IV.

_Ariadne:_ I dreamed a dream of sadness and the sea, And I will turn again, if yet I may, To where the rolling rondure of the deep Broadly affront the sky's infinity. Sleeping or waking, knew I naught but this; Sorrow and Love, above a desolate main, From the sheer battlements of opposite clouds, Kissed, and embraced, and parted company.... This is the self-same bay where we put in, Yonder the restless keel did gore the sand. There was the sailor's fire, and up and down, Are scattered mangled ropes, splinters, and spars, Fragments and shreds--but ship and all are gone. Here is my wreath. How brief, since yester eve, Then, when the sun, like an o'erthirsty god, Had stooped his brows behind the ocean brim, And the west wind, bearing his martial word, The limber-footed and the courier west, Went smoothly whist over the furrowed floor, To bid the night, then gazing up the sphere, Advance his constellated banners there, I leaned above the vessel's whispering prow, With an unusual joy, and drink, from out The heaven of those true repeated depths, Infinite calm, as though I did commune With the still spirit of the universe. So leaning, from my hair did I unwind This chain of flowers, and dropped it in the sea; Blessing that twilight hour, the port, the bay, The deep dim isle of interlunar woods, My love, and all the world, and naming them Waters of rest--now lies my garland here. What words are these thus furrowed on the shore? These are the very turns of Theseus' hand:

If from thy hook the fish to water fall, Think not to catch that fish again at all.

Too well my thought unlocks these cruel lines. Oh drench of grief! I thank ye, piteous powers, Who sent not this without forewarning drops. Oh miserable me! distressful me! Despised, disdained, deserted, desolate: Oh world of dew! Oh morning water drops! Lack-lustre, irksome, dull mortality! Oh now, oh now, that heaven all is black, Wherein the rainbow of my joy did stand! Oh love! oh life! oh life entire in love! All lost, all gone, or just so little left As is not worth the care to throw away! All lost, all gone, wrecked, rifted, sunk, devoured: Wrecked with false lights on Theseus' rocky heart! Oh man, perverse, dry-eyed, untender man, Enchanting man, so sleek so serpent-cold! Was it for this that thou didst swear to me, By all the gods in the three worlds at once, That thou didst love distractedly, and I, With certain tender and ingenuous tears, Did presently confess to thee as much? Was it for this, that I, who had a home, Like an Elysium in the lap of Crete, Did beckon buffets, and, for thee, did dare The rough unknown and outside of the world? Was it for this that thou didst hither bring me, Unto this isle of thorny loneliness, And, in the night, without foreargued cause, Any aggrievance, any allegation, Didst, like a coward traitor, run from me? Thou man of snow! thou art assailed by this-- Be sure of it--thou art begrimed as black As if thou hadst been hanged a thousand years Under the murky cope of Pluto's den. Oh agony! but thou shalt know my soul, Which gropes for daggers at the thought of this. Yea, from the day-beams of adoring love, Goes headlong to as vast a reprobation. Thou, Theseus, wast a cloud, and I a cloud, Quickened from thee with such pervading flame, As that thou canst not now so part from me Without the fiery iterance of my heart. Hear, hear me, love, who on the swathèd tops Of ribbed Olympus, and thy steadfast throne, Dost sit the sùpreme judge of gods and men, And bear within thy palm the living bolt, High o'er the soilèd air of this wan world; Look on yon helot wretch, and, wheresoe'er, Coursing what sea, or cabled in what port, The greatness of thine eye may light on him, Crush him with thunder! Thou, too, great Neptune of the lower deeps, Heave thy wet head up from the monstrous sea; Advance thy trident high as to the clouds, And with a not to be repeated blow, Dash the sin-freighted ship of that rash man! And thou, old iron-sceptred Eolus, Shatter the bars of thine enclosed winds; Unhinge the doors of thy great kennel house, And 'twixt the azure and the roaring deep Cry out thy whole inflated Strongyle-- Cry ruin on that man! But wherefore, thus, Do I invoke the speedy desolation Of any mighty magisterial soul, Whose will is weaponed with the elements! For oh-- Let the great spies of Jove, the sun and moon, The stars, and all the expeditious orbs That in their motions are retributive, Look blindly on, and seem to take no note Of any deep and deadly stab of sin-- Let vengeance gorge a gross Cerberean sop, Grovel and snore in swinish sluggardness, Yea, quite forget his dagger and his cup-- It is enough, for any retribution, That guilt retain remembrance of itself. Guilt is a thing, however bolstered up, That the great scale-adjusting Nemesis, And Furies iron-eyed, will not let sleep. Sail on unscarred--thou canst not sail so far, But that the gorgon lash of vipers fanged Shall scourge this howler home to thee again. Yes, yes, rash man, Jove and myself do know That from this wrong shall rouse an Anteros, Fierce as an Atë, with a hot right hand, That shall afflict thee with the touch of fire, Till, scorpion-like, thou turn and sting thyself. What dost thou think--that I shall perish here, Gnawed by the tooth of hungry savageness? Think what thou list, and go what way thou wilt. I, that have truth and heaven on my side, Though but a weak and solitary woman, Forecast no fear of any violence-- But thou, false hound! thou would'st not dare come back, Thou would'st not like to feel my eyes again. Go get thee on, to Argos get thee on; And let thy ransomed Athens run to thee, With portal arms, wide open to her heart-- To stifling hug thee with triumphant joy. Thou canst not wear such bays, thou canst not so O'erpeer the ancient and bald heads of honor, That I would have the back or follow thee. Let nothing but thy shadow follow thee; Thy shadow is to thee a curse enough; For thou hast done a murder on thyself. Thou hast put on the Nessus' fiery hide. Thou hast stepped in the labyrinths of woe, And in thy fingers caught the clue to Death. What solace have the gods for such as thou, That is not stabbed by this one thrust through me? From this black hour, this curse anointing hour, The currents of thy heart are all corrupt; The motions of thy thoughts are serpentine; And thy death-doing and bedabbled soul Is maculate with spots of Erebus. Aye me!--and yet--Oh that I should say so! Thou wast a noble scroll of Beauty's pen, Where every turn was grandly charactered. Hadst thou a heart--but thou hadst no such thing-- And having none, it was not thee I loved; Only my maiden thoughts were perfect, Theseus. O no, no, no, I never did love thee, Thou outside shell and carcase of a man. And I--what was it thou didst take me for? A paroquet of painted shallowness? A silly thing to whistle to and fro, And peck at plums, and then be whistled off? Oh, Theseus, Theseus, thou didst never know me-- In this unworthy clasp of woman's mould, This poor outside of pliant prettiness, There was a heart and in that heart a love, And in that love there was an affluence Full as the ocean, infinite as time, Deep as the spring that never knew an ebb. Too truly feeling what I left for thee, And with what joy I left it all for thee, And how I would have only followed thee, With soul, mind, purpose, to the far world's end, I cannot think on thee as thou deservest, But scorn is drownéd in a well of tears; I will go sit and weep.--

Note.--Theseus, a Grecian hero, according to ancient fable, made an expedition into Crete for the purpose of destroying the Minotaur, a monster which infested that island. While there he made love to Ariadne, (daughter of Minos the king of Crete) who returned his affection, assisted him in accomplishing the object of his expedition, and sailed with him on his return to Athens. She was, however, abandoned by Theseus at Naxos, an island in the Ægean sea held sacred to Bacchus. Bacchus received Ariadne hospitably, but afterwards he too ran away from her. We suspect (as perhaps our poem sufficiently indicates) that the root of Ariadne's misfortunes lay in certain infirmities of temper, which rendered her at times an uncomfortable companion.

THE FALLS OF THE BOUNDING DEER.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

"Good news! great discovery! new falls!" broke out in full chorus, boys and girls, at a party given by Jobson, in Monticello.

"How did you happen to find them, Mayfield?" asked Allthings.

"I was fishing, and came upon them all at once. I heard a roar of some waterfall or other, and the first I knew, I saw the chasm immediately below me!"

"What was their appearance?"

"There were two falls quite precipitous, and two basins. From the second basin the stream ran very smooth and placid again through a piece of woodland."

"Good!--great!--new falls!" came anew the chorus.

"What is the name of the falls, Mayfield?" inquired Allthings once more.

"The people thereabouts call them Gumaer's Falls."

"Horrid!--too common!--awful! Sha'n't have such a name!" was again the chorus.

"Let's give them a new one at once."

"Well, begin."

"Let us call them the Falls of the Melting Snow," suggested the sentimental May Blossom.

"That would do in the spring, when the snow is really melting," said Joe Jobson, a plain, practical young fellow, who never had a gleam of fancy in his life; "but there's no snow there now, I reckon."

"What a heathen you are, Jobson!" broke in honest Allthings (who always spoke out); "the name applies to the water, not the snow!"

"Why not the name of the Falls of the Silver Lace?" asked the tall, superb Lydia Lydell, who was also given to poetry.

"Was there ever any lace made there?" again remarked Jobson.

"I move we call them by an Indian name," said Job Paddock, the schoolmaster, who was deep in Indian lore. "Let us call them The Kah-youk-weh-reh Ogh-ne-ka-nos, or, The Arrow Water, or The Water of the Arrow; just as you fancy."

"Kaw--what?" again interrupted Jobson; "a real queer name that--Kah-you-qweer-reh Oh-cane-my-nose!"

"Do hold your tongue, Jobson!" said Claypole, "you are enough to drive one crazy!"

"Mr. Jobson is not much inclined to poetry, I believe," lisped May Blossom, with a smile dimpling her beautiful mouth.

"Poetry is well enough in its place," grumbled Jobson; "in speaking exercises, and so on; but what's poetry to do with naming falls of water, I should like to know?"

"Let us call them Meadow Brook Falls," said beautiful Annie Mapes.

"There's no meadow in sight, and your brook is a torrent," said Mayfield.

"Well, what _shall_ we call them?" burst out once more the full chorus.

"I think the best way is to go and see them first;" again grumbled Jobson, not much relishing the idea of all the company turning against him.

This was really the most practical remark yet made, as none of the assemblage had seen them but Mayfield, who absolutely declined suggesting any name, and accordingly Jobson's idea was instantly adopted.

The next day was settled upon for the jaunt, and consequently the company assembled at an early hour to start.

It was as bewitching an autumn day as ever beamed on the earth, such an one as Doughty loves to fasten upon his glorious canvas. It would have glittered with golden splendor, had it not been toned down by a delicate haze, which could scarcely be seen near by, but which gradually thickened on the distant landscape until it brushed away the outlines of the mountain summits, so that they seemed steeped in a delicious swoon.

We left the village, trotted up hill and down, and skimmed over flats, until we arrived at the long descent of a mile, beginning at the log-hut of old Saunsalis, and ending in Mamakating Hollow at the outskirts of Wurtsboro'. Here we turned short at the left, and pursued our way over a narrow country road through the enchanting scenery of the Hollow toward our destination. After passing farm-houses peering from clumps of trees, meadows, grainfields, and woodlands, we came to a by-road leading through a field. Here the little brook (Fawn of the "Bounding Deer") sparkled by our track, crossing in its capricious way the road, thereby forcing us to ford it, and then recross its ripples. We now came to the end of our road; and alighting, we tied our steeds to the willows and alders scattered along the streamlet's bank. Each one (laden with the pic-nic baskets) then hastened onward, for the low deep bleat of the "Deer" was sounding in our ears. We directly came to a sawmill, with a high broken bank in front. Over this impediment our path lay, and over it must we go. Accordingly we did go; and, descending the other side, the "Deer" was before us. An amphitheatre of towering summits saluted our eyes, clothed with wood and steeped in grateful shade. The gleam of the waterfall cut like a scimetar on our sight, flashing through its narrow cleft, whilst the bleating of the "Bounding Deer" was louder and sweeter. A beautiful place for our pic-nic--a mossy log or two by the streamlet, and a delicious greensward. The ladies busied themselves in unpacking the baskets, whilst the "boys" distributed themselves about the rocks. Forms were soon seen dangling from cedar bushes, and treading carefully among clefts and gullies. Some sat where the silver spray sprinkled their faces--some clambered the rocks jutting over the higher Fall--some scaled the still loftier summits. All this time the organ of the cascade was sounding like the deep strain of the wind in a pine forest.

In about a half hour our pic-nic table was spread with various viands, the table composed of boards spread upon two of the mossy logs, the boards being the product of a sawmill hard by.

The company seated themselves, and immediately a desperate charge was made by the whole force upon the eatables and drinkables, and immense havoc ensued. An entire route having been at length effected, again the vexed question of the name to be given to the "Fall" was brought on the _tapis_.

"Let us call them the Falls of Aladdin," said enchanting Rose Rosebud, lifting her azure eyes to the jewelled autumn foliage that glittered around.

"The Falls of the Ladder!" caught up Jobson: "the very name!--why, it describes the Falls exactly! I wonder we haven't thought of that name before. The water looks like a ladder exactly, coming down them big rocks."

"I'll tell you what," said Paddock, "I've now been all about the cataract, and seen it at all points. I've hit upon the very name, I think. What say you to the Falls of the Bounding Deer?"

"But where's the Deer?" grumbled Jobson, now thoroughly out of humor from the contempt with which his last observation had been treated.

"Do be quiet, Mr. Jobson," chimed in the girls, "and let us hear what Mr. Paddock urges in favor of his beautiful name."

"See," said Paddock, pointing upward, "see where the upper Fall bounds from yon dark cleft of rock, and, gathering itself in that basin for another effort, gives another leap down its path, and then, gathering itself once more in the lower basin, shoots away to the protecting woods!"

"Capital name! Just the thing, Mr. Paddock!" again broke out the chorus of girls, like a dangling of silver bells.

"The Falls of the Bounding Deer be it then!"

The name being thus satisfactorily settled, we all commenced scrutinizing more closely the lovely lair of the "Bounding Deer."

A dazzling display of tints was on the thickly mantling trees, changing the whole scene into a gorgeous spectacle. The most striking contrasts--the richest colors glowing side by side, flashed upon the delighted vision every where.

The elm dripping with golden foliage from head to foot, in a way which only that most beautiful tree can show (the drooping naiad of the brook), shone beside the maple in a splendid flush of scarlet--the birch, garbed in the richest orange, bent near the pine gleaming with emerald--the beech displayed its tanny mantle by the dogwood robed in deepest purple, whilst every nook, crevice, shelf, and hollow of the umber banks and gray rocks blazed with yellow golden rods and sky-blue asters.

How beautiful, how radiant, how glorious, the American foliage in autumn! No pen, unless dipped in rainbows, can do it justice. And, amidst this brilliant beauty, down her pointed rocks, down flashed the "Bounding Deer," white with the foam of her eager and headlong speed.

The boys now prepare for another excursion amongst the rocks of the "Falls."

Some climb the dangling grape vines; some clutch the roots of the slanting pine trees; and some find footing in the narrow fissures. Soon the gray rocks and yellow banks are scattered over with them. Ascending the very loftiest pinnacle by the roots of trees and the profuse bushes, the scene was wild, picturesque, and romantic in the extreme. A little below, bristled the points of the rocks with cedars, dwarf pines, and towering hemlocks shooting from the interstices. At one side, through its deep gully, flashed the "Bounding Deer"--the waters pouring in its first deep dark basin, cut in the granite like a goblet, thence twisting down in another bold leap into the second basin. Not a foam flake was on the surface of either sable cup, nothing but the wrinkles produced by the ever circling eddies. Below--past broken edge, grassy shelf, yawning cleft, and jutting ledge, was the broad deep hollow through which the "Deer" (mottled with sunshine and shadow) leaped away to the woods beyond, whilst in the meadow was seen the little "Fawn" tripping along its green banks until lost in the verdure of the valley. Add to these, the glittering tints that had been showered from autumn's treasury, and the effect was complete. But, where are the girls?

_"Oui, oui!"_ exclaimed the Count de ----(a French nobleman of illustrious descent, and a most amiable, intelligent, and accomplished gentleman), "where de _demoiselles_--I no see 'em!"

"The what?" asked Jobson.

"De demoiselles; de--de--what _you_ call 'em, Monsieur Job?"

"Girls," answered Jobson.

"Non, non, non,--fie, Monsieur Job,--no girl; dey are--a--a--a--"

"Ladies, Count, you mean," answered Allthings.

"Oui, oui, oui--de ladees--_pas la-bas, pas la-bas!_ They must be--a--a--_noyées_--what you call when you fall _dans l'eau_ and _mourez_--eh?"

"Drown," returned Allthings.

"Oui, Monsieur Allting--drown."

"Sure enough," ejaculated Jobson, looking down through the branches, "the girls are not there! Where can they be?"

_"O ciel!--noyées!--noyées!"_ shouted the Count, plunging down the bank. _"Mon Dieu!--ces demoiselles dans les eaux!--au secours!--au secours!"_

The last we saw of the excellent Count he was going down the steep bank on the sliding principle, shouting with all his might, and presenting a rare sight of "ground and lofty tumbling" quite edifying to behold.

We now all looked. True, the deep hollow beneath was quite forsaken. No ladies were there to be seen. Marvelling somewhat at the sudden disappearance, we all descended from our respective perches by the ladders formed of the branches, roots and tough grape vines, and set foot upon the hollow where our dinner had transpired. Looking around at the banks by which we were surrounded, we at length saw the girls emerge from a twisted ravine at the lower part of the hollow scarcely discernible from the foliage with which it was roofed, and found from the wreaths of moss, ground pine and wild flowers in their hair and around their persons, that they had been also making explorations, although in a lower region than ours.

The Count now rejoined the party, after having peered most anxiously and at various points into the lower basin to find the drowned ones, all clustered together upon the short velvet sward near the streamlet, and Paddock was called upon for one of his Indian legends.

He said he knew one relating to this very spot, and accordingly commenced:

"In the old times, before the foot of the white man had startled the beaver from the stream, or his axe sent the eagle screaming with rage from his aërie on the lofty pine tree, there dwelt a tribe by these waters, an offshoot of the powerful Mohawks. They were called the tribe of the Deer, and had for their chieftain "Os-ko-ne-an-tah," meaning also the Deer. He had one daughter, beautiful as the day, who was named "Jo-que-yoh," or the Bluebird, for the melody of her voice. Jo-que-yoh was affianced to a young brave of her father's tribe named "To-ke-ah," or the Oak. They were tenderly attached to each other. Often when the moon of the summer night transformed these rugged rocks to pearl and this headlong torrent to plunging silver, did the two seat themselves by the margin of this very basin, and while Jo-que-yoh touched with simple skill the strings of her Indian lute, To-ke-ah sang of love and the sweet charms of his mistress. In the war-path the young brave thought only of her, and the scalps he took were displayed to her sight in token of his prowess. In the chase, he still thought of her solely, and the gray coat of the deer and the brindled skin of the fierce panther were laid at her feet. The vest of glossy beaver fur which encompassed her lovely form was the spoil of his arrow. And the eagle plume which rose gracefully from her brow was plucked by his hand from the wing of the haughty soarer of the clouds, that his unerring bow had brought to the dust. Time passed on--the crescent of Jo-que-yoh's beauty was enlarging into the full height of maiden grace, and the tall sapling of To-ke-ah's strength maturing into the size and vigor of his manhood's oak. Another moon, and he was to lead Jo-que-yoh as his bride to his lodge. The happy day at length arrived, and as soon as the first star trembled in the heavens, the joyous ceremonial was to take place. Sunset came, steeping the scene around in lustrous gold, and Jo-que-yoh, arrayed by the maidens of her tribe, sat in the lodge of her father awaiting the star that was to bring her love to her presence. Blushing and trembling she saw "Kah-quah" (the Indian name for the sun) wheeling down into the crimson west, and now his light was hidden. Blushing and trembling, she saw the sweet twilight stealing over the endless forests, and now the star--the bright star of her hope, came creeping, like a timid fawn, into the purple heavens. She heard a footstep, she turned--"To-ke-ah," trembled on her lips. But it was not To-ke-ah. It was Os-ko-ne-an-tah, her father, decked in all his finest splendor, to give away the bride. To-ke-ah she knew had departed in the afternoon upon a neighboring trail for a brighter eagle plume to adorn the brow of his lovely bride on this the evening of their bridal. Something has detained him, but he will soon come. She fixed her large dark elk-like eye upon the star. Momentarily it brightened and again another footstep. It was the maiden she had dispatched upon the rocks to watch for her the approaching form of To-ke-ah. Large and brighter grew the star, but still the absent came not. A shuddering fear began to creep into her bosom. Nothing could detain the absent from her but one reason--death! Larger and brighter grew the star until now it flashed like the eye of To-ke-ah from its home in the heavens. Still the absent came not. Tears began to flow, and she at length started in wild fear from her couch of sassafras to the towering rock to see if she could not behold the approaching shape of To-ke-ah. By this time the sky was sparkling with stars, and a feeble light was shed upon the forests. She saw the pointed rocks around her--she saw the two leaps of the torrent through their rugged pathway--she saw the still black basins on which the stars were glittering, but no To-ke-ah. "To-ke-ah! To-ke-ah! Jo-que-yoh awaits thee!" she cried, but she heard only the plunging of the torrents, and the song of the whippowill wailing as if in echo to her woe. Tremblings seized her limbs, her heart grew sick, and she was nigh swooning upon the rock, when she saw a form hurrying from the woods where the trail began. "To-ke-ah!" she shrieked joyfully, "I have been sad without thee!" and she was about casting herself into the arms of the form, when she found it was the youth who had accompanied To-ke-ah in the chase.

"Is not the brave here?" asked the youth, with astonishment; "I left him at the first leap of the torrent, searching for the eagle-nest that is in the cleft of the rock!"

With a wild scream Jo-que-yoh rushed away again to her wigwam; with a wild scream she asked for To-ke-ah, and no answer being returned, she darted to her canoe fastened in the cave above the upper leap.

"I go for To-ke-ah!" she screamed, as she seized the paddle and unfastened the willow withe, and the canoe darted into the stream directly towards the bend of the torrent. The star-light displayed her slender form to the agonized sight of her father, plunging down the foaming cataract, and she was seen no more! The canoe overturned, emerged into the basin, and dashed down the curve of the second plunge. The father, followed by those present, rushed down the precipice to the basin below, and there were the fragments of the canoe floating around in the eddying waters. A light shape was also seen in the dark pool, and leaping in, Os-ko-ne-an-tah dragged to the margin the drooping form of his daughter. She was dead! A stream of blood poured from her fractured temple, and the father held in his arms only the remains of the loved and still lovely Jo-que-yoh. But a warrior now came rushing down the rocks with "Jo-que-yoh! Jo-que-yoh!" loud upon his tongue. It was To-ke-ah. He had wandered farther than he thought, and hurrying home had found the wigwam of Jo-que-yoh empty. Dashing down the precipice in his mad search, he now came upon the sorrowing group. "Jo-que-yoh! Jo-que-yoh!" he screamed, tearing the dead from the arms of the father, but Jo-que-yoh did not answer. "Jo-que-yoh!" said the proud forest man, bending his head aside in his uncontrollable grief; "I am lost without thee!" But no Jo-que-yoh spoke. She had gone to the far land of the happy in search of To-ke-ah.

