VI.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,-- And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise, and unbuild it again.

XLII. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.

JOHN KEATS.--1795-1821.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

XLIII. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET.

KEATS.

The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the grasshopper's--he takes the lead In summer luxury,--he has never done With his delights, for, when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

XLIV. THE POWER AND DANGER OF THE CAESARS.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.--1785-1859.

_From_ THE CAESARS.

To this view of the imperial character and relations must be added one single circumstance, which in some measure altered the whole for the individual who happened to fill the office. The emperor _de facto_ might be viewed under two aspects; there was the man, and there was the office. In his office he was immortal and sacred: but as a question might still be raised, by means of a mercenary army, as to the claims of the particular individual who at any time filled the office, the very sanctity and privilege of the character with which he was clothed might actually be turned against himself; and here it is, at this point, that the character of Roman emperor became truly and mysteriously awful. Gibbon has taken notice of the extraordinary situation of a _subject_ in the Roman empire who should attempt to fly from the wrath of the Caesar. Such was the ubiquity of the emperor that this was metaphysically hopeless. Except across pathless deserts or amongst barbarous nomads, it was impossible to find even a transient sanctuary from the imperial pursuit. If the fugitive went down to the sea, there he met the emperor: if he took the wings of the morning, and fled to the uttermost parts of the earth, there was also Caesar in the person of his lieutenants. But, by a dreadful counter-charm, the same omnipresence of imperial anger and retribution which withered the hopes of the poor humble prisoner, met and confounded the emperor himself, when hurled from his elevation by some fortunate rival. All the kingdoms of the earth, to one in that situation, became but so many wards of the same infinite prison. Flight, if it were even successful for the moment, did but a little retard his inevitable doom. And so evident was this, that hardly in one instance did the fallen prince _attempt_ to fly; passively he met the death which was inevitable, in the very spot where ruin had overtaken him. Neither was it possible even for a merciful conqueror to show mercy; for, in the presence of an army so mercenary and factious, his own safety was but too deeply involved in the extermination of rival pretenders to the crown.

Such, amidst the sacred security and inviolability of the office, was the hazardous tenure of the individual. Nor did his dangers always arise from persons in the rank of competitors and rivals. Sometimes it menaced him in quarters which his eye had never penetrated, and from enemies too obscure to have reached his ear. By way of illustration we will cite a case from the life of the Emperor Commodus, which is wild enough to have furnished the plot of a romance, though as well authenticated as any other passage in that reign. The story is narrated by Herodian, and the outline was this:--A slave of noble qualities, and of magnificent person, having liberated himself from the degradations of bondage, determined to avenge his own wrongs by inflicting continual terror upon the town and neighborhood which had witnessed his humiliation. For this purpose he resorted to the woody recesses of the province (somewhere in the modern Transylvania), and, attracting to his wild encampment as many fugitives as he could, by degrees he succeeded in training a very formidable troop of freebooters. Partly from the energy of his own nature, and partly from the neglect and remissness of the provincial magistrates, the robber captain rose from less to more, until he had formed a little army, equal to the task of assaulting fortified cities. In this stage of his adventures he encountered and defeated several of the imperial officers commanding large detachments of troops; and at length grew of consequence sufficient to draw upon himself the emperor's eye, and the honor of his personal displeasure. In high wrath and disdain at the insults offered to his eagles by this fugitive slave, Commodus fulminated against him such an edict as left him no hope of much longer escaping with impunity.

Public vengeance was now awakened; the imperial troops were marching from every quarter upon the same centre; and the slave became sensible that in a very short space of time he must be surrounded and destroyed. In this desperate situation he took a desperate resolution: he assembled his troops, laid before them his plan, concerted the various steps for carrying it into effect, and then dismissed them as independent wanderers. So ends the first chapter of the tale.

The next opens in the passes of the Alps, whither, by various routes, of seven or eight hundred miles in extent, these men had threaded their way in manifold disguises, through the very midst of the emperor's camps. According to this man's gigantic enterprise, in which the means were as audacious as the purpose, the conspirators were to rendezvous, and first to recognize each other, at the gates of Rome. From the Danube to the Tiber did this band of robbers severally pursue their perilous routes through all the difficulties of the road and the jealousies of the military stations, sustained by the mere thirst of vengeance--vengeance against that mighty foe whom they knew only by his proclamations against themselves. Everything continued to prosper; the conspirators met under the walls of Rome; the final details were arranged; and those also would have prospered but for a trifling accident. The season was one of general carnival at Rome; and, by the help of those disguises which the license of this festival time allowed, the murderers were to have penetrated as maskers to the emperor's retirement, when a casual word or two awoke the suspicions of a sentinel. One of the conspirators was arrested; under the terror and uncertainty of the moment, he made much ampler discoveries than were expected of him; the other accomplices were secured: and Commodus was delivered from the uplifted daggers of those who had sought him by months of patient wanderings, pursued through all the depths of the Illyrian forests, and the difficulties of the Alpine passes. It is not easy to find words of admiration commensurate to the energetic hardihood of a slave--who, by way of answer and reprisal to an edict summarily consigning him to persecution and death, determines to cross Europe in quest of its author, though no less a person than the master of the world--to seek him out in the inmost recesses of his capital city, of his private palace, of his consecrated bed-chamber--and there to lodge a dagger in his heart, as the adequate reply to the imperial sentence of proscription against himself.

