INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY
Of Literature, Art, and Science.

TEA-SMUGGLING IN RUSSIA.

The history of smuggling in all countries abounds in
curiosities of which but few ever reach the eye of the public,
the parties generally preferring to keep their adventures to
themselves. There often exist, however, along frontier lines
the traditions of thrilling exploits or amusing tricks,
recounted by old smugglers from the recollections of their own
youthful days or the narratives of their predecessors. Perhaps
no frontier is so rich in these tales as that between Spain and
France, where the mountainous recesses of the Pyrenees offer
secure retreats to the half-robber who drives the contraband
trade, as well as safe routes for the transportation of his
merchandise. On the line between the Russian Empire and Germany
the trade is greater in amount than elsewhere, but is devoid of
the romantic features which it possesses in other countries.
There, owing to the universal corruption of the servants of the
Russian government, the smuggler and the custom-house officer
are on the best terms with each Other and often are partners in
business. We find in a late number of the Deutsche
Reform, a journal of Berlin, an interesting illustration of
the extent and manner in which these frauds on the Russian
revenue are carried on, and translate it for the
International:

“The great annual tea-burning has just taken place at
Suwalki: 25,000 pounds were destroyed at it. This curious
proceeding is thus explained. Of all contraband articles that
on the exclusion of which the most weight is laid, is the tea
which is brought in from Prussia. In no country is the
consumption of tea so great as in Poland and Russia. That
smuggled in from Prussia, being imported from China by ship,
can be sold ten times cheaper than the so-called caravan-tea,
which is brought directly overland by Russian merchants. This
overland trade is one of the chief branches of Russian
commerce, and suffers serious injury from the introduction of
the smuggled article. Accordingly the government pays in cash,
the extraordinary premium of fifty cents per pound for all that
is seized, a reward which is the more attractive to the
officers on the frontiers for the reason that it is paid down
and without any discount. Formerly the confiscated tea was sold
at public auction on the condition that the buyer should carry
it over the frontier; Russian officers were appointed to take
charge of it and deliver it in some Prussian frontier town in
order to be sure of its being carried out of the country. The
consequence was that the tea was regularly carried back again
into Poland the following night, most frequently by the Russian
officers themselves. In order to apply a radical cure to this
evil, destruction by fire was decreed as the fate of all tea
that should be seized thereafter. Thus it is that from 20,000
to 40,000 pounds are yearly destroyed in the chief city of the
province. About this the official story is, that it is tea
smuggled from Prussia, while the truth is that it is usually
nothing but brown paper or damaged tea that is consumed by the
fire. In the first place the Russian officials are too rational
to burn up good tea, when by chance a real confiscation of that
article has taken place; in such a case the gentlemen take the
tea, and put upon the burning pile an equal weight of brown
paper or rags done up to resemble genuine packages. In the
second place, it is mostly damaged or useless tea that is
seized. The premium for seizures being so high, the
custom-house officers themselves cause Polish Jews to buy up
quantities of worthless stuff and bring it over the lines for
the express purpose of being seized. The time and place for
smuggling it are agreed upon. The officer lies in wait with a
third person whom he takes with him. The Jew comes with the
goods, is hailed by the officer and takes to flight. The
officer pursues the fugitive, but cannot reach him, and fires
his musket after him. Hereupon the Jew drops the package which
the officer takes and carries to the office, where he gets his
reward. The witness whom he has with him—by accident of
course—testifies to the zeal of his exertions, fruitless
though they were, for the seizure of the unknown smuggler. The
smuggler afterward receives from the officer the stipulated
portion of the reward. This trick is constantly practiced along
the frontier, and to meet the demand the Prussian dealers keep
stocks of good-for-nothing tea, which they sell generally at
five silver groschen (12-1/2 cents) a pound.”

MORE OF LEIGH HUNT.¹

Although a large portion, perhaps more than half, of these
volumes has been given to the world in previous publications,
yet the work carries this recommendation with it, that it
presents in an accessible and consecutive form a great deal of
that felicitous portrait-painting, hit off in a few words, that
pleasant anecdote, and cheerful wisdom, which lie scattered
about in books not now readily to be met with, and which will
be new and acceptable to the reading generation which has
sprung up within the last half-score years. Mr. Hunt almost
disarms criticism by the candid avowal that this performance
was commenced under circumstances which committed him to its
execution, and he tells us that it would have been abandoned at
almost every step, had these circumstances allowed. We are not
sorry that circumstances did not allow of its being abandoned,
for the autobiography, altogether apart from its stores of
pleasant readable matter, is pervaded throughout by a beautiful
tone of charity and reconcilement which does honor to the
writer’s heart, and proves that the discipline of life has
exercised on him its most chastening and benign
influence:—

The reader will find numerous striking exemplifications of
this spirit as he goes along with our author. From the serene
heights of old age, “the gray-haired boy whose heart can never
grow old,” ever and anon regrets and rebukes some egotism or
assumption, or petty irritation of bygone years, and confesses
that he can now cheerfully accept the fortunes, good and bad,
which have occurred to him, “with the disposition to believe
them the best that could have happened, whether for the
correction of what was wrong in him, or the improvement of what
was right.”

The concluding chapters contain a brief account of Mr.
Hunt’s occupations during the last twenty-five years; his
residence successively at Highgate, Hampstead, Chelsea, and
Kensington, and of his literary labors while living at these
places. Many interesting topics are touched upon—among
which we point to his remarks on the difficulties experienced
by him in meeting the literary requirements of the day, and the
peculiar demands of editors; his opinion of Mr. Carlyle; the
present condition of the stage, the absurd pretensions of
actors, and the delusions attempted respecting the “legitimate”
drama; the question of the laureateship, and his own
qualifications for holding that office; his habits of reading;
and finally an avowal of his religious opinions. We miss some
account of Mr. Hazlitt. Surely we had a better right to expect
at the hands of Hunt a sketch of that remarkable writer, than
of Coleridge, of whom he saw comparatively little. We also
expected to find some allusion to the “Round Table,” a series
of essays which appeared in the Examiner, about 1815,
written chiefly by Hazlitt, but amongst which are about a dozen
by Hunt himself, some of them perhaps the best things he has
written: we need only allude to “A Day by the Fire,” a paper
eminently characteristic of the author, and we doubt not fully
appreciated by those who know his writings. Hunt regrets having
re-cast the “Story of Rimini,” and tells us that a new edition
of the poem is meditated, in which, while retaining the
improvement in the versification, he proposes to restore the
narrative to its first course.

We take leave of the work, with a few more characteristic
passages.

A GLIMPSE OF PITT AND FOX.—Some years later, I saw Mr.
Pitt in a blue coat, buckskin breeches and boots, and a round
hat, with powder and pigtail. He was thin and gaunt, with his
hat off his forehead, and his nose in the air. Much about the
same time I saw his friend, the first Lord Liverpool, a
respectable looking old gentleman, in a brown wig. Later still,
I saw Mr. Fox, fat and jovial, though he was then declining.
He, who had been a “bean” in his youth, then looked something
quaker-like as to dress, with plain colored clothes, a broad
round hat, white waistcoat, and, if I am not mistaken, white
stockings. He was standing in Parliament street, just where the
street commences as you leave Whitehall; and was making two
young gentlemen laugh heartily at something which he seemed to
be relating.

COOKE’S EDITION OF THE BRITISH POETS.—In those times,
Cooke’s edition of the British Poets came up. I had got an odd
volume of Spenser; and I fell passionately in love with Collins
and Gray. How I loved those little sixpenny numbers, containing
whole poets! I doated on their size; I doated on their type, on
their ornaments, on their wrappers containing lists of other
poets, and on the engraving from Kirk. I bought them over and
over again, and used to get up select sets, which disappeared
like buttered crumpets; for I could resist neither giving them
away nor possessing them. When the master tormented me, when I
used to hate and loathe the sight of Homer, and Demosthenes,
and Cicero, I would comfort myself with thinking of the
sixpence in my pocket, with which I should go out to
Paternoster Row, when school was over, and buy another number
of an English poet.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS: “SANDFORD AND MERTON.”—The
children’s books in those days were Hogarth’s pictures taken in
their most literal acceptation. Every good boy was to ride in
his coach, and be a lord mayor; and every bad boy was to be
hung, or eaten by lions. The gingerbread was gilt, and the
books were gilt like the gingerbread: a “take in” the more
gross, inasmuch as nothing could be plainer or less dazzling
than the books of the same boys when they grew a little older.
There was a lingering old ballad or so in favor of the
gallanter apprentices who tore out lions’ hearts and astonished
gazing sultans; and in antiquarian corners, Percy’s “Reliques”
were preparing a nobler age, both in poetry and prose. But the
first counteraction came, as it
[pg 131] ought, in the shape of a
new book for children. The pool of mercenary and
time-serving ethics was first blown over by the fresh
country breeze of Mr. Day’s “Sandford and Merton,” a
production that I well remember, and shall ever be grateful
for. It came in aid of my mother’s perplexities, between
delicacy and hardihood, between courage and
conscientiousness. It assisted the cheerfulness I inherited
from my father; showed me that circumstances were not to
check a healthy gaiety, or the most masculine self-respect;
and helped to supply me with the resolution of standing by a
principle, not merely as a point of lowly or lofty
sacrifice, but as a matter of common sense and duty, and a
simple coöperation with the elements natural warfare.

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL.—Perhaps there is not foundation in
the country so truly English, taking that word to mean what
Englishmen wish it to mean:—something solid,
unpretending, of good character, and free to all. More boys are
to be found in it, who issue from a greater variety of ranks,
than in any other school in the kingdom and as it is the most
various, so it is the largest, of all the free schools.
Nobility do not go there except as boarders. Now and then a boy
of a noble family may be met with, and he is reckoned an
interloper, and against the charter; but the sons of poor
gentry and London citizens abound; and with them, an equal
share is given to the sons of tradesmen of the very humblest
description, not omitting servants. I would not take my oath,
but I have a strong recollection that in my time there were two
boys, one of whom went up into the drawing-room to his father,
the master of the house; and the other, down into the kitchen
to his father, the coachman. One thing, however, I know to be
certain, and it is the noblest of all; namely, that the boys
themselves (at least it was so in my time) had no sort of
feeling of the difference of one another’s ranks out of doors.
The cleverest boy was the noblest, let his father be who he
might.

AN INTENSE YOUTHFUL FRIENDSHIP.—If I had reaped no
other benefit from Christ Hospital, the school would be ever
dear to me from the recollection of the friendships I formed in
it, and of the first heavenly taste it gave me of that most
spiritual of the affections. I use the word “heavenly”
advisedly; and I call friendship the most spiritual of the
affections, because even one’s kindred, in partaking of our
flesh and blood, become, in a manner, mixed up with our entire
being. Not that I would disparage any other form of affection,
worshiping, as I do, all forms of it, love in particular,
which, in its highest state, is friendship and something more.
But if ever I tasted a disembodied transport on earth, it was
in those friendships which I entertained at school, before I
dreamt of any maturer feeling. I shall never forget the
impression it first made on me. I loved my friend for his
gentleness, his candor, his truth, his good repute, his freedom
even from my own livelier manner, his calm and reasonable
kindness. It was not any particular talent that attracted me to
him or anything striking whatsoever. I should say in one word,
it was his goodness. I doubt whether he ever had a conception
of a tithe of the regard and respect I entertained for him; and
I smile to think of the perplexity (though he never showed it)
which he probably felt sometimes at my enthusiastic
expressions; for I thought him a kind of angel. It is no
exaggeration to say, that, take away the unspiritual part of
it—the genius and the knowledge—and there is no
height of conceit indulged in by the most romantic character in
Shakspeare, which surpassed what I felt toward the merits I
ascribed to him, and the delight which I took in his society.
With the other boys I played antics, and rioted in fantastic
jests; but in his society, or whenever I thought of him, I fell
into a kind of Sabbath state of bliss; and I am sure I could
have died for him.

ANECDOTE OF MATHEWS.—One morning, after stopping all
night at this pleasant house, I was getting up to breakfast,
when I heard the noise of a little boy having his face washed.
Our host was a merry bachelor, and to the rosiness of a priest
might, for aught I knew, have added the paternity; but I had
never heard of it, and still less expected to find a child in
his house. More obvious and obstreperous proofs, however, of
the existence of a boy with a dirty face, could not have been
met with. You heard the child crying and objecting; then the
woman remonstrating; then the cries of the child snubbed and
swallowed up in the hard towel; and at intervals out came his
voice bubbling and deploring, and was again swallowed up. At
breakfast, the child being pitied, I ventured to speak about
it, and was laughing and sympathizing in perfect good faith,
when Mathews came in, and I found that the little urchin was
he.

SHELLEY’S GENEROSITY.—As an instance of Shelley’s
extraordinary generosity, a friend of his, a man of letters,
enjoyed from him at that period a pension of a hundred a year,
though he had but a thousand of his own; and he continued to
enjoy it till fortune rendered it superfluous. But the
princeliness of his disposition was seen most in his behavior
to another friend, the writer of this memoir, who is proud to
relate that, with money raised with an effort, Shelley once
made him a present of fourteen hundred pounds, to extricate him
from debt. I was not extricated, for I had not yet learned to
be careful; but the shame of not being so, after such
generosity, and the pain which my friend afterward underwent
when I was in trouble and he was helpless, were the first
causes of my thinking of money matters to any purpose. His last
sixpence was ever at my service, had I chosen to share it. In a
poetical epistle written some years after, and published in the
volume of “Posthumous Poems,” Shelley, in alluding to his
friend’s circumstances, which for the second time were then
straitened, only made an affectionate lamentation that he
himself was poor; never once hinting that he had himself
drained his purse for his friend.

MRS. JORDAN.—Mrs. Jordan was inimitable in
exemplifying the consequences of too much restraint in
ill-educated country girls, in romps, in hoydens, and in wards
on whom the mercenary have designs. She wore a bib and tucker,
and pinafore, with a bouncing propriety, fit to make the
boldest spectator alarmed at the idea of bringing such a
household responsibility on his shoulders. To see her when thus
attired, shed blubbering tears for some disappointment, and eat
all the while a great thick slice of bread and butter, weeping,
and moaning, and munching, and eyeing at very bite the part she
meant to bite next, was a lesson against will and appetite
worth a hundred sermons, and no one could produce such an
impression in favor of amiableness as she did, when she acted
in gentle, generous, and confiding character. The way in which
she would take a friend by the cheek and kiss her, or make up a
quarrel with a lover, or coax a guardian into good humor, or
sing (without accompaniment) the song of, “Since then
[pg 132] I’m doom’d,” or “In the
dead of the night,” trusting, as she had a right to do, and
as the house wished her to do, to the sole effect of her
sweet, mellow, and loving voice—the reader will pardon
me, but tears of pleasure and regret come into my eyes at
the recollection, as if she personified whatsoever was happy
at that period of life, and which has gone like herself. The
very sound of the familiar word ‘bud’ from her lips (the
abbreviation of husband,) as she packed it closer, as it
were, in the utterance, and pouted it up with fondness in
the man’s face, taking him at the same time by the chin, was
a whole concentrated world of the power of loving.

RESIDENCE AT CHELSEA.—REMOTENESS IN
NEARNESS.—From the noise and dust of the New Road, my
family removed to a corner in Chelsea where the air of the
neighboring river was so refreshing, and the quiet of the
“no-thoroughfare” so full of repose, that, although our
fortunes were at their worst, and my health almost of a piece
with them, I felt for some weeks as if I could sit still for
ever, embalmed in the silence. I got to like the very cries in
the street for making me the more aware of it for the contrast.
I fancied they were unlike the cries in other quarters of the
suburbs, and that they retained something of the old quaintness
and melodiousness which procured them the reputation of having
been composed by Purcell and others. Nor is this unlikely, when
it is considered how fond those masters were of sporting with
their art, and setting the most trivial words to music in their
glees and catches. The primitive cries of cowslips, primroses,
and hot cross buns, seemed never to have quitted this
sequestered region. They were like daisies in a bit of
surviving field. There was an old seller of fish in particular,
whose cry of “Shrimps as large as prawns,” was such a regular,
long-drawn, and truly pleasing melody, that in spite of his
hoarse, and I am afraid, drunken voice, I used to wish for it
of an evening, and hail it when it came. It lasted for some
years, then faded, and went out; I suppose, with the poor old
weather-beaten fellow’s existence. This sense of quiet and
repose may have been increased by an early association of
Chelsea with something out of the pale; nay, remote. It may
seem strange to hear a man who has crossed the Alps talk of one
suburb as being remote from another. But the sense of distance
is not in space only; it is in difference and discontinuance. A
little back-room in a street in London is further removed from
the noise, than a front room in a country town. In childhood,
the farthest local point which I reached anywhere, provided it
was quiet, always seemed to me a sort of end of the world; and
I remembered particularly feeling this, the only time when I
had previously visited Chelsea, which was at that period of
life…. I know not whether the corner I speak of remains as
quiet as it was. I am afraid not; for steamboats have carried
vicissitude into Chelsea, and Belgravia threatens it with her
mighty advent. But to complete my sense of repose and distance,
the house was of that old-fashioned sort which I have always
loved best, familiar to the eyes of my parents, and associated
with childhood. It had seats in the windows, a small third room
on the first floor, of which I made a sanctum, into
which no perturbation was to enter, except to calm itself with
religious and cheerful thoughts (a room thus appropriated in a
house appears to me an excellent thing;) and there were a few
lime-trees in front, which in their due season diffused a
fragrance.

LAMARTINE’S NEW ROMANCE.