Then took To-ke-ah the lifeless maiden in his arms and cast himself prostrate on the earth.

"To-ke-ah!" said the father, "a great warrior should not weep like the deer in his last agony. Rouse thee! it is Os-ko-ne-an-tah that speaks!"

But To-ke-ah answered not. He only lay and shuddered.

"Shall the tall tree of my tribe turn to a willow?" again asked Os-ko-ne-an-tah, and this time sternly. "Rise, bravest of my people, behold! even the maidens see thee!"

But To-ke-ah answered not. He only lay and shuddered.

Then bent Os-ko-ne-an-tah over both and essayed to take from To-ke-ah the form of Jo-que-yoh. But the moment the father touched his daughter, To-ke-ah leaped to his feet with Jo-que-yoh in his arms, and pealing his war-hoop, flourished his keen hatchet over the head of the father.

"Go!" shouted he, whilst his eye flamed madly in the light of the pine torches that now kindled up the scene. "Go! Jo-que-yoh is mine. In death as in life, mine and mine only!" and again he threw himself, still holding her to his heart, headlong on the earth.

Then went Os-ko-ne-an-tah sadly from the spot, followed by all his people. Still lay To-ke-ah there, grasping the form of his dead bride. The bright star glittered above the two, and then grew pale in the advancing dawn, but still he stirred not. Brightly rose the sun, striking the scene into sudden joy, but still he stirred not. Noon glowed, and then the sunset fell, but To-ke-ah still lay there with the dead one in his arms. Night darkened. Again the star stole out in the red twilight, again grew bright and gleamed above the spot where To-ke-ah rested, but still no motion there. Once more rose the sun, and his first beam rested on To-ke-ah, but still there he lay with the dead one lying on his bosom.

At last he rose, and delving a grave in the sod with his knife and tomahawk, deposited therein the form of the maiden, and refilling it with his hands, stretched himself upon the mound. Os-ko-ne-an-tah had in the mean while often approached him, but the moment he appeared, up sprang To-ke-ah with his threatening tomahawk, and only when the father left, did that tomahawk sink, and the Brave again resume his posture. Eight days and nights passed, the most tempting food and the coolest water were placed near him upon the rocks, but still he stirred not. Food and water were untouched. At last, at the close of the ninth day, a thunder-cloud heaved up its black form in the west. Forth rushed the blast, out flashed the lightning, and the thunder was terrible to hear. But in the pauses of the storm there came a strain of guttural music from the grave of Jo-que-yoh--it was the death song of To-ke-ah. Short and faint and broken to the listening ear of Os-ko-ne-an-tah came the song, and at length it ceased. Cautiously approached the father with a torch, for even then he expected to see the flash of To-ke-ah's hatchet over his head. Cautiously he approached, but the form stretched above the grave of his daughter, was motionless. Cautiously he bent over him, and then he turned him with a sudden movement, so that he could look upon his face. To-ke-ah was dead! The faithful warrior had departed in the shadowy trail where Jo-que-yoh had gone, and both were now engaged in the feast of the strawberry in the bright hunting grounds of Hah-wen-ne-yo.

When morning came the grave of Jo-que-yoh was opened by Os-ko-ne-an-tah, and the form of To-ke-ah, still arrayed in the weapons of a chief, was deposited in a sitting posture by her side. Again was the grave closed, and often did the young men and the maidens of the tribe repair thither, the first to celebrate the praises of To-ke-ah, and the latter to sing the virtues of Jo-que-yoh.

Paddock ceased amidst the plaudits of the company.

"He must have been a great fool to starve himself to death," said Jobson, "when he could have killed himself in a shorter time with his hatchet, or even by drowning himself in the pool!"

"What a barbarian you are, Jobson!" said Allthings, "every thing is matter of fact with you. Do be still!"

"Well, but I don't see the common sense," persisted Jobson, "if he was determined to kill himself, of leaving all the pies and things that they brought him, and starving himself and getting wet in the bargain, when he had a shorter way of doing the job!"

"Suppose you go and ask him, Jobson!" said Paddock, smiling; "I don't know his reasons, if he had any. At all events, I tell the tale as I heard it, and can't alter it!"

The Count had listened to the story with all his ears, but evidently, from his imperfect knowledge of the English language, without half understanding it.

"Pauvre demoiselle! so she did a--a--a--what ye call dat, (making as if pitching headlong,) a--a--a--"

"Tumble!" ejaculated Jobson.

"_Oui, oui, oui_, toomball, toomball down de--down de _roches--roches_, pauvre demoiselle! did she se blesser?"

"She went down the torrent, Count, in her canoe and was dashed to death!" exclaimed little Annie Mapes.

"Oh, oh, pauvre demoiselle!" answered the Count, sorrowfully. "The lovaire did _courir_ from her--ah--ah--pauvre demoiselle!"

"No, no, Count!" returned Annie impatiently, "her lover did not forsake her. She thought he was dead, and went in her canoe after his body!"

"Pauvre demoiselle! and did she _trouver_ him?"

"No. She was killed, and her lover had been detained in the chase, and he came afterwards and found her dead, as Mr. Paddock has just said!"

"_Oui, oui, oui_, me understand, he try to run away and fall down--me understand--_oui, oui, oui_--me understand."

"_No, no_, Count, you are all wrong; he starved himself to death from grief for her loss!"

"_Oui, oui_, me understand; he try to run away--fall down--get no food in de _roches_--but he sing to keep courage up--_oui, oui_, me understand--bootiful story, bootiful story, Monsieur Paydook! vrai bootiful indeed! He lay there _long temps_--six, eight, ten day, you say! and den he sing, sing, sing, to keep courage up, for want of food! Bootiful story, bootiful story!"

Finding it was in vain to enlighten the Count, Annie gave over her task, and the Count kept repeating, as if to himself: "_Oui, oui_, bootiful story, Monsieur Pay-dook, bootiful story! _bien_ bootiful story indeed! pauvre demoiselle! pauvre demoiselle! Joe--what you call it. She too good for Monsieur Took Ear. He run away--he fall down--he sing. She die to get rid of him. (Shrugging his shoulders and grimacing most laughably.) He run away--he fall down--he sing! pauvre demoiselle!"

"I think he must have been crazy!" said Jobson, "not to eat when he could get a chance, and he hungry too, lying there a week or more; and only think, on the damp ground all this time. I wonder he didn't catch the rheumatism!"

"No crazy, Monsieur Jobsoon! no crazy! he sing to keep courage up. I sing sometime to keep courage up ven I think of _la belle France_--of Paris! Bootiful story, Monsieur Paydook! _vrai_ bootiful story! Mooch oblege, mooch oblege!"

By this time the sun was setting, and the hollow was filled with sweet rosy light. Every leaf flashed, and the "Bounding Deer" was tinged with the beautiful radiance. Soon the light crept up, leaving the bottom of this huge rocky chalice in shadow, whilst the rim was encompassed with rich brilliance. The sun poured down one stream of glory through a cleft in the bank or side of this Titan Goblet, like the visioned future which glows before the sight of happy youth, and then vanished. The gold rim vanished also; still there appeared to be no disposition among the party to leave the scene. Twilight began to shimmer, and now the stars trembled forth from the dusky sky. At last night settled on the landscape, and the girls expressed a wish to see the hollow lighted up with torchlight. Scattering ourselves amongst the trees of the bank, some splinters of the pitch pine were procured, and matches kindled each splinter into thick crimson flame. I clambered up as far as the basin of the first "bound" of the "Deer," and looked down to enjoy the scene. Scores of dark red torches were flashing in every direction, disclosing faces, forms, water, trees and grass, in broken fitful glances and in the most picturesque manner. Sometimes a deep light caught upon the edges of a hemlock, then upon the form of some graceful girl, then upon a huge rock, like the gleaming of stormy lightning, whilst the "Deer" bounded down, tawny as the shell of the chestnut. I looked at the basin at my foot. There were a score too of stars glittering there, but amidst them all was one large clear orb burning with pure and steadfast lustre. It was doubtless the star of Jo-que-yoh, and forthwith I named the basin the "Bath of the Star!" and the lower pool--oh, that shall be called "The Ladies' Mirror."

Soon after I descended and once more mingled with the party. Merry song and talk again winged away the hour, until a pale radiance on the highest cliffs gave token of the moon. Soon up she came--that hunter's moon! moon of October! and, like a golden shield, impended from the heavens. And how she kindled up the scene, that lovely moon of the hunter! And by her delicious light we left the hollow, put our steeds in motion, passed through the meadow, skimmed over the valley road, and then turned to the right, up the turnpike leading over the "Barrens," homeward.

How fragrant were the odors of the pine in the pure dry air, as we slowly toiled up the ascent of a mile towards the hut of old Gaunsalis, and then up and down over the hills, as the yellow bird flies, we travelled homeward. Past "Lord's Pond," through the turnpike gate, down the Neversink Hill, up the opposite one we went until we saw, gleaming in the heavenly moonlight, the welcome roofs of Monticello.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

LEOPARDS.

ZOOLOGICAL NOTES AND ANECDOTES.

"Where sacred Ganges pours along the plain, And Indus rolls to swell the Eastern Main, What awful scenes the curious mind delight! What wonders burst upon the dazzled sight! There giant palms lift high their tufted heads, The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads; Wild in the woods the active monkey springs, The chattering parrot claps her painted wings; 'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake, The tiger crouches in the tangled brake; The spotted axis bounds in fear away; The leopard darts on his defenceless prey, 'Mid reedy pools and ancient forests rude, Cool peaceful haunts of awful solitude!"

There is no class of animals which combine in such a marked degree, beauty of form, with a wily and savage nature, as that to which the Leopard tribe belongs. The unusual pliability of the spine and joints with which they are endowed, imparts agility, elasticity, and elegance to their movements, whilst the happy proportions of their limbs give grace to every attitude. Their skins, beautifully sleek, yellow above, and white beneath, are marked with spots of brilliant black, disposed in patterns according to the species; nor are these spots for ornament alone; as was remarked by one of the ablest of the writers in the "Quarterly," the different and characteristic markings of the larger feline animals, bear a direct relation to the circumstances under which they carry on their predatory pursuits. The tawny color of the lion harmonizes with the parched grass or yellow sand, along which he steals towards, or on which he lies in wait to spring upon, a passing prey; and a like relation to the place in which other large feline animals carry on their predatory pursuits, may be traced in their different and characteristic markings. The royal tiger, for instance, which stalks or lurks in the jungle of richly-wooded India, is less likely to be discerned as he glides along the straight stems of the underwood, by having the tawny ground-color of his coat variegated by dark vertical stripes, than if it were uniform like the lion's. The leopard and panther again, which await the approach of their prey, crouching on the outstretched branch of some tree, derive a similar advantage, by having the tawny ground-color broken by dark spots like the leaves around them; but amidst all this variety, in which may be traced the principle of adaptation to special ends, there is a certain unity of plan, the differences not being established from the beginning. Thus the young lion is spotted, during his first year, with dark spots on its lighter ground, and transitorily shows the livery that is most common in the genus. It is singular that man has, in a semi-barbarous state, recognized the same principle as that which constitutes these differences, and applied it to the same purpose. It is well-known that the _setts_, or patterns of several of the highland tartans were originally composed with special reference to concealment among the heather. And with the Highlanders, perhaps, the hint was taken from the ptarmigans and hares of their own native mountains, which change their colors with the season, donning a snow white vest when the ground on which they tread bears the garb of winter, and resuming their garments of grayish brown when the summer's sun has restored to the rocks their natural tints.

There are three species sufficiently resembling each other in size and general appearance, to be confounded by persons unacquainted with their characteristics, namely, the leopard, the panther, and the jaguar. The precise distinction between the first two, is still an open question, although the best authorities agree in considering, that they are distinct animals; still confusion exists. An eminent dealer in furs informed us, that in the trade, panther skins were looked upon as being larger than leopards', and the spots more irregular, but the specimens produced were clearly jaguar skins, which made the matter more complicated.

The panther, _Felis pardus_, is believed to be an inhabitant of a great portion of Africa, the warmer parts of Asia, and the islands of the Indian Archipelago; while the leopard, _Felis leopardus_, is thought to be confined to Africa. The jaguar, _Felis onca_ is the scourge of South America, from Paraguay almost to the isthmus of Darien, and is altogether a larger and more powerful animal than either of the others. Though presenting much resemblance, there are points of distinction by which the individual may be at once recognized. The jaguar is larger, sturdier, and altogether more thickset than the leopard, whose limbs are the beau ideal of symmetry and grace. The leopard is marked with numerous spots, arranged in small irregular circles on the sides; the ridge of the back, the head, neck, and limbs, being simply spotted, without order. The jaguar is also marked with black spots, but the circles formed by them are much larger, and in almost all, a central spot exists, the whole bearing a rude resemblance to a rose; along the back, the spots are so narrow and elongated, as to resemble stripes. The tail of the jaguar is also considerably shorter than that of the leopard, which is nearly as long as the whole body.

Leopards and panthers, if taken quite young, and treated with kindness, are capable of being thoroughly tamed; the poet Cowper, describes the great difference in the dispositions of his three celebrated hares; so it is with other wild animals, and leopards among the rest, some returning kindness with the utmost affection, others being rugged and untameable from the first. Of those brought to this country, the characters are much influenced by the treatment they have experienced on board ship; in some cases they have been made pets by the sailors, and are as tractable as domestic cats; but when they have been teased and subjected to ill-treatment during the voyage, it is found very difficult to render them sociable; there are now (September, 1851) six young leopards in one den at the Zoological Gardens: of these, five are about the same age, and grew up as one family; the sixth was added some time after, and being looked upon as an intruder, was quite sent to Coventry, and even ill-treated by the others; this he has never forgotten. When the keeper comes to the den, he courts his caresses, and shows the greatest pleasure, but if any of his companions advance to share them with him, he growls and spits, and shows the utmost jealousy and displeasure.

In the same collection, there is a remarkably fine, full-grown leopard, presented by her Majesty, who is as tame as any creature can be; mutton is his favorite food, but the keeper will sometimes place a piece of beef in the den; the leopard smells it, turns it over with an air of contempt, and coming forward, peers round behind the keeper's back to see if he has not (as is generally the case) his favorite food concealed. If given to him, he lays it down, and will readily leave it at the keeper's call, to come and be patted, and whilst caressed he purrs, and shows the greatest pleasure.

There were a pair of leopards in the Tower, before the collection was broken up, which illustrated well the difference in disposition; the male, a noble animal, continued to the last, as sullen and savage as on the day of his arrival. Every kindness was lavished upon him by the keepers, but he received all their overtures with such a sulky and morose return, that nothing could be made of his unreclaimable and unmanageable disposition. The female, which was the older of the two, on the contrary, was as gentle and affectionate as the other was savage, enjoying to be patted and caressed by the keeper, and fondly licking his hands; one failing, however, she had, which brought affliction to the soul of many a beau and lady fair; it was an extraordinary predilection for the destruction of hats, muffs, bonnets, umbrellas, and parasols, and indeed, articles of dress generally, seizing them with the greatest quickness, and tearing them into pieces, almost before the astonished victim was aware of the loss; to so great an extent did she carry this peculiar taste, that Mr. Cops, the superintendent, used to say that she had made prey of as many of these articles as there were days in the year. Animals in menageries are sometimes great enemies to the milliner's art; giraffes have been known to filch the flowers adorning a bonnet, and we once saw a lady miserably oppressed by monkeys. She was very decidedly of "a certain age," but dressed in the extreme of juvenility, with flowers and ribbons of all the colors of the rainbow. Her complexion was delicately heightened with rouge, and the loveliest tresses played about her cheeks. As she languidly sauntered through the former monkey house at the gardens, playfully poking the animals with her parasol, one seized it so vigorously that she was drawn close to the den; in the twinkling of an eye, a dozen little paws were protruded, off went bonnet, curls and all, leaving a deplorable gray head, whilst others seized her reticule and her dress, pulling it in a very unpleasant manner. The handiwork of M. Vouillon was of course a wreck, and the contents of the reticule, her purse, gloves, and delicately scented handkerchief, were with difficulty recovered from out of the cheek pouch of a baboon.

On other occasion we saw the elephant, that fine old fellow who died some years ago, administer summary punishment to a weak minded fop, who kept offering him cakes, and on his putting out his trunk, withdrawing them and giving him a rap with his cane instead. One of the keepers warned him, but he laughed, and after he had teased the animal to his heart's content, walked away. After a time he was strolling by the spot again, intensely satisfied with himself, his glass stuck in his eye, and smiling blandly in the face of a young lady, who was evidently offended at his impudence, when the elephant, who was rocking backwards and forwards, suddenly threw out his trunk and seized our friend by the coat tails; the cloth gave way, and the whole back of the coat was torn out, leaving nothing but the collar, sleeves, and front. As may be supposed, this was a damper upon his amatory proceedings; indeed we never saw a man look so small, as he shuffled away amidst the titters of the company, who enjoyed his just reward.

That very agreeable writer, Mrs. Lee, formerly Mrs. Bowdich, has related in the first volume of the "Magazine of Natural History," a most interesting account of a tame panther which was in her possession several months. He and another were found very young in the forest, apparently deserted by their mother; they were taken to the King of Ashantee, in whose palace they lived several weeks, when our hero, being much larger than his brother, suffocated him in a fit of romping, and was then sent to Mr. Hutchinson, the resident, left by Mr. Bowdich at Coomassie, by whom he was tamed. When eating was going on he would sit by his master's side and receive his share with gentleness. Once or twice he purloined a fowl, but easily gave it up on being allowed a portion of something else; but on one occasion, when a silly servant tried to pull his food from him, he tore a piece of flesh from the offender's leg, but never owed him any ill-will afterwards. One morning he broke the cord by which he was confined, and the castle gates being shut, a chase commenced, but after leading his pursuers several times round the ramparts, and knocking over a few children by bouncing against them, he suffered himself to be caught and led quietly back to his quarters, under one of the guns of the fortress. By degrees all fear of him subsided, and he was set at liberty, a boy being appointed to prevent his intruding into the apartments of the officers. His keeper, however, like a true Negro, generally passed his watch in sleeping, and Saï, as the panther was called, roamed at large. On one occasion he found his servant sitting on the step of the door, upright, but fast asleep, when he lifted his paw, gave him a pat on the side of the head which laid him flat, and then stood wagging his tail as if enjoying the joke. He became exceedingly attached to the governor, and followed him every where like a dog. His favorite station was at a window in the sitting-room, which overlooked the whole town; there, standing on his hind legs, his fore paws resting on the ledge of the window, and his chin laid between them, he amused himself with watching all that was going on. The children were also fond of this scene; and one day, finding Saï's presence an incumbrance, they united their efforts and pulled him down by the tail. He one day missed the governor, and wandered with a dejected look to various parts of the fortress in search of him; while absent on this errand the governor returned to his private rooms, and seated himself at a table to write; presently he heard a heavy step coming up the stairs, and raising his eyes to the open door beheld Saï. At that moment he gave himself up for lost, for Saï immediately sprang from the door on to his neck: instead, however, of devouring him, he laid his head close to the governor's, rubbed his cheek upon his shoulder, wagged his tail, and tried to evince his happiness. Occasionally, however, the panther caused a little alarm to the other inmates of the castle, and on one occasion the woman, whose duty it was to sweep the floors, was made ill by her fright; she was sweeping the boards of the great hall with a short broom, and in an attitude approaching all-fours, when Saï, who was hidden under one of the sofas, suddenly leaped upon her back, where he stood waving his tail in triumph. She screamed so violently as to summon the other servants, but they, seeing the panther in the act of devouring her, as they thought, gallantly scampered off as fast as their heels could carry them; nor was the woman released from her load till the governor, hearing the noise, came to her assistance.

Mrs. Bowdich determined to take this interesting animal to England, and he was conveyed on board ship, in a large wooden cage, thickly barred in front with iron. Even this confinement was not deemed a sufficient protection by the canoe men, who were so alarmed that in their confusion they managed to drop cage and all into the sea. For a few minutes the poor fellow was given up for lost, but some sailors jumped into a boat belonging to the vessel, and dragged him out in safety. He seemed completely subdued by his ducking; and as no one dared to open the cage to dry it, he rolled himself up in one corner, where he remained for some days, till roused by the voice of his mistress. When she first spoke he raised his head, listened attentively, and when she came fully into his view, he jumped on his legs and appeared frantic, rolling over and over, howling and seeming as if he would have torn his cage to pieces; however, his violence gradually subsided, and he contented himself with thrusting his nose and paws through the bars to receive her caresses. The greatest treat that could be bestowed upon Saï was lavender water. Mr. Hutchinson had told Mrs. Bowdich, that on the way from Ashantee, happening to draw out a scented pocket-handkerchief, it was immediately seized by the panther, who reduced it to atoms; nor could he venture to open a bottle of perfume when the animal was near, he was so eager to enjoy it. Twice a week his mistress indulged him by making a cup of stiff paper, pouring a little lavender water into it, and giving it to him through the bars of the cage; he would drag it to him with great eagerness, roll himself over it, nor rest till the smell had evaporated.

Quiet and gentle as Saï was, pigs never failed to excite indignation when they hovered about his cage, and the sight of a monkey put him in a complete fury. While at anchor in the Gaboon, an orang-outang was brought on board and remained three days. When the two animals met, the uncontrollable rage of the one and the agony of the other was very remarkable. The orang was about three feet high, and very powerful; so that when he fled, with extraordinary rapidity, from the panther to the other side of the deck, neither men nor things remained upright if they opposed his progress. As for the panther, his back rose in an arch, his tail was elevated and perfectly stiff, his eyes flashed, and as he howled he showed his huge teeth; then, as if forgetting the bars before him, he made a spring at the orang to tear him to atoms. It was long before he recovered his tranquillity; day and night he was on the listen, and the approach of a monkey or a Negro brought back his agitation. During the voyage to England the vessel was boarded by pirates, and the crew and passengers nearly reduced to starvation in consequence; Saï must have died had it not been for a collection of more than three hundred parrots; of these his allowance was one per diem, but he became so ravenous that he had not patience to pick off the feathers, but bolted the birds whole: this made him very ill, but Mrs. Bowdich administered some pills, and he recovered. On the arrival of the vessel in the London Docks, Saï was presented to the Duchess of York, who placed him in Exeter Change temporarily. On the morning of the duchess's departure for Oatlands, she went to visit her new pet, played with him, and admired his gentleness and great beauty. In the evening, when her royal highness's coachman went to take him away to his new quarters at Oatlands, Saï was dead from inflammation on the lungs.

To this interesting animal, the following lines by Dryden, might with propriety have been applied:

"The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind And fairest creature of the spotted kind; Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away, She were too good to be a beast of prey! How can I praise or blame, and not offend, Or how divide the frailty from the friend? Her faults and virtues lie so mixed that she, Nor wholly stands condemned, nor wholly free."

