and the other two, who had acted as judge and executioner, were condemned to four and three months' imprisonment. It is a pity that by the application of some such law, the disgustingly vulgar and brutalizing piece called The Drunkard, which has lately been played with "immense success" at Barnum's Theatre, (and in which the chief characters appear in all the stages of degradation until one of them is nearly dead with the delirium tremens), cannot be suppressed. With all its pretensions to morality, the play is irredeemably bad and base.

The Cincinnati Art Union advertises Powers's Greek Slave as one of its prizes, and publishes an engraving of it which should frighten away all subscriptions.[Pg 9]

American Extension and Conquest.—The Daily News thus opens an article upon the recent attempt to invade Cuba:

"Shortly after the American war; a sapient French statesman, writing from Louisiana to his royal master in Paris, advised the French government to cultivate a close and intimate alliance with the Cherokee Indians, who, occupying as they did the defiles of the Alleghanies, would form a permanent bulwark between the young Anglo-Saxon republic and the French possessions on the Mississippi. But the permanent bulwark could no more resist the advancing wave than a lath and plaster breakwater could withstand the seas of the Channel. In a few short years not a vestige of it was to be found, and in less than a quarter of a century both French and Cherokees had disappeared from the scene. Not only were the defiles of the Alleghanies opened, but the Alleghanies themselves have since been virtually removed. Ever since the foundation of the republic, our American kinsmen have been anxious to emulate and surpass us in indulging that desire for territorial acquisition, which seems to be, for the present at least, the ruling passion of the Anglo-Saxon mind. Confined at first between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic, they gradually spread westward to the Mississippi, of both banks of which, from its sources to its embouchure, they possessed themselves as early as 1806. Their coast line, which, originally, did not extend beyond the St. Mary, was soon afterward carried round the peninsula of Florida, and along the northern shore of the Mexican Gulf, westward to the mouth of the Sabine. Not satisfied with this, they planted themselves in Texas, and some years afterward transferred their boundary to the Rio Grande. Oregon, New Mexico, and California, fell in quick succession within the grasp of the confederacy. The entire disappearance of the Spaniard from the continent is a consummation, not even doubtful, but simply awaiting the convenience of the encroaching Anglo-Saxon. For the accession of Canada, time is implicitly relied upon—the idea of conquest in that quarter being out of the question—and thus it is that even sober-minded men are beginning to believe that the time is not far off when the glowing prophecies of the most sanguine will be realized, that the boundaries of the republic would yet be the Isthmus, the North Pole, and the two oceans."

Ledru Rollin's new work, "The Decline of England," of which the first volume only has appeared, is, as might have been anticipated, savagely attacked in most of the British journals. The Times observes:

"M. Ledru Rollin professes to be a philosopher and a statesman, and, being induced by somewhat peculiar circumstances to reflect upon the condition of this country, he was, he tells us, driven to the conclusion that we are a declining people, destined in no short period to exhibit to mankind a fearful spectacle of misery and ruin. Some persons have thought, that the many manifestations of material wealth and power which must have presented themselves to the eyes and mind of M. Ledru Rollin, even on the most casual observation, should have induced him in his character of philosoper to hesitate in deciding so hastily, and with such emphasis, that our destruction is imminent. But in our opinion there are events of everyday occurrence connected with our social habits and customs—events which from their frequency cease to excite our attention—which should be deemed still more important and significant, and which to one really deserving the name of a philosopher would appear more powerful guarantees for the future happiness of a people among whom they occur than any afforded by mere proofs of great wealth, power, or skill. It is much the fashion with those who delight to deal in doleful vaticinations as to the future destiny of England, to dwell with great emphasis upon the amazing diversity of conditions to be seen here—to exaggerate the suffering of the millions of our poor, and to place them in a sort of rhetorical contrast with the extravagant wealth of a favored few. But there is still something in the mutual relations of all classes of society in this country that proves a healthy condition to exist in our body politic, that shows that we are really brethren, and that whether interest or kind sympathies govern us we are still one people—with great differences of opinion among us indeed, openly expressed by all, but still with a feeling prevalent in all classes of the community that we form one people, and that we are, from the most powerful to the most weak, bound together by ties of great regard as well as national brotherhood."

The Late Catastrophe on Lake Erie.—Our whole country has been once more shocked by an appalling and unnecessary loss of life, from the burning of the steamer Griffith. We use the expression, unnecessary loss of life, not from any hasty impulse, or undue excitement, but in view of the evident and undeniable fact, that two hundred and fifty human beings have been sacrificed for a culpable neglect on the part of the proprietors of the steamer to furnish suitable protection. No one competent to judge will doubt that every individual on the Griffith might have been saved had she been provided with life-boats. The avarice of proprietors has generally prevented their use, though the cost of a sufficient number for each steamer would not exceed one thousand dollars. The lives of hundreds of men, women and children are of little account to a corporation, when weighed against a thousand dollars of their capital stock. Life-boats cannot save their burning property, and why impair their own interests for the saving a few hundred lives now and then? We have the approbation of every disinterested citizen, when we suggest to Congress some law which shall compel steamboat owners to protect their passengers in case of accident, by suitable life-saving apparatus. Fire-proof paints and other incombustible materials are very wisely demanded, but our navigation is exposed to a thousand other dangers, which can be guarded against by no other means so effectually as by life-boats; and it should be within the duties of the inspectors to see that steamers are in all instances furnished with a sufficient number of them to contain their full complement of passengers.

M. Lamartine has left Paris to visit his estate in the East.[Pg 10]

RECENT DEATHS.

Jane Porter.—As in the case of the recent death of Miss Edgeworth, it is singular that so little notice has been taken of the demise of Jane Porter, one of the most distinguished novelists which England has produced. Miss Porter may be said to have been the first who introduced that beautiful kind of fiction, the historical romance, which has added such amusement and interest to English literature. The author of "Thaddeus of Warsaw" and "The Scottish Chiefs" has done much to deserve the lasting respect and gratitude of her country.

The family of this excellent woman and able writer, according to the Illustrated News, is of Irish descent. Her father was an officer of dragoons in the British service; he married a Miss Blenkinsopp, of the Northumbrian house of Blenkinsopp, which Camden styles "a right ancient and generous family." Miss Porter's father died in the prime of life, and left his widow with five almost infant children, in slender circumstances. The great talents of this orphan family raised them to affluence and distinction. Three of the children were sons; of these, the eldest perished in a dangerous climate abroad, at the commencement of a promising career; the second (the present Dr. William Ogilvie Porter, of Bristol) became a physician, and practiced successfully. The third was the late Sir Robert Ker Porter, K.C.H., distinguished as an author, a painter, and a soldier: some of our finest battle-pieces are the work of his pencil, and he himself followed heroes to the field; he was with Sir John Moore when he fell victoriously at Corunna, and he earned a high reputation throughout the Peninsular war. He afterward became a diplomatist, and was latterly consul at Venezuela. His "Traveling Sketches in Russia and Egypt" procured him also an author's fame. Sir Robert Ken Porter died suddenly about seven years ago; he left by his wife, a Russian lady, an only daughter, who is married, and resides in Russia. The two sisters of these brothers Porter were even more distinguished. The younger of them, Miss Anna Maria Porter, became an authoress at twelve years of age; she wrote many successful novels, of which the most popular were the "Hungarian Brothers," the "Recluse of Norway," and the "Village of Mariendorpt." She died at her brother's residence at Bristol, on the 6th of June, 1832. The elder sister, Miss Jane Porter, the subject of this notice, was born at Durham, where her father's regiment was quartered at the time. She, with her sister, Anna Maria, received her education under a famous Scotch tutor, Mr. Fulton, at Edinburgh, where her widowed mother lived with her children in their early years. The family afterward removed, first to Ditton, and thence to Esher, in Surrey, where Mrs. Porter, a most intelligent and agreeable lady, resided with her daughters for many years, until her death, in 1831. Mrs. Porter was buried in the churchyard at Esher; and on her tomb the passer-by may read this inscription, "Here lies Jane Porter, a Christian widow." As a novelist Miss Jane Porter obtained the highest celebrity. Her three most renowned productions were her "Thaddeus of Warsaw," written when she was about twenty years of age, her "Scottish Chiefs," and her "Pastor's Fireside." "Thaddeus of Warsaw" had immense popularity; it was translated into most of the Continental languages, and Poland was loud in its praise. Kosciusko sent the author a ring containing his portrait. General Gardiner, the British Minister at Warsaw, could not believe that any other than an eye-witness had written the story, so accurate were the descriptions, although Miss Porter had not then been in Poland. The "Scottish Chiefs" was equally successful. With regard to this romance, it is known that Sir Walter Scott admitted to George IV., one day, in the library at Carlton Palace, that the "Scottish Chiefs" was the parent in his mind of the Waverley Novels. In a letter written to her friend Mr. Litchfield, about three months ago, Miss Porter, speaking of these novels, said:—"I own I feel myself a kind of sybil in these things; it being full fifty years ago since my 'Scottish Chiefs' and 'Thaddeus of Warsaw' came into the then untrodden field. And what a splendid race of the like chroniclers of generous deeds have followed, brightening the track as they have advanced! The author of 'Waverley,' and all his soul-stirring 'Tales of my Landlord,' &c. Then comes Mr. James, with his historical romances, on British and French subjects, so admirably uniting the exquisite fiction with the fact, that the whole seems equally verity. But my feeble hand" (Miss Porter was ailing when she wrote the letter) "will not obey my wish to add more to this host of worthies. I can only find power to say with my trembling pen that I cannot but esteem them as a respected link with my past days of lively interest in all that might promote the virtue and true honor of my contemporaries from youth to age." These eloquent words become the more touching, when we consider that within three months after they were written, this admirable lady quitted this life in the honored maturity of her fame.

Miss Porter wrote, in conjunction with her sister, "Tales round a Winter's Hearth." She was also an indefatigable contributor to the periodicals of the day. Her biographical sketch of Colonel Denham, the African traveler, in the Naval and Military Journal, was much admired as one of the most affecting tributes ever paid to departed merit. Miss Porter was a Chanoiness of the Polish order of St. Joachim, which honor was conferred upon her after the publication of "Thaddeus of Warsaw." She is, in her portraits, generally represented in the habit of this order.[Pg 11] Miss Porter died on the 24th ult., at the residence of her brother, Dr. Porter, in Portland-square, Bristol. That brother, so tenderly beloved by her, and so justly respected by all who know him, is now the last survivor of this brilliant company of brothers and sisters; and he, too, we are sorry to say, is in an enfeebled state from paralysis, aggravated by the recent shock of his gifted relative's demise. Except himself and his married niece in Russia, there remains no representative of a family which England has good cause to hold in grateful remembrance.

The Count De Vittré.—The Paris journals announce the death of one of the most distinguished officers of the French army, General Count de Vittré, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, &c. Charles de Raity de Villeneuve, Count de Vittré, was descended from an old and noble family of Poitou, was the comrade of Napoleon at the Military School, and took a glorious part in the campaign of Russia, where he was severely wounded. He also distinguished himself in the Spanish expedition in 1823, where he had under his orders General Changarnier, the Duke de Crillon, and M.A. Carrel, who, on account of his valor, gave him the surname of the Bayard of the 19th Century. General Count de Vittré was uncle to M. Hugues de Coval, a distinguished political writer of Paris.

Glover, The Painter.—A Van Diemen's Land newspaper announces the death, at the advanced age of eighty-two, of Mr. Glover, the painter, whose pictures of English scenery are well known to lovers of landscape art.

Matthew L. Davis died on the 15th June, at the age of 84. He had been for two or three years enfeebled, and for the last year confined to his room, but he retained his mental faculties and his physical powers until after his eightieth year, owing, in great measure, to the temperance of his habits, his fondness for exercise, and his elastic, hopeful temperament. Mr. Davis was preëminently a politician through life, and aided to organize and give triumph to "the Republican party," so called, more than half a century ago, when the Federal or Washingtonian party was prostrated not more by its own follies than by the ability and tact of its leading adversaries. Half the good management and efficient activity that served to elect Jefferson would have sufficed to defeat him. And nowhere was the battle of Democracy fought with greater address or against more formidable odds than in this State and City, under the consummate generalship of Aaron Burr, of whom Davis was the untiring lieutenant and confidential friend.

Though so long and so deeply immersed in Politics, possessing decided talents and a thorough knowledge of public affairs, Mr. Davis never held any prominent office. He did not seem to be an ambitious man. He was once wealthy, and became poor, but he never seemed elated by prosperity nor humbled by adversity. He was not a fortunate politician, and he seemed to love the smoke of the battle more than the plunder of the field. He was quite often on the unlucky side—for Crawford in '24—for Adams in '28—for Clay in '32,—and so on. His side was taken from impulse and personal liking, not from selfish calculation. He had known almost every man who figures in the history of our country since the Revolutionary era, and, while his faculties remained, his conversation was remarkably instructive and entertaining. In early life Mr. Davis was engaged in trade, and was moderately successful, but he gave up business to devote himself more entirely to politics, He reëntered commercial life before the last war with England, and his house (Davis & Strong) was fortunate in South American speculations, of the profits of which he himself received some $50,000, which, however, was soon lost. For half a century he was an industrious writer. He produced several very clever pamphlets upon men and affairs, and was for many years known as "The Spy in Washington" for the Courier and Enquirer, and "The Genevese Traveler" for the London Times. Burr bequeathed to him all his papers, and from these and his memoranda and recollections he prepared and published, in 1838, "Memoirs of Aaron Burr, with Miscellaneous Selections from his Correspondence," in 2 vols. 8vo., and "The Private Journal of Aaron Burr during his Residence of Four Years in Europe, with Selections from his Correspondence," 2 vols. 8vo.