The great poet of affairs, philosophy, and sentiment, before
leaving the scenes of his triumphs and misfortunes for his
present visit to the East, confided to the proprietors of Le
Constitutionel a new chapter of his romanticized memoirs to
be published in the feuilleton of that journal, under
the name of “Genevieve.” This work, which promises to surpass
in attractive interest anything Lamartine has given to the
public in many years, will be translated as rapidly as the
advanced sheets of it are received here, by Mr. Fayette
Robinson, whose thorough apprehension and enjoyment of the
nicest delicacies of the French language, and free and manly
style of English, qualify him to do the fullest justice to such
an author and subject. His version of “Genevieve” will be
issued, upon its completion, by the publishers of The
International. We give a specimen of its quality in the
following characteristic description, of Marseilles, premising
that the work is dedicated to “Mlle. Reine-Garde, seamstress,
and formerly a servant, at Aix, in Provence.”

“Before I commence with the history of Genevieve, this
series of stories and dialogues used by country people, it is
necessary to define the spirit which animated their composition
and to tell why they were written. I must also tell why I
dedicate this first story to Mlle. Reine-Garde, seamstress and
servant at Aix in Provence. This is the reason.

“I had passed a portion of the summer of 1846 at that Smyrna
of France, called Marseilles, that city, the commercial
activity of which has become the chief ladder of
national enterprise, and the general rendezvous, of those steam
caravans of the West, our railroads; a city the Attic taste of
which justifies it in assuming to itself all the intellectual
cultivation, like the Asiatic Smyrna, inherent in the memory of
great poets. I lived outside of the city, the heat of which was
too great for an invalid, in one of those villas formerly
called bastides, so contrived as to enable the occupants
during the calmness of a summer evening—and no people in
the world love nature so well—to watch the white sails
and look on the motion of the southern breeze. Never did any
other people imbibe more of the spirit of poetry than does that
of Marseilles. So much does climate do for it.

“The garden of the little villa in which I dwelt opened by a
gateway to the sandy shore of the sea. Between it and the water
was a long avenue of plane trees, behind the mountain of Notre
Dame de la Garde, and almost touching the little lily-bordered
stream which surrounded the beautiful park and villa of the
Borelli. We heard at our windows every motion of the sea as it
tossed on its couch and pillow of sand, and when the garden
gate was opened, the sea foam reached almost the wall of the
house, and seemed to withdraw so gradually as if to
[pg 133] deceive and laugh at any
hand which would seek to bedew itself with its moisture. I
thus passed hour after hour seated on a huge stone beneath a
fig-tree, looking on that mingling of light and motion which
we call the Sea. From time to time the sail of a
fisherman’s boat, or the smoke which hung like drapery above
the pipe of a steamer, rose above the chord of the arc which
formed the gulf, and afforded a relief to the monotony of
the horizon.

“On working days, this vista was almost a desert, but when
Sunday came, it was made lively by groups of sailors, rich and
idle citizens, and whole families of mercantile men who
came to bathe or rest themselves, there enjoying the luxury
both of the shade and of the sea. The mingled murmur of the
voices both of men, women and children, enchanted with sunlight
and with repose, united with the babbling of the waves which
seemed to fall on the shore light and elastic as sheets of
steel. Many boats either by sails or oars, were wafted around
the extremity of Cape Notre-Dame de la Garde, with its heavy
grove of shadowy pines; as they crossed the gulf, they touched
the very margin of the water, to be able to reach the opposite
bank. Even the palpitations of the sail were audible, the
cadence of the oars, conversation, song, the laughter of the
merry flower and orange-girls of Marseilles, those true
daughters of the gulf, so passionately fond of the wave, and
devoted to the luxury of wild sports with their native element
were heard.

“With the exception of the patriarchal family of the
Rostand, that great house of ship-owners, which linked Smyrna,
Athens, Syria and Egypt to France by their various enterprises,
and to whom I had been indebted for all the pleasures of my
first voyage to the East; with the exception of M. Miege, the
general agent of all our maritime diplomacy in the
Mediterranean, with the exception of Joseph Autran, that
oriental poet who refuses to quit his native region because he
prefers his natural elements to glory, I knew but few persons
at Marseilles. I wished to make no acquaintances and sought
isolation and leisure, leisure and study. I wrote the history
of one revolution, without a suspicion that the spirit of
another convulsion looked over my shoulder, hurrying me from
the half finished page, to participate not with the pen, but
manually, in another of the great Dramas of France.

“Marseilles is however hospitable as its sea, its port, and
its climate. A beautiful nature there expands the heart. Where
heaven smiles man also is tempted to be mirthful. Scarcely had
I fixed myself in the faubourg, when the men of letters, of
politics,—the merchants who had proposed great objects to
themselves, and who entertained extended views; the youth, in
the ears of whom yet dwelt the echoes of my old poems; the men
who lived by the labor of their own hands, many of whom however
write, study, sing, and make verses, come to my retreat,
bringing with them, however, that delicate reserve which is the
modesty and grace of hospitality. I received pleasure without
any annoyances from this hospitality and attention. I devoted
my mornings to study, my days to solitude and to the sea, my
evenings to a small number of unknown friends, who came from
the city to speak to me of travels, literature, and
commerce.

“Commerce at Marseilles is not a matter of paltry traffic,
or trifling parsimony and retrenchments of capital. Marseilles
looks on all questions of commerce as a dilation and expansion
of French capital, and of the raw material exported and
imported from Europe and Asia. Commerce at Marseilles is a
lucrative diplomacy, at the same time, both local and national.
Patriotism animates its enterprises, honor floats with its
flag, and policy presides over every departure. Their commerce
is one eternal battle, waged on the ocean at their own peril
and risk, with those rivals who contend with France for Asia
and Africa, and for the purpose of extending the French name
and fame over the opposite continents which touch on the
Mediterranean.

“One Sunday, after a long excursion on the sea with Madame
Lamartine, we were told that a woman, modest and timid in her
deportment, had come in the diligence from Aix to Marseilles,
and for four or five hours had been waiting for us in a little
orange grove next between the villa and the garden. I suffered
my wife to go into the house, and passed myself into the orange
grove to receive the stranger. I had no acquaintance with any
one at Aix, and was utterly ignorant of the motive which could
have induced my visitor to wait so long and so patiently for
me.

“When I went into the orange grove, I saw a woman still
youthful, of about thirty-six or forty years of age. She wore a
working-dress which betokened little ease and less luxury, a
robe of striped Indienne, discolored and faded; a cotton
handkerchief on her neck, her black hair neatly braided, but
like her shoes, somewhat soiled by the dust of the road. Her
features were fine and graceful, with that mild and docile
Asiatic expression, which renders any muscular tension
impossible, and gives utterance only to inspiring and
attractive candor. Her mouth was possibly a line too large, and
her brow was unwrinkled as that of a child. The lower part of
her face was very full, and was joined by full undulations,
altogether feminine however in their character, to a throat
which was large and somewhat distended at the middle, like that
of the old Greek statues. Her glance had the expression of the
moonlight of her country rather than of its sun. It was the
expression of timidity mingled with confidence in the
indulgence of another, emanating from a forgetfulness of her
own nature. In fine, it was the image of good-feeling,
impressed as well on her air as on her
[pg 134] heart, and which seem
confident that others are like her. It was evident that this
woman, who was yet so agreeable, must in her youth have been
most attractive. She yet had what the people (the language
of which is so expressive) call the seed of beauty,
that prestige, that ray, that star, that essence,
that indescribable something, which attracts, charms, and
enslaves us. When she saw me, her embarrassment and blushes
enabled me to contemplate her calmly and to feel myself at
once at ease with her. I begged her to sit down at once on
an orange-box over which was thrown a Syrian mat, and to
encourage her sat down in front of her. Her blushes
continued to increase, and she passed her dimpled but rather
large hand more than once over her eyes. She did not know
how to begin nor what to say. I sought to give her
confidence, and by one or two questions assisted her in
opening the conversation she seemed both to wish for and to
fear.”

[This girl is Reine-Garde, a peasant woman, attracted by a
passionate love of his poetry to visit Lamartine. She unfolds
to him much that is exquisitely reproduced in Genevieve. The
romance bids fair to be one of the most interesting this author
has yet produced.]

“Madame ——,” said I to her. She blushed yet
more.

“I have no husband, Monsieur. I am an unmarried woman.”

“Ah! Mlle, will you be pleased to tell me why you have come
so far, and why you waited so long to speak with me? Can I be
useful to you in any manner? Have you any letter to give me
from any one in your neighborhood?”

“Ah, Monsieur, I have no letter, I have nothing to ask of
you, and the last thing in the world that I should have done,
would have been to get a letter from any of the gentlemen in my
neighborhood to you. I would not even have suffered them to
know that I came to Marseilles to see you. They would have
thought me a vain creature, who sought to magnify her
importance by visiting people who are so famous. Ah, that would
never do!”

“What then do you wish to say?”

“Nothing, Monsieur.”

“How can that be? You should not for nothing have
wasted two days in coming from Aix to Marseilles, and should
not have waited for me here until sunset, when to-morrow you
must return home.”

“It is, however, true, Monsieur. I know you will think me
very foolish, but … I have nothing to tell you, and not for a
fortune would I consent that people at Aix should know whither
I am gone.”

“Something however induced you to come—you are not one
of those triflers who go hither and thither without a motive. I
think you are intellectual and intelligent. Reflect. What
induced you to take a place in the diligence and come to see
me? Eh!”

“Well, sir,” said she, passing her hands over her cheeks as
if to wipe away all blushes and embarrassment, and at the same
time pushing her long black curls, moist as they were with
perspiration, beyond her ears, “I had an idea which permitted
me neither to sleep by day nor night; I said to myself, Reine,
you must be satisfied. You must say nothing to any one. You
must shut up your shop on Saturday night as you are in the
habit of doing. You must take a place in the night diligence
and go on Sunday to Marseilles. You will go to see that
gentleman, and on Monday morning you can again be at work. All
will then be over and for once in your life you will have been
satisfied without your neighbors having once fancied for a
moment that you have passed the limits of the street in which
you live.”

“Why, however, did you wish so much to see me? How did you
even know that I was here?”

“Thus, Monsieur: a person came to Aix who was very kind to
me, for I am the dressmaker of his daughters, having previously
been a servant in his mother’s country-house. The family has
always been kind and attentive, because in Provence, the nobles
do not despise the peasants. Ah! it is far otherwise—some
are lofty and others humble, but their hearts are all alike.
Monsieur and the young ladies knew how I loved to read,
and that I am unable to buy books and newspapers. They
sometimes lent books to me, when they saw anything which they
fancied would interest me, such as fashion plates, engravings
of ladies’ bonnets, interesting stories, like that of Reboul,
the baker of Nimes, Jasmin, the hairdresser of Agen, or
Monsieur, the history of your own life. They know,
Monsieur, that above all things I love poetry, especially that
which brings tears into the eyes.”

“Ah, I know,” said I with a smile, “you are poetical as the
winds which sigh amid your olive-groves, or the dews which drip
from your fig trees.”

“No, Monsieur, I am only a mantua-maker—a poor
seamstress in … street, in Aix, the name of which I am almost
ashamed to tell you. I am no finer lady than was my mother.
Once I was servant and nurse in the house of M…. Ah! they
were good people and treated me always as if I belonged to the
family. I too thought I did. My health however, obliged me to
leave them and establish myself as a mantua-maker, in one room,
with no companion but a goldfinch. That, however, is not the
question you asked me,—why I have come hither? I will
tell you.”

Truth is altogether ineffably, holily beautiful. Beauty has
always truth in it, but seldom unadulterated.

The poet’s soul should be like the ocean, able to carry
navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger.

Original Poetry

AZELA.

BY MISS ALICE CAREY.

TWO COUNTRY SONNETS.

I.—THE CONTRAST

II.—PLEASURE.

July, 1850.

Original Correspondence.

RAMBLES IN THE PENINSULA.

No III.

BARCELONA, May 27, 1850.

My dear friend—I have been exceedingly pleased with
what I have seen and experienced during the time I have already
spent in this handsome and agreeable city. At present I have no
traveling companion, and have moreover only encountered one of
my countrymen (with the exception of the consuls) since my
departure from Madrid, in January last. Besides, I seldom hear
the United States mentioned, never see any papers, associate
almost altogether with Spaniards, and converse chiefly in their
language.

The American Consul here (who is by the way a Spaniard) has
been very attentive and kind to me. We have taken several walks
together, in which he has pointed out to me the most notable
edifices of Barcelona. Among these is the magnificent theater
called El Siceo, which is one of the grandest in the world. It
is certainly the most splendid of the kind I have ever seen. It
was built by subscription, at an expense of about half a
million of dollars, and is capable of containing nearly six
thousand persons. To my regret it is now closed. There is
another very fine theater here called El Principal, which is
open every evening. Last night I went to see the amusing opera
of Don Pasquale, by Donizetti, which was quite laudably
performed. In fact I go most every night, as I have nothing
else to do, and have an excellent seat at my disposal, with
which the consul has been so kind as to favor me. The
appearance and manners of the audience are more interesting to
me than those of the stage-actors. Besides, I like to accustom
my ear to the Spanish, which I now speak with considerable
fluency and correctness. I have devoted much study to this and
the French language since I have been in Spain, and am now
making some progress in the Italian, through the Spanish. I am
convinced that no man can properly understand a people without
knowing something of their language, which is in a great degree
the index of their character. Moreover it is an indispensable
condition to comfortable travel.

Among the distinguished characters in town is the famous
Governor Tacon, who so [pg 137] admirably conducted the
affairs of state in the island of Cuba some years since. He
is staying with a particular friend of the consul, who is an
immensely wealthy man and lives in the most princely style.
I visited the house a few days since, before the arrival of
the governor, and was delighted with the splendid taste
displayed in the fresco of the ceiling, the stucco of the
walls, and indeed with every article of furniture with which
the rooms were supplied. On the parterre, or lower roof, was
a little gem of a garden, with raised beds, blooming with
beautiful plants and flowers, while in the middle was a
fountain and on each side a miniature arbor of grapes.
Really, nothing could be more charming and luxurious. It was
like peeping into the bygone days of fairydom.

Barcelona is one of the best places in Spain for one to be
during the observance of remarkable festivals. The celebration
of Corpus Christi, which commences on the 30th, is said to be
conducted here on a most magnificent scale. Of this I can form
some conception from the brilliant procession which I witnessed
yesterday afternoon, it being Trinity Sunday. The procession
was preceded by two men on mules, over whose necks were strung
a pair of tambours, (a kind of drum,) upon which the men were
vigorously beating. Then came a priest, bearing a large and
elaborately worked cross; after him came the body of the
procession in regular order, consisting of young priests in
white gowns, chanting as they marched; citizens in black, with
white waistcoats and without hats; little girls representing
the angels, in snowy gauze dresses with flowers, garlands, and
a light azure scarf flowing from their heads; numerous bands of
music, some of them playing solemn airs, others quick-steps and
polkas; a fine display of infantry, and after all a noble body
of cavalry, on fine horses, in striking uniform, each of them
carrying a spear-topped banner in their hands. The general
appearance of this procession, (each member of which, with the
exception of the soldiers, carried a lighted candle or torch in
his hand,) marching through one of the superb but narrow
streets, while from almost every balcony was suspended a gay
“trede,” (a scarf-like awning,) either of blue, or crimson, or
yellow, the balconies themselves being crowded with clusters of
bright-eyed girls,—constituted one of the most brilliant
and attractive spectacles that I ever witnessed. Yet they tell
me that the procession of Corpus Christi will be infinitely
more splendid and elaborate.

I am living here very comfortably. My rooms are pleasant and
overlook the charming Rambla. My mornings are generally spent
in reading and studying Spanish. At four o’clock my Irish
friend and myself proceed to the fine restaurant where we are
accustomed to dine: here we meet an intelligent Spanish
gentleman, who completes our party, and as he does not speak
English, all conversation is conducted at the table in the
Spanish language. Dinner being over, we next visit a palverine
cafe, where we meet a number of Spanish acquaintances, with
whom we take coffee and a cigar. We all sally out together, and
walk for an hour or two, either in the environs of the city, or
along their mural terrace, overlooking the blue waters of the
Mediterranean, closing our promenade at length upon the crowded
and animated Rambla. After the theater, a stroll in the
moonlight upon this magnificent promenade, and as the clock
strikes the hour of midnight we retire, and bathe in the waters
of oblivion till morn. My days in Spain are drawing near their
end. I am ready to leave, though I shall cast many a lingering
thought, many a fond recollection behind; and in future years,
I shall sadly recall these hours, which, I fear, can never be
recalled. But away with the enervating reflections of grief!
Read nothing in the past but lessons for the future. When you
think of its pleasures, think also of the cares they produced
and the anxieties they cost you. Behold, they are ended, and
forever. Have you reaped from them a moral, or have you been
poisoned with their sting? Have you not discovered that
pleasure is a phantom, which vanishes in proportion to the
eagerness with which it is pursued? that by itself it fatigues
without satisfying—that it knows no limits or bounds to
gratify the restless and unfettered soul—that it is a
feeble soil, which, without the sweat of labor and the
tears of sorrow, produces nothing but the weeds of sin and the
thorny briars of remorse? Have you learned all this, and are
you not a wiser and a better man? Let all who have traveled for
pleasure answer the question to themselves.

Truly your friend,

JOHN E. WARREN.

The Rev Henry Giles, in a lecture on “Manliness,” thus
designates the four great characteristics which have
distinguished mankind. “The Hebrew was mighty by the power of
Faith—the Greek by Knowledge and Art—the Roman by
Arms—but the might of the Modern Man is placed in Work.
This is shown by the peculiar pride of each. The pride of the
Hebrew was in Religion—the pride of the Greek was in
Wisdom—the pride of the Roman was in Power—the
pride of the Modern Man is placed in Wealth.”

Carlyle and Emerson.—They are not finished writers,
but great quarries of thought and imagery. Of the two, Emerson
is much the finer spirit. He has not the radiant range of
imagination or any of the rough power of Carlyle, but his
placid, piercing insight irradiates the depth of truth further
and clearer than do the strained glances of the latter. A
higher mental altitude than Carlyle has mounted, by most
strenuous effort, Emerson has serenely assumed.

Authors and Books.