Mr. Gordon Cumming describes two encounters with leopards, one of which was nearly attended with fatal consequences: "On the 17th," says he, "I was attacked with acute rheumatic fever, which kept me to my bed, and gave me excruciating pain. Whilst I lay in this helpless state, Mr. Orpen and Present, who had gone up the river to shoot sea cows, fell in with an immense male leopard, which the latter wounded very baldly. They then sent natives to camp, to ask me for dogs, of which I sent them a pair. In about an hour the natives came running to camp, and said that Orpen was killed by the leopard. On further inquiry, however, I found that he was not really killed, but frightfully torn and bitten about the arms and head. They had rashly taken up the spoor on foot, the dogs following behind them, instead of going in advance. The consequence of this was, that they came right upon the leopard before they were aware of him, when Orpen fired and missed him. The leopard then sprang on his shoulders, and dashing him to the ground lay upon him, howling and lacerating his hands, arms, and head most fearfully. Presently the leopard permitted Orpen to rise and come away. Where were the gallant Present and all the natives, that not a man of them moved to assist the unfortunate Orpen? According to an established custom among all colonial servants, the instant the leopard sprang, Present discharged his piece in the air, and then dashing it to the ground he rushed down the bank and jumped into the river, along which he swam some hundred yards before he would venture on _terra firma_. The natives, though numerous and armed, had likewise fled in another direction."

The tenacity of life of these animals was well shown in the other encounter: "Having partaken of some refreshment," says Mr. Cumming, "I saddled two steeds, and rode down the banks of Ngotwani, with the Bushman, to seek for any game I might find. After riding about a mile along the river's bank, I came suddenly upon an old male leopard lying under the shade of a thorn grove, and panting from the great heat. Although I was within sixty yards of him, he had not heard the horse's tread. I thought he was a lioness and dismounting, took a rest in my saddle on the old gray, and sent a bullet into him. He sprang to his feet, and ran half way down the river's bank, and stood to look about him, when I sent a second bullet into his person, and he disappeared over the bank. The ground being very dangerous, I did not disturb him by following then, but I at once sent Ruyter back to camp for the dogs. Presently he returned with Wolf and Boxer, very much done up with the sun. I rode forward, and on looking over the bank, the leopard started up and sneaked off alongside of the tall reeds, and was instantly out of sight. I fired a random shot from the saddle, to encourage the dogs, and shouted to them; they, however, stood looking stupidly round, and would not take up his scent at all. I led them over his spoor again and again, but to no purpose; the dogs seemed quite stupid, and yet they were Wolf and Boxer, my two best. At length I gave it up as a lost affair, and was riding down the river's bank, when I heard Wolf give tongue behind me, and galloping back I found him at bay, with the leopard immediately beneath where I had first fired at him; he was very severely wounded, and had slipped down into the river's bed, and doubled back, whereby he had thrown out both the dogs and myself. As I approached, he flew out upon Wolf and knocked him over, and then running up the bed of the river he took shelter in a thick bush. Wolf, however, followed him, and at this moment my other dogs came up, having heard the shot, and bayed him fiercely. He sprang out upon them, and then crossed the river's bed, taking shelter beneath some large tangled roots on the opposite bank. As he crossed the river, I put a third bullet into him, firing from the saddle, and as soon as he came to bay I gave him a fourth, which finished him. This leopard was a very fine old male. In the conflict, the unfortunate Alert was wounded as usual, getting his face torn open. He was still going on three legs, with all his breast laid bare by the first water-buck."

Major Denham in his interesting travels, gives the following account of an adventure with a huge panther, which occurred during the expedition to Mandara: "We had started several animals of the leopard species, who ran from us so swiftly, twisting their long tails in the air, as to prevent our getting near them. We, however, now started one of a larger kind, which Maramy assured me was so satiated with the blood of a negro, whose carcase we found lying in the wood, that he would be easily killed. I rode up to the spot just as a Shonaa had planted the first spear in him, which passed through the neck a little above the shoulder, and came down between the animal's legs; he rolled over, broke the spear, and bounded off with the lower half in his body. Another Shonaa galloped up within two arms' length and thrust a second through his loins; and the savage animal, with a woeful howl, was in the act of springing on his pursuer, when an Arab shot him through the head with a ball which killed him on the spot. It was a male panther of a very large size, and measured, from the point of the tail to the nose, eight feet two inches."

These animals are found in great abundance in the woods bordering on Mandara; there are also leopards, the skins of which were seen, but not in great numbers. The panthers are as insidious as they are cruel; they will not attack any thing that is likely to make resistance, but have been known to watch a child for hours while near the protection of huts or people. It will often spring on a grown person, male or female, while carrying a burthen, but always from behind. The flesh of a child or young kid it will sometimes devour, but when any full grown animal falls a prey to its ferocity, it sucks the blood alone.

In India and Ceylon leopards and panthers are called Tree Tigers, and the following narrative of an exciting encounter with one is given in The Menageries:--"I was at Jaffna," says the writer, "at the northern extremity of the island of Ceylon in the beginning of the year 1819, when one morning my servant called me an hour or two before the usual time with, 'Master! master! people sent for master's dogs; tiger in the town!' Now my dogs chanced to be very degenerate specimens of a fine species called the Poligar dogs. I kept them to hunt jackals, but tigers are very different things. This turned out to be a panther; my gun chanced not to be put together, and while my servant was doing it the collector and two medical men, who had recently arrived, came to my door, the former armed with a fowling-piece, and the two latter with remarkably blunt hogspears. They insisted on setting off without waiting for my gun, a proceeding not much to my taste. The tiger (I must continue to call him so) had taken refuge in a hut, the roof of which, as those of Ceylon huts in general, spread to the ground like an umbrella; the only aperture was a small door about four feet high. The collector wanted to get the tiger out at once. I begged to wait for my gun, but, no! the fowling-piece, loaded with ball of course, and the two hogspears were quite enough; I got a hedge stake and awaited my fate for very shame. At this moment, to my great delight, there arrived from the fort an English officer, two artillery-men, and a Malay captain, and a pretty figure we should have cut without them, as the event will show. I was now quite ready to attack, and my gun came a minute afterwards. The whole scene which follows took place within an inclosure, about twenty feet square, formed on three sides by a strong fence of palmyra leaves, and on the fourth by the hut. At the door of this, the two artillery-men planted themselves, and the Malay captain got at the top to frighten the tiger out by worrying it--an easy operation, as the huts there are covered with cocoa-nut leaves. One of the artillery-men wanted to go in to the tiger, but we would not suffer it. At last the beast sprang; this man received him on his bayonet, which he thrust, apparently, down his throat, firing his piece at the same moment. The bayonet broke off short, leaving less than three inches on the musket, the rest remained in the animal, but was invisible to us: the shot probably went through his cheek, for it certainly did not seriously injure him, as he instantly rose upon his legs with a loud roar, and placed his paws upon the soldier's breast. At this moment the animal appeared to me to be about to reach the centre of the man's face; but I had scarcely time to observe this, when the tiger, stooping his head, seized the soldier's arm in his mouth, turned him half round, staggering, threw him over on his back and fell upon him. Our dread now was, that if we fired upon the tiger we might kill the man. For a moment there was a pause, when his comrade attacked the beast exactly in the same manner the gallant fellow himself had done. He struck his bayonet into his head; the tiger rose at him, he fired, and this time the ball took effect, and in the head. The animal staggered backwards, and we all poured in our fire; he still kicked and writhed, when the gentlemen with the hogspears advanced and fixed him, while some natives finished him by beating him on the head with hedge stakes. The brave artillery-man was after all but slightly hurt; he claimed the skin, which was very cheerfully given to him; there was, however, a cry among the natives, that the head should be cut off; it was, and in doing so, the knife came directly across the bayonet. The animal measured scarcely less than four feet from the root of the tail to the muzzle."

The following practical joke is related in the late Rev. T. Acland's amusing volume on India:--A party of officers went out from Cuttack to shoot; their men were beating the jungle, when suddenly all the wild cry ceased, and a man came gliding to where all the Sahibs were standing to tell them that there was a tiger lying asleep in his den close at hand. A consultation was instantly held; most of the party were anxious to return to Cuttack, but Captain B---- insisted on having a shot at the animal; accordingly he advanced very quickly, until he came to the place, when he saw, not a tiger, but a large leopard, lying quite still, with his head resting on his fore-paws. He went up close and fired, but the animal did not move. This astonished him, and on examination he found that the brute was already dead. One of his companions had bribed some Indians to place a dead leopard there, and to say that there was a tiger asleep. It may be imagined what a laugh there was!

Nature, ever provident, has scattered with a bounteous hand her gifts in the country of the Orinoco, where the jaguar especially abounds. The savannahs, which are covered with grasses and slender plants, present a surprising luxuriance and diversity of vegetation; piles of granite blocks rise here and there, and, at the margins of the plains, occur deep valleys and ravines, the humid soil of which is covered with arums, heliconias, and llianas. The shelves of primitive rocks, scarcely elevated above the plain, are partially coated with lichens and mosses, together with succulent plants and tufts of evergreen shrubs with shining leaves. The horizon is bounded with mountains overgrown with forests of laurels, among which clusters of palms rise to the height of more than a hundred feet, their slender stems supporting tufts of feathery foliage. To the east of Atures other mountains appear, the ridge of which is composed of pointed cliffs, rising like huge pillars above the trees. When those columnar masses are situated near the Orinoco, flamingoes, herons, and other wading birds perch on their summits, and look like sentinels. In the vicinity of the cataracts, the moisture which is diffused in the air produces a perpetual verdure, and wherever soil has accumulated on the plains, it is adorned by the beautiful shrubs of the mountains.

Such is one view of the picture, but it has its dark side also; those flowing waters, which fertilize the soil, abound with crocodiles; those charming shrubs and flourishing plants are the hiding-places of deadly serpents; those laurel forests, the favorite lurking spots of the fierce jaguar; whilst the atmosphere, so clear and lovely, abounds with musquitoes and zancudoes to such a degree that, in the missions of Orinoco, the first questions in the morning when two people meet, are "How did you find the zancudoes during the night? How are we to-day for the musquitoes?"

It is in the solitude of this wilderness that the jaguar, stretched out motionless and silent, upon one of the lower branches of the ancient trees, watches for its passing prey; a deer, urged by thirst, is making its way to the river, and approaches the tree where his enemy lies in wait. The jaguar's eyes dilate, the ears are thrown down, and the whole frame becomes flattened against the branch. The deer, all unconscious of danger, draws near, every limb of the jaguar quivers with excitement; every fibre is stiffened for the spring; then, with the force of a bow unbent, he darts with a terrific yell upon his prey, seizes it by the back of the neck, a blow is given with his powerful paw, and with broken spine the deer falls lifeless to the earth. The blood is then sucked, and the prey dragged to some favorite haunt, where it is devoured at leisure.

Humboldt surprised a jaguar in his retreat. It was near the Joval, below the mouth of the Cano de la Tigrera, that in the midst of wild and awful scenery, he saw an enormous jaguar stretched beneath the shade of a large mimosa. He had just killed a chiguire, an animal about the size of a pig, which he held with one of his paws, while the vultures were assembled in flocks around. It was curious to observe the mixture of boldness and timidity which these birds exhibited; for although they advanced within two feet of the jaguar, they instantly shrank back at the least motion he made. In order to observe more nearly their proceedings, the travellers went into their little boat, when the tyrant of the forest withdrew behind the bushes, leaving his victim, upon which the vultures attempted to devour it, but were soon put to flight by the jaguar rushing into the midst of them. The following night, Humboldt and his party were entertained by a jaguar hunter, half-naked, and as brown as a Zambo, who prided himself on being of the European race, and called his wife and daughter, who were as slightly clothed as himself, Donna Isabella and Donna Manvela. As this aspiring personage had neither house nor hut, he invited the strangers to swing their hammocks near his own between two trees, but as ill-luck would have it, a thunder-storm came on, which wetted them to the skin; but their troubles did not end here, for Donna Isabella's cat had perched on one of the trees, and frightened by the thunder-storm, jumped down upon one of the travellers in his cot; he naturally supposed that he was attacked by a wild beast, and as smart a battle took place between the two, as that celebrated feline engagement of Don Quixote; the cat, who perhaps had most reason to consider himself an ill-used personage, at length bolted, but the fears of the gentleman had been excited to such a degree, that he could hardly be quieted. The following night was not more propitious to slumber. The party finding no tree convenient, had stuck their oars in the sand, and suspended their hammocks upon them. About eleven, there arose in the immediately adjoining wood, so terrific a noise, that it was impossible to sleep. The Indians distinguished the cries of sapagous, alouates, jaguars, cougars, peccaris, sloths, curassows, paraquas, and other birds, so that there must have been as full a forest chorus as Mr. Hullah himself could desire.

When the jaguars approached the edge of the forest, which they frequently did, a dog belonging to the party began to howl, and seek refuge under their cots. Sometimes, after a long silence, the cry of the jaguars came from the tops of the trees, when it was followed by an outcry among the monkeys. Humboldt supposes the noise thus made by the inhabitants of the forest during the night, to be the effect of some contests that had arisen among them.

On the pampas of Paraquay, great havoc is committed among the herds of horses by the jaguars, whose strength is quite sufficient to enable them to drag off one of these animals. Azara caused the body of a horse, which had been recently killed by a jaguar, to be drawn within musket-shot of a tree, in which he intended to pass the night, anticipating that the jaguar would return in the course of it, to its victim; but while he was gone to prepare for his adventure, behold the animal swam across a large and deep river, and having seized the horse with his teeth, dragged it full sixty paces to the river, swam across again with his prey, and then dragged the carcase into a neighboring wood; and all this in sight of a person, whom Azara had placed to keep watch. But the jaguars have also an aldermanic goût for turtles, which they gratify in a very systematic manner, as related by Humboldt, who was shown large shells of turtles emptied by them. They follow the turtles towards the beaches, where the laying of eggs is to take place, surprise them on the sand, and in order to devour them at their ease, adroitly turn them on their backs; and as they turn many more than they can devour in one night, the Indians often profit by their cunning. The jaguar pursues the turtle quite into the water, and when not very deep, digs up the eggs; they, with the crocodile, the heron, and the gallinago vulture, are the most formidable enemies the little turtles have. Humboldt justly remarks, "When we reflect on the difficulty that the naturalist finds in getting out the body of the turtle, without separating the upper and under shells, we cannot enough admire the suppleness of the jaguar's paw, which empties the double armor of the _arraus_, as if the adhering parts of the muscles had been cut by means of a surgical instrument."

The rivers of South America swarm with crocodiles, and these wage perpetual war with the jaguars. It is said, that when the jaguar surprises the alligator asleep on the hot sandbank, he attacks him in a vulnerable part under the tail, and often kills him, but let the crocodile only get his antagonist into the water, and the tables are turned, for the jaguar is held under water until he is drowned.

The onset of the jaguar is always made from behind, partaking of the stealthy, treacherous character of his tribe; if a herd of animals, or a party of men be passing, it is the last that is always the object of his attack. When he has made choice of his victim, he springs upon the neck, and placing one paw on the back of the head, while he seizes the muzzle with the other, twists the head round with a sudden jerk which dislocates the spine, and deprives it instantaneously of life; sometimes, especially when satiated with food, he is indolent and cowardly, skulking in the gloomiest depths of the forest, and scared by the most trifling causes, but when urged by the cravings of hunger, the largest quadrupeds, and man himself, are attacked with fury and success.

Mr. Darwin has given an interesting account of the habits of the jaguar: the wooded banks of the great South American rivers appear to be their favorite haunt, but south of the Plata they frequent the reeds bordering lakes; wherever they are they seem to require water. They are

## particularly abundant on the isles of the Parana, their common prey

being the carpincho, so that it is generally said, where carpinchos are plentiful, there is little fear of the jaguar; possibly, however, a jaguar which has tasted human flesh, may afterwards become dainty, and, like the lions of South Africa, and the tigers of India, acquire the dreadful character of man-eaters, from preferring that food to all others. It is not many years ago since a very large jaguar found his way into a church in Santa Fé; soon afterwards a very corpulent padre entering, was at once killed by him: his equally stout coadjutor, wondering what had detained the padre, went to look after him, and also fell a victim to the jaguar; a third priest, marvelling greatly at the unaccountable absence of the others, sought them, and the jaguar having by this time acquired a strong clerical taste, made at him also, but he, being fortunately of the slender order, dodged the animal from pillar to post, and happily made his escape; the beast was destroyed by being shot from a corner of the building, which was unroofed, and thus paid the penalty of his sacrilegious propensities.

On the Parana they have killed many woodcutters, and have even entered vessels by night. One dark evening the mate of a vessel, hearing a heavy but peculiar footstep on deck, went up to see what it was, and was immediately met by a jaguar, who had come on board, seeking what he could devour: a severe struggle ensued, assistance arrived, and the brute was killed, but the man lost the use of the arm which had been ground between his teeth.

The Guachos say that the jaguar, when wandering about at night, is much tormented by the foxes yelping as they follow him; this may perhaps serve to alarm his prey, but must be as teasing to him as the attentions of swallows are to an owl who happens to be taking a daylight promenade; and if owls ever swear, it is under those circumstances. Mr. Darwin, when hunting on the banks of the Uruguay, was shown three well-known trees to which the jaguars constantly resort, for the purpose, it is said, of sharpening their claws. Every one must be familiar with the manner in which cats, with outstretched legs and extended claws, will card the legs of chairs and of men; so with the jaguar; and of these trees, the bark was worn quite smooth in front; on each side there were deep grooves, extending in an oblique line nearly a yard in length. The scars were of different ages, and the inhabitants could always tell when a jaguar was in the neighborhood, by his recent autograph on one of these trees.

We have seen tigers stretching their enormous limbs in this manner, and were recently interested in watching the proceedings of two beautiful young jaguars now in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park; they are scarcely half-grown and as playful as kittens. After chasing and tumbling each other over several times, they went as by mutual consent to the post of their cage, and there carefully and with intensely placid countenances scraped away with their claws as they would have done against the trees had they been in their native woods. This proceeding satisfactorily concluded, they swarmed up and down the post, appearing to vie with each other as to which should be first. The six young leopards are equally graceful and active with the above, and the elegance and quickness of their movements cannot fail to command admiration. They seem to be particularly fond of bounding up and down the trees, and sometimes rest in the strangest attitudes, stuck in the fork of a bough, or sitting, as it were; astride of one, with their hind legs hanging down. M. Sonnini bears testimony to the extraordinary climbing powers of the jaguar; "For," says he, "I have seen, in the forests of Guiana, the prints left by the claws of the jaguar on the smooth bark of a tree from forty to fifty feet in height, measuring about a foot and a half in circumference, and clothed with branches near its summit alone. It was easy to follow with the eye the efforts which the animal had made to reach the branches; although his talons had been thrust deeply into the body of the tree, he had met with several slips, but had always recovered his ground; and attracted, no doubt, by some favorite prey, had at length succeeded in gaining the very top!"

The following is the common mode of killing the jaguar in Tucuman: The Guacho, armed with a long strong spear, traces him to his den, and having found it, he places himself in a convenient position to receive the animal on the point of the spear at the first spring; dogs are then sent in, and driving him out he springs with fury upon the Guacho, who, fixing his eyes on those of the jaguar, receives his onset kneeling, and with such consummate coolness that he hardly ever fails. At the moment that the spear is plunged into the animal's body the Guacho nimbly springs on one side, and the jaguar, already impaled on the spear, is speedily dispatched.

In one instance the animal lay stretched on the ground, like a gorged cat, and was in such high good humor after his satisfactory meal, that on the dogs attacking him he was disposed to play with them; a bullet was therefore lodged in his shoulder, on which rough salute he sprang out so quickly on his watching assailant, that he not only received the spear in his body, but tumbled the man over, and they rolled on the ground together. "I thought," said the brave fellow, "that I was no longer a capitaz, as I held up my arm to protect my throat, which the jaguar seemed in the act of seizing; but at the very moment that I expected to feel his fangs in my flesh, the green fire which had blazed upon me from his eyes flashed out--he fell upon me, and with a quiver died."

Colonel Hamilton relates that when travelling on the banks of the Magdalena, he remarked a young man with his arm in a sling, and on inquiring the cause, was told that about a month before, when walking in a forest, a dog he had with him began to bark at something in a dark cavern overhung with bushes; and on his approaching the entrance, a jaguar rushed on him with great force, seizing his right arm, and in the struggle they both fell over a small precipice. He then lost his senses, and on recovering found the jaguar had left him, but his arm was bleeding and shockingly lacerated. On surprise being expressed that the animal had not killed him, he shrugged up his shoulders, and remarked, "La bienaventurada virgen Maria le habia salvo." The blessed Virgin had saved him.

In the province of Buenaventura it is said that the Indians kill the jaguar by means of poisoned arrows, about eight inches in length, which are thrown from a blow-pipe: the arrows are poisoned with a moisture which exudes from the back of a small green frog, found in the provinces of Buenaventura and Choco. When the Indians want to get this poison from the frog, they put him near a small fire, and the moisture soon appears on his back; in this the points of the small arrows are dipped, and so subtle is the poison that a jaguar struck by one of these little insignificant weapons, soon becomes convulsed and dies.

The jaguar has the general character of being untameable, and of maintaining his savage ferocity when in captivity, showing no symptoms of attachment to those who have the care of him. This, like many other points in natural history, is a popular error; there is at the present time a magnificent jaguar in the Zoological Gardens, who is as tame and gentle as a domestic cat. We have seen this fine creature walking up and down the front of his den as his keeper walked, rubbing himself against the bars, purring with manifest pleasure as his back or head was stroked, and caressing the man's hand with his huge velvet paws. There is in the collection another jaguar, just as savage as this one is tame. There was also a jaguar formerly in the Tower, which was obtained by Lord Exmouth while on the South American Station, and was afterwards present at the memorable bombardment of Algiers. This animal was equally gentle with that we have described, and was presented to the Marchioness of Londonderry by Lord Exmouth on his return to England after that engagement: it was placed by her Ladyship in the Tower, where it died.

In a state of nature these animals have been known to show not only forbearance, but even playfulness, of which Humboldt relates the following instance which occurred at the mission of Atures, on the banks of the Orinoco: "Two Indian children, a boy and girl, eight or nine years of age, were sitting among the grass near the village of Atures, in the midst of a savannah. It was two in the afternoon when a jaguar issued from the forest and approached the children, gambolling around them, sometimes concealing itself among the long grass and again springing forward with his back curved and his head lowered, as is usual with our cats. The little boy was unaware of the danger in which he was placed, and became sensible of it only when the jaguar struck him on the side of the head with one of his paws. The blows thus inflicted were at first slight, but gradually became ruder; the claws of the jaguar wounded the child, and blood flowed with violence; the little girl then took up the branch of a tree, and struck the animal, which fled before her. The Indians, hearing the cries of the children, ran up, and saw the jaguar, which bounded off without showing any disposition to defend itself." In all probability, this fit of good humor was to be traced to the animal having been plentifully fed; for most assuredly the children would have stood but little chance, had their visitor been subjected to a meagre diet for some days previously.