Rev. Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey, a well-known Baptist clergyman, died at Pontiac, Michigan, in the 79th year of his age, on the 5th of June. He was born of Jewish parents, in Germany, and was for several years reader in a Synagogue. When about twenty-five years old, he became a Christian, and soon after a student of divinity at Berlin. He was subsequently engaged nearly all the time in efforts to convert the Jews. It was at his suggestion that the London Missionary Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, was founded, in 1808. In 1816 he came to the United States, and was for a time pastor of a Presbyterian Church in this city, but changing his views upon the subject of baptism, he joined the Baptist Church, and was settled over congregations at Newark and at Sing Sing, until, through his means, the Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews was founded, and he became its missionary. He wrote several books, which display considerable learning and an amiable and honorable temper. The most popular of his productions is one entitled "Joseph and Benjamin," designed to illustrate the points of difference between the Jews and Christians.[Pg 12]

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANIES.

Mr. Paine's Hydro-Electric Light.—All the past eras that are marked by especial characteristics and glories must yield before our own, the Age of Discovery, which bequeaths to the new generations so many applications of steam and electricity, so many inventions in all the arts, and such vast enterprises undertaken and accomplished for the good of mankind. These, as the Tribune eloquently says, are the immortal monuments of our times, and dwarf earlier performances into a very inferior position. What are the pyramids to a line of steamships? What is there in Homer or Plato worthy to be mentioned on the day when Professor Morse sets up his telegraph, and mightier than Jupiter, the cloud-compeller, with the lightnings of Heaven flashes intelligence from Halifax to New Orleans, as rapidly as the behests of the mind reach the fingers? How petty and narrow seem the ambition and desires of Alexander or Napoleon when the bold and prophetic genius of Whitney, dealing with continents and nations as with parishes and neighborhoods, stretches his iron road around half the globe and shows you, moving forward and backward over its rails, the flux and reflux of a world's commerce and intercourse, a sublime tide of benefits and universal relations! What poet, what artist, what philosopher, what statesman, has equalled in grandeur these conceptions of science, or the splendid results which have followed their practical realization? Not one. And the reason of this is plain. These things are filled with the spirit of future centuries, while our Art, Literature, Statesmanship, Philosophy, are either mere dead relics of the past, or the poor makeshifts of a present, not yet equal to the business Providence has given it to perform.

It is claimed for Mr. Paine that he has found out the means of producing the greatest revolution which physical science can well be supposed to make in the business and comfort of society. As far as we apprehend his claim, it is that he has established as a new principle of science that electricity possesses the qualities of weight, compressibility and gravitation; that he has proved water to be in reality a simple elemental substance, which he can decompose or transform into either hydrogen or oxygen gas according to its electrical condition, and according as positive or negative electricity is applied to it; and that he has invented the means whereby from water he can produce at will either of these gases without any other than mechanical agency and with no expense save that of the machine, which will cost at the outset $400 or $500, and last for an indefinite period. If this is true, it is unquestionably the greatest discovery of modern times, and will produce a change in affairs of all sorts so profound and extensive as to surpass and bewilder the mind which seeks to imagine it. When with a pail of water you can without expense light and heat your house; when coal mines are useless, and steamships draw their fuel from the waves they traverse; then the comforts and luxuries of life, and the means of traveling will be diminished in price so as to come within the ability of every man; a great deal of the most toilsome and disagreeable work now performed will become unnecessary; and a vast step will be made toward a more just and equal distribution of social advantages. Mr. Paine is now engaged at the Astor House in preparations to light that immense hotel with his hydro-electric gas, and the result of his experiment is looked for with profound interest. We confess little faith in his success.

The story of an American inventor named Remington—who a year or two since addressed to the late Mr. Senator Lewis, of Alabama, a history of his adventures, which was published in the Merchant's Magazine—must be well-remembered, for its intrinsic interest, and on account of the denials and refutations of portions of it by certain persons in London to whom allusion was made in Mr. Remington's letter. The invention, the Remington Bridge, seems now to be exciting no little attention both in England and in this country. The principle which gives to it its great strength, is the peculiar construction of its longitudinal supporters, investing them with all the tenacity that wood has when it is sought to be drawn apart. Thus it is capable of sustaining as great weight as would be required to pull asunder the fibres of the longitudinal supporters. No wooden bridge can be built of so great a span. Mr. Remington believes that he can build a span at least 1320 feet in length, while the span of the old wooden bridge at Fairmount, near Philadelphia, which was one of the largest in the world, was but little over 300 feet. The annals of mechanical art afford few instances where a great invention has been developed and prosecuted under apparently more adverse circumstances.

New Planet.—The Tempo, of Naples, publishes a letter from M. Leopold Del Re, Director of the Observatory at Naples, announcing that the celebrated astronomer, Don Annibale de Gasparin, late discoverer of the Igea Borbonica, has discovered a new telescope planet, being the ninth between Mars and Jupiter. It is a star of the ninth magnitude, and is at present in apposition with the sun.

In Surgery.—A correspondent of the Lowell Courier claims for the late Dr. Twitchell, of Keene, the honor of successfully tying the carotid artery several months before Sir Astley Cooper made the attempt. The latter has always had the credit of being the first to achieve this extremely difficult and dangerous process.[Pg 13]

AUTHORS AND BOOKS.

The Rev. Thomas H. Smyth, D.D. of South Carolina, whose work upon the Unity of the Human Races, suggested by the recent declarations of infidelity, by Professor Agassiz of Harvard College and others, has been published by Putnam, and received with a hearty applause by Christians and scholars, is not, as is commonly supposed, an American author, though he has long resided in this country. He was born in Belfast, in the North of Ireland, and educated at the Royal College in that city, pursuing afterward his theological studies in London, and at Princeton in New Jersey. He has been eighteen years minister of the Presbyterian church in Charleston, where he was married, and where he will probably always reside, while in this country; but his liberal fortune and inquiring spirit tempt him to frequent travel, and he is now absent upon a tour which will probably be extended to Nineveh and all the most interesting scenes connected with the history of religion in the eastern world. Dr. Smyth possesses one of the largest and most valuable private libraries in the United States, and has therefore been able to compose his learned works in theology, history, &c. under advantages but seldom enjoyed by our authors. His chief productions are, Apostolical Succession, 1842; Presbytery and not Prelacy the Scriptural and Primitive Polity of the Church, 1843; Ecclesiastical Republicanism; Ecclesiastical Catechism; Claims of the Free Church of Scotland; Life and Character of Thomas Chalmers, with Personal Recollections; Nature and Functions of Ruling Elders; Nature and Functions of Deacons; The Rite of Confirmation examined; Bereaved Parents Consoled; Union to Christ and His Church; The True Origin and Source of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, with a Continuation on Presbyterianism, the National Declaration, and the Revolution; Denominational Education; Pastoral Memento; Life and Character of Calvin; The Westminster Assembly; and the Unity of the Human Races proved to be the Doctrine of Scripture, Reason, and Science. Dr. Smyth has also written largely in the Biblical Repertory, the Southern Presbyterian Review, and other Periodicals.

The Veteran Italian General Pepe, known in the book-world heretofore by his Personal Memoirs, has just published a Narrative of Scenes and Events in Italy, from 1847 to 1849. It comprises the most interesting particulars respecting the Revolutions in Naples, Sicily, and Rome; the Military Operations of Charles Albert; and the Siege of Venice, of which city General Pepe held the command. It also includes the details of the General's confidential communications and interviews with the Italian Sovereigns, &c. &c.

Mr. Mayne Reid, who in sundry letters published in this city last year, claimed that he was the real hero of the Mexican war—in which he served as a lieutenant of the New York volunteers—has recently published in London a brace of volumes under the title of The Rifle Rangers. In his preface he alleges that all his statements offered as facts are strictly true, though at times highly colored for the sake of effect. This will be obvious to every reader, for the book is full of adventures of all sorts—perils by sword, fire, rivals, wild animals, bloodhounds, &c.—which are related in a lively, dashing style, varied at times with descriptions of the scenery, plants, and inhabitants of Central America. One of the London journals, in a review of it, observes, "We would not wish a more lively or interesting companion than Captain Reid,—a thorough Yankee soldier, combining humor, imagination, and dashing bravery in the highest degree." The thorough Yankee, like many others much quoted abroad, is a clever Irish adventurer, who was in the United States altogether some four or five years, engaged chiefly as a writer for the journals in New York and Philadelphia.

Among our frequent foreign correspondents the reader will be pleased to recognize the accomplished and adventurous traveler Mr. John E. Warren, whose work on South America, Para, or Scenes and Adventures on the Banks of the Amazon, has just been published, in two octavo volumes, by Bentley, of London. We present the first of a series from him in our initial number.

The Rev. Francis L. Hawks, LL.D. will publish in the autumn a collection of very rare and curious tracts, illustrative of our early Colonial History, with copious notes, &c. Dr. Hawks may be safely regarded as an authority of the very highest value, upon whatever relates to the religious and social history of the country. He adds to persevering and well-directed research the soundest discrimination, and a judicial fairness; and we trust an impression which has obtained within a few years, that he is engaged upon an extensive work that will illustrate his abilities in this field, is not without foundation.

The celebrated Princess Belgioso, whose achievements in the tented field, as in the showy salons of fashion, have long been familiar, has, as is well known in the gay world of Europe, been a successful cultivator of letters, and has frequently delighted the readers of French and Italian with brilliant sketches of society and manners. She is now traveling in Greece, whence she will proceed into the romantic and picturesque regions of Asia, and the proprietors of the New York Tribune have engaged her as one of the regular foreign correspondents of that journal.[Pg 14]

M. Eugene Scribe, the writer of the libretto of Tempesta, just brought out in London, at the age of eighteen years, was placed under the care of M. Dupin, now the President of the French Legislative Assembly, to study the Roman law. Shortly after reaching his majority he began his dramatic career by writing a vaudeville for the Gymnase. His success here led to an engagement to write for the Theatre Francais, and to the establishment of his reputation as a dramatic author. He has composed ten comedies in five acts, and twenty in one, two, or three acts, for the Francais. He has written one hundred and fifty vaudevilles for the Gymnase. As a lyrical poet he stands unequalled for the number of his libretti, having written the poetry of forty grand operas and of one hundred comic operas. His works, exclusive of novels, are three hundred and forty in number.

The Literature of the Western States has not yet furnished any name that shines with a fairer and serener lustre than that of Alice Carey, several of whose poems, of "imagination all compact," and faultless in rhythmical art, will live among the contributions which this age offers to the permanent in literary creation. Her younger sister, Phœbe Carey, is also a woman of genius, and has written almost as largely as Alice, in a similar vein of thought and feeling. They are now on a visit to New York, and will pass the summer among the resorts in the vicinity of the city.

Mrs. Oaksmith, we are pleased to be advised, is engaged upon an epic poem, which has been meditated several years. The Jacob Leisler of Mrs. Oaksmith is probably the finest specimen of dramatic writing of which we can boast. Her other tragedy, The Roman Tribute, is in rehearsal in Philadelphia, where it will be produced with a strong cast and the utmost scenic magnificence. Mrs. Oaksmith will pass the summer among the seaside retreats of Maine, with Fredrika Bremer.

Professor Nichol's sometime expected work upon the United States has just appeared, from the press of Parker, the publisher of Fraser's Magazine. It is about two years since Professor Nichol returned to Scotland, after giving his astronomical lectures in our principal cities, and traveling widely in the agricultural portions of the country. His book, we understood him to state, was to be addressed to the middling classes, and to treat principally of points connected with emigration.

Bayard Taylor's "El Dorado" is praised in all the English journals as the best book that has been written upon California. Bohn has published it in his "Shilling Series," and it is also issued by Bentley.

Mr. Cyrus Eaton, of Warren, Me. has in preparation a complete History of St. George's River, from its first discovery; of the early transactions, Indian wars, and especially the events at St. George's Fort and other military posts in the neighborhood; an account of the several settlements commenced under the Waldo Patent, up to the time of their incorporation as towns; and a full history of the town of Warren to the present time. The work to consist of about 400 pages octavo.

Among the American Books reprinted by Bentley in the last month are Bayard Taylor's "El Dorado," and "Letters of a Traveler," by "Bryant, the American novelist." His original books from this country, for the same period, are "Life in the Forest and the Frontier," by Alfred B. Street, and a very charming book by a daughter of Fenimore Cooper, entitled "Rural Hours in the United States."

The Rev. Dr. Croly on Baptism.—The Rev. Dr. Croly has again left poetry and romantic fiction for religious controversy. On the 13th June he published in London—we suppose in reply to the late work of Baptist Noel—a volume entitled, "The Theory of Baptism, or the Regeneration of Infants in Baptism vindicated on the testimony of Holy Scripture, Christian Antiquity, and the Church of England."

Major Herbert Edwardes, the son of a vicar in one of the midland counties, who went to the East Indies a few years ago, and rose rapidly by military prowess, diplomatic skill, and learning, has lately returned to England, and Bentley announces for publication in the month of June, in two octavos from his pen, a "Narrative of Service and Adventure on the Punjaub Frontier during 1848 and 1849."

Sir James Alexander, who is well known in New York for his residence here during a considerable portion of the period described in his work on the United States, has just published in London, in two volumes, with illustrations, "Acadie, or Seven Years' Explorations in British America."

A Second Series of Coleridge's "Friend" has been published in London, in three volumes, 8vo., under the title of "Essays on his own Times," by S. T. Coleridge; edited by his daughter. It is made up mostly of his political contributions to the Post and Courier.

A Complete Edition of the philosophical works of J. F. Herbart is announced for publication by Voss, of Leipzig. It will be completed in twelve volumes, 8vo., edited by Prof. Hartenstein, of Leipzig, and will be finished in about two years.

Mr. Baird, of Philadelphia, has in press a richly illustrated edition of Gray's Poems.[Pg 15]

From the London Times.

THE HISTORY OF GREECE

BY GEORGE GROTE.