The Literature of Supernaturalism was never more in request
than since the Seeresses of Rochester commenced their levees at
Barnum’s Hotel. The journals have been filled with jesting and
speculation upon the subject,—mountebank tricksters and
shrewd professors have plied their keenest wits to discover the
processes of the rappings—and Mrs. Fish and the Foxes in
spite of them all preserve their secret, or at least are as
successful as ever in persuading themselves and others that
they are admitted to communications with the spiritual world.
For ourselves, while we can suggest no explanation of these
phenomena, and while in every attempted explanation of them
which we have seen, we detect some such difficulty or absurdity
as makes necessary its rejection, we certainly could never for
a moment be tempted to a suspicion that there is anything
supernatural in the matter. Such an idea is simply ridiculous,
and will be tolerated only by the ignorant, the feeble-minded,
or the insane. Still, the “knockings” are sufficiently
mysterious, and if unexposed, sufficiently fruitful of evil, to
be legitimate subjects of investigation, and he who under such
circumstances is so careful of his dignity as to disregard the
subject altogether, is as much mistaken as the gravest buffoon
of the circus. We reviewed a week or two ago “The Phantom
World,” just republished by Mr. Hart; the Appletons have
recently printed an original work which we believe has
considerable merit, entitled “Credulity and Superstition;” and
Mr. Redfield has in press and nearly ready, an edition of “The
Night Side of Nature,” by Miss Crowe, author of “Susan Hopley.”
This we believe is the cleverest performance upon ghosts and
ghost-seers that has appeared in English since the days of
Richard Glanvill; and with the others, it will be of service in
checking the progress of the pitiable superstition which has
been readily accepted by a large class of people, so peculiarly
constituted that they could not help rejecting the Christian
religion for its “unreasonableness and incredibility!”

“Some Honest Opinions upon Authors, Books, and other
subjects,” is the title of a new volume by the late Edgar A.
Poe, which Mr. Redfield will publish during the Fall. It will
embrace besides several of the author’s most elaborate
æsthetical essays, those caustic personalities and criticisms
from his pen which, during several years, attracted so much
attention in our literary world. Among his subjects are Bryant,
Cooper, Pauldings, Hawthorne, Willis, Longfellow, Verplanck,
Bush, Anthon, Hoffman, Cornelius Mathews, Henry B. Hirst, Mrs.
Oakes Smith, Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs. Lewis, Margaret Fuller, Miss
Sedgwick, and many more of this country, beside Macaulay,
Bulwer, Dickens, Horne, Miss Barrett, and some dozen others of
England.

Mr. Dudley Bean occupies the first two sheets of the last
Knickerbocker with a very erudite and picturesque
description of the attack upon Ticonderoga by the grand army
under Lords Amherst and Howe, in “the old French War.” Mr. Bean
is an accomplished merchant, of literary abilities and a taste
for antiquarian research, and he is probably better informed
than any other person living upon the history and topography of
all the country for many miles about Lake George, which is the
most classical region of the United States. He has treated the
chief points of this history in many interesting papers which
he has within a few years contributed to the journals, and we
have promise of a couple of octavos, embracing the whole
subject, from his pen, at an early day. We know of nothing in
the literature of our local and particular history that is more
pleasing than the specimens of his quality in this way which
have fallen under our notice.

Mr. William Young, the thoroughly accomplished editor of the
Albion, is to be our creditor in the coming autumn for
two hundred songs of Beranger, in English, with the pictorial
illustrations which graced the splendid edition of the great
lyrist’s works recently issued in Paris. Mr. Young may be said
to be as familiar with the niceties of the French language as
the eloquent and forcible editorials of the Albion show
him to be with those of his vernacular; and he has studied
Beranger with such a genial love and diligence, that he would
probably be one of his best editors, even in Paris. In literal
truth and elaborate finish, we think his volume will show him
to be a capital, a nearly faultless, translator. But Beranger
is a very difficult author to turn into English, and we believe
all who have hitherto essayed this labor have found his spirit
too evanescent for their art. The learned and brilliant “Father
Prout” has been in some respects the most successful of them
all; but his versions are not to be compared with Mr. Young’s
for adherence either to the bard’s own meaning or music. In
pouring out the Frenchman’s champagne, the latter somehow
suffers the sparkle and bead to escape, while the former cheats
us by making his stale liquor foam with London soda. We shall
be impatient for Mr. Young’s book, which will be published by
Putnam, in a style of unusual beauty.

Dr. Achilli, whose history, so full of various and romantic
vicissitudes, has become familiar in consequence of his
imprisonments in the Roman Inquisition, is now in London, at
the head of a congregation of Protestant Italians. He has
intimated to Dr. Baird his intention to visit this country
within a few months. He resided here many years ago.

Shirley, by the author of Jane Eyre, has been translated
into French, and is appearing as the feuilleton of the
National, newspaper.
[pg 139] Mr. LIVERMORE, one of our
most learned bibliopoles, has a very interesting article
upon Public Libraries, in the last North American
Review. He notices in detail several generally
inaccessible reports on the libraries of Europe and this
country; after referring to the number and extent of
libraries here and elsewhere, and showing that in this
respect we rank far below most of the countries of Europe,
though second to none in general intelligence and the means
of common education, he urges the institution of a large
national library, and sees in the foundation of the
Smithsonian Institution a prospect that the subject is
likely to receive speedy and efficient attention.

PROFESSOR JOHNSON, author of the well-known work on
Agricultural Chemistry, has been delivering lectures upon the
results of his recent tour in the British Provinces and the
United States, in one of which he observed, “In New Brunswick,
New England, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York,
the growth of wheat has almost ceased; and it is now gradually
receding farther and farther westward. Now, when I tell you
this, you will see that it will not be very long before America
is unable supply us with wheat in any large quantity. If we
could bring Indian corn into general use, we might get plenty
of it; but I do not think that the United States need be any
bug bear to you.” Prof. J. was in New York last March.

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN, with Miss Hayes, the translator of George
Sand’s best works, was at the last dates on a visit to the
popular poetess of the milliner and chambermaid classes, Eliza
Cook, who was very ill. Miss Cushman is really quite as good a
poet as Miss Cook, though by no means so fluent a versifier.
She will return to the United States in a few weeks to fulfill
some professional engagements.

Rev. Mr. MOUNTFORD, an English Unitarian clergyman, who
recently came to this country, and who is known in literature
and religion as the author of the two very clever works,
“Martyria” and “Euthanasia,” has become minister of a
congregation at Gloucester, in Massachusetts.

BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE, author of “The Life and Times of
Louis Philippe,” &c., invited the corps of Massachusetts
Volunteers, commanded by him in the Mexican campaign, to
celebrate the anniversary of their return, at his pleasant
residence on Indian Hill Farm, in West Newbury, last
Friday.

Rev. WARREN BURTON, a graceful writer and popular preacher
among the Unitarians, has resigned the pastoral office in
Worcester to give his undivided attention to the advocacy of
certain theories he has formed for the moral education of the
young.

RICHARD S. MCCULLOCH, Professor of Natural Philosophy at
Princeton College, and some time since melter and refiner of
the United States Mint, has addressed a letter to the Secretary
of the Treasury, in which he states that he has discovered a
new, quick, and economical method of refining argentiferous and
other gold bullion, whereby the work may be done in one-half
the present time, and a large saving effected in interest upon
the amount refined.

THE LATE SIR JOSEPH BANKS lies buried in Heston Church.
There is neither inscription, nor monument, nor memorial window
to mark the place of his sepulture; even his hatchment has been
removed from its place. Surely, as President of the Royal
Society, a member of so many foreign institutions, as well as a
man who had traveled so much, he should have been thought
worthy of some slight mark of respect.

ELIHU BURRITT is presented with the Prince of Wales in one
of the designs for medals to be distributed on the occasion of
the great Industrial Exhibition in London; and the Athenæum
properly suggests that such an obtrusion of the “learned
Blacksmith” (who has really scarce any learning at all) is
“little better than a burlesque.”

HORACE MANN, President of the late National Convention of
the friends of education, had issued an address inviting all
friendly to the object, whether connected with and interested
in common-schools, academies, or colleges, to meet in
convention at Philadelphia on the fourth day of August
next.

LIEUT. MAURY says that the new planet, Parthenope,
discovered by M. Gasparis, of Naples, has been observed at
Washington, by Mr. J. Ferguson. It resembles a star of the
tenth magnitude. This is the eleventh in the family of
asteroids, and the seventh within the last five years.

GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL is now in New York, having visited
New Orleans since his return from Paris. His History of the
Mexican War, illustrated by some of the cleverest artists of
France, will soon be published here and in London.

Mrs. FANNY KEMBLE has left this country for England, on
account of the sudden illness of her father, Charles Kemble, of
whose low state of health we have been apprised by almost every
arrival for a year.

M. BALZAC’s recent marriage, at his rather advanced period
of life, finds him, for the first time, an invalid, and serious
fears are now entertained for him, by friends and
physicians.

ORESTES A. BROWNSON has received the degree of LL.D. from
the R.C. College, Fordham.

Recent Deaths.

SARGENT S. PRENTISS, one of the most distinguished popular
orators of the age, died at Natchez, Mississippi, on the 3d
inst. He was a native of Maine, and after being admitted to the
bar he emigrated to the Southwest, where his great natural
genius, with his energy and perseverance, soon gained for him a
well-deserved reputation as one of the most successful
advocates at the bar, and as one of the most brilliant and
effective speakers in all that part of the country, where
“stumping” is the almost universal practice among political
aspirants.

He was once elected to the House of Representatives from his
adopted State, and was excluded from his seat by the casting
vote of James K. Polk, at that time Speaker of the House. The
facts in regard to the affair, according to the Tribune,
are substantially as follows: In 1837, the President, Mr. Van
Buren, called an Extra Session of Congress to assemble in
September of that year. The laws of Mississippi required that
the election for Congressmen for that State for the
twenty-fifth Congress should be held in November, and in order
that the State should be represented in the Extra Session, the
Governor ordered an election to be held in July for the choice
of two Congressmen “to fill the vacancy until superseded by the
members to be elected at the next regular election, on the
first Monday, and the day following, in November next.” The
election was held under the authority of the Governor’s
proclamation, and the Democratic candidates, Claiborne and
Gholson, were elected by default. They took their seats in the
House, in which there was a decided Democratic majority, and
immediately applied themselves to the task of inducing the
House to declare that they had been duly elected not only for
the Extra Session, but for the full term of two fears
following. Of course they accomplished their object. The
November Election arrived and the Whigs nominated Prentiss and
Word. The Democrats brought out Claiborne and Gholson again,
and the result was that the Whig candidates were chosen by a
triumphant majority. They received their certificates of
election from the proper authority and presented themselves at
the regular session of Congress in December, and found their
seats occupied by the brace of Democrats whom the people of
Mississippi had elected to stay at home, and after a most
severe and memorable contest, the new members presented
themselves for admission at the bar of the House, which decided
readily that Claiborne and Gholson were not entitled to their
places, but instead of admitting Prentiss and Word, by Mr.
Polk’s casting vote declared the seats vacant, and referred the
whole subject back to the people. During the discussion of the
question Mr. Prentiss made a speech which will be remembered
and admired as long as genius and true manly eloquence are
appreciated. Another election was held in the following month
of March, and Prentiss and Word were again returned, and this
time they were admitted to their seats. The remaining session
of the twenty-fifth Congress, Prentiss served with
distinguished ability. We believe this closed his career as a
statesman. He recently removed to New Orleans, where he
continued the practice of the law, standing always at the head
of his profession.

THE LATE HON. NATHANIEL SILSBEE, according to the Salem,
Mass. Gazette, of the 16th inst., began his career soon
after the breaking out of the French revolution, and the
general warfare in which all Europe became embroiled. At this
favorable point of time, Mr. S. having finished his term of
service at one of our best private schools of instruction,
under the Rev. Dr. Cutler, of Hamilton, and having abandoned
the collegiate course for which he had been prepared, and been
initiated into the forms of business and knowledge of the
counting-room, he engaged in the employ of one of our most
enterprising merchants, Hasket Derby, Esq., the leader of the
vanguard of India adventures. At the age of 18, he embarked on
the sea of fortune as clerk of a merchant vessel. On his next
voyage he took the command of a vessel, and before he arrived
at the age of 21, he sailed for the East Indies in a vessel,
which, at this day, would scarcely be deemed suitable for a
coasting craft, uncoppered, without the improved nautical
instruments and science which now universally prevail, trusting
only to his dead reckoning, his eyes, and his head, not one on
board having attained to the age of his majority. He served
successively as representative in our State Legislature, as
member of Congress for six years, as State Senator, over which
body he presided, and as Senator in Congress, for nine years,
with honor to himself, and satisfaction to his constituents. In
all commercial questions which presented themselves to the
consideration of Congress, while a member of both houses, no
man’s opinion was more sought for and more justly
respected.

SEVERAL FAMOUS FRENCHMEN have left the world within a few
weeks. Quatremere de Quincy, who was in the first rank of
archæology and æsthetics, died at the age of ninety-five; Count
Mollien, the famous financier—often a minister—at
eighty-seven; Baron Meneval, so long the private, confidential,
all-trusted private secretary of Napoleon, between seventy and
eighty; Count Berenger, one of the Emperor’s Councillors and
Peers, conspicuous for the independence of his spirit, as well
as administrative qualifications, was four-score and upward.
The obsequies of these personages were grand ceremonials.
President Napoleon sent his carriages and orderly officers to
honor the [pg 141] remains of the old servants
of his uncle. This class might be thought to have found an
elixir of life, in their devotion to the Emperor or his
memory. A few of them survive, like Marshal Soult, wonders
of comfortable longevity.

REMARKABLE WORK BY A CHINESE.

To the man of science, the philanthropist and the Christian,
it will prove a stirring incident that a work on Geography has
just been issued by a native Chinese, embracing the history and
condition of other nations. Here is a stroke, such as has never
yet been dealt against the ignorance and prejudice which has
erected such a wall of exclusiveness around three hundred
millions of people. A Lieutenant Governor is the author, and,
by a commendatory preface, it is pressed upon the notice of his
countrymen by a Governor General—both of these men high
in office in the Chinese Government.

In reference to his map of the world, the writer remarks:
“We knew in respect to a Northern frozen ocean, but in respect
to a Southern frozen ocean we had not heard. So that, when
Western men produced maps having a frozen ocean at the extreme
South, we supposed that they had made a mistake in not
understanding the Chinese language, and had placed that in the
South which should have been placed only in the North. But on
inquiring of an American, one Abeel, (the Missionary,) he said
this doctrine was verily true, and should not be doubted.”

It is a fact full of interest that the chronology adopted in
this work is that usually received by European writers. The
more prominent facts of sacred history subsequent to the
Deluge, are either alluded to, or stated at length, much as
they occur in the Scriptures.

It is interesting to us, too, that this work presents to the
Chinese a more definite and discriminating view of the
different religions of the world, than has yet appeared in the
Chinese language.

Speaking of different countries of India under European
sway, where Buddhism or Paganism and Protestantism exist
together, the author does not hesitate to say that the latter
is gradually overcoming the former, “whose light is becoming
more and more dim.” This is a very remarkable concession, when
we consider that the individual who makes it is probably a
Buddhist himself, and represents the religion of China as
Buddhism.

It is a remarkable fact, that this work contains a more
extensive and correct account of the history and institution of
Christian nations than has ever been published before by any
heathen writer in any age of the world.

This remarkable work will introduce the “Celestials” to such
an acquaintance with “the outside barbarians” as cannot fail to
give them new ideas, remove something at least of the insane
prejudice against, and contempt of, all other nations, which
has so long prevailed. We regard it as a very important agency
in preparing the way for that Christianity which the friends of
the perishing are seeking to introduce into that benighted
empire. A book by a native Chinaman, himself high in office,
and recommended by a still higher officer of the government,
the author still himself a Pagan, yet reasoning upon the great
facts of the Bible, and opening the hitherto unknown civilized
and Christian world to his countrymen—such a book cannot
but become an important pioneer in the work of pouring the
light of truth upon that dark land.—Boston
Traveler.

[From Sartain’s Magazine, for August.]

REQUIEM.

UPON THE DEATH OF FRANCES SARGENT ASGOOD.

BY ANNE C. LYNCH.

MR. HEALEY is in Paris, engaged busily on his Webster and
Hayne picture, of which at the time of its projection, so much
was said. The canvas is some twenty feet by fourteen, and all
the heads will be portraits. It will be valuable, and must
command a ready sale. Will Massachusetts buy it for her State
House, or South Carolina for her Capitol? It would be a
splendid ornament for Fanueil Hall, and not be misplaced on the
walls of the Charleston Court House.

MANUEL GODOY, the famous “Prince of Peace,” it is mentioned
in recent foreign journals, has left Paris for Spain. The
Government at Madrid has restored a considerable part of his
large confiscated estates, and he probably has returned to
enjoy a golden setting sun. He must be at least eighty years of
age.

MONS. LIBRI, a well known savant, member of the Institute,
and a professor of the College of France, has been charged, in
Paris, with having committed extensive thefts of valuable MSS.
and broken in the public libraries. He has persisted in
proclaiming his innocence, and is warmly defended by certain
papers. An indictment was found, he did not appear; he was
tried, in his absence, for contumacy. He was found guilty of
the most extensive depredations in this way. Abstracting the
most valuable books, effacing identifying marks, sending them
out of the country to be rebound, and then selling them at
costly rates. He was sentenced to imprisonment for ten years at
hard labor.