Mr. Edwards, in his voyage up the Amazon, tells of an exchange of courtesies between a traveller and a jaguar. The jaguar was standing in the road as the Indian came out of the bushes, not ten paces distant, and was looking, doubtless, somewhat fiercely as he waited the unknown comer. The Indian was puzzled for an instant, but summoning his presence of mind, he took off his broad brimmed hat, and made a low bow, with "Muito bene dias, men Señhor," or "A very good morning, Sir." Such profound respect was not wanting on the jaguar, who turned slowly and marched down the road with proper dignity.

It is difficult to say how many leopards and jaguar skins are annually imported, as the majority are brought by private hands. We have been told by an eminent furrier that about five hundred are sold each year to the London trade. They are chiefly used as shabraques, or coverings to officers' saddles in certain hussar regiments, but skins used for this purpose must be marked in a particular manner, and the ground must be of a dark rich color. Such skins are worth about three pounds; ordinary leopard and jaguar skins are valued at about two pounds, and are chiefly used for rugs or mats. The jaguar skins are sometimes of great size, and we have measured one which was nine feet seven inches from tip to tip. The leopard skins are exclusively used for military purposes, and the jaguar's are preferred for rugs.

From the Dublin University Magazine.

A LEGEND OF THE EAST NEUK OF FIFE.

It was a cold night in the March of the year 1708. The hour of ten had tolled from the old Gothic tower of the Collegiate Church; beating on his drum, the drummer in the livery of the burgh had proceeded from the Market-cross to the ruins of St. David's Castle, and from thence to the chapel of St. Rufus, and having made one long roll or flourish at the point from whence his peregrination began, he adjourned to the _Thane of Fife_ to procure a dram, while the good folks of Crail composed themselves for the night, and the barring of doors and windows announced that those who were within had resolved to make themselves comfortable and secure, while those unfortunate wights that were without were likely to remain so.

Hollowly the German Sea was booming on the rocks of the harbor; and from its hazy surface a cold east wind swept over the flat, bleak coast of Crail; a star peeped at times between the flying clouds, and even the moon looked forth once, but immediately veiled her face again, as if one glance at the iron shore and barren scenery, unenlivened by hedge or tree, were quite enough to prevent her from looking again.

The town drummer had received his dram and withdrawn, and Master Spiggot, the gudeman or landlord of the _Thane of Fife_, the principal tavern, and only inn or hostel in the burgh, was taking a last view of the main street, and considering the propriety of closing for the night. It was broad, spacious, and is still overlooked by many a tall and gable-ended mansion, whose antique and massive aspect announces that, like other Fifeshire burghs before the Union in the preceding year, it had seen better days. Indeed, the house then occupied by Master Spiggot himself, and from which his sign bearing the panoplied _Thane_ at full gallop on a caparisoned steed swung creaking in the night wind, was one of those ancient edifices, and in former days had belonged to the provost of the adjoining kirk; but this was (as Spiggot said) "in the auld warld times o' the Papistrie."

The gudeman shook his white head solemnly and sadly, as he looked down the empty thoroughfare.

"There _was_ a time," he muttered, and paused.

Silent and desolate as any in the ruins of Thebes, the street was half covered with weeds and rank grass that grew between the stones, and Spiggot could see them waving in the dim starlight.

Crail is an out-of-the-way place. It is without thoroughfare and without trade; few leave it and still fewer think of going there, for there one feels as if on the very verge of society; for there, even by day, reigns a monastic gloom, a desertion, a melancholy, a uniform and voiceless silence, broken only by the croak of the gleds and the cawing of the clamorous gulls nestling on the old church tower, while the sea booms incessantly as it rolls on the rocky beach.

But there was a time when it was otherwise; when the hum of commerce rose around its sculptured cross, and there was a daily bustle in the chambers of its Town-hall, for there a portly provost and bailies with a battalion of seventeen corpulent councillors sat solemnly deliberating on the affairs of the burgh; and swelling with a municipal importance that was felt throughout the whole East Neuk of Fife; for, in those days, the bearded Russ and red-haired Dane, the Norwayer, and the Hollander, laden with merchandise, furled their sails in that deserted harbor, where now scarcely a fisherboat is seen; for on Crail, as on all its sister towns along the coast, fell surely and heavily the terrible blight of 1707, and now it is hastening rapidly to insignificance and decay.

On the sad changes a year had brought about, Spiggot pondered sadly, and was only roused from his dreamy mood by the sudden apparition of a traveller on horseback standing before him; for so long and so soft was the grass of the street that his approach had been unheard by the dreamer, whose mind was wandering after the departed glories of the East Neuk.

"A cold night, landlord, for such I take you to be," said the stranger, in a bold and cheerful voice, as he dismounted.

"A cauld night and a dreary too," sighed poor Boniface, as he bowed, and hastening to seize the stranger's bridle, buckled it to a ring at the doorcheek; "but the sicht of a visitor does gude to my heart; step in, sir. A warm posset that was simmering in the parlor for myself is at your service, and I'll set the stall-boy to corn your beast and stable it."

"I thank you, gudeman; but for unharnessing it matters not, as I must ride onward; but I will take the posset with thanks, for I am chilled to death by my long ride along this misty coast."

Spiggot looked intently at the traveller as he stooped, and entering the low-arched door which was surmounted by an old monastic legend, trod into the bar with a heavy clanking stride, for he was accoutred with jack-boots and gilded spurs. His rocquelaure was of scarlet cloth, warmly furred, and the long curls of his Ramillies wig flowed over it. His beaver was looped upon three sides with something of a military air, and one long white feather that adorned it, floated down his back, for the dew was heavy on it. He was a handsome man, about forty years of age, well sunburned, with a keen dark eye, and close-clipped moustache, which indicated that he had served in foreign wars. He threw his hat and long jewelled rapier aside, and on removing his rocquelaure, discovered a white velvet coat more richly covered with lace than any that Spiggot had ever seen even in the palmiest days of Crail.

According to the fashion of Queen Anne's courtiers, it was without a collar, to display the long white cravat of point d'Espagne, without cuffs, and edged from top to bottom with broad bars of lace, clasps and buttons of silver the whole length; being compressed at the waist by a very ornamental belt fastened by a large gold buckle.

"Your honor canna think of riding on to-night," urged Boniface; "and if a Crail-capon done just to perfection, and a stoup of the best wine, at least siccan wine as we get by the east seas, since that vile incorporating Union--"

"Vile and damnable! say I," interrupted the stranger.

"True for ye, sir," said Spiggot with a kindling eye; "but if these puir viands can induce ye to partake of the hospitality of my puir hostel, that like our gude burrowtoun is no just what it has been--"

"Gudeman, 'tis impossible, for I must ride so soon as I have imbibed thy posset."

"As ye please, sir--your honor's will be done. Our guests are now, even as the visits of angels, unco few and far between; and thus, when one comes, we are loath to part with him. There is a deep pitfall, and an ugly gullyhole where the burn crosses the road at the town-head, and if ye miss the path, the rocks by the beach are steep, and in a night like this--"

"Host of mine," laughed the traveller, "I know right well every rood of the way, and by keeping to the left near the Auldlees may avoid both the blackpit and the sea-beach."

"Your honor kens the country hereawa then," said Spiggot with surprise.

"Of old, perhaps, I knew it as well as thee."

The gudeman of the _Thane_ scrutinized the traveller's face keenly, but failed to recognize him, and until this moment he thought that no man in the East Neuk was unknown to him; but here his inspection was at fault.

"And hast thou no visitors with thee now, friend host?" he asked of Spiggot.

"One only, gude sir, who came here on a brown horse about nightfall. He is an unco foreign-looking man, but has been asking the way to the castle o' Balcomie."

"Ha! and thou didst tell of this plaguy pitfall, I warrant."

"Assuredly, your honor, in kindness I did but hint of it."

"And thereupon he stayed. Balcomie--indeed! and what manner of man is he?"

"By the corslet which he wears under his coat, and the jaunty cock of his beaver, I would say he had been a soldier."

"Good again--give him my most humble commendations, and ask him to share thy boasted posset of wine with me."

"What name did you say, sir?"

"Thou inquisitive varlet, I said no name," replied the gentleman, with a smile, "In these times men do not lightly give their names to each other, when the land is swarming with Jacobite plotters and government spies, disguised Jesuits, and Presbyterian tyrants. I may be the Devil or the Pope for all thou knowest."

"Might ye no be the Pretender?" said Spiggot, with a sour smile.

"Nay, I have a better travelling name than that; but say to this gentleman that the Major of Marshal Orkney's Dragoons requests the pleasure of sharing a stoup of wine with him."

"Sir, it mattereth little whether ye give your name or no," replied the host bitterly; "for we are a' nameless now. Twelve months ago we were true Scottish men, but _now_--"

"Our king is an exile--our crown is buried for ever, and our brave soldiers are banished to far and foreign wars, while the grass is growing green in the streets of our capital--ay, green as it is at this hour in your burgh of Crail; but hence to the stranger; yet say not," added the traveller, bitterly and proudly, "that in his warmth the Scottish cavalier has betrayed himself."

While the speaker amused himself with examining a printed proclamation concerning the "Tiend Commissioners and Transplantation off Paroch Kirkis," which was pasted over the stone mantelpiece of the bar, the landlord returned with the foreign gentleman's thanks, and an invitation to his chamber, whither the Major immediately repaired; following the host up a narrow stone spiral stair to a snugly wainscotted room, against the well-grated windows of which a sudden shower was now beginning to patter.

The foreigner, who was supping on a Crail-capon (in other words a broiled haddock) and stoup of Bourdeaux wine, arose at their entrance, and bowed with, an air that was undisguisedly continental. He was a man above six feet, with a long straight nose, over which his dark eyebrows met and formed one unbroken line. He wore a suit of green Genoese velvet, so richly laced that little of the cloth was visible; a full-bottomed wig, and a small corslet of the brightest steel (over which hung the ends of his cravat), as well as a pair of silver-mounted cavalry pistols that lay on the table, together with his unmistakable bearing, decided the Major of Orkney's that the stranger was a brother of the sword.

"Fair sir, little introduction is necessary between us, as, I believe, we have both followed the drum in our time," said the Major, shaking the curls of his Ramillie wig with the air of a man who has decided on what he says.

"I _have_ served, Monsieur," replied the foreigner, "under Marlborough and Eugene."

"Ah! in French Flanders? Landlord--gudeman, harkee; a double stoup of this wine; I have found a comrade to-night--be quick and put my horse to stall, I will not ride hence for an hour or so. What regiment, sir?"

"I was first under Grouvestien in the Horse of Driesberg."

"Then you were on the left of the second column at Ramillies--on that glorious 12th of May," said the Major, drawing the high-backed chair which the host handed him, and spreading out his legs before the fire, which burned merrily in the basket-grate on the hearth, "and latterly--"

"Under Wandenberg."

"Ah! an old tyrannical dog."

A dark cloud gathered on the stranger's lofty brow.

"I belonged to the Earl of Orkney's Grey Dragoons," said the Major; "and remember old Wandenberg making a bold charge in that brilliant onfall when we passed the lines of Monsieur le Mareschal Villars at Pont-a-Vendin, and pushed on to the plains of Lens."

"That was before we invested Doway and Fort-Escharpe, where old Albergotti so ably commanded ten thousand well-beaten soldiers."

"And then Villars drew off from his position at sunset and encamped on the plain before Arras."

"Thou forgettest, comrade, that previously he took up a position in rear of Escharpe."

"True; but now I am right into the very melée of those old affairs, and the mind carries one on like a rocket. Your health, sir--by the way, I am still ignorant of your name."

"I have such very particular reasons for concealing it in this neighborhood, that--"

"Do not think me inquisitive; in these times men should not pry too closely."

"Monsieur will pardon me I hope."

"No apology is necessary, save from myself, for now my curiosity is thoroughly and most impertinently whetted, to find a Frenchman in this part of the world, here in this out-o'-the-way place, where no one comes to, and no one goes from, on a bleak promontory of the German Sea, the East Neuk of Fife."

"Monsieur will again excuse me; but I have most particular business with a gentleman in this neighborhood; and having travelled all the way from Paris, expressly to have it settled, I beg that I may be excused the pain of prevarication. The circumstance of my having served under the great Duke of Malborough against my own King and countrymen is sufficiently explained when I acquaint you, that I was then a French Protestant refugee; but now, without changing my religion, I have King Louis's gracious pardon and kind protection extended to me."

"And so you were with Wandenberg when his troopers made that daring onfall at Pont-a-Vendin, and drove back the horse picquets of Villars," said the Major, to lead the conversation from a point which evidently seemed unpleasant to the stranger. "'Twas sharp, short, and decisive, as all cavalry affairs should be. You will of course remember that unpleasant affair of Wandenberg's troopers, who were accused of permitting a French prisoner to escape. It caused a great excitement in the British camp, where some condemned the dragoons, others Van Wandenberg, and not a few our great Marlborough himself."

"I did hear something of it," said the stranger in a low voice.

"The prisoner whose escape was permitted was, I believe, the father of the youths who captured him, a circumstance which might at least have won them mercy--"

"From the Baron!"

"I forgot me--he was indeed merciless."

"But as I left his dragoons, and indeed the army about that time, I will be glad to hear _your_ account of the affair."

"It is a very unpleasant story--the more so as I was somewhat concerned in it myself," said the Major, slowly filling his long stemmed glass, and watching the white worm in its stalk, so intently as he recalled all the circumstances he was about to relate, that he did not observe the face of the French gentleman, which was pale as death; and after a short pause, he began as follows:

"In the onfall at Pont-a-Vendin, it happened that two young Frenchmen who served as gentlemen volunteers with you in the dragoon regiment of Van Wandenberg, had permitted--how, or why, I pretend not to say--the escape of a certain prisoner of distinction. Some said he was no other than M. le Mareschal Villars himself. They claimed a court martial, but the old Baron, who was a savage-hearted Dutchman, insisted that they should be given up unconditionally to his own mercy, and in an evil moment of heedlessness or haste, Marlborough consented, and sent me (I was his Aid-de-Camp) with a written order to that effect, addressed to Colonel the Baron Van Wandenberg, whose regiment of horse I met _en route_ for St. Venant, about nightfall on a cold and snowy evening in the month of November.

"Snow covered the whole country, which was all a dead level, and a cold, leaden-colored sky met the white horizon in one unbroken line, save where the leafless poplars of some far-off village stood up, the landmarks of the plain. In broad flakes the snow fell fast, and directing their march by a distant spire, the Dutch troopers rode slowly over the deepening fields. They were all muffled in dark blue cloaks, on the capes of which the snow was freezing, while the breath of the men and horses curled like steam in the thickening and darkening air.

"Muffled to the nose in a well furred rocquelaure, with my wig tied to keep the snow from its curls, and my hat flapped over my face, I rode as fast as the deep snow would permit, and passing the rear of the column where, moody and disarmed, the two poor French volunteers were riding under care of an escort, I spurred to the Baron who rode in front near the kettle drums, and delivered my order; as I did so, recalling with sadness the anxious and wistful glance given me by the prisoners as I passed them.

"Wandenberg, who had no more shape than a huge hogshead, received the dispatch with a growl of satisfaction. He would have bowed, but his neck was too short. I cannot but laugh when I remember his strange aspect. In form he looked nearly as broad as he was long, being nearly eight feet in girth, and completely enveloped in a rough blue rocquelaure, which imparted to his figure the roundness of a ball. His face, reddened by skiedam and the frost, was glowing like crimson, while the broad beaver hat that overshadowed it, and the feathers with which the beaver was edged, were incrusted with the snow that was rapidly forming a pyramid on its crown, imparting to his whole aspect a drollery at which I could have laughed heartily, had not his well-known acuteness and ferocity awed me into a becoming gravity of demeanor; and delivering my dispatch with a tolerably good grace, I reined back my horse to await any reply he might be pleased to send the Duke.

"His dull Dutch eyes glared with sudden anger and triumph, as he folded the document, and surveyed the manacled prisoners. Thereafter he seized his speaking trumpet, and thundered out--

"'Ruyters--halt! form open column of troops, trot!'

"It was done as rapidly as heavily armed Dutchmen on fat slow horses knee deep among snow could perform it, and then wheeling them into line, he gave the orders--

"'Forward the flanks--form circle--sling musquetoons!--trumpeters ride to the centre and dismount.'

"By these unexpected manoeuvres, I suddenly found myself inclosed in a hollow circle of the Dutch horsemen, and thus, as it were, compelled to become a spectator of the scene that ensued, though I had his Grace of Marlborough's urgent orders to rejoin him without delay on the road to Aire."

"'And--and you saw--'

"Such a specimen of discipline as neither the devil nor De Martinet ever dreamed of; but thoroughly Dutch I warrant you.

"I have said it was intensely cold, and that the night was closing; but the whiteness of the snow that covered the vast plain, with the broad red circle of the half-obscured moon that glimmered through the fast falling flakes as it rose behind a distant spire, cast a dim light upon the place where the Dutchmen halted. But deeming that insufficient, Van Wandenberg ordered half a dozen torches to be lighted, for his troopers always had such things with them, being useful by night for various purposes; and hissing and sputtering in the falling snow flakes, their lurid and fitful glare was thrown on the close array of the Dutch dragoons, on their great cumbrous hats, on the steeple crowns of which, I have said, the snow was gathering in cones, and the pale features of the two prisoners, altogether imparting a wild, unearthly, and terrible effect to the scene about to be enacted on that wide and desolate moor.

"By order of Van Wandenberg, three halberts were fixed into the frozen earth, with their points bound together by a thong, after which the dismounted trumpeters layed hands on one of the young Frenchmen, whom they proceeded to strip of his coat and vest.

"Disarmed and surrounded, aware of the utter futility of resistance, the unfortunate volunteer offered none, but gazed wistfully and imploringly at me, and sure I am, that in my lowering brow and kindling eyes, he must have seen the storm that was gathering in my heart.

"'Dieu vous benisse, Monsieur Officer," cried the Frenchman in a mournful voice, while shuddering with cold and horror as he was stripped to his shirt; 'save me from this foul disgrace, and my prayers--yea, my life shall be for ever at your disposal.'

"'Good comrade,' said I, 'entreat me not, for here, I am powerless.'

"'Baron,' he exclaimed; 'I am a gentleman--a gentleman of old France, and I dare thee to lay thy damnable scourge upon me.'

"'Ach Gott! dare--do you say dare? ve vill ze!' laughed Van Wandenberg, as the prisoner was dragged forward and about to be forcibly trussed to the halberts by the trumpeters, when animated to the very verge of insanity, he suddenly freed himself, and rushing like a madman upon the Baron, struck him from his horse by one blow of his clenched hand. The horse snorted, the Dutch troopers opened their saucer eyes wider still, as the great and corpulent mass fell heavily among the deepening snow, and in an instant the foot of the Frenchmen was pressed upon his throat, while he exclaimed:

"'If I slay thee, thou hireling dog, as I have often slain thy clodpated countrymen in other days,' and the Frenchman laughed fiercely, 'by St. Denis! I will have one foe-man less on this side of Hell!'

"'Gott in Himmel! ach! mein tuyvel! mein--mein Gott!' gasped the Dutchman as he floundered beneath the heel of the vengeful and infuriated Frenchman, who was determined on destroying him, till a blow from the baton of an officer, stretched him almost senseless among the snow, where he was immediately grasped by the trumpeters, disrobed of his last remaining garment, and bound strongly to the halberts.

"Meanwhile the other prisoner had been pinioned and resolutely held by his escort, otherwise he would undoubtedly have fallen also upon Van Wandenberg, who choking with a tempest of passion that was too great to find utterance in words, had gathered up his rotund figure, and with an agility wonderful in a man of his years and vast obesity, so heavily armed, in a buff coat and jack-boots ribbed with iron, a heavy sword and cloak, clambered on the back of his horse, as a clown would climb up a wall; and with a visage alternating between purple and blue, by the effects of rage and strangulation, he surveyed the prisoner for a moment in silence, and there gleamed in his piggish gray eyes an expression of fury and pain, bitterness and triumph combined, and he was only able to articulate one word--

"'Flog.'

"On the handsome young Frenchman's dark curly hair, glistening with the whitening snow that fell upon it, and on his tender skin reddening in the frosty atmosphere, on the swelling muscles of his athletic form, on a half-healed sabre wound, and on the lineaments of a face that then expressed the extremity of mental agony, fell full the wavering light of the uplifted torches. The Dutch, accustomed to every species of extra-judicial cruelty by sea and land, looked on with the most grave stolidity and apathetic indifference; while I felt an astonishment and indignation that rapidly gave place to undisguised horror.

"'_Flog!_'

"The other prisoner uttered a groan that seemed to come from his very heart, and then covered his ears and eyes with his hands. Wielded by a muscular trumpeter, an immense scourge of many-knotted cords was brought down with one full sweep on the white back of the victim, and nine livid bars, each red, as if seared by a hot iron, rose under the infliction, and again the terrible instrument was reared by the trumpeter at the full stretch of his sinewy arm.

"Monsieur will be aware, that _until_ the late Revolution of 1688, this kind of punishment was unknown here and elsewhere, save in Holland; and though I have seen soldiers run the gauntlet, ride the mare, and beaten by the martinets, I shall never, oh, no! never forget the sensation of horror with which this (to me) new punishment of the poor Frenchman inspired me; and, sure I am, that our great Duke of Marlborough could in no way have anticipated it.

"Accustomed, as I have said, to every kind of cruel severity, unmoved and stoically the Dutch looked on with their gray, lacklustre eyes, dull, unmeaning, and passionless in their stolidity, contrasting strongly with the expression of startled horror depicted in the strained eyeballs and bent brows of the victim's brother, when after a time he dared to look on this revolting punishment. Save an ill-repressed sob, or half-muttered interjection from the suffering man, no other sound broke the stillness of the place, where a thousand horsemen stood in close order, but the sputtering of the torches, in the red light of which our breaths were ascending like steam. Yes! there was one other sound, and it was a horrible one--the monotonous whiz of the scourge, as it cut the keen frosty air and descended on the lacerated back of the fainting prisoner. Sir, I see that my story disturbs you.

"A corpulent Provost Mareschal, with a pair of enormous moustachios, amid which the mouth of his meerschaum was inserted, stood by smoking with admirable coolness, and marking the time with his cane, while a drummer tapped on his kettledrum, and four trumpeters had, each in succession, given their twenty-five lashes and withdrawn; twice had the knotted scourge been coagulated with blood, and twice had it been washed in the snow that now rose high around the feet of our champing and impatient horses; and now the fifth torturer approached, but still the compressed lips and clammy tongue of the proud Frenchman refused to implore mercy. His head was bowed down on his breast, his body hung pendant from the cords that encircled his swollen and livid wrists; his back from neck to waist was one mass of lacerated flesh, on which the feathery snowflakes were melting; for the agony he endured must have been like unto a stream of molton lead pouring over him; but no groan, no entreaty escaped him, and still the barbarous punishment proceeded.