Mr. Grote's history has yet arrived only at the close of the fourth century B.C., and the fall of the Thirty Tyrants. Two of the six compartments in which he proposes, to use his own quaint phrase, "to exhaust the free life of collective Hellas," still remain to be accomplished. But the history of Greece is written. Stirring events and great names are still to come; the romantic enterprise of Cyrus and the retreat of the Ten Thousand, the elective trust of Thebes, and the chivalrous glories of her one great man. Demosthenes has yet to prove how vain is the divinest eloquence when poured to degenerate hearts. Agis and Cleomenes have yet to exhibit the spectacle, ever fraught with melancholy interest, of noble natures out of harmony with the present, and spending their energies in the vain attempt to turn back the stream of time and call again into existence the feelings and the institutions of an irrevocable past. The monarchy of Philip is yet due to fate. Macedon is still to Greece what Russia, before Peter the Great, was to Europe—a half-unknown and barbarous land, full of latent energy and power, and waiting for the rise of a master mind to discern its embryo greatness and turn its peasants into the unconquerable phalanx. Alexander must arise to carry forth with his victorious arms the seeds of Greek civilization over the Eastern world. Aristotle must arise to gather up in one boundless mind the vast results of Greek philosophy, and found an empire vaster and more enduring than that of his great pupil in the subjugated intellect of man. But the history of Greece is finished. Athens and Sparta, the two great antagonistic types of Greek society, politics, and education, have attained their full development, passed their allotted hour of trial, and touched upon their doom. The shades of night are gathering on the bright day of Hellas. The momentous work of that wonderful people is accomplished; the interest of the great intellectual and moral contest has centred in one man; the last scene of the Phædo has been enacted, and Socrates has died.

The history of Greece is written, and the character of the historian is decided. Mr. Grote has achieved a noble work—a work which, unless the glory of classical literature is a dream, will well repay, in usefulness and in renown, the devotion of a scholars life. His book will be called great while Grecian story retains its interest. Even making allowance for the wonderful labors of the Germans and the extraordinary addition which their learned toils have made to our knowledge of the subject, we should say that the work before us has almost disentombed many portions of Greek life. We cannot sufficiently extol the wonderful knowledge of all the feelings, habits, associations, and institutions of an extinct people which every page exhibits, and the familiar mastery with which a mind steeped in Grecian lore analyzes, combines, criticizes, and unfolds the mass of heterogeneous and often conjectural materials on which it has to work. Not only have we been enabled to read Greek history with new eyes and a new understanding, but light has been poured upon its literature; and, to apply to Mr. Grote the compliment he pays to others, "the poets, historians, orators, and philosophers of Greece have been all rendered both more intelligible and more instructive to the student, and the general picture of the Grecian world may now be conceived with a degree of fidelity which, considering our imperfect materials, it is curious to contemplate." Two volumes more at least must be yet to come, but Mr. Grote's pedestal is sure; and nothing can diminish the satisfaction he must now feel at his decided and proclaimed success but the consciousness that the moment is approaching when he must part with the companion of many a sweet though toilsome hour, and experience the mingled feelings which Gibbon has so well portrayed in writing "the last page of the last chapter" of the history of Greece.

It is pity that such high intrinsic merits should be marred, both as regards the pleasure and the instruction of the reader, by a fatal deficiency of style. It is pity, but it is true. Mr. Grote seems to have lived in the works of the Greek writers till he has almost forgotten the forms and cadence of his mother tongue. It is not only that he so frequently has resort to an uncouth Greek compound when he might easily express the same idea in two or three English words, if not one; there is a perpetual clumsiness in his construction of common sentences and his use of common words. Clarendon himself is not harder or more tortuous. Even in purely narrative parts, which ought to flow most easily, the understanding of the reader can seldom keep pace with his eye. Cyclopean epithets are piled together almost at random on any substantive which will have the complaisance to receive them. The choice of expression and metaphor is sometimes such as almost to rival the achievements of Castlereagh in his happiest hour. We have people existing, "not as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate,"—Thucydides "reserving his flowers to strew on the grave of Nicias,"—the Athenians "sailing out" to action, having "left their sails at Teichiassa," and their "sailing back" to Teichiassa for their sails,—Athens, "the mistress and successor of the Ionian Confederacy,"—inestimable stepping-stones toward a goal, and oligarchical conspirators against popular liberty "tying down the patient while the process of emasculation was being consummated." We are sorry to say that these instances are taken from the last two volumes, so that Mr. Grote does not improve as he advances. In the first volume, when relating the legends of early Greece, we are[Pg 16] glad he does not imitate the forced simplicity with which Dr. Arnold tells the legends of early Rome; but it is too flat to describe Atalanta as "beautiful and matchless for swiftness of foot, but living in the forest as a huntress, and unacceptable to Aphrodite." The redeeming point, and a great redeeming point it is, is the total absence of anything like affectation. All the peculiarities are genuine, and everything that is genuine in composition, though it cannot be admired, may be borne. But for this we should be compelled to class one of the best of English books among the very worst of English writings. Mr. Grote must remember that no man who writes for posterity can afford to neglect the art of composition. The trimmer bark, though less richly laden, will float further down the stream of time, and when so many authors of real ability and learning are competing for every niche in the temple of fame, the coveted place will certainly be won by style.

It is this deficiency of art which can alone prevent Mr. Grote's history from completely superseding both the works already existing of the same magnitude. Neither the spirit of Mitford nor the solid sense of Thirlwall could long preserve them from eclipse. The light of the former indeed has long grown dim. He is always blundering, and his blunders are always on the Tory side. Arnold's good word has kept him a few years longer on our bookshelves. Dr. Thirlwall has higher qualities, but, not to mention that he has damaged himself by writing against Mitford instead of ignoring him, he is terribly dry, and Mr. Grote leaves him far behind in appreciation of all that belongs to Greece, in loving industry, in warmth of sympathy, and, well read scholars as they both are, in deep knowledge of his subject. The cheaper and more compendious histories of course are not affected. The light and credulous Goldsmith is still left to contend with the more correct but duller Keightley for the patronage of ingenuous youth. Perhaps both yield to the meritorious little work published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But a place, and an honorable place, is still left for any one who can tell the story of Greece in a succinct and lively form, availing himself of the light which Mr. Grote has shed upon the subject, cultivating candor and right sympathies, cutting short the ante-historical period, bringing strongly out the great states and the great men, limiting himself to two moderate volumes, and addressing himself especially to the unlearned and the young.

University of New York.—At a recent meeting of the trustees and faculty, the Rev. George W. Bethune, D.D., was unanimously elected Chancellor of the University, in the place of the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen. At the same meeting Mr. G. C. Anthon, formerly of the College of Louisiana, son of the Rev. Dr. Anthon of this city, was chosen professor of Greek language and literature.

NINEVEH

By Edwin Atherstone.

Of Nineveh, the mighty city of old;
The queen of all the nations. At her throne
Kings worshipp'd; and from her their subject crowns,
Humbly obedient, held; and on her state
Submiss attended; nor such servitude
Opprobrious named. From that great eminence
How, like a star, she fell, and passed away;
Such the high matter of my song shall be

The vision comes upon me! To my soul
The days of old return: I breathe the air
Of the young world: I see her giant sons.
Like to a gorgeous pageant in the sky
Of summer's evening, cloud on fiery cloud
Thronging upheaped, before me rise the walls
Of the Titanic city: brazen gates,
Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled;
Imperial Nineveh, the earthly queen!
In all her golden pomp I see her now;
Her swarming streets; her splendid festivals;
Her sprightly damsels to the timbrel's sound
Airily bounding, and their anklets' chime;
Her lusty sons, like summer morning gay;
Her warriors stern; her rich-robed rulers grave:
I see her halls sunbright at midnight shine;
I hear the music of her banquetings;
I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh.
A sound of stately treading toward me comes;
A silken wafting on the cedar floor:
As from Arabia's flowering groves, an air
Delicious breathes around. Tall, lofty browed,
Pale, and majestically beautiful;
In vesture gorgeous as the clouds of morn;
With slow proud step her glorious dames sweep by

And I look; and lo! before the walls,
Unnumbered hosts in flaming panoply;
Chariots like fire, and thunder-bearing steeds!
I hear the shouts of battle: like the waves
Of a tumultuous sea they roll and dash!
In flame and smoke the imperial city sinks!
Her walls are gone: her palaces are dust:
The desert is around her, and within:
Like shadows have the mighty passed away!

Whence and how came the ruin? By the hand
Of the oppressor were the nations bowed;
They rose against him, and prevailed: for he
The haughty monarch who the earth could rule,
By his own furious passions was o'er-ruled:
With pride his understanding was made dark,
That he the truth knew not; and, by his lusts;
The crushing burthen of his despotism;
And by the fierceness of his wrath, the hearts
Of men he turned from him. So to kings
Be he example, that the tyrannous
And iron rod breaks down at length the hand
That wields it strongest: that by virtue alone
And justice monarchs sway the hearts of men:
For there hath God implanted love of these,
And hatred of oppression; which, unseen
And noiseless though it work; yet in the end,
Even like the viewless elements of the storm,
Brooding in silence, will in thunder burst!
So let the nations learn, that not in wealth;
Nor in the grosser pleasures of the sense;
Nor in the glare of conquest; nor the pomp
Of vassal kings, and tributary lands;
Do happiness and lasting power abide:
That virtue unto man best glory is;
His strength and truest wisdom; and that vice,
Though for a season it the heart delight;
Or to worse deeds the bad man do make strong;
Brings misery yet, and terror, and remorse,
And weakness and destruction in the end.
So if the nations learn, then not in vain,
The mighty one hath been; and is no more!

The British Association will meet at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 31st of July, under the presidency of its founder, Sir David Brewster.

A lover gazed on the eyes of his mistress till she blushed. He pressed her hand to his heart and said—"My looks have planted roses on thy cheeks; he who sows the seed should reap the harvest."[Pg 17]

IF I WERE A VOICE.

If I were a voice, a persuasive voice,
That could travel the wide world through.
I would fly on the beams of the morning light,
And speak to men with a gentle might,
And tell them to be true.
I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er land and sea,
Wherever a human heart might be,
Telling a tale, or singing a song,
In praise of the right—in blame of the wrong.

If I were a voice, a consoling voice,
I'd fly on the wings of air.
The homes of sorrow and guilt I'd seek,
And calm and truthful words I'd speak
To save them from despair.
I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er the crowded town,
And drop, like the happy sunlight, down
Into the hearts of suffering men,
And teach them to rejoice again.

If I were a voice, a convincing voice,
I'd travel with the wind,
And whenever I saw the nations torn
By warfare, jealousy, or scorn,
Or hatred of their kind,
I'd fly, I'd fly, on the thunder crash,
And into their blinded bosoms flash;
And, all their evil thoughts subdued,
I'd teach them Christian brotherhood.

If I were a voice, a pervading voice,
I'd seek the kings of earth;
I'd find them alone on their beds at night,
And whisper words that should guide them right—
Lessons of priceless worth;
I'd fly more swift than the swiftest bird,
And tell them things they never heard—
Truths which the ages for aye repeat—
Unknown to the statesmen at their feet.

If I were a voice, an immortal voice,
I'd speak in the people's ear;
And whenever they shouted "Liberty,"
Without deserving to be free,
I'd make their error clear.
I'd fly, I'd fly, on the wings of day,
Rebuking wrong on my world-wide way,
And making all the world rejoice—
If I were a voice—an immortal voice.—C. Mackay.

From Blackwood's Magazine.

THE GREEN HAND.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOM CRINGLE'S LOG."

PART I.

"Come, old ship, give us a yarn!" said the younger forecastle-men to an old one, on board of an Indiaman then swiftly cleaving the waves of the western Atlantic before the trade-wind, and outward-bound, with a hearty crew and a number of passengers. It was the second of the two dog-watches, and the ship being still in the region of evening twilights, her men in a good humor, and with leisure, were then usually disposed, as on this occasion, to make fast their roaming thoughts by help of a good yarn, when it could be got. There were plenty of individuals, amongst a crew of forty, calculated by their experience, or else by their flow of spirits, and fancy, to spin it. Each watch into which they were divided had its especial story-teller, with whose merits it twitted the other, and on opportunity of a general reunion, they were pitted against one another like two fighting-cocks, or a couple of rival novelists in more polished literary society at home. The one was a grave, solemn old North-Sea whaler with one eye, who professed to look down with contempt upon all raw head-work, on navigation compared with seamanship, and fiction against fact. As for himself, he rested all his fame upon actual experience, and told long dry narratives of old shipmates, of his voyages and adventures, and sometimes of the most incredible incidents, with a genuine briny gusto which pleased the veteran stagers beyond expression. They were full of points of seamanship—expedients for nice emergencies, tacks, knots, and splices. He gave the very conversation of his characters, with all the "says he" and "says I;" and one long recital of the old fellow's turned upon the question between himself and a newfangled second mate about the right way to set up back-stays, in which he, the sailor, was proved correct by the loss of the ship.

The other story-teller, again, was a Wapping man; a lively, impudent young Cockney, who had the most miraculous faculty of telling lies—not only palpable lies, but lies absolutely impossible: yet they were so sublimely told often, and he contrived to lug into them such a quantity of gorgeous tinsel ornament, as, in his happier efforts, decidedly to carry the day against his opponent. The London hand had seen life too, of which, with respect to what is called the world, his competitor was as ignorant as a child. He had his sentimental vein, accordingly, in which he took the last love-tale out of some "Penny Story-Teller" or fashionable novel he had spelled over below, and turned it over into a parody that would have thrown its unfortunate author into convulsions of horror, and his critics into shrieks of laughter. The fine language of lords and ladies, of romantic heroines, or of foreign counts and bandits, was gravely retailed and gravely listened to by a throng of admiring jacktars; while the old whaler smoked his pipe sulkily apart, gave now and then a scornful glance out of his weather-eye, and called it "all 'high-dic' and soger's gammon."