SKETCH OF A STREET CHARACTER OF CAIRO.—The Caireen
donkey-boy is quite a character, and mine in particular was a
perfect original. He was small and square of frame, his rich
brown face relieved by the whitewash of teeth and the most
brilliant black eyes, and his face beamed with a merry, yet
roguish expression, like that of the Spanish, or rather
Moorish, boy, in Murillo’s well known masterpiece, with whom he
was probably of cognate blood. Living in the streets from
infancy, and familiar with the chances of out-door life, and
with every description of character; waiting at the door of a
mosque or a cafe, or crouching in a corner of a bazaar, he had
acquired a thorough acquaintance with Caireen life; and his
intellect, and, I fear, his vices, had become somewhat
prematurely developed. But the finishing touch to his education
was undoubtedly given by the European travelers whom he had
served, and of whom he had, with the imitativeness of his age,
picked up a variety of little accomplishments, particularly the
oaths of different languages. His audacity had thus become
consummate, and I have heard him send his fellows to
—— as coolly, and in as good English, as any
prototype of our own metropolis. His mussulman prejudices sat
very loosely upon him, and in the midst of religious
observances he grew up indifferent and prayerless. With this
inevitable laxity of faith and morals, contracted by his early
vagabondage, he at least acquired an emancipation from
prejudice, and displayed a craving after miscellaneous
information, to which his European masters were often tasked to
contribute. Thrown almost in childhood upon their resources,
the energy and perseverance of these boys is remarkable. My
little lad had, for instance, been up the country with some
English travelers, in whose service he had saved four or five
hundred piastres, (four or five pounds), with which he bought
the animal which I bestrode, on whose sprightliness and good
qualities he was never tired of expatiating, and with the
proceeds of whose labor he supported his mother and himself. He
had but one habitual subject of discontent, the heavy tax
imposed upon his donkey by Mehemet Ali, upon whom he invoked
the curse of God; a curse, it is to be feared, uttered, not
loud but deep, by all classes save the employés of government.
His wind and endurance were surprising. He would trot after his
donkey by the hour together, urging and prodding along with a
pointed stick, as readily in the burning sandy environs, and
under the noonday sun, as in the cool and shady alleys of the
crowded capital; running, dodging, striking, and shouting with
all the strength of his lungs, through the midst of its
labyrinthine obstructions.—The Nile Boat.

MENDELSSOHN’S SKILL AS A CONDUCTOR.—In the spring of
1835. Mendelssohn was invited to come to Cologne, in order to
direct the festival. Here we met again, and thanks to his
kindness, I had the pleasure of being present at one of the
general rehearsals, where he conducted Beethoven’s Eighth
Symphony. It would be a matter of difficulty to decide in which
quality Mendelssohn excelled the most—whether as
composer, pianist, organist, or conductor of the orchestra.
Nobody ever knew better how to communicate, as if by an
electric fluid, his own conceptions of a work, to a large body
of performers. It was highly interesting on this occasion to
contemplate the anxious attention manifested by a body of more
than five hundred singers and performers, watching every glance
of Mendelssohn’s eye, and following, like obedient spirits, the
magic wand of this musical Prospero. The admirable
allegretto in B flat, of Beethoven’s Symphony, not going
at first to his liking, he remarked, smilingly, that he knew
every one of the gentlemen engaged was capable of performing
and even composing a scherzo of his own; but that just
now he wanted to hear Beethoven’s, which he thought had
some merit. It was cheerfully repeated. “Beautiful! charming!”
cried Mendelssohn, “but still too loud in two or three
instances. Let us take it again, from the middle.” “No, no,”
was the general reply of the band; “the whole movement over
again for our own satisfaction;” and then they played it with
the utmost delicacy and finish, Mendelssohn laying aside his
baton, and listening with evident delight to the more perfect
execution. “What would I have given,” exclaimed he, “if
Beethoven could have heard his own composition so well
understood and so magnificently performed!” By thus giving
alternately praise and blame, as required, spurring the slow,
checking the too ardent, he obtained orchestral effects seldom
equaled in our days. Need I add, that he was able to detect at
once, even among a phalanx of performers, the slightest error,
either of note or accent.—Life of Mendelssohn.

There is a mutual hate between the virtuous and the vicious,
the spiritual and the sensual: but the pure abhor
understandingly, knowing the nature of their antagonists, while
the vile nurse an ignorant malignity, pained with an
unacknowledged ache of
envy.

Superstition In France.—The Courrier de la
Meuse says: “Witchcraft is still an object of belief in our
provinces. On Sunday last, in a village belonging to the
arrondissement of Verdun, the keeper of the parish bull forgot
to lay before the poor animal at the usual hour its accustomed
allowance of provender. The bull, impatient at the delay, made
a variety of efforts to regain his liberty, and at last
succeeded. The first use he made of his freedom was to demolish
a rabbit-hutch which was in the stable. The keeper’s wife,
hearing a noise, ran to the place, and as soon as she saw the
bull treading mercilessly upon the rabbits with his large
hoofs, seized a cudgel and showered down a volley of blows on
the crupper of the devastator. But not being accustomed to this
rough treatment, the bull grew angry, and fell upon his
neighbors the oxen, and what with horns and hoofs, turned the
stable into a scene of terror and confusion. The woman began to
cry for help. Her cries were heard, and with some trouble the
bull was ousted from the stable, and forthwith began to butt at
everything in his path. The mayor and the adjoint of the
commune were attracted to the scene of this riot, and on
witnessing the animal’s violence, declared, after a short
deliberation, that the bull was a sorcerer, or at any rate that
he was possessed with a devil, and that he ought to be
conducted to the presbytery in order to be exorcised. The
authorities were accordingly obeyed, and the bull was dragged
or driven into the presence of the curate, who was requested to
subject him to the formalities prescribed in the ritual. The
good priest found no little difficulty in escaping the pressing
solicitations of his parishioners. At last, however, he
succeeded; but though the bull escaped exorcism, he could not
elude the shambles. Condemned to death by the mayor as a
sorcerer, his sentence was immediately executed.”

The Libraries At Cambridge.—There are now belonging to
the various libraries connected with the University, about
86,000 volumes beside pamphlets, maps and prints. The Public
Library contains over 57,000 volumes. The Law Library, 13,000;
Divinity School, 3000; Medical School, 1,200; Society Libraries
for the Students, 10,000. There have been added during the past
year 1,751 volumes, and 2,219 pamphlets.

The Birmingham Mercury thinks some of Lord Brougham’s
late proceedings may be accounted for in part by natural
vexation at Cottenham being made an earl. “Cottenham is several
years younger than Brougham, and was his successor in the
chancellorship, and yet he gets an earldom, while
Brougham, who was known all over the world before Cottenham was
ever heard of out of the Equity Courts, still remains and is
likely to remain a simple baron.”

Romantic History of two English Lovers.—In the reign
of Edward III., Robert Machim, an accomplished gentleman, of
the second degree of nobility, loved and was beloved by the
beautiful Anna d’Arfet, the daughter of a noble of the first
class. By virtue of a royal warrant Machim was incarcerated for
his presumption; and, on his release, endured the bitter
mortification of learning that Anna had been forcibly married
to a noble, who carried her to his castle, near Bristol. A
friend of Machim’s had the address to introduce himself to the
family, and became the groom of broken-hearted Anna, who was
thus persuaded and enabled to escape on board a vessel with her
lover, with the view of ending her days with him in France. In
their hurry and alarm they embarked without the pilot, and the
season of the year being the most unfavorable, were soon at the
mercy of a dreadful storm. The desired port was missed during
the night, and the vessel driven out to sea. After twelve days
of suffering they discovered faint traces of land in the
horizon, and succeeded in making the spot still called Machico.
The exhausted Anna was conveyed on shore, and Machim had spent
three days in exploring in the neighborhood with his friends,
when the vessel, which they had left in charge of the mariners,
broke from her moorings in a storm and was wrecked on the coast
of Morocco, where the crew were made slaves. Anna became dumb
with sorrow, and expired three days after. Machim survived her
but five days, enjoining his companions to bury him in the same
grave, under the venerable cedar, where they had a few days
before erected a cross in acknowledgment of their happy
deliverance. An inscription, composed by Machim, was carved on
the cross, with the request that the next Christian who might
chance to visit the spot would erect a church there. Having
performed this last sad duty, the survivors fitted out the
boat, which they had drawn ashore on their landing, and putting
to sea in the hope of reaching some part of Europe, were also
driven on the coast of Morocco, and rejoined their companions,
but in slavery. Zargo, during an expedition of discovery to the
coast of Africa, took a Spanish vessel with redeemed captives,
amongst whom was an experienced pilot, named Morales, who
entered into the service of Zargo, and gave him an account of
the adventures of Machim, as communicated to him by the English
captives, and of the landmarks and situations of the
newly-discovered island.—Madeira, by Dr.
Mason.

Centenary Performances in commemoration of the death-day of
John Sebastian Bach—the 28th of July—are this week
to be held at Leipsic, (where an assemblage of two thousand
executants is to be convened for the display of some of the
masters greatest works,) at Berlin, at Magdeburg, at Hamburg,
and at other towns in North Germany.

[From the Leader.]

Poets In Parliament.

The prominence which the “winged words” of Victor Hugo have
recently given him in the Assembly has called forth sarcastic
insinuations and bitter diatribes from all the Conservative
journals. There seems to be an intensity of exasperation,
arising from the ancient prejudice against poets. A poet
treating of politics! Let him keep to rhymes, and leave the
serious business of life to us practical men, sober-minded
men—men not led away by our imaginations—men not
moved to absurdities by sentiment—solid, sensible,
moderate men! Let him play with capricious hand on the chords
which are resonant to his will; but let him not mistake his
frivolous accomplishment for the power to play upon the world’s
great harp, drawing from its grander chords the large responses
of more solemn themes. Let him “strike the light guitar” as
long as women will listen, or fools applaud. But politics is
another sphere; into that he can only pass to make himself
ridiculous.

Thus reason the profound. Thus saith the good practical man,
who, because his mind is a congeries of commonplaces, piques
himself on not being led away by his imagination. The owl
prides himself on the incontestable fact that he is not an
eagle.

To us the matter has another aspect. The appearance of Poets
and men of Sentiment in the world of Politics is a good
symptom; for at a time like the present, when positive doctrine
can scarcely be said to exist in embryo, and assuredly not in
any maturity, the presence of Imagination and
Sentiment—prophets who endow the present with some of the
riches borrowed from the future—is needed to give
grandeur and generosity to political action, and to prevent men
from entirely sinking into the slough of egotism and routine.
Salt is not meat, but we need the salt to preserve meat from
corruption. Lamartine and Victor Hugo may not be profound
statesmen; but they have at least this one indispensable
quality of statesmanship; they look beyond the hour, and beyond
the circle, they care more for the nation than for “measures;”
they have high aspirations and wide sympathies. Lamartine in
power committed many errors, but he also did great things,
moved thereto by his “Imagination.” He abolished capital
punishment; and he freed the slaves; had the whole Provisional
Government been formed of such men it would have been well for
it and for France.

We are as distinctly aware of the unfitness of a poet for
politics, as any of those can be who rail at Hugo and
Lamartine. Images, we know, are not convictions; aspirations
will not do the work; grand speeches will not solve the
problems. The poet is a “phrasemaker”; true; but show us the
man in these days who is more than a phrasemaker! Where is he
who has positive ideas beyond the small circle of his
speciality? In rejecting the guidance of the Poet to whom shall
we apply? To the Priest? He mumbles the litany of an ancient
time which falls on unbelieving ears. To the Lawyer? He is a
metaphysician with precedents for data. To the Litterateur? He
is a phrasemaker by profession. To the Politician? He cannot
rise above the conception of a “bill.” One and all are copious
in phrases, empty of positive ideas as drums. The initial laws
of social science are still to be discovered and accepted, yet
we sneer at phrasemakers! Carlyle, who never sweeps out of the
circle of sentiment—whose eloquence is always
indignation—who thinks with his heart, has no words too
scornful for phrasemakers and poets; forgetting that he, and
we, and they, are all little more than phrasemakers
waiting for a doctrine!

There is something in the air of late which has called forth
the poets and made them politicians. Formerly they were content
to leave these troubled waters undisturbed, but finding that
others now are as ignorant as themselves, they have come forth
to give at least the benefit of their sentiment to the party
they espouse. In no department can phrasemaking prosper where
positive ideas have once been attained. Metaphors are powerless
in astronomy; epithets are useless as alembics; images, be they
never so beautiful, will fail to convince the physiologist.
Language may adorn, it cannot create science. But as soon as we
pass from the sciences to social science, (or politics,) we
find that here the absence of positive ideas gives the
phrasemaker the same power of convincing, as in the early days
of physical science was possessed by metaphysicians and poets.
Here the phrasemaker is king; as the one-eyed is king in the
empire of the blind. Phrasemaker for phrasemaker, we prefer the
poet to the politician; Victor Hugo to Léon Faucher; Lamartine
to Odilon Barrot; Lamennais to Baroche.

Kossuth, Mazzini, Lamartine, the three heroes of 1848, were
all, though with enormous differences in their relative values
and positions, men belonging to the race of poets—men in
whom the heart thought—men who were moved by great
impulses and lofty aspirations—men who were “carried away
by their imagination”—men who were “dreamers,” but whose
dreams were of the stuff of which our life is made.

The fine immortal spirit of inspiration that is ever living
in human affairs, is unseen and incredible till its power
becomes apparent through the long past; as the invisible but
indelible blue of the atmosphere is not seen except we look
through extended space.

The distinction between the sensual, frivolous many, and the
few spiritual and earnest, may be stated thus—the first
vaguely guess the others to be fools, they know that the
former are fools.

[From the New Monthly Magazine.]

Frank Hamilton; Or, The Confessions Of An Only Son.

By W.H. Maxwell, Esq.

Chapter I.

I am by birth an Irishman, and descended from an ancient
family. I lay no claim to any connection with Brian Boru, or
Malichi, of the crown of gold, a gentleman who, notwithstanding
the poetical authority of Tom Moore, we have some reason to
believe during his long and illustrious reign was never master
of a crown sterling. My ancestor was Colonel Hamilton, as stout
a Cromwellian as ever led a squadron of Noll’s Ironsides to a
charge. If my education was not of the first order, it was for
no lack of instructors. My father, a half-pay dragoon, had me
on the pig-skin before my legs were long enough to reach the
saddle-skirt; the keeper, in proper time, taught me to shoot: a
retired gentleman, olim, of the Welsh fusileers, with a
single leg and sixty pounds per annum, paid quarterly by
Greenwood and Cox, indoctrinated me in the mystery of tying a
fly, and casting the same correctly. The curate—the least
successful of the lot, poor man—did his best to
communicate Greek and Latin, and my cousin Constance gave me my
first lessons in the art of love. All were able professors in
their way, but cousin Constance was infinitely the most
agreeable.

I am by accident an only son. My mother, in two years after
she had sworn obedience at the altar, presented her liege lord
with a couple of pledges of connubial love, and the gender of
both was masculine. Twelve years elapsed and no addition was
made to the Hamiltons; when lo! upon a fine spring morning a
little Benjamin was ushered into existence, and I was the
God-send. My father never could be persuaded that there was a
gentlemanly profession in the world but one, and that was the
trade of arms. My brothers, as they grew up, entirely coincided
with him in opinion, and both would be soldiers. William died
sword in hand, crowning the great breach at Rodrigo; and Henry,
after demolishing three or four cuirassiers of the Imperial
Guards, found his last resting-place on “red Waterloo.” When
they were named, my father’s eyes would kindle, and my mother’s
be suffused with tears. He played a fictitious part, enacted
the Roman, and would persuade you that he exulted in their
deaths; but my mother played the true one, the woman’s.

It was an autumnal evening, just when you smell the first
indication of winter in a rarefied atmosphere, and see it in
the clear curling of the smoke, as its woolly flakes rise from
the cottage chimney and gradually are lost in the clear blue
sky. Although not a cold evening, a log fire was extremely
welcome. My father, Heaven rest him! had a slight touch in the
toe of what finished him afterward in the stomach, namely,
gout.

“James,” said my lady mother, “it is time we came to some
decision regarding what we have been talking of for the last
twelve months. Frank will be eighteen next Wednesday.”

“Faith! it is time, my dear Mary; the premises are true, but
the difficulty is to come at the conclusion.”

“You know, my love, that only for your pension and half-pay,
from the tremendous depreciation in agricultural property since
the peace, we should be obliged to lay down the old carriage,
as you had to part with the harriers the year after
Waterloo.”

That to my father was a heavy hit. “It was a devil of a
sacrifice, Mary,”—and he sighed, “to give up the sweetest
pack that ever man rode to; one, that for a mile’s run you
could have covered with a blanket—heigh-ho! God’s will be
done;” and after that pious adjuration, my father turned down
his tumbler No. 3, to the bottom. The memory of the lost
harriers was always a painful recollection, and brought its
silent evidence that the fortunes of the Hamiltons were not
what they were a hundred years ago.

“With all my care,” continued my mother, “and, as you know,
I economize to the best of my judgement, and after all is done
that can be done, our income barely will defray the outlay of
our household.”

“Or, as we used to say when I was dragooning thirty years
ago, ‘the tongue will scarcely meet the buckle,'” responded the
colonel.

“I have been thinking,” said my mother timidly, “that Frank
might go to the bar.”

“I would rather that he went direct to the devil,” roared
the commander, who hated lawyers, and whose great toe had at
the moment undergone a disagreeable visitation.

“Do not lose temper, dear James,” and she laid down her
knitting to replace the hassock he had kicked away under the
painful irritation of a disease that a stoic could not stand
with patience, and, as they would say in Ireland, would fully
justify a Quaker if “he kicked his mother.”