"I have remarked that there is no event too horrible or too sad to be without a little of the ridiculous in it, and this was discernible here.

"One trumpeter, who appeared to have more humanity, or perhaps less skill than his predecessors, and did not exert himself sufficiently, was soundly beaten by the rattan of the trumpet-major, while the latter was castigated by the Provost Mareschal, who, in turn for remissness of duty, received sundry blows from the speaking-trumpet of the Baron; so they were all laying soundly on each other for a time.

"'Morbleu!' said the Frenchmen, with a grim smile, ''twas quite in the Dutch taste, that.'

"The Provost Mareschal continued to mark the time with the listless apathy of an automaton; the smoke curled from his meerschaum, the drum continued to tap-tap-tap, until it seemed to sound like thunder to my strained ears, for every sense was painfully excited. All count had long been lost, but when several hundred lashes had been given, Van Wandenberg and half his Dutchman were asleep in their saddles.

"It was now snowing thick and fast, but still this hideous dream continued, and still the scourging went on.

"At last the altered _sound_ of the lash and the terrible aspect of the victim, who, after giving one or two convulsive shudders, threw back his head with glazed eyes and jaw relaxed, caused the trumpeter to recede a pace or two, and throw down his gory scourge, for some lingering sentiment of humanity, which even the Dutch discipline of King William had not extinguished, made him respect when dead the man whom he had dishonored when alive.

"The young Frenchman was dead!

"An exclamation of disgust and indignation that escaped me woke up the Baron, who after drinking deeply from a great pewter flask of skiedam that hung at his saddlebow, muttered _schelms_ several times, rubbed his eyes, and then bellowed through his trumpet to bind up the _other_ prisoner. Human endurance could stand this no more, and though I deemed the offer vain, I proposed to give a hundred English guineas as a ransom.

"'Ach Gott!' said the greedy Hollander immediately becoming interested; 'bot vere you get zo mosh guilder.'

"'Oh, readily, Mynheer Baron,' I replied, drawing forth my pocket-book, 'I have here bills on his Grace the Duke of Marlborough's paymaster and on the Bank of Amsterdam for much more than that.'

"'Bot I cannot led off de brisoner for zo little--hunder pounds dat ver small--zay two.'

"'If one is not enough, Mynheer Baron, I will refer to the decision of his grace the captain-general.'

"Ach, der tuyvel! vill you?' said the Dutchman, with a savage gleam in his little eyes, which showed that he quite understood my hint; 'vell, me vont quarrel vid you, gib me de bills and de schelm is yours.'

"Resolving, nevertheless, to lay the whole affair before Marlborough, the moment I reached our trenches at Aire, I gave a bill for the required sum, and approaching the other Frenchman, requested him to keep beside me; but he seemed too much confused by grief, and cold, and horror to comprehend what I said. Poor fellow! his whole soul and sympathies seemed absorbed in the mangled corpse of his brother, which was now unbound from the halbert, and lay half sunk among the new fallen snow. While he stooped over it, and hastily, but tenderly, proceeded to draw the half-frozen clothing upon the stiffened form, the orders of Van Wandenberg were heard hoarsely through his speaking-trumpet, as they rang over the desolate plain, and his troopers wheeled back from a circle into line--from line into open column of troops, and thereafter the torches were extinguished and the march begun. Slowly and solemnly the dragoons glided away into the darkness, each with a pyramid of snow rising from the steeple crown, and ample brims of his broad beaver hat.

"It was now almost midnight; the red moon had waned, the snow storm was increasing, and there were I and the young Frenchman, with his brother's corpse, left together on the wide plain, without a place to shelter us."

"'Proceed, Monsieur,' said the Frenchman, as the narrator paused; 'for I am well aware that your story ends not there.'

"It does not--you seem interested; but I have little more to relate, save that I dismounted and assisted the poor Frenchman to raise the body from the snow, and to tie it across the saddle of my horse; taking the bridle in one hand, I supported him with the other, and thus we proceeded to the nearest town."

"'To Armentieres on the Lys," exclaimed the Frenchman, seizing the hands of the Major as the latter paused again; "to Armentieres, ten miles west of Lisle, and there you left them, after adding to your generosity by bestowing sufficient to inter his brother in the Protestant church of that town, and to convey himself to his native France. Oh! Monsieur, I am that Frenchman, and here, from my heart, from my soul, I thank you," and half kneeling, the stranger kissed the hand of the Major.

"_You!_" exclaimed the latter; "by Jove I am right glad to see you. Here at Crail, too, in the East Neuk o' Fife--'tis a strange chance; and what in heaven's name seek ye here? 'Tis a perilous time for a foreigner--still more a Frenchman, to tread on Scottish ground. The war, the intrigues with St. Germains, the Popish plots, and the devil only knows what more, make travelling here more than a little dangerous."

"Monsieur, I know all that; the days are changed since the Scot was at home in France, and the Frenchman at home in Scotland, for so the old laws of Stuart and Bourbon made them. A few words will tell who I am and what I seek here. Excuse my reluctance to reveal myself before, for now you have a claim upon me. Oh! believe me, I knew not that I addressed the generous chevalier who, in that hour of despair, redeemed my life (and more than life), my honor, from the scourge, and enabled me to lay the head of my poor brother with reverence in the grave. You have heard of M. Henri Lemercier?"

"What! the great swordsman and fencer--that noble master of the science of self-defence, with the fame of whose skill and valor all Europe is ringing?"

"I am he of whom Monsieur is pleased to speak so highly."

"Your hand again, sir; sounds, but I dearly love this gallant science myself, and have even won me a little name as a handler of the rapier. There is but one man whom Europe calls your equal, Monsieur Lemercier."

"My superior, you mean, for I have many equals," replied the Frenchman, very modestly. "You doubtless mean--"

"Sir William Hope, of Hopetoun."

"Ah! Mon Dieu, yes, he has, indeed, a great name in Europe as a fencer and master of arms, either with double or single falchion, case of falchions, backsword and dagger, pistol or quarter staff; and it is the fame of his skill and prowess in these weapons, and the reputation he has earned by his books on fencing, that hath brought me to-day to this remote part of Scotland."

"Zounds!" said the Major, shaking back the long powdered curls of his Ramillie wig, and looking remarkably grave; "you cannot mean to have a bout with Sir William? He hath a sure hand and a steady eye. I would rather stand a platoon than be once covered with his pistol."

"Monsieur, I have no enmity to this Sir William Hope, nor am I envious of his great name as a fencer. Ma foi! the world is quite wide enough for us both; but here lies my secret. I love Mademoiselle Athalie, the niece of Madame de Livry--"

"How, the old flame of the great Louis?"

"Oui," said Lemercier, smiling; "and many say that Athalie bears a somewhat suspicious resemblance to her aunt's royal lover; but that is no business of mine; she loves me very dearly, and is very good and amiable. Diable! I am well content to take her and her thirty thousand louis-d'or without making any troublesome inquiries. It would seem that my dear little Athalie is immensely vain of my reputation as a master of fence, and having heard that this Scottish Chevalier is esteemed the first man of the sword in Britain, and further, that report asserts he slew her brother in the line of battle at Blenheim, fighting bravely for a standard, she declared that ere her hand was mine, I must measure swords with this Sir William, and dip this, her handkerchief, in his blood, in token of his defeat, and of my conquest."

"A very pretty idea of Mademoiselle Athalie, and I doubt not Hopetoun will be overwhelmed by the obligation when he hears of it," said the Major of Orkney's, whose face brightened with a broad laugh; "and so much would I love to see two such brisk fellows as thou and he yoked together, at cut-and-thrust, that if permitted, I will rejoice in bearing the message of M. Lemercier to Sir William, whose Castle of Balcomie is close by here."

"Having no friend with me, I accept your offer with a thousand thanks," said Lemercier.

"Sir William did, indeed, slay an officer, as you have said, in that charge at Blenheim, where the regiment of the Marquis de Livry was cut to pieces by Orkney's Scots' Greys; but to be so good and amiable, and to love you so much withal, Mademoiselle Athalie must be a brisk dame to urge her favored Chevalier on a venture so desperate; for, mark me, Monsieur Lemercier," said the Major, impressively, "none can know better than I, the skill--the long and carefully studied skill--of Sir William Hopetoun, and permit me to warn you--"

"It matters not--I _must_ fight him; love, honor, and rivalry, too, if you will have it so, all spur me on, and no time must be lost."

"Enough; I should have been in my stirrups an hour ago; and dark though the night be, I will ride to Balcomie with your message."

"A million of thanks--you will choose time and place for me."

"Say, to-morrow, at sunrise; be thou at the Standing-stone of Sauchope; 'tis a tall, rough block, in the fields near the Castle of Balcomie, and doubt not but Sir William will meet you there."

"Thanks, thanks," again said the Frenchman, pressing the hand of the Major, who, apparently delighted at the prospect of witnessing such an encounter between the two most renowned swordsmen in Europe, drank off his stoup of wine, muffled himself in his rocquelaure, and with his little cocked hat stuck jauntily on one side of the Ramillie wig, left the apartment, and demanded his horse and the reckoning.

"Then your honor _will_ be fule hardy, and tempt Providence," said the landlord.

"Nay, gudeman, but you cannot tempt me to stay just now. I ride only through the town to Balcomie, and will return anon. The Hopetoun family are there, I believe?"

"Yes; but saving my Lady at the preachings, we see little o' them; for Sir William has bidden at Edinburgh, or elsewhere, since his English gold coft the auld tower from the Balcomies of that ilk, the year before the weary union, devil mend it!"

"Amen, say I: and what callest thou English gold?"

"The doolfu' compensation, o' whilk men say he had his share."

"Man, thou liest, and they who say so lie! for to the last moment his voice was raised against that traitorous measure of Queensbury and Stair, and now every energy of his soul is bent to its undoing!" replied the Major, fiercely, as he put spurs to his horse and rode rapidly down the dark, and then grassy, street, at the end of which the clank of his horse's hoofs died away, as he diverged upon the open ground that lay northward of the town, and by which he had to approach the tower of Balcomie.

The Frenchman remained long buried in thought, and as he sipped his wine, gazed dreamily on the changing embers that glowed on the hearth, and cast a warm light on the blue delft lining of the fireplace. The reminiscences of the war in Flanders had called up many a sad and many a bitter recollection.

"I would rather," thought he, "that the man I am about to encounter to-morrow was not a Scot, for the kindness of to-night, and of that terrible night in the snow-clad plain of Arras, inspire me with a warm love for all the people of this land. But my promise must be redeemed, my adventure achieved, or thou, my dear, my rash Athalie, art lost to me!" and he paused to gaze with earnestness upon a jewel that glittered on his hand. It was a hair ring, bound with gold, and a little shield bearing initials, clasped the small brown tress that was so ingeniously woven round it.

As he gazed on the trinket, his full dark eyes brightened for a moment, as the mild memories of love and fondness rose in his heart, and a bright smile played upon his haughty lip and lofty brow. Other thoughts arose, and the eyebrows that almost met over the straight Grecian nose of Lemercier, were knit as he recalled the ominous words of his recent acquaintance--

"Mademoiselle Athalie must be a brisk dame to urge her favored Chevalier on a venture so desperate."

One bitter pang shot through his heart, but he thrust the thought aside, and pressed the ring to his lips.

"Oh, Athalie," he said in a low voice, "I were worse than a villain to suspect thee."

At that moment midnight tolled from the dull old bell of Crail, and the strangeness of the sound brought keenly home to the lonely heart of Lemercier that he was in a foreign land.

The hour passed, but the Major did not return.

Morning came.

With gray dawn Lemercier was awake, and a few minutes found him dressed and ready. He attired himself with particular care, putting on a coat and vest, the embroidery of which presented as few conspicuous marks as possible to an antagonist's eye. He clasped his coat from the cravat to the waist, and compressed his embroidered belt. He adjusted his white silk roll-up stockings with great exactness; tied up the flowing curls of his wig with a white ribbon, placed a scarlet feather in his hat, and then took his sword. The edge and point of the blade, the shell and pommel, grasp and guard of the hilt were all examined with scrupulous care for the last time; he drew on his gloves with care, and giving to the landlord the reckoning, which he might never return to pay, Lemercier called for his horse and rode through the main street of Crail.

Following the directions he had received from his host, he hastily quitted the deserted and grass-grown street of the burgh (the very aspect of which he feared would chill him), and proceeded towards the ancient obelisk still known as the _Standing-stone of Sauchope_, which had been named as the place of rendezvous by that messenger who had not returned, and against whom M. Lemercier felt his anger a little excited.

It was a cool March morning; the sky was clear and blue, and the few silver clouds that floated through it, became edged with gold as the sun rose from his bed in the eastern sea--that burnished sea from which the cool fresh breeze swept over the level coast. The fields were assuming a vernal greenness, the buds were swelling on hedge and tree, and the vegetation of the summer that was to come--the summer that Lemercier might never see--was springing from amid the brown remains of the autumn that had gone, an autumn that he had passed with Athalie amid the gayeties and gardens of Paris and Versailles.

At the distance of a mile he saw the strong square tower of Balcomie, the residence of his antagonist. One side was involved in shadow, the other shone redly in the rising sun, and the morning smoke from its broad chimneys curled in dusky columns into the blue sky. The caw of the rooks that followed the plough, whose shining share turned up the aromatic soil, the merry whistle of the bonneted ploughboys, the voices of the blackbird and the mavis, made him sad, and pleased was Lemercier to leave behind him all such sounds of life, and reach the wild and solitary place where the obelisk stood--a grim and time-worn relic of the Druid ages or the Danish wars. A rough misshapen remnant of antiquity it still remains to mark the scene of this hostile meeting, which yet forms one of the most famous traditions of the East Neuk.

As Lemercier rode up he perceived a gentleman standing near the stone. His back was towards him, and he was apparently intent on caressing his charger, whose reins he had thrown negligently over his arm.

Lemercier thought he recognized the hat, edged with white feathers, the full-bottomed wig, and the peculiar lacing of the white velvet coat, and on the stranger turning he immediately knew his friend of the preceding night.

"Bon jour, my dear sir," said Lemercier.

"A good morning," replied the other, and they politely raised their little cocked hats.

"I had some misgivings when Monsieur did not return to me," said the Frenchman. "Sir William has accepted my challenge?"

"Yes, Monsieur, and is now before you," replied the other, springing on horseback. "_I am Sir William Hope, of Hopetoun_, and am here at your service."

"You!" exclaimed the Frenchman, in tones of blended astonishment and grief; "ah! unsay what you have said, I cannot point my sword against the breast of my best benefactor--against him to whom I owe both honor and life. Can I forget that night on the plains of Arras? Ah! my God! what a mistake; what a misfortune. Ah! Athalie, to what have you so unthinkingly urged me?"

"Think of her only, and forget all of me save that I am your antagonist, your enemy, as I stand between thee and her. Come on, M. Lemercier, do not forget your promise to Mademoiselle; we will sheath our swords on the first blood drawn."

"So be it then, if the first is thine," and unsheathing their long and keen-edged rapiers they put spurs to their horses, and closing up hand to hand, engaged with admirable skill and address.

The skill of one swordsman seemed equalled only by that of the other.

Lemercier was the first fencer at the Court of France, where fencing was an accomplishment known to all, and there was no man in Britain equal to Sir William Hope, whose _Complete Fencing Master_ was long famous among the lovers of the noble science of defence.

They rode round each other in circles. Warily and sternly they began to watch each other's eyes, till they flashed in unison with their blades; their hearts beat quicker as their passions became excited and their rivalry roused; and their nerves became strung as the hope of conquest was whetted. The wish of merely being wounded ended in a desire to wound; and the desire to wound in a clamorous anxiety to vanquish and destroy. Save the incessant clash of the notched rapiers, as each deadly thrust was adroitly parried and furiously repeated, the straining of stirrup-leathers, as each fencer swayed to and fro in his saddle, their suppressed breathing, and the champing of iron bits, Lemercier and his foe saw nothing but the gleam and heard nothing but the clash of each other's glittering swords.

The sun came up in his glory from the shining ocean; the mavis soared above them in the blue sky; the early flowers of spring were unfolding their dewy cups to the growing warmth, but still man fought with man, and the hatred in their hearts waxed fierce and strong.

In many places their richly laced coats were cut and torn. One lost his hat and had received a severe scar on the forehead, and the other had one on his bridle hand. They often paused breathlessly, and in weariness lowered the points of their weapons to glare upon each other with a ferocity that could have no end but death--until at the sixth encounter, when Lemercier became exhausted, and failing to parry with sufficient force a fierce and furious thrust, was run through the breast so near the heart, that he fell from his horse, gasping and weltering in blood.

Sir William Hope flung away his rapier and sprang to his assistance, but the unfortunate Frenchman could only draw from his finger the ring of Athalie, and with her name on his lips expired--being actually choked in his own blood.

Such was the account of this combat given by the horrified Master Spiggot, who suspecting "that there was something wrong," had followed his guest to the scene of the encounter, the memory of which is still preserved in the noble house of Hopetoun, and the legends of the burghers of Crail.

So died Lemercier.

Of what Sir William said or thought on the occasion, we have no record. In the good old times he would have eased his conscience by the endowment of an altar, or foundation of a yearly mass; but in the year 1708 such things had long been a dead letter in the East Neuk; and so in lieu thereof he interred him honorably in the aisle of the ancient kirk, where a marble tablet long marked the place of his repose.

Sir William did more; he carefully transmitted the ring of Lemercier to the bereaved Athalie, but before its arrival in Paris, she had dried her tears for the poor Chevalier, and wedded one of his numerous rivals. Thus, she forgot him sooner than his conqueror, who reached a good old age, and died at his Castle of Balcomie, with his last breath regretting the combat at the Standing-stone of Sauchope.

From the London Times.

HENRY FIELDING.[H]

We are glad to see this great humorist's works put forward in a popular form, and at a price exceedingly low. A man may be very much injured by perusing maudlin sentimental tales, but cannot be hurt, though he may be shocked every now and then, by reading works of sound sterling humor, like the greater part of these, full of benevolence, practical wisdom, and generous sympathy with mankind.

The work is prefaced by an able biography of Fielding, in which the writer does justice to the great satirist's memory, and rescues it from the attacks which rivals, poetasters, and fine gentlemen have made upon it.

Those who have a mind to forgive a little coarseness, for the sake of one of the honestest, manliest, kindest companions in the world, cannot, as we fancy, find a better than Fielding, or get so much true wit and shrewdness from any other writer of our language.

"With regard to personal appearance," says his biographer, "Fielding was strongly built, robust, and in height rather exceeding six feet." He was possessed of rare conversational powers and wit; a nobleman who had known Pope, Swift, and the wits of that famous clique, declared that Harry Fielding surpassed them all.

He and Hogarth between them have given us a strange notion of the society of those days. Walpole's letters, for all their cold elegance, are not a whit more moral than those rude coarse pictures of the former artists. Lord Chesterfield's model of a man is more polite, but not so honest as Tom Jones, or as poor Will Booth, with his "chairman's shoulders, and calves like a porter."

Let us, then, not accuse Fielding of immorality, but simply admit that his age was more free-spoken than ours, and accuse it of the fault (such as it is) rather than him. But there is a great deal of good, on the other hand, which is to be found in the writings of this great man, of virtue so wise and practical, that the man of the world cannot read it and imitate it too much. He gives a strong real picture of human life, and the virtues which he exhibits shine out by their contrasts with the vices which he paints so faithfully, as they never could have done if the latter had not been depicted as well as the former. He tries to give you, as far as he knows it, the whole truth about human nature; the good and the evil of his characters are both practical. Tom Jones's sins and his faults are described with a curious accuracy, but then follows the repentance which comes out of his very sins, and that surely is moral and touching. Booth goes astray (we do verily believe that many persons even in these days are not altogether pure), but how good his remorse is! Are persons who profess to take the likeness of human nature to make an accurate portrait? This is such a hard question, that, think what we will, we shall not venture to say what we think. Perhaps it is better to do as Hannibal's painter did, and draw only that side of the face which has not the blind eye. Fielding attacked it in full. Let the reader, according to his taste, select the artist who shall give a likeness of him or only half a likeness.

We have looked through many of the pieces of Mr. Roscoe's handsome volume. The dramatic works could not have been spared possibly, but the reader will have no great pleasure, as we fancy, in looking at them more than once. They are not remarkable for wit even, though they have plenty of _spirits_--a great deal too much perhaps.

But he was an honest-hearted fellow, with affections as tender and simple as ever dwelt in the bosom of any man; and if, in the heyday of his spirits and the prodigal outpouring of his jovial good humor, he could give a hand to many "a lad and lass" whom the squeamish world would turn its back on (indeed, there was a virtue in his benevolence, but we dare not express our sympathies now for poor Doll Tearsheet and honest Mistress Quickly)--if he led a sad riotous life, and mixed with many a bad woman in his time, his heart was pure, and he knew a good one when he found her. He married, and (though Sir Walter Scott speaks rather slightingly of the novel in which Fielding has painted his first wife) the picture of Amelia, in the story of that name, is (in the writer's humble opinion) the most beautiful and delicious description of a character that is to be found in any writer, not excepting Shakspeare. It is a wonder how old Richardson, girded at as he had been by the reckless satirist--how Richardson, the author of "Pamela," could have been so blinded by anger and pique as not to have seen the merits of his rival's exquisite performance.

Amelia was in her grave when poor Fielding drew this delightful portrait of her; but, with all his faults, and extravagancies, and vagaries, it is not hard to see how such a gentle, generous, loving creature as Fielding was, must have been loved and prized by her. She had a little fortune of her own, and he at this time inherited a small one from his mother. He carried her to the country, and like a wise, prudent Henry Fielding as he was, who, having lived upon nothing very jovially for some years, thought £5,000 or £6,000 an endless wealth; he kept horses and hounds, flung his doors open, and lived with the best of his country. When he had spent his little fortune, and saw that there was nothing for it but to work, he came to London, applied himself fiercely to the law, seized upon his pen again, never lost heart for a moment, and, be sure, loved his poor Amelia as tenderly as ever he had done. It is a pity that he did not live on his income, that is certain: it is a pity that he had not been born a lord, or a thrifty stock broker at the very least; but we should not have had "Joseph Andrews" if this had been the case, and indeed it is probable that Amelia liked him quite as well after his ruin as she would have done had he been as rich as Rothschild.

The biographers agree that he would have been very successful at the bar, but for certain circumstances. These ugly circumstances always fall in the way of men of Fielding's genius: for though he amassed a considerable quantity of law, was reputed to be a good speaker, and had a great wit, and a knowledge of human nature which might serve him in excellent stead, it is to be remarked that those without a certain degree of patience and conduct will not insure a man's triumph at the bar, and so Fielding never rose to be a Lord Chancellor or even a judge.