On this occasion, however, the group forward did not solicit the services of either candidate, as they happened to have present among them a shipmate, who, by general confession, "took the shine" out of both, although it was rarely they could get hold of him. "Old Jack," the captain's private steward, was the oldest seaman on board, and having known the captain when the latter went to sea, had sailed with him almost ever since he commanded a ship, as well as lived in his house on shore. He did not now keep his watch, nor take his "trick at the helm," except when he chose, and was altogether a privileged sort of a person, or one of the "idlers." His name was Jacobs, which afforded a pretext for calling him "Old Jack," with the sailor's fondness for that Christian cognomen, which it is difficult to account for, unless because Jonah and St. John were seafaring characters, and the Roman Catholic holy clerk St. Nicholas was baptized "Davy Jones," with sundry other reasons good at sea. But Old Jack was, at any rate, the best hand for a yarn in the Gloucester Indiaman, and had been once or twice called upon to spin one to the ladies and gentlemen in the cuddy. It was partly[Pg 18] because of his inexhaustible fund of good humor, and partly from that love of the sea which looked out through all that the old tar had seen and undergone, and which made him still follow the bowsprit, although able to live comfortably ashore. In his blue jacket, white canvas trowsers edged with blue, and glazed hat, coming forward to the galley to light his pipe, after serving the captain's tea of an evening, Old Jack looked out over the bulwarks, sniffed the sharp sea-air, and stood with his shirt-sleeve fluttering as he put his finger in his pipe, the very embodiment of the scene—the model of a prime old salt who had ceased to "rough it," but could do so yet if needful.

"Come, old ship!" said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack came forward, "give us a yarn, will ye?"

"Yarn!" said Jack, smiling, "what yarn, mates? 'Tis a fine night, though, for that same—the clouds fly high, and she's balling off a good ten knots sin' eight bells."

"That she is, bo'—so give us a yarn now, like a reg'lar old A 1 as you are!" said one.

"'Vast there, mate," said a man-o'-wars-man, winking to the rest,—"you're always a-cargo-puddling, Bill! D'ye think Old Jack answers to any other hail nor the Queen's? I say, old three-decker in or'nary, we all wants one o' your close-laid yarns this good night. Whaling Jim here rubs his down with a thought over much o' the tar, an' young Joe dips 'em in yallow varnish—so if you says Nay, why, we'll all save our grog, and get drunk as soon as may be."

"Well, well, mates," said Jack, endeavoring to conceal his flattered, feelings, "what is it to be, though?"

"Let's see," said the man-o'-war's-man—"aye, give us the Green Hand!"

"Aye, aye, the Green Hand!" exclaimed one and all. This "Green Hand" was a story Old Jack had already related several times, but always with such amusing variations, that it seemed on each repetition a new one—the listeners testifying their satisfaction by growls of rough laughter, and by the emphatic way in which, during a pause, they squirted their tobacco-juice on the deck. What gave additional zest to this particular yarn, too, was the fact of its hero being no less than the captain himself, who was at this moment on the poop quarter-deck of the ship, pointing out something to a group of ladies by the round-house—a tall, handsome-looking man of about forty, with all the mingled gravity and frank good humor of a sailor in his firm, weather-tinted countenance. To have the power of secretly contrasting his present condition and manners with those delineated by Old Jack's episode from the "skipper's" previous biography, was the acme of comic delight to these rude sons of Neptune, and the narrator just hit this point.

"Ye see," began he, "tis about six an' twenty years gone since I was an able seaman before the mast, in a small Indyman they called the Chester Castle, lying at that time behind the Isle of Dogs, in sight of Grenidge Hospital. She was full laden, but there was a strong breeze blowing up that wouldn't let us get under weigh; and, besides, we waited for the most part of our hands. I had sailed with the same ship two voyages before; so," says the captain to me one day, "Jacobs, there's a lady over at Greenwich yonder wants to send her boy to sea in the ship—for a sickening I s'pose. I am a going up to town myself," says he, "so take the quarter-boat and two of the boys and go ashore with this letter, and see the young fool. From what I've heard," says the skipper, "he's a jackanapes as will give us more trouble than thanks. However, if you find the lady's bent on it, why, she may send him aboard to-morrow if she likes. Only we don't carry no young gentlemen; and if he slings his hammock here, you must lick him into shape. I'll make a sailor of him or a cabin-boy." "Ay, ay, sir," says I, shoving the letter into my hat; so in half an hour's time I knocks at the door of the lady's house, rigged out in my best, and hands over the screed to a fat fellow with red breeches and yallow swabs on his shoulders, like a captain of marines, that looked frightened at my hail, for I thou't he'd been deaf by the long spell he took before he opened the door. In five minutes I heard a woman's voice ask at the footman if there was a sailor awaiting below. "Yes, marm," says he; and "show him up," says she. Well, I gives a scrape with my larboard foot, and a tug to my hair, when I gets to the door of such a fine room above decks, all full o' tables, an' chairs, an' sofers, an' piangers, an' them sort o' highflying consarns. There was a lady all in silks and satins on one of the sofers, dressed out like a widow, with a pretty little girl as was playing music out of a large book—and a picter of a man upon the wall, which I at once logged it down for him she'd parted company from. "Sarvint, ma'am," says I. "Come in, my good man," says the lady. "You're a sailor?" says she—asking, like, to be sure if I warn't the cook's mate in dish-guise, I fancy. "Well, marm," I raps out, "I make bould to say as I hopes I am!"—an' I catches a sight o' myself in a big looking-glass behind the lady, as large as our sky-sail,—and, being a young fellow in them days, thinks I, "Blow me, if Betsy Brown asked me that now, I'd ask her if she was a woman!" "Well," says she, "Captain Steel tells me in this here letter, he's agoing to take my son." Now," says she, "I'm sore against it—couldn't you say some'at to turn his mind?" "The best way for that, yer ladyship," says I, "is to let him go, if it was only the length of the Nore. The sea'll turn his stomack for him, marm," I says, "an' then we can send him home by a pilot." "He wanted for to go into the navy," says the lady again, "but I couldn't think on that for a moment, on[Pg 19] account of this fearful war; an', after all, he'll be safer in sailing at sea nor in the army or navy—don't you think so, my good man?" "It's all you knows about it," thinks I; hows'ever, I said there wasn't a doubt on it. "Is Captain Steel a rash man?" says she. "How so, marm?" says I, some'at taken aback. "I hope he does not sail at night, or in storms, like too many of his profession, I'm afeard," says she; "I hope he always weighs the anchor in such cases, very careful." "Oh, in course," says I, not knowin', for the life of me, what she meant. I didn't like to come the rig over the poor lady, seein' her so anxious like; but it was no use, we was on such different tacks, ye see. "O yes, marm," I says, "Captain Steel al'ays reefs taups'ls at sight of a squall brewing to wind'rd; and we're as safe as a church, then, ye know, with a man at the wheel as knows his duty." "This relieves my mind," the lady says, "very much; but I couldn't think why she kept sniffing all the time at her smelling bottle, as she wor agoin to faint. "Don't take it to heart so, yer ladyship," I says at last; "I'll look after the young gentleman till he finds his sea-legs." "Thank you," says she; "but, I beg your pardon, would you be kind enough for to open the winder, and look out if you see Edward? I think he's in the garding. I feel sich a smell of pitch and tar!" I hears her say to the girl; and says she to me again, "Do you see Edward there?—call to him, please." Accordingly, I couldn't miss sight of three or four young slips alongside, for they made plenty of noise—one of 'em on top of a water-barrel smoking a cigar; another singing out inside of it for mercy; and the rest roaring round about it, like so many Bedlamites. "No wonder the young scamp wants to go to sea," thinks I, "he's got nothin' arthly to do but mischief." "Which is the young gentleman, marm?" says I, lookin' back into the room—"Is it him with the cigar and the red skull-cap?" "Yes," says the lady—"call him up, please." "Hallo!" I sings out, and all runs off but him on the barrel, and "Hallo!" says he. "You're wanted on deck, sir," I says; and in five minutes in comes my young gemman, as grave as you please. "Edward," says the mother, "this is one of Captain Steel's men." "Is he going to take me?" says the young fellow, with his hands in his pockets. "Well, sir," I says, "'tis a very bad look-out, is the sea, for them as don't like it. You'll be sorry ten times over you've left sich a berth as this here afore you're down Channel." The young chap looks me all over from clue to earing, and says he, "My mother told you to say that!" "No sir," says I, "I says it on my own hook." "Why did you go yourself then?" says he. "I couldn't help it," answers I. "Oh," says the impertinent little devil, "but you're only one of the common sailors, ain't you?" "Split me, you little beggar?" thinks I, "if I doesn't show you the odds betwixt a common sailor, as ye call it, and a lubber of a boy, before long!" But I wasn't goin' to let him take the jaw out o' me, so I only laughed, an' says I, "Why, I'm captain of the foretop at sea, any how." "Where's your huniform, then?" says the boy, lowering his tone a bit. "O," I says, "we doesn't al'ays wear huniform, ye know, sir. This here's what we call on-dress." "I'm sorry, sir," says the lady, "I didn't ax you to sit down." "No offence at all, marm," I says, but I took a couple o' glasses of brandy as was brought in. I saw 'twas no use goin' against the young chap; so, when he asked what he'd have to do aboard, I told him nothing to speak of, except count the sails now and then, look over the bows to see how the ship went, and go aloft with a spy-glass. "Oh," says his mother, at this, "I hope Captain Steel won't never allow Edward to go up those dangerous ladders! It is my partic'lar request he should be punished if he does." "Sartainly, marm, I'll mention it to the captain," I says, "an' no doubt he'll give them orders as you speak on." "The captain desired me to say the young gentleman could come aboard as soon as he likes," says I, before goin' out of the door. "Very well, sir," says the lady, "I shall see the tailor this same afternoon, and get his clothes, if so be it must." The last word I said was, putting my head half in again to tell 'em, "There was no use gettin' any huniforms at present, seein' the ship's sail-maker could do all as was wanted afterwards, when we got to sea."

Well, two or three days after, the captain sent word to say the ship would drop down with the morning tide, and Master Collins had better be aboard by six o'clock. I went ashore with the boat, but the young gemman's clothes warn't ready yet; so it was made up he was to come aboard from Gravesend the day after. But his mother and an old lady, a friend of theirs, would have it they'd go and see his bed-room, and take a look at the ship. There was a bit of breeze with the tide, and the old Indiaman bobbed up and down on it in the cold morning; you could hear the wash of water poppling on to her rudder, with her running gear blown out in a bend; and Missus Collins thought they'd never get up the dirty black sides of the vessel, as she called 'em. The other said her husband had been a captain, an' she laid claim to a snatch of knowledge. "Sailor," says she to me, as we got under the quarter, "that there tall mast is the main-bowsprit, ain't it? and that other is the gallant bowling you call it, don't you?" says she. "No doubt, marm," says I, winking to the boys not to laugh. "It's all right," I says. Howsoever, as to the bed-room, the captain showed 'em over the cabin, and put 'em off by saying the ship was so out of order he couldn't say which rooms was to be which yet, though they needn't fear Master Ned would get all comfortable; so ashore the poor woman went, pretty well pleased,[Pg 20] considerin' her heart was against the whole consarn.

Well, the next afternoon, lying off Gravesend, out comes a wherry with young master. One of the men said there was a midshipman in it. "Midshipman be blowed!" says I; "did ye ever see a reefer in a wherry, or sitting out 'o the starn-sheets? It's neither more nor less nor the greenhorn we've got." "Why don't the bo'sun pipe to man sideropes for him!" says th' other; "but, my eye, Bob," says he to me; "what a sight of traps the chap's got in the boat! 'twill be enough to heel the Chester Castle to the side he berths upon, on an even keel. Do he mean to have the captain's cabin, I wonder!" Up the side he scrambles, with the help of a side-ladder, all togged out to the nines in a span-new blue jacket and anchor buttons, a cap with a gould band, and white ducks made to fit—as jemmy-jessamy a looking fellow as you'd see of a cruise along London parks, with the waterman singing out alongside to send down a tackle for the dunnage, which it took a pair of purchase-blocks to hoist them out on board. "What's all this?" says the mate, coming for'ard from the quarter-deck. "'Tis the young gemman's traps, sir," I says. "What the devil!" says the mate, "d'ye think we've room to stow all this lumber? Strike it down into the forehold, Jacobs—but get out a blue shirt or two, and a Scotch cap for the young whelp first, if he wants to save that smooth toggery of his for his mammy. You're as green as cabbage, I'm feared, my lad!" says he. By this time the boy was struck all of a heap, an' didn't know what to say when he saw the boat pulling for shore, except he wanted to have a sight of his bed-room. "Jacobs," says the mate, laughing like an old bear, "take him below, and show him his bed-room, as he calls it!" So down we went to the half-deck, where the carpenter, bo'sun, and three or four of the 'prentices, had their hammocks slung. There I left him to overhaul his big donkey of a chest, which his mother had stowed it with clothes enough for a lord ambassador, but not a blessed thing fit to use—I wouldn't 'a given my bit of a black box for the whole on it, ten times over. There was another chockful of gingerbread, pots o' presarves, pickles, and bottles; and, thinks I, "The old lady didn't know what shares is at sea, I reckon. 'Twill all be gone for footing, my boy, before you've seen blue water, or I'm a Dutchman."