“Curse the bar!” but he acknowledged his lady wife’s kind
offices by tapping her gently on the cheek. “When I was a boy,
Mary, a lawyer and a gentleman were identified. Like the
army—and, thank God! that is still intact, none but a man
of decent pretensions claimed a gown, no more than a
linen-draper’s apprentice now would aspire to an epaulet. Is
there a low fellow who has saved a few hundreds by retailing
whisky by the noggin, who will not have his son ‘Mister
Counsellor O’Whack,’ or ‘Mister Barrister O’Finnigan’? No, no,
if you must have Frank bred to a local profession, make him an
apothecary; a twenty pound note will
[pg 146] find drawers, drugs, and
bottles. Occasionally he may be useful; pound honestly at
his mortar, salve a broken head, carry the country news
about, and lie down at night with a tolerably quiet
conscience. He may have hastened a patient to his account by
a trifling over-dose; but he has not hurried men into
villainous litigation, that will eventuate in their ruin.
His worst offense against the community shall be a mistaking
of toothache for tic-douloureux, and lumbago for
gout—oh, d——n the gout!”—for at that
portion of his speech the poor colonel had sustained an
awful twinge.

“Well,” continued the dame, “would you feel inclined to let
him enter the University, and take orders?”

“Become a churchman?” and away, with a furious kick, again
went the hassock. “You should say, in simple English, make him
a curate for the term of natural life. The church in Ireland,
Mary, is like the bar, it once was tenanted by gentlemen who
had birth, worth, piety, learning, or all united to recommend
him to promotion. Now it is an arena where impure influence
tilts against unblushing hypocrisy. The race is between some
shuffling old lawyer, or a canting saint. One has reached the
woolsack by political thimble-rigging, which means starting
patriot, and turning, when the price is offered, a ministerial
hack. He forks a drunken dean, his son, into a
Father-in-Godship with all the trifling temporalities attendant
on the same. Well, the other fellow is a ‘regular go-a-head,’
denounces popery, calculates the millennium, alarms thereby
elderly women of both sexes, edifies old maids, who retire to
their closets in the evening with the Bible in one hand, and a
brandy-bottle in the other; and what he likes best,
spiritualizes with the younger ones.”

“Stop, dear James.” The emphasis on the word
spiritualize had alarmed my mother, who, to tell the
truth, had a slight touch of the prevailing malady, and, but
for the counteracting influence of the commander, might have
been deluded into saintship by degrees.

The great toe was, however, again awfully invaded, and my
father’s spiritual state of mind not all improved by the second
twinge, which was a heavy one.

“Why, d——n it—”

“Don’t curse, dear James.”

“Curse! I will; for if you had the gout, you would swear
like a trooper.”

“Indeed I would not.”

“Ah, Mary,” replied my father, “between twinges, if you knew
the comfort of a curse or two—it relieves one so.”

“That, indeed, James, must be but a sorry consolation, as
Mr. Cantwell said—”

“Oh! d——n Cantwell,” roared my father, “a fellow
that will tell you that there is but one path to heaven, and
that he has discovered it. Pish! Mary, the grand route is open
as the mail-coach road, and Papist and Protestant, Quaker and
Anabaptist, may jog along at even pace. I’m not altogether sure
about Jews and Methodists. One bearded vagabond at Portsmouth
charged me, when I was going to the Peninsula, ten shillings a
pound for exchanging bank notes for specie, and every guinea
the circumcised scoundrel gave was a light one. He’ll
fry—or has fried already—and my poor bewildered old
aunt, under the skillful management of the Methodist preachers,
who for a dozen years in their rambles, had made her house an
inn, left the three thousand five per cents, which I expected,
to blow the gospel-trumpet, either in California or the
Cape—for, God knows, I never particularly inquired in
which country the trumpeter was to sound ‘boot and saddle,’
after I had ascertained that the doting fool had made a legal
testament quite sufficient for the purposes of the holy knaves
who humbugged her. Cantwell is one of the same crew, a specious
hypocrite. I would attend to the fellow no more than to that
red-headed rector—every priest is a rector now—who
often held my horse at his father’s forge, when T happened to
throw a shoe hunting,—and would half break his back
bowing, if I handed him now and then a sixpence. Would I
believe the dictum of that low-born dog, when he told me that
in head-quarters”—and my father elevated his hand toward
heaven—”they cared this pinch of snuff, whether upon a
Friday I ate a rasher or red-herring?”

Two episodes interrupted the polemical disquisition. In
character none could be more different—the one eventuated
in a clean knock down—the other decided indirectly my
future fortunes—and, in the next chapter, both shall be
detailed.

Chapter II.

The Boheeil Kistanaugh, called in plain English, the
kitchen boy, had entered, not like Caliban, “bearing a log,”
but with a basket full. He deposited the supply, and was
directed by the commander to replenish the fire. I believe that
Petereeine’s allegiance to my father originated in fear rather
than affection. He dreaded

but what was a still more formidable consideration, was a
black-thorn stick which the colonel had carried since he gave
up the sword; it was a beauty, upon which every fellow that
came for law, in or out of custody, lavished his
admiration—a clean crop, with three inches of an iron
ferule on the extremity. My father was, “good easy man,” a true
Milesian philosopher—his arguments were those impressive
ones, called ad hominem, and after he had grassed
his man, he explained the reason at his leisure.

Petereeine (little Peter), as he was called, to
distinguish him from another of that apostolic
[pg 147] name—who was six feet
two—approached the colonel in his best state of health
with much alarm; but, when a fit of the gout was
on—when a foot swathed in flannel, or slippered and
rested on a hassock, announced the anthritic visitation,
Petereeine would hold strong doubts whether, had the choice
been allowed, he should not have preferred entering one of
Van Amburgh’s dens, to facing the commander in the
dining-room.

Petereeine was nervous—he had overheard his master
blowing to the skies the Reverend George Cantwell, and the
red-headed rector, Paul Macrony. If a parson and a priest were
so treated, what chance had he? and great was his trepidation,
accordingly, when he entered the state chamber, as in duty
bound.

“Why the devil did you not answer the bell? You knew well
enough, you incorrible scoundrel! that I wanted you.”

Now my father’s opening address was not calculated to
restore Petereeine’s mental serenity—and to add to his
uneasiness, he also caught sight of that infernal implement,
the black-thorn, which, in treacherous repose, was resting at
my father’s elbow.

“On with some wood, you vagabond.”

The order was obeyed—and Petereeine conveyed a couple
of billets safely from the basket to the grate. The next essay,
however, was a failure—the third log fell—and if
the fall were not great, as it dropped on the fender, it
certainly was very noisy. The accident was harmless—for,
according to honest admeasurement, it evaded my father’s foot
by a full yard—but, under nervous alarm, he swore, and,
as troopers will swear, that it had descended direct upon his
afflicted member, and, consequently that he was ruined for
life. This was a subsequent explanation—while the unhappy
youth was extended on the hearth-rug, protesting innocence, and
also declaring that his jaw-bone was fractured. The fall of the
billet and the boy were things simultaneous—and while my
mother, in great alarm, inculcated patience under suffering,
and hinted at resignation, my father, in return, swore awfully,
that no man with a toe of treble its natural dimensions, and
scarlet as a soldiers jacket, had ever possessed either of
those Christian articles. My mother quoted the case of
Job—and my father begged to inquire if there was any
authority to prove that Job ever had the gout? In the mean
time, the kitchen-boy had gathered himself up and
departed—and as he left the presence with his hand
pressed upon his cheek, loud were his lamentations. Constance
and I—nobody enjoyed the ridiculous more than she
did—laughed heartily, while the colonel resented this
want of sympathy, by calling us a brace of fools, and
expressing his settled conviction, that were he, the commander,
hanged, we, the delinquents, would giggle at the foot of the
gallows.

Such was the state of affairs, when the entrance of the
chief butler harbingered other occurrences, and much more
serious than Petereeine’s damaged jaw. Mick Kalligan had been
in the “heavies” with my father, and at Salamanca, had ridden
the opening charge, side by side, with him, greatly to the
detriment of divers Frenchmen, and much to the satisfaction of
his present master. In executing this achievement, Mick had
been a considerable sufferer—his ribs having been invaded
by a red lancer of the guard—while a
chausseur-à-cheval had inserted a lasting token of his
affection across his right cheek, extremely honorable, but by
no means ornamental.

Mick laid a couple of newspapers, and as many letters, on
the table—but before we proceed to open either, we will
favor the reader with another peep into our family history.

Manifold are the ruinous phantasies which lead unhappy
mortals to pandemonium. This one has a fancy for the turf,
another patronizes the last imported choryphée. The turf
is generally a settler—the stage is also a safe road to a
safe settlement, and between a race-horse and a
danseuse, we would not give a sixpence for choice. Now,
as far as horse-flesh went, my grandfather was innocent; a
pirouette or pas seul, barring an Irish jig, he
never witnessed in his life—but he had discovered as good
a method for settling a private gentleman. He had an inveterate
fancy for electioneering. The man who would reform state
abuses, deserves well of his country; there is a great deal of
patriotism in Ireland; in fact, it is, like linen, a staple
article generally, but still the best pay-master is safe to
win; and hence, my poor grandfather generally lost the
race.

My father looked very suspiciously at the letters—one
had his own armorial bearings displayed in red wax—and
the formal direction was at a glance detected to be that of his
aunt Catharine—Catharine’s missives were never
agreeable—she had a rent charge on the property for a
couple of thousands; and, like Moses and Son, her system was
“quick returns,” and the interest was consequently expected to
the day. For a few seconds my father hesitated, but he manfully
broke the seal—muttering, audibly, “What can the old
rattle-trap write about? Her interest-money is not due for
another fortnight.” He threw his eyes hastily over the
contents—his color heightened—and my aunt
Catharine’s epistle was flung, and most unceremoniously, upon
the ground—the hope that accompanied the act, being the
reverse of a benediction.

“Is there anything wrong, dear James?” inquired my mother,
in her usual quiet and timid tone.

“Wrong!” thundered my father; “Frank will read this
spiritual production to you. Every line breathes a deep anxiety
on old Kitty’s part for my soul’s welfare, earthly
considerations being non-important. Read, Frank, and if you
will not devoutly wish that the doting fool was at the
dev—”

“Stop, my dear
James.”

“Well-read, Frank, and say, when you hear the contents,
whether you would be particularly sorry to learn that the old
lady had, as sailors say, her hands well greased, and a fast
hold upon the moon? Read, d——n it, man! there’s no
trouble in deciphering my aunt Catharine’s penmanship. Hers is
not what Tony Lumpkin complained of—a cursed cramp hand;
all clear and unmistakable—the t‘s accurately
stroked across, and the i‘s dotted to a nicety. Go
on—read, man, read.”

I obeyed the order, and thus ran the missive, my honored
father adding a running commentary at every important passage;
shall place them in italics—

“‘MY DEAR NEPHEW,'”

“Oh, —— her affection!“

“‘If, by a merciful dispensation, I shall be permitted to
have a few spiritual minded friends to-morrow, at four o’clock,
at dinner—'”

“Temps militaire—they won’t fail you, my old
girl.“

“‘I shall then have reached an age to which few
arrive—look to the psalm—namely, to
eighty—'”

“She’s eighty-three—”

“‘I have, under the mercy of Providence, and the ministry of
a chosen vessel, the Reverend Carter Kettlewell, and also a
worshiping Christian learned in the law, namely, Mr. Selby Sly,
put my earthly house in order. Would that spiritual preparation
could he as easily accomplished; but yet I feel well convinced
that mine is a state of grace, and Mr. Kettlewell gives me a
comfortable assurance that in me the old man if
crucified—'”

“Did you ever listen to such rascally cant?“

“‘I have given instructions to Mr. Sly to make my will, and
Mr. Kettlewell has kindly consented to be the trustee and
executor—”

“Now comes the villainy, no doubt“

“‘I have devised—may the offering be graciously
received!—all that I shall die possessed of to make an
addition to support those devoted soldiers—not, dear
nephew, soldiers in your carnal meaning of the word—but
the ministers of the gospel, who labor in New Zealand. These
inestimable men, whose courage is almost supernatural, and
who—'”

“Pish—what an old twaddler!“

“‘Although annually eaten by converted cannibals, still
press forward at the trumpet-call—”‘

“I wonder what sort of a grill old Kate would make?
cursed tough, I fancy.“

“‘I have added my mite to a fund already established to send
assistance there—'”

“Ay, to Christianize, and, in return, be carbonadoed. I
wish I had charge of the gridiron I would broil one or two of
the new recruits.“

“‘I have called in, under Mr. Sly’s advice the mortgage
granted to the late Sir George O’Gorman, by my
ever-to-be-lamented husband, and the other portions of my
property being in state securities, are reclaimable at once. My
object in writing this letter is to convey to my dear nephew my
heartfelt prayers for his spiritual amendment, and also to
intimate that the 2000l.—a rent-charge on he Kilnavaggart
property—with the running quarter’s interest, shall be
paid at La Touche’s to the order of Messrs. Kettlewell and Sly.
As the blindness of the New Zealanders is deplorable, and as
Mr. Kettlewell has already enlisted some gallant champions who
will blow the gospel-trumpet, although they were to be served
up to supper the same evening, I wish the object to be carried
out at once—'”

“Beautiful!” said my poor father with a groan;
“where the devil could the money be raised? You won’t
realize now for a bullock what, in war-time, you would get for
a calf. Go on with the old harridan’s epistle.“

“‘Having now got rid of fleshly considerations—I mean
money ones—let me, my dear James, offer a word in season.
Remember that it comes from an attached relation, who holds
your worldly affairs as nothing—'”

“I can’t dispute that,” said my father with a
smothered groan.

“‘But would turn your attention to the more important
considerations of our being. I would not lean too heavily upon
the bruised reed, but your early life was anything but
evangelical—'”

Constance laughed; she could not, wild girl, avoid it.

“‘We must all give an account of our stewardship,’
vide St. Luke, chap. xvi.—'”

“Stop—Shakspeare’s right; when the devil quotes
Scripture—but, go on—let’s have the whole
dose.“

“‘When can you pay the money in? And, oh! in you, my dear
nephew, may grace yet fructify, and may you be brought, even at
the eleventh hour, to a slow conviction that all on this earth
is vanity and vexation of spirit—drums, colors, scarlet
and fine linen, hounds running after hares, women whirling
round, as they tell me they do, in that invention of the evil
one called a waltz, all these are but delusions of the enemy,
and designed to lead sinners to destruction. I transcribe a
verse from a most affecting hymn, composed by that gifted
man—'”

“Oh, d——n the hymn!” roared my father;
“on with you, Frank, and my benison light on the composer of
it! Don’t stop to favor us with his name, and pass over the
filthy doggerel!“

I proceeded under orders accordingly.

“‘Remember, James, you are now sixty-one; repent, and, even
in the eleventh hour, you may be plucked like a brand from the
fire. Avoid swearing, mortify the flesh—that is, don’t
take a third tumbler after dinner—'”

My father could not stand it longer. “Oh, may Cromwell’s
curse light upon her! I wonder how many glasses of
brandy-and-water she swallows at evening exercise, as she calls
it, over a chapter of Timothy?“

“‘I would not recall the past, but for the purpose of
wholesome admonition. The year
[pg 149] before you married, and
gave up the godless life of soldiering, can you forget that
I found you, at one in the morning in Bridget Donovan’s
room? Your reason was, that you had got the colic; if you
had, why not come to my chamber, where you knew there was
laudanum and lavender?

Poor Constance could not stand the fresh allegation; and,
while my mother looked very grave, we laughed, as Scrub says,
“consumedly.” My father muttered something about “cursed
nonsense!” but I am inclined to think that aunt Catharine’s
colic charge was not without some foundation.

“‘I have now, James, discharged my duty: may my humble
attempts to arouse you to a sense of the danger of standing on
the brink of the pit of perdition be blessed! Pay the principal
and interest over to La Touche. Mr. Selby Sly hinted that a
foreclosure of the mortgage might expedite matters; and, by
saving a term or two in getting in the money, two or three
hundred New Zealanders would—and oh, James! how
gratifying would be the reflection!—be saved from the
wrath to come.

“‘This morning, on looking over your marriage settlement,
Mr. Sly is of opinion that, if Mrs. Hamilton will renounce
certain rights he can raise the money at once, and that too
only at legal interest, say six per cent.—'”

Often had I witnessed a paternal explosion; but, when it was
hinted that the marital rights of my poor mother were to be
sacrificed, his fury amounted almost to madness.

“Damnation!” he exclaimed; “confusion light upon the letter
and the letter-writer! You!—do you an act to invalidate
your settlement! I would see first every canting vagabond
in——” and he named a disagreeable locality. “Never,
Mary! pitch that paper away: I dread that at the end of it the
old lunatic will inflict her benediction. Frank, pack your
traps—you must catch the mail to-night; you’ll be in town
by eight o’clock to-morrow morning. Be at Sly’s office at nine.
D——n the gout!—I should have done the job
myself. Beat the scoundrel as nearly to death as you think you
can conscientiously go without committing absolute murder:
next, pay a morning visit to Kettlewell, and, if you leave him
in a condition to mount the pulpit for a month, I’ll never
acknowledge you. Break that other seal; Probably, the contents
may prove as agreeable as old Kitty’s.”

There were times and moods when, in Byron’s language, it was
judicious to reply “Psha! to hear is to obey,” and this was
such a period. I broke the black wax, and the epistle proved to
be from the very gentleman whom I was to be dispatched per mail
to qualify next morning for surgical assistance.

“Out with it!” roared my father, as I unclosed the foldings
of the paper; “What is the signature? I remember that my uncle
Hector always looked at the name attached to a letter when he
unclosed the post-bag; and if the handwriting looked like an
attorney’s he flung it, without reading a line, into the
fire.”

“This letter, sir, is subscribed ‘Selby Sly.'”

“Don’t burn it, Frank, read. Well, there is one comfort that
Selby Sly shall have to-morrow evening a collection of aching
ribs, if the Hamiltons are not degenerated: read, man,” and, as
usual, there was a running comment on the text.

“‘Dublin,—March, 1818.

“‘Colonel Hamilton,—Sir,

“‘It is my melancholy duty to inform you—'”

“That you have foreclosed the mortgage. Frank, if you
don’t break a bone or two, I’ll never acknowledge you
again.“

“‘That my honored and valued client and patroness, Mrs.
Catharine O’Gorman, suddenly departed this life at half-past
six o’clock, P.M., yesterday evening, when drinking a glass of
sherry, and holding sweet and spiritual converse with the
Reverend Carter Kettlewell.'”