Such, amidst the superhuman grandeur and hallowed privileges of the Roman emperor's office, were the extraordinary perils which menaced the individual officer. The office rose by its grandeur to a region above the clouds and vapors of earth: the officer might find his personal security as unsubstantial as those wandering vapors. Nor is it possible that these circumstances of violent opposition can be better illustrated than in this tale of Herodian. Whilst the emperor's mighty arms were stretched out to arrest some potentate in the heart of Asia, a poor slave is silently and stealthily creeping round the base of the Alps, with the purpose of winning his way as a murderer to the imperial bed-chamber; Caesar is watching some potent rebel of the Orient, at a distance of two thousand leagues, and he overlooks the dagger which is within three stealthy steps, and one tiger's leap, of his own heart. All the heights and the depths which belong to man's frailty, all the contrasts of glory and meanness, the extremities of what is highest and lowest in human casualties, meeting in the station of the Roman Caesar Semper Augustus--have combined to call him into high marble relief, and to make him the most interesting study of all whom history has emblazoned with colors of fire and blood, or has crowned most lavishly with diadems of cyprus and laurel.

XLV. UNTHOUGHTFULNESS.

DR. ARNOLD.--1795-1842.

_A Lecture delivered in Rugby Chapel._

The state of spiritual folly is, I suppose, one of the most universal evils in the world. For the number of those who are naturally foolish is exceedingly great; of those, I mean, who understand no worldly thing well; of those who are careless about everything, carried about by every breath of opinion, without knowledge, and without principle. But the term spiritual folly includes, unhappily, a great many more than these; it takes in not those only who are in the common sense of the term foolish, but a great many who are in the common sense of the term clever, and many who are even in the common sense of the terms, prudent, sensible, thoughtful, and wise. It is but too evident that some of the ablest men who have ever lived upon earth, have been in no less a degree spiritually fools. And thus, it is not without much truth that Christian writers have dwelt upon the insufficiency of worldly wisdom, and have warned their readers to beware, lest, while professing themselves to be wise, they should be accounted as fools in the sight of God.

But the opposite to this notion, that those who are, as it were, fools in worldly matters are wise before God,--although this also is true in a certain sense, and under certain peculiar circumstances, yet taken generally, it is the very reverse of truth; and the careless and incautious language which has been often used on this subject, has been extremely mischievous. On the contrary, he who is foolish in worldly matters is likely also to be, and most commonly is, no less foolish in the things of God. And the opposite belief has arisen mainly from that strange confusion between ignorance and innocence, with which many ignorant persons seem to solace themselves. Whereas, if you take away a man's knowledge, you do not bring him to the state of an infant, but to that of a brute; and of one of the most mischievous and malignant of the brute creation. For you do not lessen or weaken the man's body by lowering his mind; he still retains his strength and his passions, the passions leading to self-indulgence, the strength which enables him to feed them by continued gratification. He will not think, it is true, to any good purpose; it is very possible to destroy in him the power of reflection, whether as exercised upon outward things, or upon himself and his own nature, or upon God. But you cannot destroy the power of adapting means to ends, nor that of concealing his purposes by fraud or falsehood; you take only his wisdom, and leave that cunning which marks so notoriously both the savage and the madman. He, then, who is a fool as far as regards earthly things, is much more a fool with regard to heavenly things; he who cannot raise himself even to the lower height, how is he to attain to the higher? he who is without reason and conscience, how shall he be endowed with the spirit of God?

It is my deep conviction and long experience of this truth, which makes me so grieve over a want of interest in your own improvement in human learning, whenever I observe it,--over the prevalence of a thoughtless and childish spirit amongst you.... The idleness and want of interest which I grieve for, is one which extends itself, but too impartially, to knowledge of every kind: to divine knowledge, as might be expected, even more than to human. Those whom we commonly find careless about their general lessons, are quite as ignorant and as careless about their Bibles; those who have no interest in general literature, in poetry, or in history, or in philosophy, have certainly no greater interest, I do not say in works of theology, but in works of practical devotion, in the lives of holy men, in meditations, or in prayers. Alas, the interest of their minds is bestowed on things far lower than the very lowest of all which I have named; and therefore, to see them desiring something only a little higher than their present pursuits, could not but be encouraging; it would, at least, show that the mind was rising upwards. It may, indeed, stop at a point short of the highest, it may learn to love earthly excellence, and rest there contented, and seek for nothing more perfect; but that, at any rate, is a future and merely contingent evil. It is better to love earthly excellence than earthly folly; it is far better in itself, and it is, by many degrees, nearer to the Kingdom of God.

There is another case, however, which I cannot but think is more frequent now than formerly; and if it is so, it may be worth while to direct our attention to it. Common idleness and absolute ignorance are not what I wish to speak of now, but a character advanced above these; a character which does not neglect its school-lessons, but really attains to considerable proficiency in them; a character at once regular and amiable, abstaining from evil, and for evil in its low and grosser forms having a real abhorrence. What, then, you will say, is wanting here? I will tell you what seems to be wanting--a spirit of manly, and much more of Christian, thoughtfulness. There is quickness and cleverness; much pleasure, perhaps, in distinction, but little in improvement; there is no desire of knowledge for its own sake, whether human or divine. There is, therefore, but little power of combining and digesting what is read; and, consequently, what is read passes away, and takes no root in the mind. This same character shows itself in matters of conduct; it will adopt, without scruple, the most foolish, commonplace notions of boys, about what is right and wrong; it will not, and cannot, from the lightness of its mind, concern itself seriously about what is evil in the conduct of others, because it takes no regular care of its own, with reference to pleasing God; it will not do anything low or wicked, but it will sometimes laugh at those who do; and it will by no means take pains to encourage, nay, it will sometimes thwart and oppose anything that breathes a higher spirit, and asserts a more manly and Christian standard of duty.