In a short time we was up anchor, going down with a fast breeze for the Nore; and we stood out to sea that night, havin' to join a convoy off Spithead. My gentleman was turned in all standing, on top o' some sails below; and next day he was as sick as a greenhorn could be, cleaning out his land-ballast where he lay, nor I didn't see him till he'd got better. 'Twas blowing a strong breeze, with light canvas all in aloft, and a single reef in the tops'ls; but fine enough for the Channel, except the rain—when what does I see but the "Green Hand" on the weather quarter-deck, holding on by the belaying-pins, with a yumbrella over his head. The men for'ard was all in a roar, but none of the officers was on deck save the third mate, The mate goes up to him, and looks in his face. "Why," says he, "you confounded long-shore picked-up son of a green-grocer, what are you after?" an' he takes the article a slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff of smoke. "Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber," says he, giving him a wheel down into the lee-scuppers—"it's well the captain didn't catch ye!" "Come aft here, some of ye," sings out the third mate again, "to brace up the main yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment and pull!" At this the greenhorn takes out a pair o' gloves, shoves his fingers into 'em, and tails on to the rope behind. "Well, dammit!" says the mate, "if I ever see the likes o' that! Jacobs, get a tarbucket and dip his fists in it; larn him what his hands was made for! I never could bear to see a fellow ashore with his flippers shoed like his feet; but at sea, confound me, it would make a man green-sick over again!" If you'd only seen how Master Collins looked when shoved his missy fingers into the tar, and chucked the gloves o' board! The next moment he ups fists and made slap at me, when in goes the brush in his mouth; the mate gives him a kick astarn; the young chap went sprawling down into the half-deck ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to crop his chin—and there he gets another clip across the jaws from Chips. "Now," says the mate, "the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow. He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my lad," says he: "that fellow 'll either catch the cat or spoil the monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad," says the third mate; "he's in my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the ropes, and let him taste an end now an' then. Ha! ha! ha!" says he again, laughing, "'tis the first time I ever see a embreller loosed out at sea, and but the second I've seen brought aboard even! He's the greenest hand, sure enough, it's been my luck to come across! But green they say's nigh to blue, so look out if I don't try to make a sailor of the young spark!"

Well, for the next three or four days the poor fellow was knocked about on all hands; he'd got to go aloft to the 'gallant cross-trees, and out on the yard foot-ropes the next morning, before breakfast; and, coming down, the men made him fast till he sent down the key of his bottle-chest to pay his footing. If he closed his eyes a moment in the watch, slash comes a bucket full o' Channel water over him; the third mate would keep him two hours on end, larnin' to rig out a sternsail boom, or grease a royal mast. He led a dog's life of it too, in the half-deck: last come,[Pg 21] in course, has al'ays to go and fill the bread barge, scrub the planks, an' do all the dirty jobs. Them owners' 'prentices, sich as he had for messmates, is always worse to their own kind by far nor the "common sailors," as the long-shore folks calls a foremast-man. I couldn't help takin' pity on the poor lad, being the only one as had seen the way of his up-bringing, and I felt a sort of a charge of him like; so one night I had a quiet spell with him in the watch, an' as soon as I fell to speak kind-ways, there I seed the water stand i' the boy's eyes. "It's a good thing," says he, tryin' to gulp it down—"it's a good thing mother don't see all this!" "Ho, ho," says I, "my lad, 'tis all but another way of bein' sea-sick! You doesn't get the land cleared out, and snuff the sea blue breeze nat'ral like, all at once! Hows'ever, my lad," says I, "take my advice—bring your hammock an' chest into the fok'sle; swap half your fine clothes for blue shirts and canvas trowsers; turn-to ready and willing, an' do all that's asked you—you'll soon find the differ 'twixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men 'll soon make a sailor of you: you'll soon see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous on!"

Well, next night, what does he do but follows what I said, and afore long most of his troubles was over; nor there wasn't a willin'er nor a readier hand aboard, and every man was glad to put Ned through anything he'd got to do. The mates began to take note on him; and though the 'prentices never left off callin' him the Green Hand, before we rounded the Cape he could take his wheel with the best of them, and clear away a sternsail out of the top in handsome style. We were out ten months, and Ned Collins stuck to the fork'sle throughout. When we got up the Thames, he went ashore to see his mother in a check shirt, and canvas trowsers made out of an old royal, with a tarpaulin hat I built for him myself. He would have me to come the next day over to the house for a supper; so, having took a kindness to the young chap, why, I couldn't say nay. There I finds him in the midst of a lot o' soft-faced chaps and young ladies, a spinning the wonderfullest yarns about the sea and the East Ingees, makin' 'em swallow all sorts of horse-marines' nonsense, about marmaids, sea-sarpents, and sich like. "Hallo, my hearty!" says he, as soon as he saw me, "heave a-head here and come to an anchor in this here blessed chair." "Young ladies," says he, "this is Bob Jacobs, as I told you kissed a marmaid hisself. He's a wonderful hand, is Bob, for the fair!" You may fancy how flabbergasted I was at this, though the young scamp was as cool as you please, and wouldn't ha' needed much to make him kiss 'em all round; but I was al'ays milk-an'-water along side of women, if they topped at all above my rating. "Well," thinks I, "my lad, I wouldn't ha' said five minutes agone there was anything of the green about ye yet, but I see it will take another voy'ge to wash it all out." For to my thinkin', mates, 'tis more of a land-lubber to come the rig over a few poor creatures that never saw blue water, than not to know the ropes you warn't told. "O Mister Jacobs!" says Missus Collins to me that night, before I went off, "d'ye think Edward's tired of that ere horridsome sea yet?" "Well, marm," I says, "I'm afeard not. But I'll tell ye, marm," says I, "if you want's to make him cut the consarn, the only thing ye can do is to get him bound apprentice to it. From what I've seen of him, he's a lad that won't bear aught again his liberty; an' I do believe, if he thought he couldn't get free, he'd run the next day!" Well, after that, ye see, I didn't know what more turned up of it; for I went myself round to Hull, and ships in a timber-craft for the Baltic, just to see some'at new.

One day, the third voy'ge from that time, on getting the length of Blackwall, we heared of a strong press from the men-o'-war; and as I'd got a dreadful dislike to the sarvice, there was a lot of us marchant-men kept stowed away close in holes an' corners till we could suit ourselves. At last we got well tired, and a shipmate o' mine and I wanted to go and see our sweethearts over in the town. So we hired the slops from a Jew, and makes ourselves out to be a couple o' watermen, with badges to suit, a carrying off a large parcel and a ticket on it. In the arternoon we came back again within sight of the Tower, where we saw the coast was clear, and made a fair wind along Rosemary Lane and Cable Street. Just then we saw a tall young fellow, in a brown coat, an' a broad-brim hat, standing in the door of a shop, with a paper under his arm, on the look out for some one. "Twig the Quaker, Bob!" my shipmate says to me. As soon as he saw us, out the Quaker steps, and says he to Bill, in a sleepy sort of a v'ice, "Friend, thou'rt a waterman, I b'lieve?" "D—— it, yes," says Bill, pretty short like, "that's what we hails for! D'ye want a boat, master?" "Swear not, friend," says the broad-brim; "but what I want is this, you see. We have a large vessel, belonging to our house, to send to Havannah, and willin' to give double wages, but we can't find any mariners at this present for to navigate. Now," says he, "I s'pose this onfortunate state o' things is on account of the sinful war as is goin' on—they're afraid of the risk. Hows'ever, my friends," says he, "perhaps, as you knows the river, ye could put us upon a way of engagin' twenty or more bold mariners, as is not afeard of ventering for good pay?" and with this he looks into his papers; and says Bill, "Well, sir, I don't know any myself—do you, Bob?" and he gives me a shove, and says under the rose, "no fear, mate," says Bill, "he's all[Pg 22] over green—don't slip the chance for all hands of us at Jobson's." "Why, master," I says, "what ud you give them mariners you speaks on, now?" "Six pounds a month, friend," says he, looking up; "but we gives tea in place of spirits, and we must have steady men. We can't wait, neither," says he, "more nor three days, or the vessel won't sail at all." "My eye!" says Bill, "'twont do to lose, Bob!—stick to him, that's all." "Well, sir," I says, "I thinks I does have a notion of some't of the sort. If you sends your papers to Jobson's Tavern to-night, in the second lane 'twixt Barnaby Street and the Blue Anchor Road, over the water, why, I'll get ye as many hands to sign as you wants!" "Thanks, friend," says the young broad-brim, "I will attend to thine advice,"—so he bids us good day, and stepped into his door again. "Bill," says I, as he went off, "now I think on it, I can't help a notion I've seen that chap's face afore!" "Very like," says Bill, "for the matter o' that 'tis the same with me—them broad-brims is so much of a piece! But that 'ere fellow don't know nothing of ships, sure enough, or he wouldn't offer what he did, and the crimps' houses all of a swarm with hands!"

"Take my word, mate," says I, "it's a paying trip, or he wouldn't do it—leave a Quaker alone for that! Why, the chap's a parfit youngster, but I am blessed if he don't look as starched as if he'd sat over a desk for twenty year!"

Well, strike me lucky, mates all, if the whole affair warn't a complete trap! Down comes a clerk with the papers, sure enough—but in ten minutes more the whole blessed lot of us was puckalowed, and hard an' fast, by a strong press-gang. They put us into a cutter off Redriff Stairs, an' the next noon all hands was aboard of the Pandora frigate at Sheerness. The first time of being mustered on deck, says Bill to me, "Cuss my eyes, Bob, if there isn't the 'farnal Quaker!" I looked, and sees a midshipman in uniform like the rest, and so it was. "The sly soft-sauderin' beggar!" says I. "All fair in war, and a press-mate!" says one o' the frigate's men. All the while I kept looking and looking at the midshipman; and at last I says to Bill when we got below, giving a slap to my thigh, "Blessed if it ain't! it's the Green Hand himself!" "Green Hand!" says Bill, sulky enough, "who's the Green Hand? Blow me Bob, if I don't think we're the green hands ourselves, if that's what you're upon!" So I told him the story about Ned Collins. "Well," says he, "if a fellow was green as China rice, cuss me if the reefers' mess wouldn't take it all out on him in a dozen watches. The softest thing I know, as you say, Bob, just now, it's to come the smart hand when you're a lubber; but to sham green after that style, ye know, why, 'tis a mark or two above either you or I, messmate. So for my part, I forgives the young scamp, 'cause I ought to ha' known better!"

By the time the frigate got to sea, the story was blown over the whole maindeck; many a good laugh it gave the different messes; and Bill, the midshipman, and I, got the name of the "Three Green Hands."

One middle-watch, Mister Ned comes for'ard by the booms to me, and says he, "Well, Bob Jacobs, you don't bear a grudge, I hope!" "Why," says I, "Mister Collins, 'twould be mutiny now, I fancy, you bein' my officer!" so I gave a laugh; but I couldn't help feeling' hurt a little, 'twas so like a son turnin' against his father, as 'twere. "Why Bob," says he, "did ye think me so green as not to know a seaman when I saw him? I was afeared you'd know me that time." "Not I, sir," I answers: "why, if we hadn't sailed so long in company, I wouldn't know ye now!" so master Ned gave me to understand it was all for old times he wanted to ship me in the same craft; but he knew my misliking to the sarvice, though he said he'd rather ha' lost the whole haul of 'em nor myself. So many a yarn we had together of a dark night, and for a couple of years we saw no small service in the Pandora. But if ye'd seen Ned the smartest reefer aboard, and the best liked by the men, in the fore-taups'l bunt in a gale, or over the maindeck hatch, with an enemy's frigate to leeward, or on a spree ashore at Lisbon or Naples, you wouldn't ha' said there was anything green in his eye, I warrant ye! He was made acting lieutenant of a prize he cut out near Chairboorg, before he passed examination; so he got me for prize bo'sun, and took her into Plymouth. Soon after that the war was ended, and all hands of the Pandora paid off. Master Ned got passed with flying colors, and confirmed lieutenant besides, but he had to wait for a ship. He made me say where I'd be found, and we parted company for about a year.

Well, I was come home from a short trip, and one day Leftenant Collins hunts me up at Wapping Docks, where I'd had myself spliced, six years before, to Betsy Brown, an' was laid up for a spell, havin' seen a good deal of the sea. Ye must know the young leftenant was fell deep in love with a rich Indy Naboob's daughter, which had come over to take her back to' the East Indgees. The old fellow was hard close-hauled against the match, notwithstanding of the young folks makin' it all up; so he'd taken out berths aboard of a large Company's ship, and bought over the captain on no account to let any king's navy man within the gangways, nor not a shoulder with a swab upon it, red or blue, beyond the ship's company. But, above all, the old tyrant wouldn't have a blue-jacket, from stem to starn, if so be he'd got nothing ado but talk sweet; I s'pose he fancied his girl was mad after the whole blessed cloth. The leftenant turns over this here log to me, and, says he, "I'll follow her[Pg 23] to the world's end, if need be, Bob, and cheat the old villain?" "Quite right too, sir," says I. "Bob," says he, "I'll tell ye what I wants you to do. Go you and enter for the Seringpatam at Blackwall, if you're for sea just now; I'm goin' for to s'cure my passage myself, an' no doubt doorin' the voy'ge something'll turn up to set all square; at any rate, I'll stand by for a rope to pull!" "Why here's a go!" thinks I to myself: "is Ned Collins got so green again, spite of all that's come an' gone, for to think the waves is agoin' to work wonders, or ould Neptune under the line's to play the parson and splice all!" "Well, sir," I says, "but don't you think the skipper will smoke your weather-roll, sir, at sea, as you did Bill Pikes an' me, you know, sir?" says I. "Oh, Bob, my lad," says the leftenant, "leave you that to me. The fellow most onlikest to a sailor on the Indyman's poop will be me, and that's the way you'll know me!"