“It’s all up, no doubt: the canting scoundrels have
secured her—or, as blackguard gamblers say, have ‘made
all’ safe?“

“‘She has died intestate, although a deed, that would have
immortalized her memory, was engrossed, and ready for
signature. Within an hour after she went to receive her
reward—'”

My father gave a loud hurrah! “Blessed be Heaven that the
rout came before the old fool completed the New Zealand
business!“

“‘As heir-at-law, you are in direct remainder, and the will,
not being executed, is merely wastepaper: but, from the draft,
the intentions of your inestimable aunt can clearly be
discovered. Although not binding in law, let me say there is
such a thing as Christian equity that should guide you. The New
Zealand bequest, involving a direct application of
10,000l. to meet the annual expenditure of
gospel-soldiers—there being a constant drain upon these
sacred harbingers of peace, from the native fancy of preferring
a deviled missionary to a stewed kangaroo—that portion of
the intended testament I would not press upon you. But the
intentional behests of 500l. to the Rev. Carter
Kettlewell, the same sum to myself, and an annuity to Miss
Grace Lightbody of 50l. a year, though not recoverable
in law, under these circumstances should be faithfully
confirmed.

“‘It may be gratifying to acquaint you with some particulars
of the last moments of your dear relative, and one of the most
devout, nay, I may use the term safely, evangelical elderly
gentlewomen for whom I have had the honor to transact
business.'”

“Stop, Frank. Pass over the detail. It might be too
affecting.“

“‘I await your directions for the funeral. My lamented
friend and client had erected a catacomb in the Siloam Chapel,
and in the [pg 150] minister’s vault, and she
frequently expressed a decided wish that her dust might
repose with faithful servants, who, in season and out of
season, fearlessly grappled with the man of sin, who is
arrayed in black, and the woman who sitteth on the seven
hills, dressed in scarlet.'”

“Hang the canting vagabond—why not call people by
their proper titles; name Old Nick at once, and the lady whose
soubriquet is unmentionable, but who, report says, has a town
residence in Babylon.“

Constance and I laughed; my mother, as usual, looking demure
and dignified. Another twinge of the gout altogether demolished
the commander’s temper.

“Stop that scoundrel’s jargon. Run your eye over the
remainder, and tell me what the fellow’s driving at.“

I obeyed the order.

“Simply, sir, Mr. Sly desires to know whether you have any
objection to old Kitty taking peaceable possession of her
catacomb in the Dublin gospel-shop which she patronized, or
would you prefer that she were ‘pickled and sent home,’ as Sir
Lucius says.”

“Heaven forbid that I should interfere with her expressed
wishes,” said my father. “I suppose there’s ‘snug lying’ in
Siloam; and there’s one thing certain, that the company who
occupy the premises are quite unobjectionable. Kitty will be
safer there. Lord! if the gentleman in black, or the red lady
of the seven hills attempted a felonious entry on her bivouac,
what a row the saintly inmates would kick up! It would be a
regular ‘guard, turn out!’ And what chance would scarlatina and
old clooty have? No, no, she’ll be snug there in her
sentry-box. What a blessed escape from ruin! Mary, dear, make
me another tumbler, and d——n the gout!”—he
had a sharp twinge. “I’ll drink ‘here’s luck!’ Frank, go pack
your kit, and instead of demolishing Selby Sly, see Kitty
decently sodded. Your mother, Constance, and myself will rumble
after you to town by easy stages. I wonder how aunt Catherine
will cut up. If she has left as much cash behind as she has
lavished good advice in her parting epistle, by—” and my
father did ejaculate a regular rasper—”I’ll re-purchase
the harriers, as I have got a whisper that poor Dick was
cleaned out the last meeting at the Curragh, and the pack is in
the market.”

CHAPTER III.

It is a queer world after all; manifold are its ups and
downs, and life is but a medley of fair promise, excited hope,
and bitter disappointment.

Never did a family party start for the metropolis with gayer
hearts, or on a more agreeable mission. Our honored relative
(authoritate the Methodist Magazine) had “shuffled off”
in the best marching order imaginable. Before the rout had
arrived, her house had been perfectly arranged, but her will,
“wo [**Unreadable] day,” was afterward found to be too
informal. It was hinted that the mission to Timbuctoo, although
not legally binding on the next of kin, should be considered a
sacred injunction and first lien on the estates. In a religious
light, according to the Reverend Mr. Sharpington, formalities
were unnecessary; but my father observed, sotto voce, in
reply, and in the plain vernacular of the day, what in modern
times would have been more figuratively expressed, namely, “Did
not the gospel-trumpeters wish they might get it!” The kennel,
whose door for two years had not been opened, was again
unlocked; whitewashing and reparations were extensively
ordered; a prudent envoy was dispatched to re-purchase the
pack, which, rebut egenis, had been laid down, and the
colonel, in his “mind’s eye,” and oblivious of cloth shoes,
once more was up to his knees in leather,²
and taking everything in the shape of fence and brook, just
as the Lord pleased to dispose them.

A cellar census was next decided on, and by a stout
exertion, and at the same time with a heavy heart, my father
hobbled down the stone steps and entered an underground
repertorium, which once he took much pride in visiting. Alas!
its glory had departed; the empty bins were richly fringed with
cobwebbed tapestries, and silently admitted a non-occupancy by
bottles for past years. The colonel sighed. He remembered his
grandfather’s parting benediction. Almost in infancy, malignant
fever within one brief week had deprived him of both parents,
and a chasm in direct succession was thus created. A summons
from school was unexpectedly received, and although the young
heir and the courier borrowed liberally from the night, it was
past cock-crow when they reached their destination.

The old gentleman was “in articulo,” or as sailors would
say, he was already “hove short,” and ready to trip his
anchor.

“Up stairs, master Frank,” exclaimed the old butler to my
father, “the general will be in heaven in half an hour, glory
to the Virgin!”

I shall never forget my fathers description of the parting
scene. Propped by half a dozen pillows, the old man gasped hard
for breath, but the appearance of his grandson appeared to
rouse the dormant functions of both mind and body; and although
there were considerable breaks between each sentence, he thus
delivered his valedictory advice. Often has the departure of
Commodore Trunnion been recalled to memory by the demise of my
honored relative.

“Frank,” said the old fox-hunter to my father, “the summons
is come, as we used to say when I was a dragoon, to ‘boot and
saddle.’ I told the doctor a month ago that my
[pg 151] wind was touched, but he
would have it that I was only a whistler.”

He paused for breath.

“The best horse that ever bore pig-skin on his back, won’t
stand too many calls—ugh! ugh! ugh!”

Another pause.

“I bless God that my conscience is tolerably clean. Widow or
orphan I never wronged intentionally, and the heaviest item
booked against me overhead is Dick Sommer’s death. Well, he
threw a decanter, as was proved upon the trial to the
satisfaction of judge and jury; and you know, after that,
nothing but the daisy³
would do. I leave you four honest weight carriers, and as
sweet a pack as ever ran into a red rascal without a check.
Don’t be extravagant in my wake.”

Another interruption in the parting address.

“A fat heifer, half a dozen sheep, and the puncheon of
Rasserea that’s in the cellar untouched, should do the thing
genteelly. It’s only a couple of nights you know, as you’ll sod
me the third morning. Considering that I stood two contests for
the county, an action for false imprisonment by a gauger, never
had a lock on the hall door, kept ten horses at rack and
manger, and lived like a gentleman. To the £5,000 for which my
poor father dipped the estate I have only after all added
£10,000 more, which, as Attorney Rowland said, showed that I
was a capital manager. Well, you can pay both off easily.”

Another fit of coughing distressed my grandfather
sorely.

“Go to the waters—any place in England will answer. If
you will stand tallow or tobacco, you can in a month or two
wipe old scores off the slate. Sir Roderick O’Boyl, when he was
so hard pushed as to be driven over the bridge of Athlone in a
coffin to avoid the coroner,⁴
didn’t he, and in less than a twelvemonth too, bring over a
sugar-baker’s daughter, pay off encumbrances, and live and
die like a gentleman as he was every inch? I have not much
to leave you but some advice, Frank dear, and after I slip
my girths remember what I say. When you’re likely to get
into trouble, always take the bull by the horns, and when
you’re in for a stoup, never mix liquors or sit with your
back to the fire. If you’re obliged to go out, be sure to
fight across the ridges, and if you can manage it, with the
sun at your back. Ugh! ugh! ugh!”

“In crossing a country, choose the—”

Another coughing fit, and a long hiatus in valedictory
instructions succeeded, but the old man, as they say in
hunting, got second wind, and thus proceeded—

“Never fence a ditch when a gate is open—avoid late
hours and attorneys—and the less you have to say to
doctors, all the better—ugh! ugh! ugh! When it’s your
misfortune to be in company with an old maid—I mean a
reputed one—ugh! ugh! always be on the muzzle—for
in her next issue of scandal she’ll be sure to quote you as her
authority. If a saint comes in your way, button your
breeches-pocket, and look now and then at your watch-chain. I’m
brought nearly to a fix, for bad bellows won’t stand long
speeches.”

Here the ripple in his speech, which disturbed Commodore
Trunnion so much, sorely afflicted my worthy grandfather. He
muttered something that a snaffle was the safest bit a sinner
could place faith in—assumed the mantle of
prophecy—foretold, as it would appear, troublous times to
be in rapid advent—and inculcated that faith should be
placed in heaven, and powder kept very dry.

He strove to rally and reiterate his counsels for my
father’s guidance, but strength was wanting. The story of a
life was told—he swayed on one side from the supporting
pillows—and in a minute more the struggle was over. Well,
peace to his ashes! We’ll leave him in the family vault, and
start with a party for the metropolis, who, in the demise of
our honored kinswoman, had sustained a heavy loss, but
notwithstanding, endured the visitation with Christian
fortitude and marvelous resignation.

Place au dames. My lady-mother had been a beauty in
her day, and for a dozen years after her marriage, had seen her
name proudly and periodically recorded by George Faukiner, in
the thing he called a journal, which, in size, paper, and
typography, might emulate a necrologic affair cried loudly
through the streets of London, “i’ the afternoon” of a hanging
Monday, containing much important information, whether the
defunct felon had made his last breakfast simply from tea and
toast, or whether Mr. Sheriff —— had kindly added
mutton-chops to the déjeûner, while his amiable lady
furnished new-laid eggs from the family corn-chandler. But to
return to my mother.

Ten years had passed, and her name had not been hallooed
from groom to groom on a birth-day night, while the pearl
neck-lace, a bridal present, and emeralds, an heir-loom from
her mother, remained in strict abeyance. Now and again their
cases were unclosed, and a sigh accompanied the
inspection—for sad were their reminiscences.
Olim—her name was chronicled on Patrick’s night,
by every Castle reporter. They made, it is to be lamented, as
Irish reporters will make, sad mistakes at times. The once poor
injured lady had been attired in canary-colored lute-string,
and an ostrich plume remarkable for its enormity while she, the
libeled one, had been becomingly arrayed in blue bombazine, and
of any plumage imported from Araby the blest, was altogether
innocent.

A general family movement was decided
[pg 152] on. My aunt’s demise
required, my father’s presence in the metropolis. My
mother’s wardrobe demanded an extensive addition,—for,
sooth to say, her costume had become, as far as fashion
went, rather antediluvian. Constance announced that a
back-tooth called for professional interference. May heaven
forgive her if she fibbed!—for a dental display of
purer ivory never slily solicited a lover’s kiss, than what
her joyous laugh exhibited. My poor mother entered a protest
against the “spes ultima gregis,” meaning myself,
being left at home in times so perilous, and when all who
could effect it were hurrying into garrisoned towns, and
abandoning, for crowded lodgings, homes whose superior
comforts were abated by their insecurity. The order for a
general movement was consequently issued, and on the 22d of
June we commenced our journey to the capital.

With all the precision of a commissary-general, my father
had regulated the itinerary. Here, we were to breakfast, there,
dine, and this hostelrie was to be honored with our sojourn
during the night-season. Man wills, fate decrees, and in our
case the old saw was realized.

It will be necessary to remark that a conspiracy that had
been hatching for several years, from unforeseen circumstances
had now been prematurely exploded. My father, with more
hardiesse than discretion, declined following the
general example of abandoning his home for the comparative
safety afforded by town and city. Coming events threw their
shadow before, and too unequivocally to be mistaken, but still
he sported deaf adder. In confidential communication
with Dublin Castle, all known there touching the intended
movements of the disaffected was not concealed from him. He
was, unfortunately, the reverse of an alarmist—proud of
his popularity—read his letters—drew his
inferences—and came to prompt conclusions. Through his
lawyer, a house ready-furnished in Leeson-street was secured.
His plate and portable valuables were forwarded to Dublin, and
reached their destination safely. Had our hearts been where the
treasure was, we should, as in prudence bound, have personally
accompanied the silver spoons—but the owner, like many an
abler commander, played the waiting game too long. A day sooner
would have saved some trouble—but my father had carried
habits of absolute action into all the occurrences of daily
life. Indecision is, in character, a sad failure, but his weak
point ran directly in an opposite direction. He thought,
weighed matters hastily, decided in five minutes, and that
decision once made, coute qui coute, must be carried out
to the very letter. He felt all the annoyance of leaving the
old roof-tree and its household gods—conflicting
statements from the executive—false information from
local traitors—an assurance from the priest that no
immediate danger might be expected—these, united to a
yearning after home, rendered his operations rather Fabian. The
storm burst, however, while he still hesitated, or rather, the
burning of the mail-coaches and the insurrection were things
simultaneous—and my father afterward discovered that he,
like many a wiser man, had waited a day too long.

Whether the colonel might have dallied still longer is mere
conjecture, when a letter marked “haste” was delivered by an
orderly dragoon, and in half an hour the “leathern conveniency”
was rumbling down the avenue.

The journey of the Wronghead family to London—if I
recollect the pleasant comedy that details it
correctly—was effected without the occurrence of any
casualty beyond some dyspeptic consequences to the cook from
over-eating. Would that our migration to the metropolis had
been as fortunately accomplished!

We started early; and on reaching the town where we were to
breakfast and exchange our own for post-horses, found the place
in feverish excitement. A hundred anxious inquirers were
collected in the market-place. Three hours beyond the usual
time of the mail-delivery had elapsed,—wild rumors were
spread abroad,—a general rising in Leinster was
announced,—and the non-arrival of the post had an ominous
appearance, and increased the alarm.

We hurried over the morning meal,—the horses were
being put to,—the ladies already in the
carriage,—when a dragoon rode in at speed, and the worst
apprehensions we had entertained were more than realized by
this fresh arrival. The mail-coach had been plundered and
burned, while everywhere, north, east, and west, as it was
stated, the rebels were in open insurrection,—all
communication with Dublin was cut off,—and any attempt to
reach the metropolis would have been only an act of
madness.

Another express from the south came in. Matters there were
even worse. The rebels had risen en masse and committed
fearful devastation. The extent of danger in attempting to
reach the capital, or return to his mansion, were thus
painfully balanced; and my father considering that, as sailors
say, the choice rested between the devil and the deep sea,
decided on remaining where he was, as the best policy under all
circumstances.

The incompetency of the Irish engineering staff, and a
defective commissariat, at that time was most deplorable; and
although the town of —— was notoriously
disaffected, the barrack chosen, temporarily, to accommodate
the garrison—a company of militia—was a thatched
building, two stories high, and perfectly commanded by houses
in front and rear. The captain in charge of the detachment knew
nothing of his trade, and had been hoisted to a commission in
return for the use of a few freeholders. The Irish read
character quickly. They saw at a glance the marked imbecility
of the devoted man; [pg 153] and by an imposition, from
which any but an idiot would have recoiled, trapped the
silly victim and, worse still, sacrificed those who had been
unhappily intrusted to his direction.

That the express had ridden hard was evident from the
distressed condition of his horse; and the intelligence he
brought deranged my father’s plans entirely. Any attempt either
to proceed or to return, as it appeared, would be hazardous
alike; and nothing remained but to halt where he was, until
more certain information touching the rebel operations should
enable him to decide which would be the safest course of action
to pursue. He did not communicate the extent of his
apprehensions to the family,—affected an air of
indifference he did not feel,—introduced himself to the
commanding officer on parade, and returned to the inn in full
assurance that, in conferring a commission on a man so utterly
ignorant of the trade he had been thrust into as Captain
—- appeared to be, “the King’s press had been abused most
damnably.”

The Colonel had a singular quality,—that of personal
remembrance; and even at the distance of years he would recall
a man to memory, even had the former acquaintance been but
casual. Passing through the inn yard, his quick eye detected in
the ostler a quondam stable-boy. To avoid the
consequences attendant on a fair riot which had ended, “ut
mos est,” in homicide, the ex-groom had fled the country,
and, as it was reported and believed, sought an asylum in the
“land of the free” beyond the Atlantic, which, privileged like
the Cave of Abdullum, conveniently flings her stripes and stars
over all that are in debt and all that are in danger. Little
did the fugitive groom desire now to recall “lang syne,” and
renew a former acquaintance. But my father was otherwise
determined; and stepping carelessly up, he tapped his old
domestic on the shoulder, and at once addressed him by
name.

The ostler turned deadly pale, but in a moment the Colonel
dispelled his alarm.

“You have nothing to apprehend from me, Pat. He who struck
the blow, which was generally laid to your charge, confessed
when dying that he was the guilty man, and that you were
innocent of all blame beyond mixing in the affray.”

Down popped the suspected culprit on his knees, and in a low
but earnest voice he returned thanks to heaven.

“I understood you had gone to America, or I would have
endeavored in some way to have apprised you, that a murderer by
report, you were but a rioter in reality.”