One cause of this consists in the number and character and cheapness, and peculiar mode of publication, of the works of amusement of the present day. The works of amusement published only a very few years since were comparatively few in number; they were less exciting, and therefore less attractive; they were dearer, and therefore less accessible; and, not being published periodically, they did not occupy the mind for so long a time, nor keep alive so constant an expectation; nor, by thus dwelling upon the mind, and distilling themselves into it as it were drop by drop, did they possess it so largely, coloring even, in many instances, its very language, and affording frequent matter for conversation.

The evil of all these circumstances is actually enormous. The mass of human minds, and much more of the minds of young persons, have no great appetite for intellectual exercise; but they have some, which by careful treatment may be strengthened and increased. But here to this weak and delicate appetite is presented an abundance of the most stimulating and least nourishing food possible. It snatches it greedily, and is not only satisfied, but actually conceives a distaste for anything simpler and more wholesome. That curiosity which is wisely given us to lead us on to knowledge, finds its full gratification in the details of an exciting and protracted story, and then lies down as it were gorged, and goes to sleep. Other faculties claim their turn, and have it. We know that in youth the healthy body and lively spirits require exercise, and in this they may and ought to be indulged; but the time and interest which remain over when the body has had its enjoyment, and the mind desires its share, this has been already wasted and exhausted upon things utterly unprofitable: so that the mind goes to its work hurriedly and languidly, and feels it to be no more than a burden. The mere lessons may be learnt from a sense of duty; but that freshness of power which in young persons of ability would fasten eagerly upon some one portion or other of the wide field of knowledge, and there expatiate, drinking in health and strength to the mind, as surely as the natural exercise of the body gives to it bodily vigor,--that is tired prematurely, perverted, and corrupted; and all the knowledge which else it might so covet, it now seems a wearying effort to retain.

Great and grievous as is the evil, it is peculiarly hard to find the remedy for it. If the books to which I have been alluding were books of downright wickedness, we might destroy them wherever we found them; we might forbid their open circulation; we might conjure you to shun them as you would any other clear sin, whether of word or deed. But they are not wicked books for the most part; they are of that class which cannot be actually prohibited; nor can it be pretended that there is a sin in reading them. They are not the more wicked for being published so cheap, and at regular intervals; but yet these two circumstances make them so peculiarly injurious. All that can be done is to point out the evil; that it is real and serious I am very sure, and its defects are most deplorable on the minds of the fairest promise; but the remedy for it rests with yourselves, or rather with each of you individually, so far as he is himself concerned. That an unnatural and constant excitement of the mind is most injurious, there is no doubt; that excitement involves a consequent weakness, is a law of our nature than which none is surer; that the weakness of mind thus produced is and must be adverse to quiet study and thought, to that reflection which alone is wisdom, is also clear in itself, and proved too largely by experience. And that without reflection there can be no spiritual understanding, is at once evident; while without spiritual understanding, that is, without a knowledge and a study of God's will, there can be no spiritual life. And therefore childishness and unthoughtfulness cannot be light evils; and if I have rightly traced the prevalence of these defects to its cause, although that cause may seem to some to be trifling, yet surely it is well to call your attention to it, and to remind you that in reading works of amusement, as in every other lawful pleasure, there is and must be an abiding responsibility in the sight of God; that, like other lawful pleasures, we must beware of excess in it; and not only so, but if we find it hurtful to us, either because we have used it too freely in times past, or because our nature is too weak to bear it, that then we are bound most solemnly to abstain from it; because, however lawful in itself, or to others who can practise it without injury, whatever is to us an hindrance in the way of our intellectual and moral and spiritual improvement, that is in our case a positive sin.

* * * * *

_There is a book, who runs may read, which heavenly truth imparts; And all the lore its scholars need,--pure eyes and Christian hearts. The works of God, above, below, within us and around, Are pages in that book, to show how God Himself is found._

JOHN KEBLE.--1792-1866.

XLVI. THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

THOMAS HOOD.--1799-1845.

One more Unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments Clinging like cerements; Whilst the wave constantly Drips from her clothing; Take her up instantly, Loving, not loathing.--

Touch her not scornfully; Think of her mournfully, Gently and humanly; Not of the stains of her,-- All that remains of her Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny Into her mutiny Rash and undutiful: Past all dishonor, Death has left on her Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers, One of Eve's family,-- Wipe those poor lips of hers Oozing so clammily.

Loop up her tresses Escaped from the comb,-- Her fair auburn tresses; Whilst wonderment guesses Where was her home?

Who was her father? Who was her mother? Had she a sister? Had she a brother? Or was there a dearer one Still, and a nearer one Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun! Oh! it was pitiful! Near a whole city full, Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly, Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed: Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; Even God's providence Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver So far in the river, With many a light From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood, with amazement, Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver; But not the dark arch, Or the black flowing river: Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Swift to be hurl'd-- Anywhere, anywhere Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,-- No matter how coldly The dark river ran,-- Over the brink of it, Picture it,--think of it, Dissolute Man! Lave in it, drink of it, Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly Stiffen too rigidly, Decently,--kindly,-- Smooth and compose them; And her eyes, close them, Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring Through muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fix'd on futurity.

Perishing gloomily, Spurr'd by contumely, Cold inhumanity, Burning insanity, Into her rest.-- Cross her hands humbly, As if praying dumbly, Over her breast!

Owning her weakness, Her evil behavior, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour!

XLVII. A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON.

AGED THREE YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS.

THOMAS HOOD.

Thou happy, happy elf! (But stop,--first let me kiss away that tear)-- Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouch'd by sorrow, and unsoil'd by sin-- (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air-- (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents--(Drat the boy! There goes my ink!)