Well, I did ship with the Seringpatam for Bombay. Plenty of passengers she had, but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o' Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel. I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy-yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of a collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After a while there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from—mizen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as "Rule Britannia," "Bay of Biscay," "Britannia's Bulwarks," and "All in the Downs." The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and "Well I'm blessed, mates," says he on the fok'sle, "but that chap aft yonder with the lady—he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across! What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallowchops an hour agone?" "What was it, mate?" I says. Says he, "'Do ye know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reely green at the line—green ye know, Sar Chawls, reely green?' 'No, sir,' says the old naboob, ''tis blue.' 'Whoy, ye don't sa—ay so!' says the young chap, pullin' a long face." "Why, Jim," another hand drops in, "that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night! I seed him myself come out o' the mizen-chains!" "Hallo!" says another at this, "then there's some'at queer i' the wind!" I thought he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning! I'll bet a week's grog the chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates! Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands not to blow the gaff,[A] an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very day, about the Green Hand—for somehow or another, I was always a yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn, not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats when they went past.

Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But as for the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with him; though, as the naboob had never clapt eyes on him to know him like, 'twain't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the Indyman was a rum old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old ways—I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the old boy drawling out, "As 'twas in the beginning,"—then, in the one key, "Haul aft the mainsheet,"—"is now and ever shall be,"—"Small pull with the weather-brace,"—"Amen,"—"Well the mainyard,"—"The Lord be with you,—Taups'l yard well!" As for the first orficer, he was a dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own, except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may fancy the craft stood often a poor chance of being well handled.

'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day as I mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as[Pg 24] it got down smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, to the south-east. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer on deck. I was at the wheel, and I hears him say to the second how the land-breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' begins to squint over the starn to nor'west'ard, "Jacobs, my lad," whispers he to me, "how d'ye like the looks o' things?" "Not overmuch, sir," says I; "small enough sea-room for the sky there!" Up goes he to the first officer, after a bit. "Sir," says he, "do ye notice how we've risen the land within the last hour and a half?" "No, sir," says the first mate; "what d'ye mean?" "Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point," says he. "Sir," says the Company's man, "if I didn't know what's what, d'ye think I'd larn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green? There's nothing of the sort," he says. "Look on the starboard quarter then," says the leftenant, "at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with its wings spread. Take three minutes' look," says he. Well, the mate did take a minute or two's look through the mizen-shroud, and pretty blue he got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time. "Now," says the leftenant, "d'ye think ye'd weather that there point two hours after this, if a gale come on from the nor'west, sir?" "Well," says the first mate, "I daresay we shouldn't—but what o' that?" "Why, if you'd cruised for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done," says the leftenant, "you'd think there was something ticklish about that white spot in the sky to nor'west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is fell a good bit since four bells." "Weather-glass!" the mate says, "why, that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy." Ye must understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time, except in the royal navy. "Sir," says the mate again, "mind your business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!" "If I was you," the leftenant says, "I'd call the captain." "Thank ye," says the mate—"call the captain for nothing!" Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins. The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. "Why, sir," says the mate, "I'd no notion you was a seaman at all! What would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?" "Well, sir," says Mr. Collins, "if you'll do it, I'll tell ye at once."

At this point of old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket-pocket, and got off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a short yarn?" "Can't help it, bo'," said Old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "what was the up-shot of it, if the yarn's been overhauled already? I didn't hear it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several—"Old Jack didn't get the length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o-war's-man; "'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!"

From Fraser's Magazine for June.

SOMETHING ABOUT A MURDER.

FOUNDED ON FACT.

A Fair and gentle girl was Barbara Comyn, the only daughter of one of the strictest and sternest old ministers that ever adhered to Calvin. Yet Mr. Comyn was thoroughly conscientious in all his views; and when he frowned, he did it not through love of frowning, but that he hoped, by gathering a cloud upon his brows, to bring down from those eyes upon which he frowned such showers of repentance as refresh and make green the soul sin-withered and sere from the harsh and hot suns of vice. He was, in truth, a worthy and good man; somewhat narrow of mind and bigoted of creed, it may be, but utterly incapable of committing an ungenerous or dishonorable action. Still, greatly as he loved his winsome daughter, much as he prized her for that dead woman's sake, who, as long as she lay in his bosom, had brought him comfort, and happiness, and honor, he was something over-harsh with her, niggardly in the bestowing of caresses, and liberal in the gift of unnecessary rebuke. Very severe, then, was his displeasure, when she confessed to him, with many blushes, that she loved her young Episcopalian kinsman, John Percival.

The cousins had not been reared together, nor had they even met before the youth had passed his twenty-fifth, the girl her nineteenth year. But we are not of the opinion that young people are the more prone to fall in love with each other for the being educated together in a sort of family domesticity. Such facts are contended for in fiction, but realities have convinced us that such things seldom happen; and if we ever have the fortune to possess children of our own, and wish a son or daughter to wed a particular individual, we shall take good care, not only to conceal our intentions from them, but to keep the pair apart from all brother-and-sister communism, until such time as each heart begins to have its natural craving for a congenial spirit,—when, in sooth, it looks for others than brothers and sisters to cling to. It is a very old, perhaps a very vulgar proverb, that "familiarity breeds contempt;" and we assuredly think, that the constant fireside association of young folks, trained up together in bread-and-butter ease, is more apt to generate calm friendship than warm affection.[Pg 25]

But, as we have said, our cousins were brought up asunder; he in England, of which country his father was an eminent physician lately deceased, who had bequeathed to his only son his professional ability, with ample means of commencing his career in a handsome manner. When he first came to Scotland to visit his mother's sister, he found her a corpse; and there, in the house of mourning, the consoler of the motherless Barbara, he learnt to love her with a sincerity of affection to which she fully responded. Great was his vexation and surprise to receive a stern denial of his suit from the minister, who, although he had never testified any degree of partiality for his wife's nephew, had, nevertheless, evinced no dislike of him. But when respectfully called upon to assign a reason for so unexpected a rejection, he briefly said, that "no child of his should with his blessing wed any man who was not a strict Presbyterian; and that, moreover, he had other views for his daughter." Nor were the tears of his child, nor the intercession in their favor of his kindhearted but timid old maiden sister, of any effect. His obstinacy was not to be subdued, nor his will opposed; and the unrelenting preacher, who taught humility, love, and concord from his pulpit, and who could produce not one sensible reason for thwarting the attachment of two amiable creatures, concluded the scene by flying into a furious passion, in which he gave John Percival clearly to understand, that he was no longer an acceptable, or even permitted, guest.

The young man left the manse immediately, and was not slow in quitting Scotland; but love, which teaches many things, taught the kinsfolk means of keeping up, though at rare intervals, an epistolary communion—so frequently the one sustaining prop of two divided hearts!

A year or more passed, finding them true to each other. Barbara refused several excellent proposals of marriage, nor did her father persecute her with expressed wishes for her acceptance of any of them; until, at length, he introduced to her one Mr. Bruce, a wealthy cloth-merchant from Glasgow. He was a man of about fifty years of age, of a well-favored and portly presence, and accounted a sure and somewhat sour follower of Mr. Comyn's favorite creed. Barbara had frequently heard her father speak highly of his Glasgow friend, but as no warning had prepared her, she was very far from dreaming of the character he was about to perform in her presence; and, indeed, the wooing of the honest clothier was neither very active nor oppressive—but, alas, for all that, it was steadfast and resolute.

A wonderful deal of what they deemed "religious discussion" was carried on betwixt Mr. Bruce and the minister during the visit of the former at the manse, which, we have omitted to state, (though for certain reasons we do not intend to give it a name,) was situated out of the town of Aberdeen, in a retired strath or valley, full of hazels and sloe-bushes, with the Dee running through them like a huge silver snake. Although little more than half a mile from Aberdeen, and much nearer the church of which Mr. Comyn was minister, the manse seemed as lonely and quiet as if thirty miles lay between it and a busy, populous town. Now, though Mr. Bruce had hired a sleeping apartment in the cottage of Mr. Comyn's bell-man, or sexton, which stood hard by the kirk, he spent all his spare time with his friend at the manse, where his meals were invariably taken; and in addition to the wonderful amount of polemical palaver we have hinted at, a wonderful deal of whisky-toddy did the worthy minister and his guest contrive to swallow in the heat of their arguments. Many a time and oft did good, innocent Miss Henny Comyn declare, that when the shake-hands hour arrived, Mr. Bruce, "puir man, seemed to toddle aff to his cosie beddie at Davy Bain's marvellously fu' o' the spirit!" True it was; but the ancient virgin guessed not in her guilelessness, that the spirit was an evil one, and elicited by man and fire from the unsuspecting barleycorn.

At last, as we have said, Mr. Comyn spoke out his wish—nay, his commands—that Barbara should prepare to receive Mr. Bruce as a bridegroom in six months thereafter. And now Mr. Bruce himself, a shy and dour man at other times, found courage one day, after dinner, to express his—"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we, in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to which the feelings that actuated him belonged. Honest man! bigoted and selfish as he was, he was neither cruel by nature nor cross-grained; and he was even moved by the pathetic and frank avowal which Barbara made to him on the state of her heart. But, though touched by her tears, he understood them not, treated them but as the natural mawkishness of girlish sentimentality; nor had her assurance that she could never love any one but her cousin John, power to dissuade him from the prosecution of his suit. He was void of all delicacy of feeling, was neither hurt nor displeased with her confessed partiality for another, but satisfied himself by quoting, misquoting, and utterly perverting Scripture, and concluded by assuring her that it was her bounden duty to obey her father before marriage—her husband after. He had no doubt she would be very happy as his wife, for "he was rich, and a steady Presbyterian!" And with this declaration, threatening a return in six months to claim her hand—which he had the audacity to kiss—he left her for his Glasgow warehouses.

In this dire dilemma the poor lassie knew not what course to pursue. Her aunt, although kind, indulgent, and pitying her, (for in youth she had had experience of a blighted affection, and no woman-heart, that is not nat[Pg 26]urally sour, passes through such trial without becoming sweeter)—was bound in complete serfdom to her brother, and was quite unable to suggest any means or likelihood of release; so Barbara wrote a full account of her predicament to her lover. Not long afterward, so cleverly disguised by dress as to deceive even herself, Percival was again at Aberdeen—determined, should all other methods fail, to carry off his kinswoman on the very eve of the bridal; and many a twilight evening, when the minister sat over books or took his after-dinner nap, did those two young creatures meet, unnoticed and unsuspected, on the banks of the Dee. But those meetings must soon end, for six months have passed, and Mr. Bruce—once more lodged in the house of Davy Bain—is come to wed and take home his reluctant bride.

One evening—it was cloudy and threatened foul weather, though the summer air was warm and surcharged with flower-scents—John Percival betook himself as usual to the customary trysting-place. It was a thick copse of hazel past which ran—heard but not seen—the river; which, where the shrubbery ended, formed a dark, deep pool, so garnished by overhanging nut-trees that it had acquired the name of the Nut-hole. Beyond this pool lay the road to the manse; but as the trees here ceased to offer concealment, the Nut-tree-hole became the limits to Percival's attendance on his cousin in her way homeward. The rustic seat in the centre of the coppice was still unoccupied, and he began to fear that something had transpired to prevent her from coming. It was no use to listen for the sounds of her light, advancing footsteps; for the Dee made so loud and incessant a sough as it tumbled from the steep bank that helped to form the Nut-hole, that it drowned all lesser sounds.

He was, however, soon made conscious that there were sounds which no sough of tumbling waters could drown; for, on a sudden, neither remote nor suppresed, a fierce, a pitiful cry, like that of one in some dread life-peril, struck upon his ears, succeeded by the breaking asunder of the boughs of trees, and then a plunge in the water—a heavy plunge, that made itself heard above the monotonous murmur of the falling flood. Astonished, almost alarmed, he rose, and was hastening through the thicket toward the Nut-hole, whence the noise had proceeded, when, as he was about to cross the track that led from the manse to the main road to Aberdeen, he beheld flying toward him a dark-mantled figure: he knew it at once. Her hands stretched toward him, her face ghastly with the death-white of intense horror, Barbara staggered toward him, and with a sharp, short gasp, as if she dreaded to give utterance to deep fear by a louder sound, she fainted at his very feet.

He thought no more of the Nut-hole, or of what might have happened there, absorbed in his solicitude for his beloved cousin, but his endeavors to restore her to animation were fruitless. The manse lay not two hundred yards distant; so at such a juncture, regardless of what the consequences might be to himself, he bore her in his arms; and not without some difficulty, for the track was narrow and broken up, and the night had darkened with falling rain. He reached the house. Fortunately, there was no one in the parlor but Miss Henny; and the startled maiden, seeing a stranger bearing the body of her niece, would have screamed, had he not at once whispered his own name, briefly explained what had happened, and entreated her to befriend them.

"Gae awa', gae awa', laddie," said she, as she quickly brought some vinegar from the sideboard and bathed her niece's brow with the refreshing liquid. "My brither maunna see you; nor, if I can help it, sall he know acht o' this. Gae awa', Johnny dear; he'll be back, belive. She's beginning to revive. I'll get her to bed, and tell him she's too ill to attend prayers. God bless you, my ain dawtie, what's a' this?" added she, kissing the brow of the girl, whose eyes opened to perceive the retiring form of her cousin.

If Barbara Comyn revealed to her good aunt the cause of her fright and consequent illness, it is very certain that Miss Henny kept the secret. Next morning, indeed, though with a wan face, Barbara appeared at prayers; and Mr. Comyn had concluded reading a portion of the Gospel, when a paper, falling out of the Bible, arrested his attention for a moment. Only for a moment, however; for, mentally supplicating forgiveness for that involuntary wandering of his thoughts from the act of worship in which he was engaged, the good man knelt and prayed with fervor. This sacred duty terminated, they sat down to the breakfast-table, and then the minister slowly opened the paper, glanced over it, turned deadly pale, and exclaimed,

"The great and good God be around us! Let not the delusions of Satan prevail, but keep from us the evil spirits that make us see things that are not!"

"What is the matter, brither?" cried the wondering Miss Henny, whilst, as though chained to the table, Barbara neither moved nor spoke.

"Take this, woman," said he, in a tremulous voice, "and read it to me, that I may be sure the same awful words that meet my sight also meet yours."