“I did go there. Colonel, but I could not rest. I knew that
I was innocent: but who would believe my oath? I might have
done well enough there; but I don’t know why, the ould country
was always at my heart, and I used to cry when I thought of the
mornings that I whipped in the hounds, and the nights that I
danced merrily in the servants’ hall, when piper or fiddler
came,—and none left the house without meat, drink, and
money, and a blessing on the hand that gave it.”

“What brought you here, so close to your former home, and so
likely to be recognized?”

“To see if I couldn’t clear myself, and get ye’r honor to
take me back. Mark that dark man! He’s owner of this horse. Go
to the bottom of the garden, and I’ll be with you when he
returns to the house again.”

My father walked carelessly away, unclosed the garden gate,
and left the dark stranger with his former whipper-in. Throwing
himself on a bench in a rude summer-house, he began to think
over the threatening aspect of affairs, and devise, if he
could, some plan to deliver his family from the danger, which
on every side it became too evident was alarmingly
impending.

He was speedily rejoined by his old domestic.

“Marked ye that dark man well?”

“Yes; and a devilish suspicious-looking gentleman he
is.”

“His looks do not belie him. No matter whatever may occur
through it, you must quit the town directly. Call for
post-horses, and as mine is the first turn, I’ll be postillion.
Don’t show fear or suspicion—and leave the rest to me.
Beware of the landlord—he’s a colonel of the rebels, and
a bloodier-minded villain is not unhanged. Hasten
in—every moment is worth gold—and when the call
comes, the horses will be to the carriage in the cracking of a
whip, Don’t notice me, good or bad.”

He spoke, hopped over the garden hedge to reach the back of
the stables unperceived, while I proceeded along the gate; it
was opened by the host in person. He started; but, with assumed
indifference, observed, “What sad news the dragoon has
brought!”

“I don’t believe the half of it. These things are always
exaggerated. Landlord, I’ll push on a stage or two, and the
worst that can happen is to return, should the route prove
dangerous. I know that here I have a safe shelter to fall back
upon.”

“Safe!” exclaimed the innkeeper. “All the rabble in the
country would not venture within miles of where ye are; and,
notwithstanding bad reports, there’s not a loyaler barony in
the county. Faith! Colonel, although it may look very like
seeking custom, I would advise you to keep your present
quarters. You know the old saying, ‘Men may go farther and fare
worse.’ I had a lamb killed when I heard of the rising, and
specially for your honor’s dinner. Just look into the barn as
ye pass. Upon my conscience! it’s a curiosity!”

He turned back with me; but before we reached the place, the
dark stranger I had seen before beckoned from a back
window.

“Ha! an old and worthy customer wants
me.”

Placing his crooked finger in his mouth. he gave a loud and
piercing whistle. The quondam whipper appeared at a
stable-door with a horse-brush in his hand.

“Pat, show his honor that born beauty I killed for him this
morning.”

“Coming, Mr. Scully—I beg ye’r honor’s
pardon—but ye know that business must be minded,” he
said, and hurried off.

No man assumes the semblance of indifference, and masks his
feelings more readily than an Irishman, and Pat Loftus was no
exception to his countrymen. When summoned by the host’s
whistle, he came to the door lilting a planxty
merrily,—but when he re-entered the stable, the melody
ceased, and his countenance became serious.

“I hid behind the straw, yonder, Colonel, and overheard
every syllable that passed, and under the canopy bigger
villains are not than the two who are together now. There’s no
time for talking—all’s ready,” and he pointed to the
harnessed post-horses, “Go in, keep an eye open, and close
mouth—order the carriage round—all is
packed—and when we’re clear of the town I’ll tell you
more.”

When my father’s determination was made known, feelingly did
the host indicate the danger of the attempt, and to his
friendly remonstrances against wayfaring, Mr. Scully raised a
warning voice. But my father was decisive—Pat Loftus
trotted to the door—some light luggage was placed in the
carriage, and three brace of pistols deposited in its pockets.
A meaning look was interchanged between the innkeeper and his
fellow-guest.

“Colonel,” said the former, “I hope you will not need the
tools. If you do, the fault will be all your own.”

“If required,” returned my father, “I’ll use them to the
best advantage.”

The villains interchanged a smile.

“Pat,” said the host to the postillion, “you know the safest
road—do what I bid ye—and keep his honor out of
trouble if ye can.”

“Go on,” shouted my father—the whip cracked smartly,
and off rolled the carriage.

For half a mile we proceeded at a smart pace, until at the
junction of the three roads, Loftus took the one which the
finger-post indicated was not the Dublin one. My father called
out to stop, but the postillion hurried on, until high hedges,
and a row of ash-trees at both sides, shut in the view. He
pulled up suddenly.

“Am I not an undutiful servant to disobey the orders of so
good a master as Mr. Dogherty? First, I have not taken the road
he recommended—and, secondly, instead of driving this
flint into a horse’s frog, I have carried it in my pocket,” and
he jerked the stone away.

“Look to your pistols, Colonel. In good old times your arms,
I suspect, would have been found in better order.”

The weapons were examined, and every pan had been saturated
with water. “Never mind, I’ll clean them well at night: it’s
not the first time. But, see the dust yonder! I dare not turn
back, and I am half afraid to go on. Ha—glory to the
Virgin! dragoons, ay, and, as I see now, they are escorting
Lord Arlington’s coach. Have we not the luck of thousands?”

He cracked his whip, and at the junction of a cross-road
fell in with and joined the travelers. My father was well known
to his lordship, who expressed much pleasure that the journey
to the capital should be made in company.

Protected by relays of cavalry, we reached the city in
safety, not, however, without one or two hair-breadth escapes
from molestation. Everything around told that the insurrection
had broken out: church-bells rang, dropping shots now and then
were heard, and houses, not very distant, were wrapped in
flames. Safely, however, we passed through manifold alarms, and
at dusk entered the fortified barrier erected on one of the
canal bridges, which was jealously guarded by a company of
Highlanders and two six-pounders. Brief shall be a summary of
what followed. While the tempest of rebellion raged, we
remained safely in the capital. Constance and I were over head
and ears in love; but another passion struggled with me for
mastery. Youth is always pugnacious; like Norval,

colonel of militia, and importuned my father to obtain a
commission, and, like Laertes, “wrung a slow consent.” The
application was made; and, soon after breakfast, the butler
announced that my presence was wanted in the drawing-room. I
repaired thither, and there found my father, his fair dame, and
my cousin Constance.

“Well, Frank, I have kept my promise, and, in a day or two,
I shall have a captain’s commission for you. Before, however, I
place myself under an obligation to Lord Carhampton, let me
propose an alternative for your selection.”

I shook my head. “And what may that be, sir?”

“A wife.”

“A wife!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, that is the plain offer. You shall have, however, a
free liberty of election: read that letter.”

I threw my eye over it hastily. It was from the Lord
Lieutenant’s secretary, to say that his excellency felt
pleasure in placing a company in the —— militia, at
Colonel Hamilton’s disposal. “There is the road to fame open as
a turnpike trust. Come hither, Constance, and here is the
alternative.” She looked at me archly, I caught her to my
heart, and kissed her red lips.

“Father!”

“Well, Frank.”

“You may write a polite letter to the Castle, and decline
the commission.”

Half a century has passed, but ninety-eight is still, by
oral communications, well known to the Irish peasant; and would
that its horrors carried with them salutary reminiscences! But
to my own story.

Instead of fattening beeves, planting trees, clapping
vagabonds “i’ th’ stocks,” and doing all and everything that
appertaineth to a country gentleman, and also, the queen’s poor
esquire, I might have, until the downfall of Napoleon, and the
reduction of the militia, events cotemporaneous, smelt powder
on the Phoenix Park on field days, and like Hudibras, of
pleasant memory, at the head of a charge of foot, “rode forth a
coloneling.” In place, however, of meddling with cold iron, I
yielded to “metal more attractive,” and in three months became
a Benedict, and in some dozen more a papa.

In the mean time, rebellion was bloodily put down, and on my
lady’s recovery, my father, whose yearning for a return to the
old roof-tree was irresistible, prepared for our departure from
the metropolis.

Curiously enough, we passed through Prosperous, exactly on
the anniversary of the day when we had so providentially
effected an invasion from certain destruction. Were aught
required to elicit gratitude for a fortunate escape, two
objects, and both visible from the inn windows, would have been
sufficient. One was a mass of blackened ruins—the scathed
walls of the barrack, in which the wretched garrison had been
so barbarously done to death: the other a human head impaled
upon a spike on the gable of the building. That blanched skull
had rested on the shoulders of our traitor host, and we, doomed
to “midnight murder,” were mercifully destined to witness a
repulsive, but just evidence, that Providence interposes often
between the villain and the victim.

I am certain that in my physical construction, were an
analysis practicable, small would be the amount of heroic
proportions which the most astute operator would detect. I may
confess the truth, and say, that in “lang syne,” any transient
ebullition of military ardor vanished at a glance from
Constance’s black eye. The stream of time swept on, and those
that were, united their dust with those that had been. In a
short time my letter of readiness may be expected; and I shall,
in nature’s course, after the last march, as Byron says, ere
long

And will the succession end with me? Tell it not to Malthes,
nor whisper it to Harriet Martineau. There is no prospect of
advertising for the next of kin, i.e. if five strapping
boys and a couple of the fair sex may be considered a
sufficient security.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic
satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well
as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is so well
dressed.—Dr. Johnson.

THE IVORY MINE:

A TALE OF THE FROZEN SEA.

IV.—THE FROZEN SEA.

Ivan soon found himself received into the best society of
the place. All were glad to welcome the adventurous trader from
Yakoutsk; and when he intimated that his boxes of treasure, his
brandy and tea, and rum and tobacco, were to be laid out in the
hire of dogs and sledges, he found ample applicants, though,
from the very first, all refused to accompany his party as
guardians of the dogs. Sakalar, however, who had expected this,
was nothing daunted, but, bidding Ivan amuse himself as best he
could, undertook all the preparations. But Ivan found as much
pleasure in teaching what little he knew to Kolina as in
frequenting the fashionable circles of Kolimsk. Still, he could
not reject the numerous polite invitations to evening parties
and dances which poured upon him. I have said evening parties,
for though there was no day, yet still the division of the
hours was regularly kept, and parties began at five P.M., to
end at ten. There was singing and dancing, and gossip and tea,
of which each individual would consume ten or twelve large
cups; in fact, despite the primitive state of the inhabitants,
and the vicinity to the Polar Sea, these assemblies very much
resembled in style those of Paris and London. The costumes, the
saloons, and the hours, were different, while the manners were
less refined, but the facts were the same.

When the carnival came round, Ivan, who was a little vexed
at the exclusion of Kolina from the fashionable Russian
society, took care to let her have the usual amusement of
sliding down a mountain of ice, which she did to her great
satisfaction. But he took care also at all times to devote to
her his days, while Sakalar wandered about from yourte to
yourte in search of hints and information for the next winter’s
journey. He also hired the requisite nartas, or sledges,
and the thirty-nine dogs which were to draw them, thirteen to
each. The he bargained for a large stock of frozen and dry fish
for the dogs, and other provisions for themselves. But what
mostly puzzled the people were his assiduous efforts to get a
man to go with them who would harness twenty dogs to an extra
sledge. To the astonishment of everybody, three young men at
last volunteered, and three extra sledges were then
procured.

The summer soon came round, and then Ivan and his friends
started out at once with the hunters, and did their utmost to
be useful. As the natives of Kolimsk went during the chase a
long distance toward Cape Sviatoi, the spot where the
adventurers were to quit the land and venture on the Frozen
Sea, they took care, at the furthest extremity of their hunting
trip, to leave a deposit of provisions. They erected a small
platform, which they covered with drift wood, and on this they
placed the dried fish. Above were
[pg 156] laid heavy stones, and
every precaution used to ward off the isatis and the
glutton. Ivan during the summer added much to his stock of
hunting knowledge.

At length the winter came round once more, and the hour
arrived so long desired. The sledges were ready—six in
number, and loaded as heavily as they could bear. But for so
many dogs, and for so many days, it was quite certain they must
economize most strictly; while it was equally certain, if no
bears fell in their way on the journey, that they must starve,
if they did not perish otherwise on the terrible Frozen Sea.
Each narta, loaded with eight hundredweight of provisions and
its driver, was drawn by six pair of dogs and a leader. They
took no wood, trusting implicitly to Providence for this most
essential article. They purposed following the shores of the
Frozen Sea to Cape Sviatoi, because on the edge of the sea they
hoped to find, as usual, plenty of wood, floated to the shore
during the brief period when the ice was broken and the vast
ocean in part free. One of the sledges was less loaded than the
rest with provisions, because it bore a tent, an iron plate for
fire on the ice, a lamp, and the few cooking utensils of the
party.

Early one morning in the month of November—the long
night still lasting—the six sledges took their departure.
The adventurers had every day exercised themselves with the
dogs for some hours, and were pretty proficient. Sakalar drove
the first team, Kolina the second, and Ivan the third. The
Kolimak men came afterward. They took their way along the snow
toward the mouth of the Tchouktcha river. The first day’s
journey brought them to the extreme limits of vegetation, after
which they entered on a vast and interminable plain of snow,
along which the nartas moved rapidly. But the second day. in
the afternoon, a storm came on. The snow fell in clouds, the
wind blew with a bitterness of cold as searching to the form of
man as the hot blast of the desert, and the dogs appeared
inclined to halt. But Sakalar kept on his way toward a hillock
in the distance, where the guides spoke of a hut of refuge. But
before a dozen yards could be crossed, the sledge of Kolina was
overturned, and a halt became necessary.

Ivan was the first to raise his fair companion from the
ground; and then with much difficulty—their hands,
despite all the clothes, being half-frozen—they again put
the nartas in condition to proceed. Sakalar had not stopped,
but was seen in the distance unharnessing his sledge, and then
poking about in a huge heap of snow. He was searching for the
hut, which had been completely buried in the drift. In a few
minutes the whole six were at work, despite the blast, while
the dogs were scratching holes for themselves in the soft snow,
within which they soon lay snug, their noses only out of the
hole, while over this the sagacious brutes put the tip of their
long bushy tails.

At the end of an hour well employed, the hut was freed
inside from snow, and a fire of stunted bushes with a few logs
lit in the middle. Here the whole party cowered, almost choked
with the thick smoke, which, however, was less painful than the
blast from the icy sea. The smoke escaped with difficulty,
because the roof was still covered with firm snow, and the door
was merely a hole to crawl through. At last, however, they got
the fire to the state of red embers, and succeeded in obtaining
a plentiful supply of tea and food: after which their limbs
being less stiff, they fed the dogs.

While they were attending to the dogs, the storm abated, and
was followed by a magnificent aurora borealis. It rose in the
north, a sort of semi-arch of light; and then across the
heavens, in almost every direction, darted columns of a
luminous character. The light was as bright as that of the moon
in its full. There were jets of lurid red light in some places,
which disappeared and came again; while there being a dead calm
after the storm, the adventurers heard a kind of rustling sound
in the distance, faint and almost imperceptible, and yet
believed to be the rush of the air in the sphere of the
phenomenon. A few minutes more and all had disappeared.

After a hearty meal, the wanderers launched into the usual
topics of conversation in those regions. Sakalar was not a
boaster, but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed
of the usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen. They
told with considerable vigor and effect long stories of their
adventures, most exaggerated—and when not impossible,
most improbable—of bears killed in hand to hand combat,
of hundreds of deer slain in the crossing of a river, and of
multitudinous heaps of fish drawn in one cast of a seine: and
then, wrapped in their thick clothes and every one’s feet to
the fire, the whole party soon slept. Ivan and Kolina, however,
held whispered converse together for a little while, but
fatigue soon overcame even them.

The next day they advanced still farther toward the pole,
and on the evening of the third camped within a few yards of
the great Frozen Sea. There it lay before them, scarcely
distinguishable from the land. As they looked upon it from a
lofty eminence, it was hard to believe that that was a sea
before them. There was snow on the sea and snow on the land:
there were mountains on both, and huge drifts, and here and
there vast polinas—a space of soft, watery ice,
which resembled the lakes of Siberia. All was bitter, cold,
sterile, bleak, and chilling to the eye, which vainly sought a
relief. The prospect of a journey over this desolate plain,
intersected in every direction by ridges of mountain icebergs,
full of crevices, with soft salt ice here and there, was
dolorous indeed; and yet the heart of Ivan quaked not. He had
now what he sought in view; he knew there was land beyond, and
riches, and fame.

A rude tent, with snow piled round the edge to keep it firm,
was erected. It needed to be strongly pitched, for in these
regions the blast is more quick and sudden than in any place
perhaps in the known world, pouring down along the fields of
ice with terrible force direct from the unknown caverns of the
northern pole. Within the tent, which was of double
reindeer-skin, a fire was lit; while behind a huge rock, and
under cover of the sledges, lay the dogs. As usual, after a
hearty meal, and hot tea—drunk perfectly
scalding—the party retired to rest. About midnight all
were awoke by a sense of oppression and stifling heat. Sakalar
rose, and by the light of the remaining embers scrambled to the
door. It was choked up by snow. The hunter immediately began to
shovel it from the narrow hole through which they entered or
left the hut, and then groped his way out. The snow was falling
so thick and fast that the traveling yourte was completely
buried, and the wind being—directly opposite to the door,
the snow had drifted round and concealed the aperture.

The dogs now began to howl fearfully. This was too serious a
warning to be disdained. They smelt the savage bear of the icy
seas, which in turn had been attracted to them by its sense of
smelling. Scarcely had the sagacious animals given tongue, when
Sakalar, through the thick-falling snow and amid the gloom, saw
a dull heavy mass rolling directly toward the tent. He leveled
his gun, and fired, after which he seized a heavy steel
wood-axe, and stood ready. The animal had at first halted, but
next minute he came on growling furiously. Ivan and Kolina now
both fired, when the animal turned and ran. But the dogs were
now round him, and Sakalar behind them. One tremendous blow of
his axe finished the huge beast, and there he lay in the snow.
The dogs then abandoned him, refusing to eat fresh bear’s meat,
though, when frozen, they gladly enough accept it.