Thou cherub--but of earth; Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale, In harmless sport and mirth, (That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!) Thou human humming-bee extracting honey From ev'ry blossom in the world that blows, Singing in Youth's Elysium ever sunny, (Another tumble!--that's his precious nose!) Thy father's pride and hope! (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!) With pure heart newly stamp'd from Nature's mint-- (Where did he learn that squint?)

Thou young domestic dove! (He'll have that jug off with another shove!) Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest! (Are those torn clothes his best?) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touch'd with the beauteous tints of dawning life-- (He's got a knife!)

Thou enviable being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on, My elfin John! Toss the light ball--bestride the stick-- (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk, (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!)

Thou pretty opening rose! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy, and breathing music like the South, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star,-- (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove,-- (I tell you what, my love, I cannot write, unless he's sent above!)

XLVIII. METAPHYSICS.

THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON.--1796-1865.

_From_ TRAITS OF AMERICAN HUMOR.

Old Doctor Sobersides, the minister of Pumpkinville, where I lived in my youth, was one of the metaphysical divines of the old school, and could cavil upon the ninth part of a hair about entities and quiddities, nominalism and realism, free-will and necessity, with which sort of learning he used to stuff his sermons and astound his learned hearers, the bumpkins. They never doubted that it was all true, but were apt to say with the old woman in Moliere: "He speaks so well that I don't understand him a bit."

I remember a conversation that happened at my grandfather's, in which the Doctor had some difficulty in making his metaphysics all "as clear as preaching." There was my grandfather; Uncle Tim, who was the greatest hand at raising onions in our part of the country, but "not knowing metaphysics, had no notion of the true reason of his not being sad"; my Aunt Judy Keturah Titterwell, who could knit stockings "like all possest," but could not syllogise; Malachi Muggs, our hired man that drove the oxen; and Isaac Thrasher, the district schoolmaster, who had dropped in to warm his fingers and get a drink of cider. Something was under discussion, and my grandfather could make nothing of it; but the Doctor said it was "metaphysically true."

"Pray, Doctor," said Uncle Tim, "tell me something about metaphysics; I have often heard of that science, but never for my life could find out what it was."

"Metaphysics," said the Doctor, "is the science of abstraction."

"I'm no wiser for that explanation," said Uncle Tim.

"It treats," said the Doctor, "of matters most profound and sublime, a little difficult perhaps for a common intellect or an unschooled capacity to fathom, but not the less important on that account, to all living beings."

"What does it teach?" asked the Schoolmaster.

"It is not applied so much to the operation of teaching," answered the Doctor, "as to that of inquiring; and the chief inquiry is, whether things are, or whether they are not."

"I don't understand the question," said Uncle Tim, taking the pipe out of his mouth.

"For example, whether this earth on which we tread," said the Doctor, giving a heavy stamp on the floor, and setting his foot on the cat's tail, "whether the earth does really exist, or whether it does not exist."

"That is a point of considerable consequence to settle," said my grandfather.

"Especially," added the schoolmaster, "to the holders of real estate."

"Now the earth," continued the Doctor, "may exist--"

"Why, who ever doubted that?" asked Uncle Tim.

"A great many men," said the Doctor, "and some very learned ones."

Uncle Tim stared a moment, and then began to fill his pipe, whistling the tune of "Heigh! Betty Martin," while the Doctor went on:

"The earth, I say, may exist, although Bishop Berkeley has proved beyond all possible gainsaying or denial, that it does not exist. The case is clear; the only difficulty is, to know whether we shall believe it or not."

"And how," asked Uncle Tim, "is all this to be found out?"

"By digging down to the first principles," answered the Doctor.

"Ay," interrupted Malachi, "there is nothing equal to the spade and pickaxe."

"That is true," said my grandfather, going on in Malachi's way, "'tis by digging for the foundation, that we shall find out whether the world exists or not; for, if we dig to the bottom of the earth and find the foundation--why then we are sure of it. But if we find no foundation, it is clear that the world stands upon nothing, or, in other words, that it does not stand at all; therefore, it stands to reason--"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted the Doctor, "but you totally mistake me; I used the word digging metaphorically, meaning the profoundest cogitation and research into the nature of things. That is the way in which we may ascertain whether things are, or whether they are not."

"But if a man can't believe his eyes," said Uncle Tim, "what signifies talking about it?"

"Our eyes," said the Doctor, "are nothing at all but the inlets of sensation, and when we see a thing, all we are aware of is, that we have a sensation of it: we are not aware that the thing exists. We are sure of nothing that we see with our eyes."

"Not without spectacles," said Aunt Judy.

"Plato, for instance, maintains that the sensation of any object is produced by a perpetual succession of copies, images, or counterfeits, streaming off from the object to the organ of sensation. Descartes, too, has explained the matter upon the principle of whirligigs."

"But does the world exist?" asked the Schoolmaster.

"A good deal may be said on both sides," replied the Doctor, "though the ablest heads are for non-existence."

"In common cases," said Uncle Tim, "those who utter nonsense are considered blockheads."

"But in metaphysics," said the Doctor, "the case is different."

"Now all this is hocus-pocus to me," said Aunt Judy, suspending her knitting-work, and scratching her forehead with one of the needles, "I don't understand a bit more of the business than I did at first."

"I'll be bound there is many a learned professor," said Uncle Tim, "could say the same after spinning a long yarn of metaphysics."

The Doctor did not admire this gibe at his favorite science.

"That is as the case may be," said he; "this thing or that thing may be dubious, but what then? Doubt is the beginning of wisdom."