And the astonished Henrietta, taking the paper, read what follows:

[Pg 27]

When the awe-struck Henrietta ceased, she found that Barbara had fainted; and the minister, in a whirl of distracting thoughts to which he was unaccustomed, ascribing his child's swoon to terror, placed the ominous paper in the Bible, and determined to make known the whole mysterious case at once to Mr. Craigie, the chief magistrate of Aberdeen. Not for a single instant did Mr. Comyn suspect a hoax, or imagine the affair to be only the mischievous trick of some idler. Indeed, such was not likely; the times were superstitious, nor were there any persons connected or at variance with the family who were liable to be suspected of having played off such a foolish and wicked jest at the expense of the minister, even if any motive for doing so had existed. The minister, therefore, hastened up stairs to change his coat, leaving the Bible containing the document from the dead on the table; while his sister, finding her niece better, left her to see that her brother's best hat and gloves were ready.

We wonder what Barbara is about meanwhile.

Presently Mr. Comyn returned to the parlor, and putting the Bible in his pocket, (for he dared not again look at the horrible piece of writing,) set off at a quick pace for the town. Nor, as he hurried on, did he give a passing glance at the track which diverged from the highroad toward the Nut-tree-hole. The magistrate was at home, and great indeed was his amazement when he heard the minister's story; but lo! when Mr. Comyn, reverently taking the Bible from his pocket, opened it to show Mr. Craigie the note, written as he declared in the peculiar handwriting of his friend, he found nothing where he had deposited it but a piece of blank paper, folded up in the same form, but utterly void. And then in truth the worthy magistrate waxed somewhat wroth; at first accusing Mr. Comyn of being credulously duped by some pawkie servant who owed him a grudge, and ending by setting him down as "clean daft, doited, and dazed by too mickle study," (and in his ire he had very nearly added, "too much toddy.") But, as in no amicable frame of temper the gentlemen were about to quarrel downright, the magistrate asking the minister what proof he could adduce of Mr. Bruce's not being alive and merry, a seasonable and loud knocking at the street-door interrupted them; and presently a servant entered to announce that a drowned man had been found in the Dee, and that his body had been brought to the door!

With shaking limbs the minister followed Mr. Craigie down stairs to the lobby, now full of people. It appeared that some men employed in the salmon fisheries had, within the last hour, dragged their nets, in which they had discovered the corpse of a man whose skull had been literally smashed in twain by a violent blow.

It was, in fact, the body of Mr. Bruce. Here, indeed, was confirmation strange of the statement which the mysterious and missing document had contained; and both Mr. Craigie and the minister, exchanging looks that expressed their mutual dismay, were sorely perplexed in their own minds how to account for these singular events. The body was reverently laid out in the hall, whilst the magistrate, summoning some of his officials, and accompanied by the clergyman and one or two of the fishermen, proceeded to the cottage of David Bain.

The bell-man was not at home, having gone, they said, "to Mr. Comyn's, to inquire about his lodger, Mr. Bruce, who had not come home to his bed the night before, as was customary."

Strange glances passed between the auditors; but a sign from the magistrate imposed silence, and they departed, determining to survey the Nut-hole, near which, in the river, the body had been found in the nets, after which they had no doubt they would find the sexton at the manse. As they threaded the thicket of hazel, at some distance from the pool, one of the salmon-fishers declared, that from a plot of white-thorn and bramble-bushes he had seen the eyes of a foumart or polecat glare out upon him; and in a low voice, directing the attention of a comrade to the spot, they both imagined they could detect the figure of a man crouching among the trailing shrubs. Whispering their suspicion to Mr. Craigie, he ordered the whole party to join quietly in a search, and follow him and the minister to the Nut-hole. Thither, then, the magistrate, attended only by Mr. Comyn, proceeded; and who, think ye, found they there?

A young man, handsome and well-dressed, in the undisguised apparel of a gentleman, stood there, evidently unconscious of the advancing twain. He held a stout, club-like stick in his hand, which he was examining intently—for it was covered with blood, now dried, and amidst which stuck clots of hair! As the gentlemen came suddenly upon him he started, and dropped the stick; whilst Mr. Comyn, staring at him in wonder, for, as we have said, all disguise had been discarded, exclaimed—

"John Percival, is this you?"

A question which the young man could have answered in the affirmative with strict veracity, but for the assertion from the magistrate which followed it up.

"And you, sir, are the murderer of Mr. Bruce!"

"Good God! what do you mean!" cried the horrified youth.

"That stick, which you have just dropped, is covered with blood," said Mr. Craigie; "a foul murder has been committed, and we find you with the supposed instrument of that murder, near the very spot where there is ground to believe the act was perpetrated."

A fearful pang shot through Percival's frame, but conscious innocence made it brief,[Pg 28] and with a calmness of demeanor which guilt never could have assumed, and gravely smiling, he turned to his uncle saying—

"You cannot believe that I am guilty?"

"No, no, John!" answered the individual appealed to. "God forbid that I should judge you wrongfully, but—"

"But," interrupted the magistrate, "not only does it appear that you have slain a man, but that, desirous of fixing your guilt upon another, you have written a letter, falsely accusing an innocent person of that crime."

"Letter!" repeated Percival, "Sir, I do not even know what you mean."

"Mr. Comyn," asked the magistrate, "this young man—the nephew of my lamented friend, your late wife—paid court, as I understand, to your daughter, and was by her rejected?"

"By me, sir—by me, Mr. Craigie," answered the clergyman; "the lassie never rejected him, but I did."

"And the murdered man," slowly pronounced the magistrate, "was the betrothed husband of Miss Comyn?"

Percival started violently, uttering an ejaculation of horror and wonder, for at last he saw the inferences which Mr. Craigie seemed willing to draw from circumstances that certainly looked suspicious.

"As God is my judge, that is the truth," replied the minister, "and I had forgotten all about it. Oh! John Percival, as you are the nephew of my beloved Mary, answer me with truth, and say that you are innocent of this heinous deed!"

"I am indeed innocent, my dear uncle," said the young man; "nor did I know until this moment who the unfortunate man was, of whose untimely death I am accused."

"Here he is, gentlemen; we've got him safe and sound!" cried several voices; and dragging a wild and haggard-faced man, the fishers and officials of justice approached the trio who stood by the Nut-tree-hole.

"The Lord be our guide!" exclaimed Mr. Comyn, "it is really David Bain!" and as the wretched sexton struggled to free himself from the arms that pinioned him, the minister, prompted by a sudden impulse, advancing toward him, and looking steadily in his face, said—

"David Bain, look not to deny your crime, but confess it, and implore your Maker's pardon, even at this the eleventh hour. In my Bible, this morning, I found a paper, written by the spirit of him you murdered here last night, and charging you with the commission of the deed."

At these strange words, which in our modern times might have produced mirth, the guilty creature, losing all self-possession, uttered a loud cry, and pointing to the bloody cudgel which still lay at the magistrate's feet, exclaimed—

"I did it with that! I did it with that!" and fell back in a fit.

It would be easy to lengthen out our historiette into one of circumstantial evidence, trial, condemnation, and ultimate discovery; but we have preferred telling it as it really happened. On the person of David Bain were found a pocket-book and purse, recognized as the property of the late Mr. Bruce, and containing bank-notes and bills to a considerable amount; the sight of which, in the possession of his lodger, had evoked the cupidity of the bell-man. He made a full confession, and in due time suffered the penalty due to his offence. Meanwhile the minister, in the thankfulness of his soul to find his nephew guiltless, embraced him tenderly, and freely permitted that courtship to proceed between his daughter and him, which he had before so strenuously opposed.

One circumstance still remained a mystery, undeveloped to all save Barbara's aunt, Percival, and the worthy magistrate,—by whose advice, indeed, it was concealed from the minister; who, to his dying day, confidently believed that the paper he had found in his Bible had been placed there by supernatural interposition. But the hand of the dead had nothing to do with it, as we mean to explain.

On the evening of the murder, Barbara Comyn sallied forth to meet her cousin, leaving Mr. Bruce and her father discussing punch and polemics. She was later than usual, and as she sped along, she became aware of the approach from Aberdeen of an individual, whom she could not avoid meeting if she proceeded direct to the tryst. She therefore stole into a different track, thinking to make a circuit which would occupy the time the stranger might take in passing the copse of hazels; but, unfortunately (or fortunately, was it?), she met a poor woman, the wife of a neighboring peasant, who was on her way to the manse to implore some black currant jelly for a child suffering from sore throat. The call of distress was never disregarded by Barbara, and she flew back to the manse, procured the jelly, and giving it to the woman, hastened amidst falling rain to the trysting-place. As she was about to round the point which hid the Nut-hole from view, she heard the sounds of struggling feet and wrestling arms; and, regardless of danger to herself in her fears for Percival, she forced her way through some bushes, and beheld two men, in no friendly embrace, staggering on the very verge of the pool. Before she could look again the one had fallen on the earth; and the other, with a desperate blow of his stick on the head of the prostrate man, uttered an oath in a voice whose peculiar tones were well-known to Barbara, and in the twinkling of an eye shoved the wounded man over the bank into the Nut-tree hole!

Her blood curdling with horror, Barbara found no voice, no strength, to speak or stir; but she became, so to speak, all eye; and as the murderer, swiftly cramming into his hat and pockets something which she could not define, rose up, and forgetful of the cudgel,[Pg 29] which lay blood-dabbled on the grass, rushed from the place where he had taken the burden of a deadly sin upon his soul, she saw his face, and recognized her father's sexton—David Bain.

In terror, that found no tongue, she reached her lover, and became insensible; nor was it till her recovery, when she found herself alone with her aunt, that she felt how important to her future life might be the events of that night. She resolved, ere yet she spoke one word in reply to the questions of her aunt, to ascribe her swoon to anything but the real cause; and it was, perhaps, well she so determined, for she remembered that, in her flight from the fatal spot where she had witnessed the perpetration of so foul a deed, she had picked up a letter, which she had hid in her bosom, scarcely conscious of what she did, yet, perhaps, imperceptibly aware—with the foresight of inexplicable convictions—that it might yet prove of essential service. When she retired to her chamber, and had got rid of Aunt Henny, she took the paper from its concealment, and saw that it was the empty cover of a letter addressed to "Mr. Bruce, at the house of David Bain, Sexton;" and then the certainty struck her of the murdered man being her affianced husband.

The character of David Bain was marked by extreme avarice, and Barbara's conclusions as to the instigating cause of the crime he had committed were easily formed. But what means could she pursue in order to convict guilt, without at the same time rendering her own appearance before a public court of justice necessary? from which she shrank nervously, since the cause of her presence in such a spot, and at such an hour, must of course be revealed. A sudden thought struck her—and, wild as it was, she put it into instant execution. She knew her father's belief in supernatural agency, and trusted strongly to the effect such a document as that which she now prepared would have upon him. She wrote the note which Mr. Comyn discovered in the Bible, imitating Mr. Bruce's hand, which was peculiar, as closely as she could; and then, when the minister left it there—a circumstance which, though she did not foresee, rejoiced her—she subtracted it thence, uninterrupted and unsuspected. But when it pleased the Almighty to make manifest the murderer by the means thus strangely suggested to her, she confessed the whole to the indulgent Henny and her lover, and by their advice took the magistrate also into her confidence.

We have nothing more to relate, but that Barbara Comyn and John Percival were soon after united by the worthy minister; whilst Miss Henny was as busy as a bee in preparations for the wedding, and as happy in witnessing the happiness of others as if she had never known a care of her own.

Thiers has abandoned politics and history for the summer to visit England.

MISCELLANIES.

[From Charles Mackay's New Volume of Poems, "Egeria," &c.]

THE GARDEN GATE.

"Stand back, bewildering politics!
I've placed my fences round;
Pass on, with all your party tricks,
Nor tread my holy ground.
Stand back—I'm weary of your talk,
Your squabbles, and your hate:
You cannot enter in this walk—
I've closed my garden gate.

"Stand back, ye thoughts of trade and pelf!
I have a refuge here;
I wish to commune with myself—
My mind is out of gear.
These bowers are sacred to the page
Of philosophic lore;
Within these bounds no envies rage—
I've shut my garden door.

"Stand back, Frivolity and Show.
It is a day of Spring;
I want to see my roses blow,
And hear the blackbird sing.
I wish to prune my apple-trees,
And nail my peaches straight;
Keep to the causeway, if you please—
I've shut my garden gate.

"I have no room for such as you,
My house is somewhat small:
Let Love come here, and Friendships true
I'll give them welcome all;
They will not scorn my household stuff,
Or criticize my store.
Pass on—the world is wide enough—
I've shut my garden door.

"Stand back, ye Pomps! and let me wear
The liberty I feel.
I have a coat at elbows bare—
I love its dishabille.
Within these precincts let me rove,
With Nature, free from state;
There is no tinsel in the grove—
I've shut my garden gate.

"What boots continual glare and strife?
I cannot always climb;
I would not struggle all my life—
I need a breathing time.
Pass on—I've sanctified these grounds
To friendship, love, and lore:
Ye cannot come within the bounds—
I've shut the garden door."