The party again sought rest, after lighting an oil-lamp with
a thick wick, which, in default of the fire, diffused a
tolerable amount of warmth in a small place occupied by six
people. But they did not sleep; for though one of the bears was
killed, the second of the almost invariable couple was probably
near, and the idea of such vicinity was anything but agreeable.
These huge quadrupeds have been often known to enter a hut and
stifle all its inhabitants. The night was therefore far from
refreshing, and at an earlier hour than usual all were on foot.
Every morning the same routine was followed: hot tea, without
sugar or milk, was swallowed to warm the body; then a meal,
which took the place of dinner, was cooked and devoured; then
the dogs were fed, and then the sledges, which had been
inclined on one side, were placed horizontally. This was always
done to water their keel, to use a nautical phrase; for this
water freezing they glided along all the faster. A portion of
the now hard-frozen bear was given to the dogs, and the rest
placed on the sledges, after the skin had been secured toward
making a new covering at night.

This day’s journey was half on the land, half on the sea,
according as the path served. It was generally very rough, and
the sledges made but slow way. The dogs, too, had coverings put
on their feet, and on every other delicate place, which made
them less agile. In ordinary cases, on a smooth surface, it is
not very difficult to guide a team of dogs, when the leader is
a first-rate animal. But this is an essential point, otherwise
it is impossible to get along. Every time the dogs hit on the
track of a bear, or fox, or other animal, their hunting
instincts are developed: away they dart like mad, leaving the
line of march, and in spite of all the efforts of the driver,
begin the chase. But if the front dog be well trained, he
dashes on on one side, in a totally opposite direction,
smelling and barking as if he had a new track. If his artifice
succeeds, the whole team dart away after him, and speedily
losing the scent, proceed on their journey.

Sakalar, who still kept ahead of the party, when making a
wide circuit out at sea about midday, at the foot of a steep
hill of rather rough ice, found his dogs suddenly increasing
their speed, but in the right direction. To this he had no
objection, though it was very doubtful what was beyond.
However, the dogs darted ahead with terrific rapidity, until
they reached the summit of the hill. The ice was here very
rough and salt, which impeded the advance of the sledge: but
off are the dogs, down a very steep descent, furiously tugging
at the sledge-halter, till away they fly like lightning. The
harness had broken off, and Sakalar remained alone on the crest
of the hill. He leaped off the nartas, and stood looking at it
with the air of a man stunned. The journey seemed checked
violently. Next instant, his gun in hand, he followed the dogs
right down the hill, dashing away too like a madman, in his
long hunting-skates. But the dogs were out of sight, and
Sakalar soon found himself opposed by a huge wall of ice. He
looked back; he was wholly out of view of his companions. To
reconnoiter, he ascended the wall as best he could, and then
looked down into a sort of circular hollow of some extent,
where the ice was smooth and even watery.

He was about to turn away, when his sharp eye detected
something moving, and all his love of the chase was at once
aroused. He recognized the snow-cave of a huge bear. It was a
kind of cavern, caused by the falling together of two pieces of
ice, with double issue. Both apertures the bear had succeeded
in stopping up, after breaking a hole in the thin ice of the
sheltered polina, or sheet of soft ice. Here the cunning
animal lay in wait. How long he had been lying it was
impossible to say, but almost as Sakalar
[pg 158] crouched down to watch, a
seal came to the surface, and lay against the den of its
enemy to breathe. A heavy paw was passed through the hole,
and the sea-cow was killed in an instant. A naturalist would
have admired the wit of the ponderous bear, and passed on;
but the Siberian hunter knows no such thought, and as the
animal issued forth to seize his prey, a heavy ball,
launched with unerring aim, laid him low.

Sakalar now turned away in search of his companions, whose
aid was required to secure a most useful addition to their
store of food; and as he did so, he heard a distant and
plaintive howl. He hastened in the direction, and in a quarter
of an hour came to the mouth of a narrow gut between two
icebergs. The stick of the harness had caught in the fissure,
and checked the dogs, who were barking with rage. Sakalar
caught the bridle, which had been jerked out of his hand, and
turned the dogs round. The animals followed his guidance, and
he succeeded, after some difficulty, in bringing them to where
lay his game. He then fastened the bear and seal, both dead and
frozen even in this short time, and joined his companions.

For several days the same kind of difficulties had to be
overcome, and then they reached the sayba, where the
provisions had been placed in the summer. It was a large rude
box, erected on piles, and the whole stock was found safe. As
there was plenty of wood in this place they halted to rest the
dogs and re-pack the sledges. The tent was pitched, and they
all thought of repose. They were now about wholly to quit the
land, and to venture in a north-westerly direction on the
Frozen Sea.

V.—ON THE ICE.

Despite the fire made on the iron plate in the middle of the
tent, our adventurers found the cold at this point of their
journey most poignant. It was about Christmas; but the exact
time of year had little to do with the matter. The wind was
northerly, and keen: and they often at night had to rise and
promote circulation by a good run on the snow. But early on the
third day all was ready for a start. The sun was seen that
morning on the edge of the horizon for a short while, and
promised soon to give them days. Before them were a line of
icebergs, seemingly an impenetrable wall; but it was necessary
to brave them. The dogs, refreshed by two days of rest, started
vigorously, and a plain hill of ice being selected, they
succeeded in reaching its summit. Then before them lay a vast
and seemingly interminable plain. Along this the sledges ran
with great speed; and that day they advanced nearly thirty
miles from the land, and camped on the sea in a valley of
ice.

It was a singular spot. Vast sugar-loaf hills of ice, as old
perhaps as the world, threw their lofty cones to the skies, on
all sides, while they rested doubtless on the bottom of the
ocean. Every fantastic form was there; there seemed in the
distance cities and palaces as white as chalk; pillars and
reversed cones, pyramids and mounds of every shape, valleys and
lakes; and under the influence of the optical delusions of the
locality, green fields and meadows, and tossing seas. Here the
whole party rested soundly, and pushed on hard the next day in
search of land.

Several tracks of foxes and bears were now seen, but no
animals were discovered. The route, however, was changed. Every
now and then newly-formed fields of ice were met, which a
little while back had been floating. Lumps stuck up in every
direction, and made the path difficult. Then they reached a
vast polinas, where the humid state of the surface told that it
was thin, and of recent formation. A stick thrust into it went
through. But the adventurers took the only course left them.
The dogs were placed abreast, and then, at a signal, were
launched upon the dangerous surface. They flew rather than ran.
It was necessary, for as they went, the ice cracked in every
direction, but always under the weight of the nartas, which
were off before they could be caught by the bubbling waters. As
soon as the solid ice was again reached, the party halted, deep
gratitude to Heaven in their hearts, and camped for the
night.

But the weather had changed. What is called here the warm
wind had blown all day, and at night a hurricane came on. As
the adventurers sat smoking after supper, the ice beneath their
feet trembled, shook, and then fearful reports bursting on
their ears, told them that the sea was cracking in every
direction. They had camped on an elevated iceberg of vast
dimensions, and were for the moment safe. But around them they
heard the rush of waters. The vast Frozen Sea was in one of its
moments of fury. In the deeper seas to the north it never
freezes firmly—in fact there is always an open sea, with
floating bergs. When a hurricane blows, these clear spaces
become terribly agitated. Their tossing waves and mountains of
ice act on the solid plains, and break them up at times. This
was evidently the case now. About midnight our travelers, whose
anguish of mind was terrible, felt the great iceberg afloat.
Its oscillations were fearful. Sakalar alone preserved his
coolness. The men of Nijnei Kolimsk raved and tore their hair,
crying that they had been brought willfully to destruction;
Kolina kneeled, crossed herself, and prayed; while Ivan deeply
reproached himself as the cause of so many human beings
encountering such awful peril. The rockings of their icy raft
were terrible. It was impelled hither and thither by even huger
masses. Now it remained on its first level, then its surface
presented an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and it seemed
about to turn bottom up. All recommended themselves to God, and
awaited their fate. Suddenly they were rocked more violently
[pg 159] than ever, and were all
thrown down by the shock. Then all was still.

The hurricane lulled, the wind shifted. snow began to fall,
and the prodigious plain of loose ice again lay quiescent. The
bitter frost soon cemented its parts once more, and the danger
was over. The men of Nijnei Kolimsk now insisted on an instant
return; but Sakalar was firm, and, though their halt had given
them little rest, started as the sun was seen above the
horizon. The road was fearfully bad. All was rough, disjointed,
and almost impassable. But the sledges had good whalebone
keels, and were made with great care to resist such
difficulties. The dogs were kept moving all day, but when night
came they had made but little progress. But they rested in
peace. Nature was calm, and morning found them still asleep.
But Sakalar was indefatigable, and as soon as he had boiled a
potful of snow, made tea, and awoke his people.

They were now about to enter a labyrinth of toroses
or icebergs. There was no plain ground within sight; but no
impediment could be attended to. Bears made these their
habitual resorts, while the wolf skulked every night round the
camp, waiting their scanty leavings. Every eye was stretched in
search of game. But the road itself required intense care, to
prevent the sledges overturning. Toward the afternoon they
entered a narrow valley of ice full of drifted snow, into which
the dogs sank, and could scarcely move. At this instant two
enormous white bears presented themselves. The dogs sprang
forward; but the ground was too heavy for them. The hunters,
however, were ready. The bears marched boldly on as if savage
from long fasting. No time was to be lost. Sakalar and Ivan
singled out each his animal. Their heavy ounce balls struck
both. The opponent of Sakalar turned and fled, but that of Ivan
advanced furiously toward him. Ivan stood his ground, axe in
hand, and struck the animal a terrible blow on the muzzle. But
as he did so, he stumbled, and the bear was upon him. Kolina
shrieked; Sakalar was away after his prize; but the Kolimsk men
rushed in. Two fired: the third struck the animal with a spear.
The bear abandoned Ivan, and faced his new antagonists. The
contest was now unequal, and before half an hour was over, the
stock of provisions was again augmented, as well as the means
of warmth. They had very little wood, and what they had was
used sparingly. Once or twice a tree, fixed in the ice, gave
them additional fuel; but they were obliged chiefly to count on
oil. A small fire was made at night to cook by; but it was
allowed to go out, the tent was carefully closed, and the
caloric of six people, with a huge lamp with three wicks,
served for the rest of the night.

About the sixth day they struck land. It was a small island,
in a bay of which they found plenty of drift wood. Sakalar was
delighted. He was on the right track. A joyous halt took place,
a splendid fire was made, and the whole party indulged
themselves in a glass of rum—a liquor very rarely
touched, from its known tendency to increase rather than
diminish cold. A hole was next broken in the ice, and an
attempt made to catch some seals. Only one, however, rewarded
their efforts; but this, with a supply of wood, filled the
empty space made in the sledges by the daily consumption of the
dogs. But the island was soon found to be infested with bears:
no fewer than five, with eleven foxes, were killed, and then
huge fires had to be kept up at night to drive their survivors
away.

Their provender thus notably increased, the party started in
high spirits; but though they were advancing toward the pole,
they were also advancing toward the Deep Sea, and the ice
presented innumerable dangers. Deep fissures, lakes, chasms,
mountains, all lay in their way; and no game presented itself
to their anxious search. Day after day they pushed
on—here making long circuits, there driven back, and
losing sometimes in one day all they had made in the previous
twelve hours. Some fissures were crossed on bridges of ice,
which took hours to make, while every hour the cold seemed more
intense. The sun was now visible for hours, and, as usual in
these parts, the cold was more severe since his arrival.

At last, after more than twenty days of terrible fatigue,
there was seen looming in the distance what was no doubt the
promised land. The sledges were hurried forward—for they
were drawing toward the end of their provisions—and the
whole party was at length collected on the summit of a lofty
mountain of ice. Before them were the hills of New Siberia; to
their right a prodigious open sea: and at their feet, as far as
the eye could reach, a narrow channel of rapid water, through
which huge lumps of ice rushed so furiously, as to have no time
to cement into a solid mass.

The adventurers stood aghast. But Sakalar led the way to the
very brink of the channel, and moved quietly along its course
until he found what he was in search of. This a sheet or floe
of ice, large enough to bear the whole party, and yet almost
detached from the general field. The sledges were put upon it,
and then, by breaking with their axes the narrow tongue which
held it, it swayed away into the tempestuous sea. It almost
turned round as it started. The sledges and dogs were placed in
the middle, while the five men stood at the very edge to guide
it as far as possible with their hunting spears.

In a few minutes it was impelled along by the rapid current,
but received every now and then a check when it came in contact
with heavier and deeper masses. The Kolimsk men stood
transfixed with terror as they saw themselves borne out toward
that vast deep sea which eternally tosses and rages round
[pg 160] the Arctic Pole: but
Sakalar, in a peremptory tone, bade them use their spears.
They pushed away heartily; and their strange raft, though
not always keeping its equilibrium, was edged away both
across and down the stream. At last it began to move more
slowly, and Sakalar found himself under the shelter of a
huge iceberg, and then impelled up stream by a backwater
current. In a few minutes the much wished-for shore was
reached.

The route was rude and rugged as they approached the land;
but all saw before them the end of their labors for the winter,
and every one proceeded vigorously. The dogs seemed to smell
the land, or at all events some tracks of game, for they
hurried on with spirit. About an hour before the usual time of
camping they were under a vast precipice, turning which, they
found themselves in a deep and sheltered valley, with a river
at the bottom, frozen between its lofty banks, and covered by
deep snow.

“The ivory mine!” said Sakalar in a low tone to Ivan, who
thanked him by an expressive look.

THE RUSSIAN SERF.

“In the Russian peasant lies the embryo of the Russian
chivalric spirit, the origin of our nation’s grandeur.”

“Cunning fellows they are, the vagabonds,” remarked Vassily
Ivanovitsch.

“Yes, cunning, and thereby clever; quick in imitation, quick
in appropriating what is new or useful—ready prepared for
civilization. Try to teach a laborer in foreign countries
anything out of the way of his daily occupation, and he will
still cling to his plow: with us, only give the word, and the
peasant becomes musician, painter, mechanic, steward, anything
you like.”

“Well, that’s true,” remarked Vassily Ivanovitsch.

“And besides,” continued Ivan Vassilievitsch, “in what
country can you find such a strongly-marked and instinctive
notion of his duties, such readiness to assist his
fellow-creatures, such cheerfulness, such benignity, so much
gentleness and strength combined.”

“A splendid fellow the Russian peasant—a splendid
fellow indeed;” interrupted Vassily Ivanovitsch.

“And, nevertheless, we disdain him, we look at him with
contempt; nay, more, instead of making any effort to cultivate
his mind, we try to spoil it by every possible means.”

“How so?”

“By the loathsome establishment we have—our household
serfs. Our house serf is the first step toward the tchinovnik.
He goes without a beard and wears a coat of a western cut; he
is an idler, a debauchee, a drunkard, a thief, and yet he
assumes airs of consequence before the peasant, whom he
disdains, and from whose labor he draws his own subsistence and
his poll-tax. After some time more or less, according to
circumstances, the household serf becomes a clerk; he gets his
liberty and a place as writer in some district court; as a
writer in the government’s service he disdains, in addition to
the peasant, his late comrades in the household; he learns to
cavil in business, and begins to take email bribes in poultry,
eggs, corn, &c.; he studies roguery systematically, and
goes one step lower; he becomes a secretary and a genuine
tchinovnik. Then his sphere is enlarged; he gets a new
existence: he disdains the peasant, the house serf, the clerk,
and the writer, because, he says, they are all uncivilized
people. His wants are now greater, and you cannot bribe him
except with bank notes. Does he not take wine now at his meals?
Does he not patronize a little pharo? Is he not obliged to
present his lady with a costly cap or a silk gown? He fills up
his place, and without the least remorse—like a tradesman
behind his counter—he sells his influence as if it were
merchandise. It happens now and then that he is caught. ‘Served
him right,’ say his comrades then; ‘take bribes, but take them
prudently, so as not to be caught.'”

“But they are not all as you describe them,” remarked
Vassily Ivanovitsch.

“Certainly not. Exceptions, however, do not alter the
rule.”

“And yet the officers in the government service with us are
for the most part elected by the nobility and gentry.”

“That is just where the great evil lies,” continued Ivan
Vassilievitsch. “What in other countries is an object of public
competition, is with us left to ourselves. What right have we
to complain against our government, who has left it in our
discretion to elect officers to regulate our internal affairs?
Is it not our own fault that, instead of paying due attention
to a subject of so much importance, we make game of it? We have
in every province many a civilized man, who backed by the laws,
could give a salutary direction to public affairs; but they all
fly the elections like a plague, leaving them in the hands of
intriguing schemers. The most wealthy land-owners lounge on the
Nevsky-perspective, or travel abroad, and but seldom visit
their estates. For them elections are—a caricature: they
amuse themselves over the bald head of the sheriff or the thick
belly of the president of the court of assizes, and they forget
that to them is intrusted not only their own actual welfare and
that of their peasantry, but their entire future destiny. Yes,
thus it is! Had we not taken such a mischievous course, were we
not so unpardonably thoughtless, how grand would have been the
vocation of the Russian noble, to lead the whole nation forward
on the path of genuine civilization! I repeat again, it is our
own fault. Instead of being useful to their country, what has
become of the Russian nobility?”

“They have ruined themselves,” emphatically interrupted
Vassily Ivanovitsch.—The Tarantas: or Impressions of
Young Russia.

Footnote 1:
(return)

The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt. Two volumes. Harper
& Brothers. 1850.

Footnote 2:
(return)

An Irish term for wearing jockey-boots.

Footnote 3:
(return)

An Irish gentleman shot in a duel in lang syne, was
poetically described as having been left “quivering on a
daisy.”

Footnote 4:
(return)

In Ireland this functionary’s operations are not
confined to the dead, but extend very disagreeably to the
living.