His days of trouble had now begun in earnest, and indeed he met them like a man. He wrote incessantly for the periodical works of the day, issued pamphlets, made translations, published journals and criticisms, turned his hand, in a word, to any work that offered, and lived as best he might. This indiscriminate literary labor, which obliges a man to scatter his intellects upon so many trifles, and to provide weekly varieties as sets-off against the inevitable weekly butcher's bills, has been the ruin of many a man of talent since Fielding's time, and it was lucky for the world and for him that at a time of life when his powers were at the highest he procured a place which kept him beyond the reach of weekly want, and enabled him to gather his great intellects together and produce the greatest satire and two of the most complete romances in our language.

Let us remark, as a strong proof of the natural honesty of the man, the exquisite art of these performances, the care with which the situations are elaborated, and the noble, manly language corrected. When Harry Fielding was writing for the week's bread, we find style and sentiment both careless, and plots hastily worked off. How could he do otherwise? Mr. Snap, the bailiff, was waiting with a writ without--his wife and little ones asking wistfully for bread within. Away, with all its imperfections on its head, the play or the pamphlet must go. Indeed, he would have been no honest man had he kept them longer on his hands, with such urgent demands upon him as he had.

But as soon as he is put out of the reach of this base kind of want, his whole style changes, and instead of the reckless and slovenly hack-writer, we have one of the most minute and careful artists that ever lived. Dr. Beattie gave his testimony to the merit of "Tom Jones." Moral or immoral, let any man examine this romance as a work of art merely, and it must strike him as the most astonishing production of human ingenuity. There is not an incident ever so trifling but advances the story, grows out of former incidents and is connected with the whole. Such a literary providence, if we may use such a word, is not to be seen in any other work of fiction. You might cut out the half of Don Quixote, or add, transpose, or alter any given romance of Walter Scott, and neither would suffer. Roderick Random, and heroes of that sort, run through a series of adventures, at the end of which the fiddles are brought and there is a marriage. But the history of Tom Jones connects the very first page with the very last, and it is marvellous to think how the author could have built and carried all this structure in his brain, as he must have done, before he began to put it to paper.

And now a word or two about our darling "Amelia," of which we have read through every single word in Mr. Roscoe's handsome edition. "As for Captain Booth, Madam," writes old Richardson to one of his toadies, "Captain Booth has done his business. The piece is short, is as dead as if it had been published forty years ago;" indeed, human nature is not altered since Richardson's time; and if there are rakes, male and female, as there were a hundred years since, there are in like manner envious critics now as then. How eager they are to predict a man's fall, how unwilling to acknowledge his rise! If a man write a popular work, he is sure to be snarled at; if a literary man rise to eminence out of his profession, all his old comrades are against him.

Well, in spite of Richardson's prophecies, the piece which was dead at its birth is alive a hundred years after, and will live, as we fancy, as long as the English language shall endure. Fielding, in his own noble words, has given a key to the philosophy of the work. "The nature of man," cries honest Dr. Harrison, "is far from being in itself evil; it abounds with benevolence, and charity, and pity, coveting praise and honor, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad education, bad habits, and bad customs debauch our nature, and drive it headlong into vice." And the author's tale is an exemplification of this text. Poor Booth's habits and customs are bad indeed, but who can deny the benevolence, and charity, and pity, of this simple and kindly being? His vices even, if we may say so, are those of a man; there is nothing morbid or mawkish in any of Fielding's heroes; no passionate pleasing extenuation, such as one finds in the pseudo-moral romances of the sentimental character; no flashy excuses like those which Sheridan puts forward (unconsciously, most likely), for those brilliant blackguards who are the chief characters of his comedies. Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's honest downright books; it goes by its name, and invariably gets its punishment.

Besides the matchless character of Amelia, whose beauty and charming innocent consciousness of it (so delicately described by the novelist), whose tenderness and purity are such that they endear her to a reader as much as if she were actually alive, his own wife or mother, and make him consider her as some dear relative and companion of his own, about whose charms and virtues is scarcely modest to talk in public; besides Amelia, there are other characters, not so beautiful, but not less admirably true to nature. Miss Matthews is a wonderful portrait, and the vanity which inspires every one of the actions of that passionate, unscrupulous lady, the color as it were which runs through the whole of the picture is touched with a master's hand. Mrs. James, the indifferent woman, is not less skilful.

"Can this be my Jenny?" cries poor Amelia, who runs forward to meet her old friend, and finds a pompous, frigid-looking personage in an enormous hoop, the very pink of the fashion; to which Mrs. James answers, "Madam, I believe I have done what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?" Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance--one all passion, and the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow, with passions and without principles: Bath, with his magnificent notions of throat-cutting and the Christian religion, what admirable knowledge of the world do all these characters display: what good moral may be drawn from them by those who will take the trouble to think! This, however, is not a task that the generality of novel-readers are disposed to take upon them, and prefer that their favorite works should contain as little reflection as possible; indeed, it is very probable that Mrs. James, or Miss Matthews might read their own characters as here described, and pronounce such writing vastly low and unnatural.

But what is especially worthy of remark is the masterly manner in which the author paints the good part of those equivocal characters that he brings upon his stage: James has his generosity, and his silly wife her good nature; Matthews her starts of kindness; and Old Bath, in his sister's dressing-gown, cooking possets for her, is really an amiable object, whom we like while we laugh at him. A great deal of tenderness and love goes along with this kind of laughter, and it was this mixed feeling that our author liked so to indulge himself in, and knew so well how to excite in others. Whenever he has to relate an action of benevolence, honest Fielding kindles as he writes it: some writers of fiction have been accused of falling in a passion with their bad characters: these our author treats with a philosophic calmness: it is when he comes to the good that he grows enthusiastic: you fancy that you see the tears in his manly eyes; nor does he care to disguise any of the affectionate sympathies of his great, simple heart. This is a defect in art perhaps, but a very charming one.

For further particulars of Fielding's life, we recommend the reader to consult Mr. Roscoe's biography. Indeed, as much as any of his romances, his own history illustrates the maxim we have just quoted from Amelia.

Want, sorrow, and pain subdued his body at last, but his great and noble humor rode buoyant over them all, and his frank and manly philosophy overcame them. His generous attachment to his family comforted him to the last; and though all the labors of the poor fellow were only sufficient to keep him and them in a bare competence, yet it must be remembered, to his credit, that he left behind him a friend who valued him so much as to provide for the family he had left destitute, and to place them beyond the reach of want. It is some credit to a man to have been the friend of Ralph Allen; and Fielding before his death raised a monument to his friend a great deal more lasting than bronze or marble, placing his figure in the romance of Tom Jones under the name of Allworthy. "There is a day, sir," says Fielding in one of his dedications to Mr. Allen, "which no man in the kingdom can think of without fear, but yourself--the day of your death." Can there he a finer compliment? Nor was Fielding the man to pay it to one whom he thought was undeserving of it.

Never do Fielding's courage, cheerfulness, and affection forsake him; up to the last days of his life he is laboring still for his children. He dies, and is beholden to the admiration of a foreigner, Monsieur de Meryionnet, French consul at Lisbon, for a decent grave and tombstone. There he lies, sleeping after life's fitful fever. No more care, no more duns, no more racking pain, no more wild midnight orgies and jovial laughter. Of the women who are weeping for him a pious friend takes care. Here, indeed, it seems as if his sorrow ended; and one hopes and fancies that the poor but noble fellow's spirit is at last pure and serene.

FOOTNOTES:

[H] The Works of Henry Fielding, in two volumes, octavo. With a Life, Portrait, and Autograph. London: Henry G. Bohn, Covent Garden. [New-York: Stringer and Townsend. 1851.]

From "Recollections of a Police Officer" in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

FLINT JACKSON.

Farnham hops are world-famous, or at least famous in that huge portion of the world where English ale is drunk, and whereon, I have a thousand times heard and read, the sun never sets. The name, therefore, of the pleasant Surrey village, in and about which the events I am about to relate occurred, is, I may fairly presume, known to many of my readers. I was ordered to Farnham, to investigate a case of burglary, committed in the house of a gentleman of the name of Hursley, during the temporary absence of the family, which had completely nonplussed the unpractised Dogberrys of the place, albeit it was not a riddle at all difficult to read. The premises, it was quickly plain to me, had been broken, not into, but out of; and a watch being set upon the motions of the very specious and clever person left in charge of the house and property, it was speedily discovered that the robbery had been effected by herself and a confederate of the name of Dawkins, her brother-in-law. Some of the stolen goods were found secreted at his lodgings; but the most valuable portion, consisting of plate, and a small quantity of jewelry, had disappeared: it had questionless been converted into money, as considerable sums, in sovereigns, were found upon both Dawkins and the woman, Sarah Purday. Now, as it had been clearly ascertained that neither of the prisoners had left Farnham since the burglary, it was manifest there was a receiver near at hand who had purchased the missing articles. Dawkins and Purday were, however, dumb as stones upon the subject; and nothing occurred to point suspicion till early in the evening previous to the second examination of the prisoners before the magistrates, when Sarah Purday asked for pen, ink, and paper for the purpose of writing to one Mr. Jackson, in whose service she had formerly lived. I happened to be at the prison, and of course took the liberty of carefully unsealing her note and reading it. It revealed nothing; and save by its extremely cautious wording, and abrupt, peremptory tone, coming from a servant to her former master, suggested nothing. I had carefully reckoned the number of sheets of paper sent into the cell, and now on recounting them found that three were missing. The turnkey returned immediately, and asked for the two other letters she had written. The woman denied having written any other, and for proof pointed to the torn fragments of the missing sheets lying on the floor. These were gathered up and brought to me, but I could make nothing out of them, every word having been carefully run through with the pen, and converted into an unintelligible blot. The request contained in the actually-written letter was one simple enough in itself, merely, "that Mr. Jackson would not on any account fail to provide her, in consideration of past services, with legal assistance on the morrow." The first nine words were strongly underlined; and I made out after a good deal of trouble that the word "pretence" had been partially effaced, and "account" substituted for it.

"She need not have wasted three sheets of paper upon such a nonsensical request as that," observed the turnkey. "Old Jackson wouldn't shell out sixpence to save her or anybody else from the gallows."

"I am of a different opinion; but tell me, what sort of a person is this former master of hers?"

"All I know about him is that he's a cross-grained, old curmudgeon, living about a mile out of Farnham, who scrapes money together by lending small sums upon notes-of-hand at short dates, and at a thundering interest. Flint Jackson folk about here call him."

"At all events, forward the letter at once, and to-morrow we shall see--what we shall see. Good-evening."

It turned out as I anticipated. A few minutes after the prisoners were brought into the justice-room, a Guilford solicitor of much local celebrity arrived, and announced that he appeared for both the inculpated parties. He was allowed a private conference with them, at the close of which he stated that his clients would reserve their defence. They were at once committed for trial, and I overheard the solicitor assure the woman that the ablest counsel on the circuit would be retained in their behalf.

I had no longer a doubt that it was my duty to know something further of this suddenly-generous Flint Jackson, though how to set about it was a matter of considerable difficulty. There was no legal pretence for a search-warrant, and I doubted the prudence of proceeding upon my own responsibility with so astute an old fox as Jackson was represented to be; for, supposing him to be a confederate with the burglars, he had by this time in all probability sent the stolen property away--to London in all likelihood; and should I find nothing, the consequences of ransacking his house merely because he had provided a former servant with legal assistance would be serious. Under these circumstances I wrote to headquarters for instructions, and by return of post received orders to prosecute the inquiry thoroughly, but cautiously, and to consider time as nothing so long as there appeared a chance of fixing Jackson with the guilt of receiving the plunder. Another suspicious circumstance that I have omitted to notice in its place was that the Guilford solicitor tendered bail for the prisoners to any reasonable amount, and named Enoch Jackson as one of the securities. Bail was, however, refused.

There was no need for over-hurrying the business, as the prisoners were committed to the Surrey Spring Assizes, and it was now the season of the hop-harvest--a delightful and hilarious period about Farnham when the weather is fine and the yield abundant. I, however, lost no time in making diligent and minute inquiry as to the character and habits of Jackson, and the result was a full conviction that nothing but the fear of being denounced as an accomplice could have induced such a miserly, iron-hearted rogue to put himself to charges in defence of the imprisoned burglars.

One afternoon, whilst pondering the matter, and at the same time enjoying the prettiest and cheerfulest of rural sights, that of hop-picking, the apothecary at whose house I was lodging--we will call him Mr. Morgan; he _was_ a Welshmann--tapped me suddenly on the shoulder, and looking sharply round, I perceived he had something he deemed of importance to communicate.

"What is it?" I said quickly.

"The oddest thing in the world. There's Flint Jackson, his deaf old woman, and the young people lodging with him, all drinking and boozing away at yon alehouse."

"Show them to me, if you please."

A few minutes brought us to the place of boisterous entertainment, the lower room of which was suffocatingly full of tipplers and tobacco-smoke. We nevertheless contrived to edge ourselves in; and my companion stealthily pointed out the group, who were seated together near the farther window, and then left me to myself.

The appearance of Jackson entirely answered to the popular prefix of Flint attached to his name. He was a wiry, gnarled, heavy-browed, iron-jawed fellow of about sixty, with deep-set eyes aglow with sinister and greedy instincts. His wife, older than he, and as deaf apparently as the door of a dungeon, wore a simpering, imbecile look of wonderment, it seemed to me, at the presence of such unusual and abundant cheer. The young people who lodged with Jackson were really a very frank, honest, good-looking couple, though not then appearing to advantage--the countenance of Henry Rogers being flushed and inflamed with drink, and that of his wife's clouded with frowns, at the situation in which she found herself, and the riotous conduct of her husband. Their brief history was this: They had both been servants in a family living not far distant from Farnham--Sir Thomas Lethbridge's, I understood--when about three or four months previous to the present time Flint Jackson, who had once been in an attorney's office, discovered that Henry Rogers, in consequence of the death of a distant relative in London, was entitled to property worth something like £1500. There were, however, some law difficulties in the way, which Jackson offered, if the business were placed in his hands, to overcome for a consideration, and in the mean time to supply board and lodging and such necessary sums of money as Henry Rogers might require. With this brilliant prospect in view service became at once utterly distasteful. The fortunate legatee had for some time courted Mary Elkins, one of the ladies' maids, a pretty, bright-eyed brunette; and they were both united in the bonds of holy matrimony on the very day the "warnings" they had given expired. Since then they had lived at Jackson's house in daily expectation of their "fortune," with which they proposed to start in the public line.

Finding myself unrecognized, I called boldly for a pot and a pipe, and after some manoeuvring contrived to seat myself within earshot of Jackson and his party. They presented a strange study. Henry Rogers was boisterously excited, and not only drinking freely himself, but treating a dozen fellows round him, the cost of which he from time to time called upon "Old Flint," as he courteously styled his ancient friend, to discharge.

"Come, fork out, Old Flint!" he cried again and again. "It'll be all right, you know, in a day or two, and a few halfpence over. Shell out, old fellow! What signifies, so you're happy?"

Jackson complied with an affectation of acquiescent gayety ludicrous to behold. It was evident that each successive pull at his purse was like wrenching a tooth out of his head, and yet while the dismallest of smiles wrinkled his wolfish mouth, he kept exclaiming: "A fine lad--a fine lad! generous as a prince--generous as a prince! Good Lord, another round! He minds money no more than as if gold was as plentiful as gravel! But a fine generous lad for all that!"

Jackson, I perceived, drank considerably, as if incited thereto by compressed savageness. The pretty young wife would not taste a drop, but tears frequently filled her eyes, and bitterness pointed her words as she vainly implored her husband to leave the place and go home with her. To all her remonstrances the maudlin drunkard replied only by foolery, varied occasionally by an attempt at a line or two of the song of "The Thorn."

"But you _will_ plant thorns, Henry," rejoined the provoked wife in a louder and angrier tone than she ought perhaps to have used--"not only in my bosom, but your own, if you go on in this sottish, disgraceful way."

"Always quarrelling, always quarrelling!" remarked Jackson, pointedly, towards the bystanders--"_always_ quarrelling!"

"Who is always quarrelling?" demanded the young wife sharply. "Do you mean me and Henry?"

"I was only saying, my dear, that you don't like your husband to be so generous and free-hearted--that's all," replied Jackson, with a confidential wink at the persons near him.

"Free-hearted and generous! Fool-hearted and crazy, you mean!" rejoined the wife, who was much excited. "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself to give him money for such brutish purposes."

"Always quarrelling, always quarrelling!" iterated Jackson, but this time unheard by Mrs. Rogers--"_always_, perpetually quarrelling!"

I could not quite comprehend all this. If so large a sum as £1500 was really coming to the young man, why should Jackson wince as he did at disbursing small amounts which he could repay himself with abundant interest? If otherwise--and it was probable he should not be repaid--what meant his eternal, "fine generous lad!" "spirited young man!" and so on? What, above all, meant that look of diabolical hate which shot out from his cavernous eyes towards Henry Rogers when he thought himself unobserved, just after satisfying a fresh claim on his purse? Much practice in reading the faces and deportment of such men made it pretty clear to me that Jackson's course of action respecting the young man and his money was not yet decided upon in his own mind; that he was still perplexed and irresolute; and hence the apparent contradiction in his words and acts.

Henry Rogers at length dropped asleep with his head upon one of the settle-tables; Jackson sank into sullen silence; the noisy room grew quiet; and I came away.

I was impressed with a belief that Jackson entertained some sinister design against his youthful and inexperienced lodgers, and I determined to acquaint them with my suspicions. For this purpose Mr. Morgan, who had a patient living near Jackson's house, undertook to invite them to tea on some early evening, on the pretence that he had heard of a tavern that might suit them when they should receive their fortune. Let me confess, too, that I had another design besides putting the young people on their guard against Jackson. I thought it very probable that it would not be difficult to glean from them some interesting and suggestive

## particulars concerning the ways, means, practices, outgoings and

incomings, of their worthy landlord's household.

Four more days passed unprofitably away, and I was becoming weary of the business, when about five o'clock in the afternoon the apothecary galloped up to his door on a borrowed horse, jumped off with surprising celerity, and with a face as white as his own magnesia, burst out as he hurried into the room where I was sitting: "Here's a pretty kettle of fish! Henry Rogers has been poisoned, and by his wife!"

"Poisoned!"

"Yes, poisoned; although, thanks to my being on the spot, I think he will recover. But I must instantly to Dr. Edwards: I will tell you all when I return."

The promised "all" was this: Morgan was passing slowly by Jackson's house, in the hope of seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Rogers, when the servant-woman, Jane Riddet, ran out and begged him to come in, as their lodger had been taken suddenly ill. Ill indeed! The surface of his body was cold as death, and the apothecary quickly discovered that he had been poisoned with sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), a quantity of which he, Morgan, had sold a few days previously to Mrs. Rogers, who, when purchasing it, said Mr. Jackson wanted it to apply to some warts that annoyed him. Morgan fortunately knew the proper remedy, and desired Jackson, who was in the room, and seemingly very anxious and flurried, to bring some soap instantly, a solution of which he proposed to give immediately to the seemingly dying man. The woman-servant was gone to find Mrs. Rogers, who had left about ten minutes before, having first made the tea in which the poison had been taken. Jackson hurried out of the apartment, but was gone so long that Morgan, becoming impatient, scraped a quantity of plaster off the wall, and administered it with the best effect. At last Jackson came back, and said there was unfortunately not a particle of soap in the house. A few minutes afterwards the young wife, alarmed at the woman-servant's tidings, flew into the room in an agony of alarm and grief. Simulated alarm, crocodile grief, Mr. Morgan said; for there could, in his opinion, be no doubt that she had attempted to destroy her husband. Mr. Jackson, on being questioned, peremptorily denied that he had ever desired Mrs. Rogers to procure sulphuric acid for him, or had received any from her--a statement which so confounded the young woman that she instantly fainted. The upshot was that Mrs. Rogers was taken into custody and lodged in prison.

This terrible news flew through Farnham like wildfire. In a few minutes it was upon every body's tongue: the hints of the quarrelsome life the young couple led, artfully spread by Jackson, were recalled, and no doubt appeared to be entertained of the truth of the dreadful charge. I had no doubt either, but my conviction was not that of the Farnham folk. This, then, was the solution of the struggle I had seen going on in Jackson's mind; this the realization of the dark thought which I had imperfectly read in the sinister glances of his restless eyes. He had intended to destroy both the husband and wife--the one by poison, and the other by the law! Doubtless, then, the £1500 had been obtained, and this was the wretched man's infernal device for retaining it! I went over with Morgan early the next morning to see the patient, and found that, thanks to the prompt antidote administered, and Dr. Edwards's subsequent active treatment, he was rapidly recovering. The still-suffering young man, I was glad to find, would not believe for a moment in his wife's guilt. I watched the looks and movements of Jackson attentively--a scrutiny which he, now aware of my vocation, by no means appeared to relish.

"Pray," said I, suddenly addressing Riddet, the woman-servant--"pray, how did it happen that you had no soap in such a house as this yesterday evening?"

"No soap!" echoed the woman with a stare of surprise. "Why"--

"No--no soap," hastily broke in her master with loud and menacing emphasis. "There was not a morsel in the house. I bought some afterwards in Farnham."

The cowed and bewildered woman slunk away. I was more than satisfied; and judging by Jackson's countenance, which changed beneath my look to the color of the lime-washed wall against which he stood, he surmised that I was.

My conviction, however, was not evidence, and I felt that I should need even more than my wonted good fortune to bring the black crime home to the real perpetrator. For the present, at all events, I must keep silence--a resolve I found hard to persist in at the examination of the accused wife, an hour or two afterwards, before the county magistrates. Jackson had hardened himself to iron, and gave his lying evidence with ruthless self-possession. He had _not_ desired Mrs. Rogers to purchase sulphuric acid; had _not_ received any from her. In addition also to his testimony that she and her husband were always quarrelling, it was proved by a respectable person that high words had passed between them on the evening previous to the day the criminal offence was committed, and _that_ foolish, passionate expressions had escaped her about wishing to be rid of such a drunken wretch. This evidence, combined with the medical testimony, appeared so conclusive to the magistrates that spite of the unfortunate woman's wild protestations of innocence, and the rending agony which convulsed her frame, and almost choked her utterance, she was remanded to prison till that day week, when, the magistrates informed her, she would be again brought up for the merely formal completion of the depositions, and be then fully committed on the capital charge.

I was greatly disturbed, and walked for two or three hours about the quiet neighborhood of Farnham, revolving a hundred fragments of schemes for bringing the truth to light, without arriving at any feasible conclusion. One only mode of procedure seemed to offer, and that but dimly, a hope of success. It was, however, the best I could hit upon, and I directed my steps towards the Farnham orison. Sarah Purday had not yet, I remembered, been removed to the county jail at Guilford.

"Is Sarah Purday," I asked the turnkey, "more reconciled to her position than she was?"

"She's just the same--bitter as gall, and venomous as a viper."

This woman, I should state, was a person of fierce will and strong passions, and in early life had been respectably situated.

"Just step into her cell," I continued, "upon some excuse or other, and carelessly drop a hint that if she could prevail upon Jackson to get her brought by _habeas_ before a judge in London, there could be no doubt of her being bailed."