"No doubt of that," said my grandfather, beginning to poke the fire, "and when a man has got through his doubting, what does he begin to build up in the metaphysical way?"

"Why, he begins by taking something for granted," said the Doctor.

"But is that a sure way of going to work?"

"'Tis the only thing he can do," replied the Doctor, after a pause, and rubbing his forehead as if he was not altogether satisfied that his foundation was a solid one. My grandfather might have posed him with another question, but he poked the fire and let him go on.

"Metaphysics, to speak exactly----"

"Ah," interrupted the Schoolmaster, "bring it down to vulgar fractions, and then we shall understand it."

"'Tis the consideration of immateriality, or the mere spirit and essence of things."

"Come, come," said Aunt Judy, taking a pinch of snuff, "now I see into it."

"Thus, man is considered, not in his corporeality, but in his essence or capability of being; for a man, metaphysically, or to metaphysical purposes, hath two natures, that of spirituality, and that of corporeality, which may be considered separate."

"What man?" asked Uncle Tim.

"Why, any man; Malachi there, for example; I may consider him as Malachi spiritual, or Malachi corporeal."

"That is true," said Malachi, "for when I was in the militia they made me a sixteenth corporal, and I carried grog to the drummer."

"That is another affair," said the Doctor in continuation; "we speak of man in his essence; we speak, also, of the essence of locality, the essence of duration--"

"And essence of peppermint," said Aunt Judy.

"Pooh!" said the Doctor, "the essence I mean is quite a different essence."

"Something too fine to be dribbled through the worm of a still," said my grandfather.

"Then I am all in the dark again," rejoined Aunt Judy.

"By the spirit and essence of things I mean things in the abstract."

"And what becomes of a thing when it goes into the abstract?" asked Uncle Tim.

"Why, it becomes an abstraction."

"There we are again," said Uncle Tim; "but what on earth is an abstraction?"

"It is a thing that has no matter: that is, it cannot be felt, seen, heard, smelt, or tasted; it has no substance or solidity; it is neither large nor small, hot nor cold, long nor short."

"Then what is the long and short of it?" asked the Schoolmaster.

"Abstraction," replied the Doctor.

"Suppose, for instance," said Malachi, "that I had a pitchfork----"

"Ay," said the Doctor, "consider a pitchfork in general; that is, neither this one nor that one, nor any particular one, but a pitchfork or pitchforks divested of their materiality--these are things in the abstract."

"They are things in the hay-mow," said Malachi.

"Pray," said Uncle Tim, "have there been many such things discovered?"

"Discovered!" returned the Doctor, "why, all things, whether in heaven, or upon the earth, or in the waters under the earth, whether small or great, visible or invisible, animate or inanimate; whether the eye can see, or the ear can hear, or the nose can smell, or the fingers touch; finally, whatever exists or is imaginable in the nature of things, past, present, or to come, all may be abstractions."

"Indeed!" said Uncle Tim, "pray, what do you make of the abstraction of a red cow?"

"A red cow," said the Doctor, "considered metaphysically or as an abstraction, is an animal possessing neither hide nor horns, bones nor flesh, but is the mere type, eidolon, and fantastical semblance of these parts of a quadruped. It has a shape without any substance, and no color at all, for its redness is the mere counterfeit or imagination of such. As it lacks the positive, so is it also deficient in the accidental properties of all the animals in its tribe, for it has no locomotion, stability, or endurance, neither goes to pasture, gives milk, chews the cud, nor performs any other function of the horned beast, but is a mere creation of the brain, begotten by a freak of the fancy and nourished by a conceit of the imagination."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Aunt Judy. "All the metaphysics under the sun wouldn't make a pound of butter!"

"That's a fact," said Uncle Tim.

* * * * *

_There is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all: And where it cometh, all things are:-- And it cometh everywhere._

EMERSON.

XLIX. INDIAN SUMMER.[J]

SAMUEL LOVER.--1797-1868.

When summer's verdant beauty flies, And autumn glows with richer dyes, A softer charm beyond them lies-- It is the Indian summer. Ere winter's snows and winter's breeze Bereave of beauty all the trees, The balmy spring renewal sees In the sweet Indian summer.

And thus, dear love, if early years Have drown'd the germ of joy in tears, A later gleam of hope appears-- Just like the Indian summer: And ere the snows of age descend, O trust me, dear one, changeless friend, Our falling years may brightly end-- Just like the Indian summer.

FOOTNOTES:

[J] The brief period which succeeds the autumnal close, called the "Indian Summer,"--a reflex, as it were, of the early portion of the year--strikes a stranger in America as peculiarly beautiful, and quite charmed me.--LOVER.

L. TO HELEN.[K]

JULY 7, 1839.

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.--1802-1839.

Dearest, I did not dream, four years ago, When through your veil I saw your bright tear shine, Caught your clear whisper, exquisitely low, And felt your soft hand tremble into mine,

That in so brief--so very brief a space, He, who in love both clouds and cheers our life, Would lay on you, so full of light, joy, grace, The darker, sadder duties of the wife,-- Doubts, fears, and frequent toil, and constant care For this poor frame, by sickness sore bested; The daily tendance on the fractious chair, The nightly vigil by the feverish bed.

Yet not unwelcom'd doth this morn arise, Though with more gladsome beams it might have shone: Strength of these weak hands, light of these dim eyes, In sickness, as in health,--bless you, My Own!

FOOTNOTES:

[K] Praed died on the 15th of July.

LI. HORATIUS.[L]

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX.

LORD MACAULAY.--1800-1859.

Lars Porsena of Clusium by the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it, and named a trysting day, And bade his messengers ride forth, east and west and south and north, To summon his array.