Poetical Composition.—If metre and melody be worth anything at all, let them be polished to perfection; let an author "keep his piece nine years," or ninety and nine, till he has made it as musical as he can—at least, as musical as his other performances. Not that we counsel dilatory and piecemeal composition. The thought must be struck off in the passion of the moment; the sword-blade must go red-hot to the anvil, and be forged in a few seconds: true; but after the forging, long and weary polishing and grinding must follow, before your sword-blade will cut. And melody is what makes poetry cut; what gives it its life, its power, its magic influence, on the hearts of men. It must ring in their ears; it must have music in itself; it must appeal to the senses as well as to the feelings, the imagination, the intellect: then, when it seizes at once on the whole man, on body, soul, and spirit, will it "swell in the heart, and kindle in the eyes," and constrain him, he knows not why, to believe and to obey.—Fraser, for June.[Pg 30]

Poetry of the Last Age and the Present.—A writer in the last number of Fraser's Magazine says well that, "there is in periodicals and elsewhere, a vast amount of really poetic imagery, of true and tender feeling, and cultivated ingenuity, scattered up and down in the form of verse. We have no new great poets, but very many small ones—layers, as it were, and seedlings from the lofty geniuses of the last generation, showing in every line the influence of Scott, Shelley, Burns, Wordsworth, and their compeers, seeing often farther than their masters saw, but dwarfs on giants' shoulders. Not that we complain of this. Elizabethan ages must be followed by Caroline ones; and our second Elizabethan galaxy is past; Tennyson alone survives, in solitary greatness, a connecting link between the poetry of the past and that of the future. In poetry, and in many other things, ours is a Caroline age; greater than the first one, as every modern cycle in a God-taught world, will be nobler, richer, wiser than its ancient analogue; but still a merely Caroline age—an age of pedantries and imbecilities, of effete rulers, side by side with great nether powers, as yet unaccredited, anarchic, unconscious of their own laws and destinies—an age of formalisms and Pharisaisms, of parties embittered by the sense of their own decrepitude—an age of small men, destined to be the fathers of great ones. And in harmony with this, we have a poetic school of Herberts and Vaughans, Withers and Daniels, to be followed hereafter, it may be, by a Milton, of whom as yet the age has given no sign."

Death-bed Superstitions.—The practice of opening doors and boxes when a person dies is founded on the idea that the minister of purgatorial pains took the soul as it escaped from the body, and flattening it against some closed door, (which alone would serve the purpose,) crammed it into the hinges and hinge openings; thus the soul in torment was likely to be miserably pinched and squeezed by the movement on casual occasion of such door or lid. An open or swinging door frustrated this, and the fiends had to try some other locality. The friends of the departed were at least assured that they were not made the unconscious instruments of torturing the departed in their daily occupations. The superstition prevails in the north as well as in the west of England; and a similar one exists in the south of Spain, where I have seen it practiced. Among the Jews at Gibraltar there is also a strange custom when a death occurs in a house; and this consists in pouring away all the water contained in any vessel, the superstition being that the angel of death may have washed his sword therein.

Old authors notice the training of camels to move in measured time by placing the animal on gradually heated plates, and at the same time sounding a musical instrument.

An Arab Game.—The Arabs are far more amusable, far more jovial and open-hearted. They have their coffee-houses every night, and their religious festivities periodically; they play at all sorts of complicated games, resembling draughts and chess, and find means ingeniously to vary their sports. If they compromise their dignity, they succeed in whiling away their leisure time far more successfully than the pride-stuffed Levantine. One of their amusements—called the game of plaff—is worth mentioning, especially as it is not only indulged in by the vulgar, but formed the chief delight of the venerable Moharrem Bey himself. Two men, often with respectable gray beards, sit on a carpet at a little distance one from the other. All Easterns are usually dry smokers; but on this occasion they manage to foment a plentiful supply of saliva, and the game simply consists in a series of attempts on the part of the two opponents to spit on the tips of each others noses. At first, this cleanly interchange of saliva goes on slowly and deliberately—Socrates never measured the leap of a flea with more seriousness—but presently one receives a dab in the eye, another in the mouth. They begin to grow hot and angry. "I hit your nose," cries one. "No, it was my cheek!" replied the other. They draw a little nearer, in order to ascertain the truth by feeling; spit, spit, they still go, like two vicious old cats; their palates grow dry; their throats become parched; but the contest continues, and they exhaust themselves in making spittoons of each other's faces and beards. Hamlet and Laertes were not more eager and desperate. "A hit, a very palpable hit!" they exclaim, as they hawk up their last supply of ammunition. Each denies the truth; they mutually proceed to a verification, and the game of plaff often ends in a regular match of nose-pulling.—Two Years' Residence in a Levantine Family.

A Marriage in America.—A respectable farmer came in from some distance, and married the cook. The bridegroom was about fifty, and the bride was thirty years of age. The landlord and many of his boarders assisted at the ceremony, which was performed in the evening, and those of the boarders who had not been present were invited in afterward by the bridegroom to partake of wine and cake. After all were charged, he gave this sentiment, "Friendship to all, love to a few, and hatred to none." So systematically were matters managed, that next morning the bridegroom was sitting in the stove at the bar at seven o'clock, and at half-past seven breakfasted as usual at the public table, at which, of course, his wife, the cook, did not appear, and in the afternoon the happy pair left for their home. When I asked the landlord what the wife was like, he answered, "She is as pretty as a picture, and straight as a candle."—Sir J. Alexander's "Acadie," just published.[Pg 31]

Arabian Nights Entertainments in our own Time.—The Arabs, who have among them most imaginative and finished improvisatori, compare the elegant movements of a beautiful bride to those of a young camel. The Thousand and One Nights, like most clever fables, have some foundation in fact, as is well known to the friends of the Arabian man of rank, who keeps his professed story-teller as an indispensable part of his establishment. African travelers relate that these friends will assemble before his tent, or on the platform with which the house of a Moorish Arab is roofed, and there listen night after night, to a consecutive history, related for sixty or even one hundred nights in succession. The listeners on such occasions have all the air of being spell-bound, especially while hearing some of their native songs, which are frequently extemporized, full of fire, and appealing with irresistible force to the passions. "I have seen," says Major Denham, "a circle of Arabs straining their eyes with a fixed attention at one moment and bursting with loud laughter; at the next melting into tears and clasping their hands in all the ecstacy of grief and sympathy."—Leaves from the Diary of a Naturalist.

THE LAST YEAR'S LEAF.

The last year's leaf, its time is brief
Upon the beechen spray;
The green bud springs, the young bird sings
Old leaf, make room for May:
Begone, fly away,
Make room for May.

Oh, green bud smile on me awhile,
Oh, young bird, let my stay—
What joy have we, old leaf, in thee?
Make room, make room for May:
Begone, fly away,
Make room for May.—Philip Taylor.

Divination by the Bible and Key.—This superstition is very prevalent amongst the peasantry of this and adjoining parishes. When any article is suspected to have been stolen, a Bible is procured; and opened at the 1st chapter of Ruth; the stock of a street door key is then laid on the 16th verse of the above chapter, the handle protruding from the edge of the Bible; and the key is secured in this position by a string, bound tightly round the book. The person who works the charm then places his two middle fingers under the handle of the key, and this keeps the Bible suspended. He then repeats in succession the names of the parties suspected of theft; repeating at each name a portion of the verse on which the key is placed, commencing, "Whither thou goest, I will go," &c. When the name of the guilty party is pronounced, the key turns off the fingers, the Bible falls to the ground, and the guilt of the party is determined. The belief of some of the more ignorant of the lower orders in this charm is unbounded. I have seen it practiced in other counties, the key being laid over the 5th verse of the 19th chapter of Proverbs, instead of the 1st chapter of Ruth.—Godalming, April, 1850.—Notes and Queries.

Sir Thomas More's Household.—The conduct of this great man's house was a model to all, and as near an approach to his own Utopia as might well be. Erasmus says, "I should rather call his house a school or university of Christian religion, for there is none therein but readeth or studieth the liberal sciences; their special care is piety and virtue; there is no quarreling or intemperate words heard; none are seen idle; which household that worthy gentleman doth not govern, but with all courteous benevolence." The servant men abode on one side of the house, the women on the other, and met at prayer time or on Church festivals, when More would read and expound to them. He suffered no cards or dice, but gave each one his garden-plot for relaxation, or set them to sing or "play music." He had an affection for all who truly served him, and his daughters' nurse is as affectionately mentioned in his letters when from home as they are themselves. "Thomas More sendeth greeting to his most dear daughters Margaret, Elizabeth and Cecily; and to Margaret Giggs as dear to him as if she were his own," are his words in one letter; and his valued and trustworthy domestics appear in the family pictures of the family by Holbein. They requited his attachment by truest fidelity and love; and his daughter Margaret, in her last passionate interview with her father on his way to the Tower, was succeeded by Margaret Giggs and a maid-servant, who embraced and kissed their condemned master, "of whom he said after, it was homely but very lovingly done." Of these and other of his servants, Erasmus remarks, "after Sir Thomas More's death, none ever was touched with the least suspicion of any evil fame."—Mrs. Hall, in the Art Journal.

The "Passion Play" in Bavaria.—This year, the foreign journals state, is the year of the passion play of the Ammergau in Bavaria. The last representation took place in the month of July; the spectators were betwixt eight and nine thousand, collected in an open air theatre; the corps of actors, three hundred and fifty in number, some of them, says a French account, men and women as old as eighty years.

The play, which was written in 1633, and which had been recently retouched, is in twelve acts and eleven entr'acts interspersed with tableaux. The representation lasted from eight o'clock in the morning, till four in the afternoon, was most elaborately prepared, and perfectly executed. At its close, the actors fell on their knees and recited prayers in which they thanked God that their performance had succeeded so well. They were of the peasant class, and almost all belonged to the Ammergau. "This same Ammer-valley," says the Athenæum, "lies in a most picturesque country, betwixt Munich and Innspruck—on the road by the Lake of Staremberg and Partenkirch."[Pg 32]

Ambassadors.—Holland, Germany, France, America, Spain, send forth their eminent lawyers, historians, merchants, jurists, and publicists, to fill embassies and conduct negotiations; while we content ourselves with recruiting our diplomatic corps from the younger branches of the aristocracy, or from the sons of men of wealth apeing the manners and travestying the mode of life of the grand seigneurs, who conceive themselves made of "the porcelain of earth's clay." The Schimmelpennicks, the De Serres, the Rushes, the Wheatons, the Clays, the Adamses, the Jeffersons, the Rufus Kings, the Daniel Websters, the Dr. Bankses, have all been lawyers; the Washington Irvings, the Bancrofts, the Guizots, the Bunsens, the Niebuhrs, the Humboldts, the Ancillons, were men of letters before and during the period they continued ambassadors.—Fraser.

M. Guizot has been compelled to sell at auction a portion of his valuable and extensive library, and a London paper describes some of the more remarkable books, and states the prices for which they were sold. "Comte Auguste de Bastard, Peintures et Ornemens des Manuscrits Français depuis le huitième siècle jusqu'à la fin du seizième," 20 parts, all at present published, in five portfolios, Paris, 1835. This splendid work was described as the most sumptuous, unique, and costly book that has ever been produced. Each part contains eight plates, copied from the most superb examples known to exist; they are colored and finished with gold and silver equal to the exquisite originals; the whole series extends to 160 engravings in 20 livraisons, each of which was sold to subscribers only at 1800f., amounting in the whole to 36,000f., or in our money to 1,500l. No perfect copy of this production has been offered for sale in this country prior to the present time; it was sold for 200l. "Voyage de la Corvette l'Astrolabe pendant les Années, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, sous le Commandement de Capitaine d'Urville," containing copious descriptions of all the objects in science and history met with on the voyage, the whole being illustrated by splendid engravings, 30l.; "Voyage Pittoresque et Romantique en Bretagne," one of the most magnificent and extensive works ever published on the scenery and antiquities of any part of the world; the illustrations to this were executed in the most superb style of lithography; the stones were broken as soon as the plates were printed; 26l. 5s.

Sir Stratford Canning.—This eminent civilian and ambassador, whose former residence in this country is remembered with so much pleasure by his friends here, is thus referred to in a series of papers on the Diplomacy, Diplomatists, and Diplomatic Servants of England, now in course of publication in Fraser's Magazine: "He who has been forty-three years in the public service, who commenced his duties as precis-writer in the Foreign Office in July 1807, and who, having served as Secretary of Embassy to the Porte, as Envoy to the Swiss Confederation, as Minister to the United States, as Plenipotentiary on a special mission to Russia, as Plenipotentiary on a special mission to Spain, and as Ambassador three times near the Sublime Porte, is now serving with credit and advantage in that very Stamboul whose towers and minarets he first saw in 1808."

The Seven-mile Tunnel through the Alps.—Dr. Granville says: "To give at once some idea of the boldness of Chev. Mons' undertaking, we may, in the first place, state that in its progress the tunnel must pass under some of the most elevated crests of Mont Cenis,—one, in particular, where there will be 4,850 feet of mountain, capped with eternal glaciers, over head, at the middle of the tunnel, so that not only will the workmen and machinery in construction, and the passengers and trains in transit, be buried to that depth in the heart of the mountain, but all idea of shafts, either to facilitate excavation, or to promote ventilation, must be out of the question. The breath of life itself must be respired, from either extremity, with artificial aid, in shape of currents of fresh air transmitted, and of foul air withdrawn, by mechanical apparatus ever at work, at least during excavation, which is also itself to be effected by machinery of a new and simple nature, worked by water-power of mountain streams whereby the trains are also to be run through the tunnel, which ascends, from the northern or Savoy side, at Modane, all the way to its exit at Bardonneche, with a gradient equal to 19 in 1000. The machine, once presented to the rock, projects into it simultaneously four horizontal series of sixteen scalpels, working backward and forward, by means of springs cased in, and put in motion by the same water power. While these are at work, one vertical series on each side works simultaneously up and down, so that together they cut out four blocks, or rather insulate four blocks on all sides, except on the rock behind, from which they are afterward detached by hand. It has been already ascertained that each of the two machines, at the opposite ends of the tunnel, will excavate to the extent of 22 feet a day, and it is estimated that the whole excavation will be completed in four years. The gallery to be perforated by the machines will be 13 feet wide by 7 feet high, and this once cut through, the bore will be enlarged by ordinary means to 25 feet in width and 19 feet in height, and a double line of rails laid. The estimated cost of this great tunnel is only 13,804,942f. It is to be immediately commenced at the north entrance."

Medicine has killed as many people as war. Powder and pills are as fatal as powder and ball. Be careful, therefore, how you allow people to shoot them into you.