The man stared, but after a few words of pretended explanation, went off to do as I requested. He was not long gone. "She's all in a twitteration at the thoughts of it," he said; "and must have pen, ink, and paper without a moment's delay, bless her consequence!"

These were supplied; and I was soon in possession of her letter, couched cautiously, but more peremptorily than the former one. I need hardly say it did not reach its destination. She passed the next day in a state of feverish impatience; and no answer returning, wrote again, her words this time conveying an evident though indistinct threat. I refrained from visiting her till two days had thus passed, and found her, as I expected, eaten up with fury. She glared at me as I entered the cell like a chained tigress.

"You appear vexed," I said, "no doubt because Jackson declines to get you bailed. He ought not to refuse you such a trifling service, considering all things."

"All what things?" replied the woman, eyeing me fiercely.

"That you know best, though I have a shrewd guess."

"What do you guess? and what are you driving at?"

"I will deal frankly with you, Sarah Purday. In the first place, you must plainly perceive that your _friend_ Jackson has cast you off--abandoned you to your fate; and that fate will, there can be no doubt, be transportation."

"Well," she impatiently snarled, "suppose so; what then?"

"This--that you can help yourself in this difficulty by helping me."

"As how?"

"In the first place, give me the means of convicting Jackson of having received the stolen property."

"Ha! How do you know that?"

"Oh, I know it very well--as well almost as you do. But this is not my chief object; there is another, far more important one," and I ran over the incidents relative to the attempt at poisoning. "Now," I resumed, "tell me, if you will, your opinion on this matter."

"That it was Jackson administered the poison, and certainly not the young woman," she replied, with vengeful promptness.

"My own conviction! This, then, is my proposition: you are sharp-witted, and know this fellow's ways, habits, and propensities thoroughly--I, too, have heard something of them--and it strikes me that you could suggest some plan, some device grounded on that knowledge, whereby the truth might come to light."

The woman looked fixedly at me for some time without speaking. As I meant fairly and honestly by her I could bear her gaze without shrinking.

"Supposing I could assist you," she at last said, "how would that help me?"

"It would help you greatly. You would no doubt be still convicted of the burglary, for the evidence is irresistible; but if in the mean time you should have been instrumental in saving the life of an innocent person, and of bringing a great criminal to justice, there cannot be a question that the Queen's mercy would be extended to you, and the punishment be merely a nominal one."

"If I were sure of that!" she murmured, with a burning scrutiny in her eyes, which were still fixed upon my countenance; "if I were sure of that! But you are misleading me."

"Believe me, I am not. I speak in perfect sincerity. Take time to consider the matter. I will look in again in about an hour; and pray, do not forget that it is your sole and last chance."

I left her, and did not return till more than three hours had passed away. Sarah Purday was pacing the cell in a frenzy of inquietude.

"I thought you had forgotten me. Now," she continued with rapid vehemence, "tell me, on your word and honor as a man, do you truly believe that if I can effectually assist you it will avail me with Her Majesty?"

"I am as positive it will as I am of my own life."

"Well, then, I _will_ assist you. First, then, Jackson was a confederate with Dawkins and myself, and received the plate and jewelry, for which he paid us less than one-third of the value."

"Rogers and his wife were not, I hope, cognizant of this?"

"Certainly not; but Jackson's wife and the woman-servant, Riddet, were. I have been turning the other business over in my mind," she continued, speaking with increasing emotion and rapidity; "and oh, believe me, Mr. Waters, if you can, that it is not solely a selfish motive which induces me to aid in saving Mary Rogers from destruction. I was once myself--Ah God!"

Tears welled up to the fierce eyes, but they were quickly brushed away, and she continued somewhat more calmly: "You have heard, I dare say, that Jackson has a strange habit of talking in his sleep?"

"I have, and that he once consulted Morgan as to whether there was any cure for it. It was that which partly suggested--"

"It is, I believe, a mere fancy of his," she interrupted; "or at any rate the habit is not so frequent, nor what he says so intelligible, as he thoroughly believes and fears it, from some former circumstances, to be. His deaf wife cannot undeceive him, and he takes care never even to doze except in her presence only."

"This is not, then, so promising as I hoped."

"Have patience. It is full of promise, as we will manage. Every evening Jackson frequents a low gambling-house, where he almost invariably wins small sums at cards--by craft, no doubt, as he never drinks there. When he returns home at about ten o'clock, his constant habit is to go into the front parlor, where his wife is sure to be sitting at that hour. He carefully locks the door, helps himself to brandy and water--plentifully of late--and falls asleep in his arm-chair; and there they both doze away, sometimes till one o'clock--always till past twelve."

"Well; but I do not see how--"

"Hear me out, if you please. Jackson never wastes a candle to drink or sleep by, and at this time of the year there will be no fire. If he speaks to his wife he does not expect her, from her wooden deafness, to answer him. Do you begin to perceive my drift?"

"Upon my word, I do not."

"What; if upon awaking, Jackson finds that his wife is Mr. Waters, and that Mr. Waters relates to him all that he has disclosed in his sleep: that Mr. Hursley's plate is buried in the garden near the lilac-tree; that he, Jackson, received a thousand pounds six weeks ago of Henry Rogers's fortune, and that the money is now in the recess on the top-landing, the key of which is in his breast-pocket; that he was the receiver of the plate stolen from a house in the close at Salisbury a twelvemonth ago, and sold in London for four hundred and fifty pounds. All this hurled at him," continued the woman with wild energy and flashing eyes, "what else might not a bold, quick-witted man make him believe he had confessed, revealed in his brief sleep?"

I had been sitting on a bench; but as these rapid disclosures burst from her lips, and I saw the use to which they might be turned, I rose slowly and in some sort involuntarily to my feet, lifted up, as it were, by the energy of her fiery words.

"God reward you," I exclaimed, shaking both her hands in mine. "You have, unless I blunder, rescued an innocent woman from the scaffold. I see it all. Farewell!"

"Mr. Waters," she exclaimed, in a changed, palpitating voice, as I was passing forth; "when all is done, you will not forget me?"

"That I will not, by my own hopes of mercy in the hereafter. Adieu!"

At a quarter past nine that evening I, accompanied by two Farnham constables, knocked at the door of Jackson's house. Henry Rogers, I should state, had been removed to the village. The door was opened by the woman servant, and we went in. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Jane Riddet," I said, "as an accomplice in the plate-stealing the other day. There, don't scream, but listen to me." I then intimated the terms upon which alone she could expect favor. She tremblingly promised compliance; and after placing the constables outside, in concealment, but within hearing, I proceeded to the parlor, secured the terrified old woman, and confined her safely in a distant out-house.

"Now, Riddet," I said, "quick with one of the old lady's gowns, a shawl, cap, _et cetera_." These were brought, and I returned to the parlor. It was a roomy apartment, with small, diamond-paned windows, and just then but very faintly illuminated by the star-light. There were two large high-backed easy-chairs, and I prepared to take possession of the one recently vacated by Jackson's wife. "You must perfectly understand," were my parting words to the trembling servant, "that we intend standing no nonsense with either you or your master. You cannot escape; but if you let Mr. Jackson in as usual, and he enters this room as usual, no harm will befall you: if otherwise, you will be unquestionably transported. Now, go."

My toilet was not so easily accomplished as I thought it would be. The gown did not meet at the back by about a foot; that, however, was of little consequence, as the high chair concealed the deficiency; neither did the shortness of the sleeves matter much, as the ample shawl could be made to hide my too great length of arm; but the skirt was scarcely lower than a Highlander's, and how the deuce I was to crook my booted legs up out of view, even in that gloomy starlight, I could hardly imagine. The cap also was far too small; still, with an ample kerchief in my hand, my whiskers might, I thought, be concealed. I was still fidgeting with these arrangements when Jackson knocked at his door. The servant admitted him without remark, and he presently entered the room, carefully locked the door, and jolted down, so to speak, in the fellow easy-chair to mine.

He was silent for a few moments, and then he bawled out: "She'll swing for it, they say--swing for it, d'ye hear, dame? But no, of course she don't--deafer and deafer, deafer and deafer every day. It'll be a precious good job when the parson says his last prayers over her, as well as others."

He then got up, and went to a cupboard. I could hear--for I dared not look up--by the jingling of glasses and the outpouring of liquids that he was helping himself to his spirituous sleeping-draughts. He reseated himself, and drank in moody silence, except now and then mumbling drowsily to himself, but in so low a tone that I could make nothing out of it save an occasional curse or blasphemy. It was nearly eleven o'clock before the muttered self-communing ceased, and his heavy head sank upon the back of the easy-chair. He was very restless, and it was evident that even his sleeping brain labored with affrighting and oppressive images; but the mutterings, as before he slept, were confused and indistinct. At length--half an hour had perhaps thus passed--the troubled meanings became for a few moments clearly audible. "Ha--ha--ha!" he burst out, "how are you off for soap? Ho--ho! done there, my boy; ha--ha! But no--no. Wall plaster! Who could have thought it? But for that I--I--What do you stare at me so for, you infernal blue-bottle? You--you--" Again the dream-utterance sank into indistinctness, and I comprehended nothing more.

About half-past twelve o'clock he awoke, rose, stretched himself, and said: "Come, dame, let's to bed; it's getting chilly here."

"Dame" did not answer, and he again went towards the cupboard. "Here's a candle-end will do for us," he muttered. A lucifer-match was drawn across the wall, he lit the candle, and stumbled towards me, for he was scarcely yet awake. "Come, dame, come! Why, thee beest sleeping like a dead un! Wake up, will thee--Ah! murder! thieves! mur"--

My grasp was on the wretch's throat; but there was no occasion to use force: he recognized me, and nerveless, paralyzed, sank on the floor incapable of motion much less of resistance, and could only gaze in my face in dumb affright and horror.

"Give me the key of the recess up stairs, which you carry in your breast pocket. In your sleep, unhappy man, you have revealed every thing."

An inarticulate shriek of terror replied to me. I was silent; and presently he gasped: "Wha--at, what have I said?"

"That Mr. Hursley's plate is buried in the garden by the lilac-tree; that you have received a thousand pounds belonging to the man you tried to poison; that you netted four hundred and fifty pounds by the plate stolen at Salisbury; that you dexterously contrived, to slip the sulphuric acid into the tea unseen by Henry Rogers's wife."

The shriek or scream was repeated, and he was for several moments speechless with consternation. A ray of hope gleamed suddenly in his flaming eyes. "It is true--it is true!" he hurriedly ejaculated; "useless--useless--useless to deny it. But you are alone, and poor, poor, no doubt. A thousand pounds!--more, more than that: _two_ thousand pounds in gold--gold, all in gold--I will give you to spare me, to let me escape!"

"Where did you hide the soap on the day when you confess you tried to poison Henry Rogers?"

"In the recess you spoke of. But think! Two thousand pounds in gold--all in gold--"

As he spoke, I suddenly grasped the villain's hands, pressed them together, and in another instant the snapping of a handcuff pronounced my answer. A yell of anguish burst from the miserable man, so loud and piercing, that the constables outside hurried to the outer-door, and knocked hastily for admittance. They were let in by the servant-woman; and in half an hour afterwards the three prisoners--Jackson, his wife, and Jane Riddet--were safe in Farnham prison.

A few sentences will conclude this narrative. Mary Rogers was brought up on the following day, and, on my evidence, discharged. Her husband, I have heard, has since proved a better and a wiser man. Jackson was convicted at the Guilford assize of guiltily receiving the Hursley plate, and sentenced to transportation for life. This being so, the graver charge of attempting to poison was not pressed. There was no moral doubt of his guilt; but the legal proof of it rested solely on his own hurried confession, which counsel would no doubt have contended ought not to be received. His wife and the servant were leniently dealt with.

Sarah Purday was convicted, and sentenced to transportation. I did not forget my promise; and a statement of the previously-narrated circumstances having been drawn up and forwarded to the Queen and the Home Secretary, a pardon, after some delay, was issued. There were painful circumstances in her history which, after strict inquiry, told favorably for her. Several benevolent persons interested themselves in her behalf, and she was sent out to Canada, where she had some relatives, and has, I believe, prospered there.

This affair caused considerable hubbub at the time, and much admiration was expressed by the country people at the boldness and dexterity of the London "runner;" whereas, in fact, the successful result was entirely attributable to the opportune revelations of Sarah Purday.

From the North British Review.

JOHN OWEN AT OXFORD.[I]

Two hundred years ago the Puritan dwelt in Oxford; but, before his arrival, both Cavalier and Roundhead soldiers had encamped in its Colleges. Sad was the trace of their sojourn. From the dining-halls the silver tankards had vanished, and the golden candlesticks of the cathedral lay buried in a neighboring field. Stained windows were smashed, and the shrines of Bernard and Frideswide lay open to the storm. And whilst the heads of marble apostles, mingling with cannonballs and founders' coffins, formed a melancholy rubbish in many a corner, straw heaps on the pavement and staples in the wall, reminded the spectator that it was not long since dragoons had quartered in All-Souls, and horses crunched their oats beneath the tower of St. Mary Magdalene.

However, matters again are mending. Broken windows are repaired; lost revenues are recovered; and the sons of Crispin have evacuated chambers once more consecrated to syntax and the syllogism. Through these spacious courts we recognize the progress of the man who has accomplished the arduous restoration. Tall, and in the prime of life, with cocked-hat and powdered hair, with lawn tops to his morocco boots, and with ribbons luxuriant at his knee, there is nothing to mark the Puritan,--whilst in his easy unembarrassed movements and kindly-assuring air, there is all which bespeaks the gentleman; but, were it not for the reverences of obsequious beadles and the recognitions of respectful students, you would scarce surmise the academic dignitary. That old-fashioned divine,--his square cap and ruff surmounting the doctor's gown,--with whom he shakes hands so cordially, is a Royalist and Prelatist, but withal the Hebrew Professor, and the most famous Orientalist in England, Dr. Edward Pocock. From his little parish of Childry, where he passes for "no Latiner," and is little prized, he has come up to deliver his Arabic lecture, and collate some Syriac manuscript, and observe the progress of the fig-tree which he fetched from the Levant; and he feels not a little beholden to the Vice-Chancellor, who, when the Parliamentary triers had pronounced him incompetent, interfered and retained him in his living. Passing the gate of Wadham he meets the upbreaking of a little conventicle. That no treason has been transacting nor any dangerous doctrine propounded, the guardian of the University has ample assurance in the presence of his very good friends, Dr. Wallis the Savilian Professor, and Dr. Wilkins the Protector's brother-in-law. The latter has published a dissertation on the Moon and its Inhabitants, "with a discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither;" and the former, a mighty mathematician, during the recent war had displayed a terrible ingenuity in deciphering the intercepted letters of the Royalists. Their companion is the famous physician Dr. Willis, in whose house, opposite the Vice-Chancellor's own door, the Oxford Prelatists daily assemble to enjoy the forbidden Prayer-Book; and the youth who follows, building castles in the air, is Christopher Wren. This evening they had met to witness some experiments which the tall, sickly gentleman in the velvet cloak had promised to show them. The tall sickly gentleman is the Honorable Robert Boyle, and the instrument with which he has been amusing his brother sages, in their embryo Royal Society, is the newly invented air-pump. Little versant in their pursuits, though respectful to their genius, after mutual salutations, the divine passes on and pays an evening visit to his illustrious neighbor, Dr. Thomas Goodwin. In his embroidered night-cap, and deep in the recesses of his dusky study, he finds the recluse old President of Magdalene; and they sit and talk together, and they pray together, till it strikes the hour of nine; and from the great Tom Tower a summons begins to sound calling to Christ Church cloisters the hundred and one students of the old foundation. And returning to the Deanery, which Mary's cheerful management has brightened into a pleasant home, albeit her own and her little daughter's weeds are suggestive of recent sorrows, the doctor dives into his library.

For the old misers it was pleasant to go down into their bullion vaults and feel that they were rich enough to buy up all the town, with the proud Earl in his mortgaged castle. And to many people there is a peculiar satisfaction in the society of the great and learned; nor can they forget the time when they talked to the great poet, or had a moment's monopoly of Royalty. But--

"That place that doth contain My books, the best companions, is to me A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the old sages and philosophers; And sometimes for variety I confer With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels."

Not only is there the pleasant sense of property,--the rare editions, and the wonderful bargains, and the acquisitions of some memorable self-denial,--but there are grateful memories, and the feeling of a high companionship. When it first arrived, yon volume kept its owner up all night, and its neighbor introduced him to realms more delightful and more strange than if he had taken Dr. Wilkins's lunarian journey. In this biography, as in a magician's mirror, he was awed and startled by foreshadowings of his own career; and, ever since he sat at the feet of yonder sacred sage, he walks through the world with a consciousness, blessed and not vainglorious, that his being contains an element shared by few besides. And even those heretics inside the wires--like caged wolves or bottled vipers--their keeper has come to entertain a certain fondness for them, and whilst he detests the species, he would feel a pang in parting with his own exemplars.

Now that the evening lamp is lit, let us survey the Doctor's library. Like most of its coeval collections, its foundations are laid with massive folios. These stately tomes are the Polyglotts of Antwerp and Paris, the Critici Sacri and Poli Synopsis. The colossal theologians who flank them, are Augustine and Jerome, Anselm and Aquinas, Calvin and Episcopius, Ballarmine and Jansenius, Baronius and the Magdeburg Centuriators,--natural enemies, here bound over to their good behavior. These dark veterans are Jewish Rabbis,--Kimchi, Abarbanel, and, like a row of rag-collectors, a whole Monmouth Street of rubbish,--behold the entire Babylonian Talmud. These tall Socinians are the Polish brethren, and the dumpy vellums overhead are Dutch divines. The cupboard contains Greek and Latin manuscripts, and those spruce fashionables are Spencer, and Cowley, and Sir William Davenant. And the new books which crown the upper shelves, still uncut and fresh from the publisher, are the last brochures of Mr. Jeremy Taylor and Mr. Richard Baxter.[J]

This night, however, the Doctor is intent on a new book nowise to his mind. It is the "Redemption Redeemed" of John Goodwin. Its hydra-headed errors have already drawn from the scabbard the sword of many an orthodox Hercules on either side of the Tweed; and now, after a conference with the other Goodwin, the Dean takes up a ream of manuscript, and adds a finishing touch to his refutation.

At this period Dr. Owen would be forty years of age, for he was born in 1616. His father was minister of a little parish in Oxfordshire, and his ancestors were princes in Wales; indeed, the genealogists claimed for him a descent from King Caractacus. He himself was educated at Queen's College, and, under the impulse of an ardent ambition, the young student had fully availed himself of his academic privileges. For several years he took no more sleep than four hours a-night, and in his eagerness for future distinction he mastered all attainable knowledge, from mathematics to music. But about the time of his reaching majority, all his ambitious projects were suspended by a visitation of religious earnestness. In much ignorance of the divine specific, his conscience grew tender, and sin appeared exceeding sinful. It was at this conjuncture that Archbishop Laud imposed on Oxford a new code of statutes which scared away from the University the now scrupulous scholar. Years of anxious thoughtfulness followed, partly filled up by his duties as chaplain successively to Sir Robert Dormer and Lord Lovelace, when about the year 1641 he had occasion to reside in London. Whilst there he went one day to hear Edward Calamy; but instead of the famous preacher there entered the pulpit a country minister, who, after a fervent prayer, gave out for his text--"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" The sermon was a very plain one, and Owen never ascertained the preacher's name; but the perplexities with which he had long been harassed disappeared, and in the joy of a discovered gospel and an ascertained salvation, the natural energy of his character and the vigor of his constitution found again their wonted play.

Soon after this happy change, his first publication appeared. It was a "Display of Arminianism," and, attracting the attention of the Parliamentary "Committee for purging the Church of Scandalous Ministers," it procured for its author a presentation to the living of Fordham, in Essex. This was followed by his translation to the more important charge of Coggeshall, in the same county; and so rapidly did his reputation rise, that besides being frequently called to preach before the Parliament, he was, in 1649, selected by Cromwell as the associate of his expedition to Ireland, and was employed in re-modelling and resuscitating Trinity College, Dublin. Most likely it was owing to the ability with which he discharged this service that he was appointed Dean of Christ Church in 1651, and in the following year Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. It was a striking incident to find himself thus brought back to scenes which, fourteen years before, he had quitted amidst contempt and poverty, and a little mind would have been apt to signalize the event by a vainglorious ovation, or a vindictive retribution. But Owen returned to Oxford in all the grandeur of a God-fearing magnanimity, and his only solicitude was to fulfil the duties of his office. Although himself an Independent, he promoted well qualified men to responsible posts, notwithstanding their Presbyterianism or their Prelacy; and although the law gave him ample powers to disperse them, he never molested the liturgical meetings of his Episcopalian neighbors. From anxiety to promote the spiritual welfare of the students, in addition to his engagements as a Divinity lecturer and the resident head of the University, along with Dr. Goodwin he undertook to preach, on alternate Sabbaths, to the great congregation in St. Mary's. And such was the zeal which he brought to bear on the studies and the secular interests of the place, that the deserted courts were once more populous with ardent and accomplished students, and in alumni like Sprat, and South, and Ken, and Richard Cumberland, the Church of England received from Owen's Oxford some of its most distinguished ornaments; whilst men like Philip Henry and Joseph Alleine, went forth to perpetuate Owen's principles; and in founding the English schools of metaphysics, architecture, and medicine, Locke and Wren, and Sydenham taught the world that it was no misfortune to have been the pupils of the Puritan. It would be pleasant to record that Owen's generosity was reciprocated, and that if Oxford could not recognize the Non-conformist, neither did she forget the Republican who patronized the Royalists, and the Independent who befriended the Prelatists. According to the unsuspected testimony of Grainger, and Burnet, and Clarendon, the University was in a most flourishing condition when it passed from under his control; but on the principle which excludes Cromwell's statue from Westminster Palace, the picture-gallery at Christ Church finds no place for the greatest of its Deans.