East and west and south and north the messengers ride fast, And tower and town and cottage have heard the trumpet's blast. Shame on the false Etruscan who lingers in his home, When Porsena of Clusium is on the march for Rome.

The horsemen and the footmen are pouring in amain From many a stately market-place; from many a fruitful plain; From many a lonely hamlet, which, hid by beech and pine, Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest of purple Apennine; From lordly Volaterrae, where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants for godlike kings of old; From seagirt Populonia, whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops fringing the southern sky; From the proud mart of Pisae, queen of the western waves, Where ride Massilia's triremes heavy with fair-hair'd slaves; From where sweet Clanis wanders through corn and vines and flowers; From where Cortona lifts to heaven her diadem of towers.

Tall are the oaks whose acorns drop in dark Auser's rill; Fat are the stags that champ the boughs of the Ciminian hill; Beyond all streams Clitumnus is to the herdsman dear; Best of all pools the fowler loves the great Volsinian mere. But now no stroke of woodman is heard by Auser's rill; No hunter tracks the stag's green path up the Ciminian hill; Unwatch'd along Clitumnus grazes the milk-white steer; Unharm'd the waterfowl may dip in the Volsinian mere. The harvests of Arretium, this year, old men shall reap; This year, young boys in Umbro shall plunge the struggling sheep; And in the vats of Luna, this year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls whose sires have march'd to Rome.

There be thirty chosen prophets, the wisest of the land, Who alway by Lars Porsena both morn and evening stand: Evening and morn the Thirty have turn'd the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white by mighty seers of yore. And with one voice the Thirty have their glad answer given: "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena; go forth, belov'd of heaven. Go, and return in glory to Clusium's royal dome; And hang round Nurscia's altars the golden shields of Rome."

And now hath every city sent up her tale of men: The foot are fourscore thousand, the horse are thousands ten. Before the gates of Sutrium is met the great array. A proud man was Lars Porsena upon the trysting day. For all the Etruscan armies were ranged beneath his eye, And many a banish'd Roman, and many a stout ally; And with a mighty following to join the muster came The Tusculan Mamilius, prince of the Latian name.

But by the yellow Tiber was tumult and affright: From all the spacious champaign to Rome men took their flight. A mile around the city, the throng stopp'd up the ways; A fearful sight it was to see through two long nights and days. For aged folks on crutches, and women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes that clung to them and smiled, And sick men borne in litters high on the necks of slaves, And troops of sun-burn'd husbandmen with reaping-hooks and staves, And droves of mules and asses laden with skins of wine, And endless flocks of goats and sheep, and endless herds of kine, And endless trains of wagons that creak'd beneath the weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, choked every roaring gate.

Now, from the rock Tarpeian, could the wan burghers spy The line of blazing villages red in the midnight sky. The Fathers of the City, they sat all night and day, For every hour some horseman came with tidings of dismay. To eastward and to westward have spread the Tuscan bands; Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote in Crustumerium stands. Verbenna down to Ostia hath wasted all the plain; Astur hath storm'd Janiculum, and the stout guards are slain. I wis, in all the Senate, there was no heart so bold, But sore it ached, and fast it beat, when that ill news was told. Forthwith up rose the Consul, up rose the Fathers all; In haste they girded up their gowns, and hied them to the wall. They held a council standing, before the River-Gate; Short time was there, ye well may guess, for musing or debate. Out spake the Consul roundly: "The bridge must straight go down; For, since Janiculum is lost, nought else can save the town."

Just then a scout came flying, all wild with haste and fear: "To arms! to arms! Sir Consul: Lars Porsena is here." On the low hills to westward the Consul fix'd his eye, And saw the swarthy storm of dust rise fast along the sky. And nearer fast and nearer doth the red whirlwind come; And louder still and still more loud, from underneath that rolling cloud, Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, the trampling, and the hum. And plainly and more plainly now through the gloom appears, Far to left and far to right, in broken gleams of dark-blue light, The long array of helmets bright, the long array of spears. And plainly and more plainly above that glimmering line, Now might ye see the banners of twelve fair cities shine; But the banner of proud Clusium was highest of them all, The terror of the Umbrian, the terror of the Gaul. And plainly and more plainly now might the burghers know, By port and vest, by horse and crest, each warlike Lucumo. There Cilnius of Arretium on his fleet roan was seen; And Astur of the four-fold shield, girt with the brand none else may wield, Tolumnius with the belt of gold, and dark Verbenna from the hold By reedy Thrasymene.

Fast by the royal standard, o'erlooking all the war, Lars Porsena of Clusium sat in his ivory car. By the right wheel rode Mamilius, prince of the Latian name; And by the left false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame. But when the face of Sextus was seen among the foes, A yell that rent the firmament from all the town arose. On the house-tops was no woman but spat towards him and hiss'd, No child but scream'd out curses, and shook its little fist. But the Consul's brow was sad, and the Consul's speech was low, And darkly look'd he at the wall, and darkly at the foe. "Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down; And if they once may win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"

Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate: "To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods, And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest, And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast, And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame, To save them from false Sextus that wrought the deed of shame? Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may; I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopp'd by three. Now who will stand on either hand, and keep the bridge with me?"

Then out spake Spurius Lartius; a Ramnian proud was he: "Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, and keep the bridge with thee." And out spake strong Herminius; of Titian blood was he: "I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee."

"Horatius," quoth the Consul, "as thou sayest, so let it be." And straight against that great array forth went the dauntless Three. For Romans in Rome's quarrel spared neither land nor gold, Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, in the brave days of old. Then none was for a party; then all were for the state; Then the great man help'd the poor, and the poor man lov'd the great: Then lands were fairly portion'd; then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers in the brave days of old. Now Roman is to Roman more hateful than a foe, And the Tribunes beard the high, and the Fathers grind the low. As we wax hot in faction, in battle we wax cold: Wherefore men fight not as they fought in the brave days of old.

Now while the Three were tightening their harness on their backs, The Consul was the foremost man to take in hand an axe: And Fathers mix'd with Commons seized hatchet, bar, and crow, And smote upon the planks above, and loosed the props below.

Meanwhile the Tuscan army, right glorious to behold, Came flashing back the noonday light, rank behind rank, like surges bright Of a broad sea of gold. Four hundred trumpets sounded a peal of warlike glee, As that great host, with measured tread, and spears advanced, and ensigns spread, Roll'd slowly towards the bridge's head, where stood the dauntless Three.

The Three stood calm and silent, and look'd upon the foes, And a great shout of laughter from all the vanguard rose: And forth three chiefs came spurring before that deep array; To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, and lifted high their shields, and flew To win the narrow way; Aunus from green Tifernum, lord of the Hill of Vines; And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves sicken in Ilva's mines; And Picus, long to Clusium vassal in peace and war, Who led to fight his Umbrian powers from that gray crag where, girt with towers, The fortress of Nequinum lowers o'er the pale waves of Nar.

Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus into the stream beneath: Herminius struck at Seius, and clove him to the teeth: At Picus brave Horatius darted one fiery thrust; And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms clash'd in the bloody dust.

Then Ocnus of Falerii rush'd on the Roman Three; And Lausulus of Urgo, the rover of the sea; And Aruns of Volsinium, who slew the great wild boar, The great wild boar that had his den amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen, And wasted fields, and slaughter'd men, along Albinia's shore.

Herminius smote down Aruns: Lartius laid Ocnus low: Right to the heart of Lausulus Horatius sent a blow. "Lie there," he cried, "fell pirate! no more, aghast and pale, From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark the track of thy destroying bark. No more Campania's hinds shall fly to woods and caverns when they spy. Thy thrice accursed sail."

But now no sound of laughter was heard among the foes. A wild and wrathful clamor from all the vanguard rose. Six spears' lengths from the entrance halted that deep array, And for a space no man came forth to win the narrow way.

But hark! the cry is Astur: and lo! the ranks divide; And the great Lord of Luna comes with his stately stride. Upon his ample shoulders clangs loud the four-fold shield, And in his hand he shakes the brand which none but he can wield.

He smiled on those bold Romans a smile serene and high; He eyed the flinching Tuscans, and scorn was in his eye. Quoth he, "The she-wolf's litter stand savagely at bay: But will ye dare to follow, if Astur clears the way?" Then, whirling up his broadsword with both hands to the height, He rush'd against Horatius, and smote with all his might. With shield and blade Horatius right deftly turn'd the blow. The blow, though turn'd, came yet too nigh; it miss'd his helm, but gash'd his thigh: The Tuscans raised a joyful cry to see the red blood flow. He reel'd, and on Herminius he lean'd one breathing-space; Then, like a wild-cat mad with wounds, sprang right at Astur's face. Through teeth, and skull, and helmet, so fierce a thrust he sped, The good sword stood a hand-breadth out behind the Tuscan's head. And the great Lord of Luna fell at that deadly stroke, As falls on Mount Alvernus a thunder-smitten oak. Far o'er the crashing forest the giant arms lie spread; And the pale augurs, muttering low, gaze on the blasted head. On Astur's throat Horatius right firmly press'd his heel, And thrice and four times tugg'd amain, ere he wrench'd out the steel. "And see," he cried, "the welcome, fair guests, that waits you here! What noble Lucumo comes next to taste our Roman cheer?"

But at his haughty challenge a sullen murmur ran, Mingled of wrath, and shame, and dread, along that glittering van. There lack'd not men of prowess, nor men of lordly race; For all Etruria's noblest were round the fatal place. But all Etruria's noblest felt their hearts sink to see On the earth the bloody corpses, in the path the dauntless Three: And, from the ghastly entrance where those bold Romans stood, All shrank, like boys who unaware, ranging the woods to start a hare, Come to the mouth of the dark lair where, growling low, a fierce old bear Lies amidst bones and blood. Was none who would be foremost to lead such dire attack: But those behind cried "Forward!" and those before cried "Back!" And backward now and forward wavers the deep array; And on the tossing sea of steel, to and fro the standards reel; And the victorious trumpet-peal dies fitfully away.

Yet one man for one moment stood out before the crowd; Well known was he to all the Three, and they gave him greeting loud. "Now welcome, welcome, Sextus! now welcome to thy home! Why dost thou stay, and turn away? here lies the road to Rome." Thrice look'd he at the city; thrice look'd he at the dead; And thrice came on in fury, and thrice turn'd back in dread; And, white with fear and hatred, scowl'd at the narrow way Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, the bravest Tuscans lay.

But meanwhile axe and lever have manfully been plied; And now the bridge hangs tottering above the boiling tide. "Come back, come back, Horatius!" loud cried the Fathers all. "Back, Lartius! back, Herminius! back, ere the ruin fall!" Back darted Spurius Lartius; Herminius darted back: And, as they pass'd, beneath their feet they felt the timbers crack. But when they turn'd their faces, and on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, they would have cross'd once more. But with a crash like thunder fell every loosen'd beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck lay right athwart the stream: And a long shout of triumph rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret-tops was splash'd the yellow foam. And, like a horse unbroken when first he feels the rein, The furious river struggled hard, and toss'd his tawny mane, And burst the curb, and bounded, rejoicing to be free, And whirling down, in fierce career, battlement, and plank, and pier, Rush'd headlong to the sea.