The retirement into which he was forced by the Restoration was attended with most of the hardships incident to an ejected minister, to which were added sufferings and sorrows of his own. He never was in prison, but he knew what it was to lead the life of a fugitive; and after making a narrow escape from dragoons sent to arrest him, he was compelled to quit his rural retreat, and seek a precarious refuge in the capital. In 1676 he lost his wife, but before this they had mingled their tears over the coffins of ten out of their eleven children; and the only survivor, a pious daughter, returned from the house of an unkind husband, to seek beside her father all that was left of the home of her childhood. Soon after he married again; but though the lady was good, and affectionate, and rich withal, no comforts and no kind tending could countervail the effects of bygone toils and privations, and from the brief remainder of his days, weakness and anguish made many a mournful deduction. Still the busy mind worked on. To the congregation, which had already shown at once its patience and its piety, by listening to Caryl's ten quartos on Job, and which was afterwards to have its patience farther tried and rewarded, in the long but invalid incumbency of Isaac Watts, Dr. Owen ministered as long as he was able; and, being a preacher who had "something to say," it was cheering to him to recognize among his constant attendants persons so intelligent and influential as the late Protector's brother-in-law and son-in-law, Colonel Desborough and Lord Charles Fleetwood, Sir John Hartopp, the Hon. Roger Boyle, Lady Abney, and the Countess of Anglesea, and many other hearers who adorned the doctrine which their pastor expounded, and whose expectant eagerness gave zest to his studies, and animation to his public addresses. Besides during all this interval, and to the number of more than thirty volumes, he was giving to the world those masterly works which have invigorated the theology and sustained the devotion of unnumbered readers in either hemisphere. Amongst others, folio by folio, came forth that Exposition of the Hebrews, which, amidst all its digressive prolixity, and with its frequent excess of erudition, is an enduring monument of its author's robust understanding and spiritual insight, as well as his astonishing industry. At last the pen dropped from his band, and on the 23d of August, 1683, he dedicated a note to his likeminded friend, Charles Fleetwood: "I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me, with an everlasting love, which is the whole ground of all my consolation. I am leaving the ship of the Church in a storm; but while the great pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live, and pray, and hope, and wait patiently, and do not despond; the promise stands invincible--that he will never leave us nor forsake us. My affectionate respects to your lady, and to the rest of your relations, who are so dear to me in the Lord, remember your dying friend with all fervency." The morrow after he had sent this touching message to the representative of a beloved family was Bartholomew day, the anniversary of the ejection of his two thousand brethren. That morning a friend called to tell him that he had put to the press his "Meditations on the Glory of Christ." There was a moment's gleam in his languid eye, as he answered, "I am glad to hear it: but, O brother Payne! the long wished for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing in this world." A few hours of silence followed, and then that glory was revealed. On the fourth of September, a vast funeral procession, including the carriages of sixty-seven noblemen and gentlemen, with long trains of mourning coaches and horsemen, took the road to Finsbury; and there, in a new burying-ground, within a few paces of Goodwin's grave, and near the spot where, five years later, John Bunyan was interred, they laid the dust of Dr. Owen. His grave is with us to this day; but in the crowded Golgotha, surrounded with undertakers' sheds, and blind brick walls, with London cabs and omnibuses whirling past the gate, few pilgrims can distinguish the obliterated stone which marks the resting-place of the mighty Non-conformist.[K]

Many of our readers will remember Robert Baillie's description of Dr. Twiss, the Prolocutor of the Westminister Assembly: "The man, as the world knows, is very learned in the questions he has studied, and very good--beloved of all, and highly esteemed--but merely bookish ... and among the unfittest of all the company for any action." In this respect Dr. Owen was a great contrast to his studious contemporary; for he was as eminent for business talent as most ministers are conspicuous for the want of it. It was on this account that he was selected for the task of reorganizing the universities of Dublin and Oxford; and the success with which he fulfilled his commission, whilst it justified his patron's sagacity, showed that he was sufficiently master of himself to become the master of other minds. Of all his brethren few were so "fit for

## action." To the same cause to which he owed this practical ascendency,

we are disposed to ascribe his popularity as a preacher; for we agree with Dr. Thompson, (Life of Owen, p. cvi.,) in thinking that Owen's power in the pulpit must have been greater than is usually surmised by his modern readers. Those who knew him describe him as a singularly fluent and persuasive speaker; and they also represent his social intercourse as peculiarly vivacious and cheerful. From all which our inference is, that Owen was one of those happy people who, whether for business or study, whether for conversation or public speaking, can concentrate all their faculties on the immediate occasion, and who do justice to themselves and the world, by doing justice to each matter as it successively comes to their hand.

A well-informed and earnest speaker will always be popular, if he be tolerably fluent, and if he "shew himself friendly;" but no reputation and no talent will secure an audience to the automaton who is unconscious of his hearers, or to the misanthrope, who despises or dislikes them. And if, as Anthony à Wood informs us, "the persuasion of his oratory could move and wind the affections of his admiring auditory almost as he pleased," we can well believe that he possessed the "proper and comely personage, the graceful behavior in the pulpit, the eloquent elocution, and the winning and insinuating deportment," which this reluctant witness ascribes to him. With such advantages, we can understand how, dissolved into a stream of continuous discourse, the doctrines which we only know in their crystallized form of heads and

## particulars, became a gladsome river; and how the man who spoke them

with sparkling eye and shining face was not shunned as a buckram pedant, but run after as a popular preacher.

And yet, to his written style Owen is less indebted for his fame than almost any of the Puritans. Not to mention that his works have never been condensed into fresh pith and modern portableness by any congenial Fawcett, they never did exhibit the pathetic importunity and Demosthenic fervor of Baxter. In his Platonic loftiness Howe always dwelt apart; and there have been no glorious dreams since Bunyan woke amidst the beatific vision. Like a soft valley, where every turn reveals a cascade or a castle, or at least a picturesque cottage, Flavel lures us along by the vivid succession of his curious analogies and interesting stories; whilst all the way the path is green with kind humanity, and bright with Gospel blessedness. And like some sheltered cove, where the shells are all so brilliant, and the sea-plants all so curious, that the young naturalist can never leave off collecting, so profuse are the quaint sayings and the nice little anecdotes which Thomas Brooks showers from his "Golden Treasury," from his "Box," and his "Cabinet," that the reader needs must follow where all the road is so radiant. But Owen has no adventitious attractions. His books lack the extempore felicities and the reflected fellow-feeling which lent a charm to his spoken sermons; and on the table-land of his controversial treatises, sentence follows sentence like a file of ironsides, in buff and rusty steel, a sturdy procession, but a dingy uniform; and it is only here and there where a son of Anak has burst his rags, that you glimpse a thought of uncommon stature or wonderful proportions. Like candidates for the modern ministry, in his youth Owen had learned to write Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; but then, as now, English had no place in the academic curriculum. And had he been urged in maturer life to study the art of composition, most likely he would have frowned on his adviser. He would have urged the "haste" which "the King's business" requires, and might have reminded us that viands are as wholesome on a wooden trencher as on a plate of gold. He would have told us that truth needs no tinsel, and that the road over a bare heath may be more direct than the pretty windings of the valley. Or, rather, he would have said, as he has written--"Know that you have to do with a person who, provided his words but clearly express the sentiments of his mind, entertains a fixed and absolute disregard of all elegance and ornaments of speech."

True: gold is welcome even in a purse of the coarsest canvas; and, although it is not in such caskets that people look for gems, no man would despise a diamond because he found it in an earthen porringer. In the treatises of Owen there is many a sentence which, set in a sermon, would shine like a brilliant; and there are ingots enough to make the fortune of a theological faculty. For instance, we open the first treatise in this new collection of his works, and we read:--"It carrieth in it a great condecency unto Divine wisdom, that man should be restored unto the image of God, by Him who was the essential image of the Father; and that He was made like unto us, that we might be made like unto Him, and unto God through him;" and we are immediately reminded of a recent treatise on the Incarnation, and all its beautiful speculation regarding the "Pattern-Man." We read again till we come to the following remark:--"It is the nature of sincere goodness to give a delight and complacency unto the mind in the exercise of itself, and communication of its effects. A good man doth both delight in doing good, and hath an abundant reward _for_ the doing it, _in_ the doing of it;" and how can we help recalling a memorable sermon "On the Immediate Reward of Obedience," and a no less memorable chapter in a Bridgewater treatise, "On the Inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous Affections?" And we read the chapter on "The Person of Christ the great Representative of God," and are startled by its foreshadowings of the sermons and the spiritual history of a remarkably honest and vigorous thinker, who, from doubting the doctrine of the Trinity, was led to recognize in the person of Jesus Christ the Alpha and Omega of his theology. It is possible that Archdeacon Wilberforce, and Chalmers, and Arnold, may never have perused the treatise in question; and it is equally possible that under the soporific influence of a heavy style, they may never have noticed passages for which their own minds possessed such a powerful affinity. But by the legitimate expedient of appropriate language--perhaps by means of some "ornament or elegance"--Jeremy Taylor or Barrow would have arrested attention to such important thoughts; and the cause of truth would have gained, had the better divine been at least an equal orator.

However, there are "masters in Israel," whose style has been remarkably meagre; and perhaps "Edwards on the Will" and "Butler's Analogy," would not have numbered many more readers, although they had been composed in the language of Addison. We must, therefore, notice another obstacle which has hindered our author's popularity, and it is a fault of which the world is daily becoming more and more intolerant. That fault is prolixity. Dr. Owen did not take time to be brief; and in his polemical writings, he was so anxious to leave no cavil unanswered, that he spent, in closing loop-holes, the strength which would have crushed the foe in open battle. No misgiving as to the champion's powers will ever cross the mind of the spectators; but movements more rapid would render the conflict more interesting, and the victory not less conclusive.[L] In the same way, that the effectiveness of his controversial works is injured by this excursive tendency, so the practical impression of his other works is too often suspended by inopportune digressions; whilst every treatise would have commanded a wider circulation if divested of its irrelevant incumbrances. Within the entire range of British authorship there exists no grander contributions toward a systematic Christology than the Exposition of the Hebrews, with its dissertations on the Saviour's priesthood; but whilst there are few theologians who have not occasionally consulted it, those are still fewer who have mastered its ponderous contents; and we have frequently known valiant students who addressed themselves to the "Perseverance of the Saints," or the "Justification," but like settlers put ashore in a cane-brake, or in a jungle of prickly pears, after struggling for hours through the Preface or the General Considerations, they were glad to regain the water's edge, and take to their boat once more.

It was their own loss, however, that they did not reach the interior; for there they would have found themselves in the presence of one of the greatest of Theological intellects. Black and Cavendish were born ready-made chemists, and Linnæus and Cuvier were naturalists, in spite of themselves; and so, there is a mental conformation which almost necessitated Augustine and Athanasius, Calvin and Arminius, to be dogmatists and systematic divines. With the opposite aptitudes for large generalization and subtile distinction, as soon as some master-principle had gained possession of their devout understandings, they had no greater joy than to develop its all-embracing applications, and they sought to subjugate Christendom to its imperial ascendency. By itself, the habit of lofty contemplation would have made them pietists or Christian psalmists, and a mere turn for definition would have made them quibblers or schoolmen; but the two united, and together animated by a strenuous faith, made them theologians. In such intellects the seventeenth century abounded, but we question if in dialectic skill, guided by sober judgment, and in extensive acquirements, mellowed by a deep spirituality, it yielded an equivalent to Dr. Owen.

Although there is only one door to the kingdom of heaven, there is many an entrance to scientific divinity. There is the gate of Free Inquiry as well as the gate of Spiritual Wistfulness. And although there are exceptional instances, on the whole we can predict what school the new-comer will join, by knowing the door through which he entered. If from the wide fields of speculation he has sauntered inside the sacred inclosure; if he is an historian who has been carried captive by the documentary demonstration--or a poet who has been arrested by the spiritual sentiment--or a philosopher who has been won over by the Christian theory, and who has thus made a hale-hearted entrance within the precincts of the faith,--he is apt to patronize that gospel to which he has given his accession, and like Clemens Alexandrinus, or Hugo Grotius, or Alphonse de Lamartine, he will join that school where Taste and Reason alternate with Revelation, and where ancient classics and modern sages are scarcely subordinate to the "men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." On the other hand, if "fleeing from the wrath to come," through the crevice of some "faithful saying," he has struggled into enough of knowledge to calm his conscience and give him peace with Heaven, the oracle which assured his spirit will be to him unique in its nature and supreme in its authority, and, a debtor to that scheme to which he owes his very self, like Augustine, and Cowper, and Chalmers, he will join that school where Revelation is absolute, and where "Thus saith the Lord" makes an end of every matter. And without alleging that a long process of personal solicitude is the only right commencement of the Christian life, it is worthy of remark that the converts whose Christianity has thus commenced have usually joined that theological school which, in "salvation-work," makes least account of man and most account of God. Jeremy Taylor, and Hammond, and Barrow, were men who made religion their business; but still they were men who regarded religion as a life _for_ God rather than a life _from_ God, and in whose writings recognitions of Divine mercy and atonement and strengthening grace are comparatively faint and rare. But Bolton, and Bunyan, and Thomas Goodwin, were men who from a region of carelessness or ignorance were conducted through a long and darkling labyrinth of self-reproach and inward misery, and by a way which they knew not were brought out at last on a bright landing-place of assurance and praise; and, like Luther in the previous century, and like Halyburton, and Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards, in the age succeeding, the strong sense of their own demerit led them to ascribe the happy change from first to last to the sovereign grace and good Spirit of God. It was in deep contrition and much anguish of soul that Owen's career began; and that creed, which is pre-eminently the religion of "broken hearts," became his system of theology.

"Children, live like Christians; I leave you the covenant to feed upon." Such was the dying exhortation of him who protected so well England and the Albigenses; and "the convenant" was the food with which the devout heroic lives of that godly time were nourished. This covenant was the sublime staple of Owen's theology. It suggested topics for his parliamentary sermons;--"A Vision of Unchangeable Mercy," and "The Steadfastness of Promises." It attracted him to that book of the Bible in which the federal economy is especially unfolded. And, whether discoursing on the eternal purposes, or the extent of redemption--whether expounding the Mediatorial office, or the work of the sanctifying Spirit--branches of this tree of life re-appear in every treatise. In such discussions some may imagine that there can be nothing but barren speculation, or, at the best, an arduous and transcendental theosophy. However, when they come to examine for themselves they will be astonished at the mass of Scriptural authority on which they are based; and, unless we greatly err, they will find them peculiarly subservient to correction and instruction in righteousness. Many writers have done more for the details of Christian conduct; but for purposes of heart-discipline and for the nurture of devout affections, there is little uninspired authorship equal to the more practical publications of Owen. In the Life of that noble-hearted Christian philosopher, the late Dr. Welsh, it is mentioned that in his latter days, besides the Bible, he read nothing but "Owen on Spiritual-Mindedness," and the "Olney Hymns;" and we shall never despair of the Christianity of a country which finds numerous readers for his "Meditations on the Glory of Christ," and his "Exposition of the hundred and thirtieth Psalm."

And here we may notice a peculiarity of Owen's treatises, which is at once an excellence and a main cause of their redundancies. So systematic was his mind that he could only discuss a special topic with reference to the entire scheme of truth; and so constructive was his mind, that, not content with the confutation of his adversary, he loved to state and establish positively the truth impugned: to which we may add, so devout was his disposition, that, instead of leaving his thesis a dry demonstration, he was anxious to suffuse its doctrine with those spiritual charms which it wore to his own contemplation. All this adds to the bulk of his polemical writings. At the same time it adds to their value. Dr. Owen makes his reader feel that the point in debate is not an isolated dogma, but a part of the "whole counsel of God;" and by the positive as well as practical form in which he presents it, he does all which a disputant can to counteract the skeptical and pragmatical tendencies of religious controversy. Hence, too, it comes to pass that, with one of the commonplaces of Protestantism or Calvinism for a nucleus, his works are most of them virtual systems of doctrino-practical divinity.

The alluvial surface of a country takes its complexion from the prevailing rock-formation. The Essays of Foster, and the Sermons of Chalmers excepted, the evangelical theology of the last hundred years has been chiefly alluvial; and in its miscellaneous composition the element which we chiefly recognize is a detritus from Mount Owen. To be sure, a good deal of it is the decomposition of a more recent conglomerate, but a conglomerate in which larger boulders of the original formation are still discernible. The sermon-makers of the present day may read Cecil and Romaine and Andrew Fuller; and in doing this they are studying the men who studied Owen. But why not study the original? It does good to an ordinary understanding to hold fellowship with a master mind; and it would greatly freshen the ministrations of our pulpits, if, with the electric eye of modern culture, and with minds alive to our modern exigency, preachers held converse direct with the prime sources of British theology. We could imagine the reader of Boston producing a sermon as good as Robert Walker's, and the reader of Henry producing a commentary as good as Thomas Scott's, and the reader of Bishop Hall producing sketches as good as the "Horæ Homileticæ:" but we grow sleepy when we try to imagine Scott diluted or Walker desiccated, and from a congregation top-dressed with bone-dust from the "Skeletons," the crop we should expect would be neither fervent Christians nor enlightened Churchmen. And, even so, a reproduction of the men who have repeated or translated Owen, is sure to be commonplace and feeble; but from warm hearts and active intellects employed on Owen himself, we could expect a multitude of new Cecils and Romaines and Fullers.

As North British Reviewers, we congratulate our country on having produced this beautiful reprint of the illustrious Puritan; and from the fact that they have offered it at a price which has introduced it to four thousand libraries, we must regard the publishers as benefactors to modern theology. The editor has consecrated all his learning and all his industry to his labor of love; and, by all accounts, the previous copies needed a reviser as careful and as competent as Mr. Goold. Dr. Thompson's memoir of the author we have read with singular pleasure. It exhibits much research, and a fine appreciation of Dr. Owen's characteristic excellencies, and its tone is kind and catholic. Such reprints, rightly used, will be a new era in our Christian literature. They can scarcely fail to intensify the devotion and invigorate the faculties of such as read them. And if these readers be chiefly professed divines, the people will in the long-run reap the benefit. Let taste and scholarship and eloquence by all means do their utmost; but it is little which these can do without materials. The works of Owen are an exhaustless magazine; and, without forgetting the source whence they were themselves supplied, there is many an empty mill which their garner could put into productive motion. Like the gardens of Malta, many a region, now bald and barren, might be rendered fair and profitable with loam imported from their Holy Land; and many is the fair structure which might be reared from a single block of their cyclopean masonry.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] _The Works of John Owen, D.D._ Edited by the Rev. WILLIAM H. GOOLD, Edinburgh. Vols. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, (to be completed in Fifteen Volumes.) London and Edinburgh. 1850-51. New-York, Carter & Brother, 1852.

[J] In his elaborate "Memoirs of Dr. Owen," (p. 345.) Mr. Orme mentions that "his library was sold in May, 1684, by Millington, one of the earliest of our book auctioneers;" and adds, "considering the doctor's taste as a reader, his age as a minister, and his circumstances as a man, his library, in all probability, would be both extensive and valuable." Then, in a foot note, he gives some interesting particulars as to the extent of the early No-conformist libraries, viz., Dr. Lazarus Seaman's, which sold for £700; Dr. Jacomb's, which sold for £1300; Dr. Bates's, which was bought for five or six hundred pounds by Dr. Williams, in order to lay the foundation of Red Cross Street library; and Dr. Evans's, which contained 10,000 volumes; again subjoining, "It is probable Dr. Owen's was not inferior to some of these." It would have gratified the biographer had he known that a catalogue of Owen's library is still in existence. Bound up with other sale-catalogues in the Bodleian, is the "Bibliotheca Oweniana; sive catalogus librorum plurimis facultatibus insignium, instructissimæ Bibliothecæ Rev. Doct. Viri D. Joan. Oweni (quondam Vice-Cancellarii et Decani Ædis Christi in Academia Oxoniensi) nuperrime defuncti; cum variis manuscriptis Græcis Latinis, &c., propria manu Doct. Patricii Junii aliorumq. conscriptis: quorum auctio habebitur Londini apud domum auctionariam, adverso Nigri Cygni in vico vulgo dicto Ave Mary Lane, prope Ludgate Street, vicesimo sexto die Maii, 1684. Per Eduardum Millington, Bibliopolam." In the Preface, the auctioneer speaks of Dr. Owen as "a person so generally known as a generous buyer and great collector of the best books;" and after adverting to his copies of Fathers, Councils, Church Histories, and Rabbinical Authors, he adds, "all which considered together, perhaps for their number are not to be paralleled, or upon any terms to be procured, when gentlemen are desirous of, or have a real occasion for the perusal of them." The number of volumes is 2889. For the knowledge of the existence of this catalogue, and for a variety of curious particulars regarding it, the Reviewer is indebted to one of the dignitaries of Oxford, whose bibliographical information is only exceeded by the obligingness with which he puts it at the command of others, the Rev. Dr. Macbride, Principal of Magdalene Hall.

[K] A copious Latin epitaph was inscribed on his tombstone, of which Mr. Orme speaks, in 1826, as "still in fine preservation." (Memoirs, p. 346.) We are sorry to say that three letters, faintly traceable, are all that can now be deciphered. The tomb of his illustrious colleague, Goodwin, is in a still more deplorable condition: not only is the inscription effaced, but the marble slab, having been split with lightning, has never been repaired.

[L] In his delightful reminiscences of Dr. Chalmers, Mr. J. J. Gurney says, "I often think that particular men bear about with them an analogy to particular animals: Chalmers is like a good-tempered lion; Wilberforce is like a bee." Dr. Owen often reminds us of an elephant; the same ponderous movements--the same gentle sagacity--the same vast but unobtrusive powers. With a logical proboscis able to handle the heavy guns of Hugo Grotius, and to untwist withal the tangled threads of Richard Baxter, in his encounters with John Goodwin he resembles his prototype in a leopard-hunt, where sheer strength is on the one side, and brisk ability on the other. And, to push our conceit no further, they say that this wary animal will never venture over a bridge till he has tried its strength, and is assured that it can bear him; and if we except the solitary break-down in the Waltonian controversy, our disputant was as cautious in choosing his ground as he was formidable when once he took up his position.

JESSE LEE AND THE LAWYERS.

Jesse Lee, one of the first Methodist preachers in New England, combined unresting energy, and sensibility, with an extraordinary propensity to wit. Mr. Stephens, in his new work on the _Memorials of Methodism_, gives the following specimen of Lee's _bonhommie_:

As he was riding on horseback one day, between Boston and Lynn, he was overtaken by two young lawyers, who knew that he was a Methodist preacher, and were disposed to amuse themselves somewhat at his expense. Saluting him, and ranging their horses one on each side of him, they entered in a conversation something like the following:--_First Lawyer._ I believe you are a preacher, sir? _Lee._ Yes; I generally pass for one. _First lawyer._ You preach very often, I suppose? _Lee._ Generally every day, frequently twice, or more. _Second Lawyer._ How do you find time to study, when you preach so often? _Lee._ I study when riding, and read when resting. _First Lawyer._ But you do not write your sermons? _Lee._ No; not very often. _Second Lawyer._ Do you not often make mistakes in preaching extemporaneously? _Lee._ I do, sometimes. _Second Lawyer._ How do you do then? Do you correct them? _Lee._ That depends upon the character of the mistake. I was preaching the other day, and I went to quote the text: "All liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone;" and, by mistake, I said, "All _lawyers_ shall have their part"--_Second Lawyer_ (interrupting him). "What did you do with that? Did you correct it?" _Lee._ "Oh, no, indeed! It was so nearly true, I didn't think it worth while to correct it." "Humph!" said one of them, with a hasty and impatient glance at the other; "I don't know whether you are the more knave or fool!" "Neither," he quietly replied, turning at the same time his mischievous eyes from one to the other; "I believe I am just _between_ the two!"

Finding they were measuring wit with a master, and mortified at their discomfiture, the knights of the green bag drove on, leaving the victor to solitude and his own reflections.

ANNUARIES,

BY ALICE CAREY.