Alone stood brave Horatius, but constant still in mind; Thrice thirty thousand foes before, and the broad flood behind. "Down with him!" cried false Sextus, with a smile on his pale face. "Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, "now yield thee to our grace." Round turn'd he, as not deigning those craven ranks to see; Nought spake he to Lars Porsena, to Sextus nought spake he; But he saw on Palatinus the white porch of his home; And he spake to the noble river that rolls by the towers of Rome. "O Tiber! father Tiber! to whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, take thou in charge this day!" So he spake, and speaking sheathed the good sword by his side, And with his harness on his back plunged headlong in the tide.

No sound of joy or sorrow was heard from either bank; But friends and foes in dumb surprise, with parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank; And when above the surges they saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, and even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer. But fiercely ran the current, swollen high by months of rain: And fast his blood was flowing, and he was sore in pain, And heavy with his armor, and spent with changing blows: And oft they thought him sinking, but still again he rose. Never, I ween, did swimmer, in such an evil case, Struggle through such a raging flood safe to the landing-place: But his limbs were borne up bravely by the brave heart within, And our good father Tiber bare bravely up his chin.

"Curse on him!" quoth false Sextus; "will not the villain drown? But for this stay, ere close of day we should have sack'd the town!" "Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porsena, "and bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms was never seen before." And now he feels the bottom; now on dry earth he stands; Now round him throng the Fathers to press his gory hands; And now, with shouts and clapping, and noise of weeping loud, He enters through the River-Gate, borne by the joyous crowd.

They gave him of the corn-land, that was of public right, As much as two strong oxen could plough from morn till night; And they made a molten image, and set it up on high, And there it stands unto this day to witness if I lie. It stands in the Comitium, plain for all folk to see; Horatius in his harness, halting upon one knee: And underneath is written, in letters all of gold, How valiantly he kept the bridge in the brave days of old.

And still his name sounds stirring unto the men of Rome, As the trumpet-blast that cries to them to charge the Volscian home; And wives still pray to Juno for boys with hearts as bold As his who kept the bridge so well in the brave days of old. And in the nights of winter, when the cold north-winds blow, And the long howling of the wolves is heard amidst the snow; When round the lonely cottage roars loud the tempest's din, And the good logs of Algidus roar louder yet within; When the oldest cask is open'd, and the largest lamp is lit; When the chestnuts glow in the embers, and the kid turns on the spit; When young and old in circle around the firebrands close; When the girls are weaving baskets, and the lads are shaping bows; When the goodman mends his armor, and trims his helmet's plume; When the goodwife's shuttle merrily goes flashing through the loom; With weeping and with laughter still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge in the brave days of old.

FOOTNOTES:

[L] For the sake of space a change has been made from the usual form of the poem.

LII. THE RAVEN.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.--1809-1849.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder'd, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,-- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door. "'Tis some visitor," I mutter'd, "tapping at my chamber-door,-- Only this, and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wish'd the morrow: vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow,--sorrow for the lost Lenore; For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrill'd me--fill'd me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door,-- Some late visitor, entreating entrance at my chamber-door; This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger: hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber-door, That I scarce was sure I heard you";--here I open'd wide the door;-- Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whisper'd word "Lenore?" This I whisper'd, and an echo murmur'd back the word "Lenore!" Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window-lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore,-- Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore:-- 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepp'd a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopp'd or stay'd he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perch'd above my chamber-door; Perch'd upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber-door;-- Perch'd, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore;-- Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvell'd this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore; For we can not help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was bless'd with seeing bird above his chamber-door,-- Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber-door, With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he utter'd, not a feather then he flutter'd, Till I scarcely more than mutter'd, "Other friends have flown before: On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful Disaster Follow'd fast, and follow'd faster, till his songs one burden bore,-- Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore, Of--'Never--Nevermore.'"

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheel'd a cushion'd seat in front of bird, and bust, and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-- What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore-- Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burn'd into my bosom's core: This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er; But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamp-light gloating o'er, _She_ shall press--ah! nevermore.

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by seraphim, whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee-- Respite, respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, Oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest toss'd thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted, On this home by Horror haunted,--tell me truly, I implore, Is there--_is_ there balm in Gilead? tell me--tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil! By that heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore, Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore,-- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shriek'd, upstarting,-- "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor: And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted--NEVERMORE!

LIII. DAVID SWAN--A FANTASY.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.--1804-1864.

_From_ "TWICE-TOLD TALES."

We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life, and our final destiny. There are innumerable other events, if such they may be called, which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even betraying their near approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan.

We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. Be it enough to say, that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton Academy. After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage-coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a little tuft of maples, with a delightful recess in the midst, and such a fresh bubbling spring, that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons, tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yet rise from the road, after the heavy rain of yesterday; and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drowsily beside him; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead; and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events which he did not dream of.

While he lay sound asleep in the shade, other people were wide-awake, and passed to an fro, afoot, on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by his bed-chamber. Some looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, and knew not that he was there; some merely glanced that way, without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full of scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity upon David Swan. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the recess, and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the texture of his evening's discourse, as an awful instance of dead-drunkenness by the road-side. But censure, praise, merriment, scorn, and indifference, were all one, or rather all nothing, to David Swan.

He had slept only a few moments when a brown carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to a stand-still nearly in front of David's resting-place. A linch-pin had fallen out, and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in the carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel, the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple-trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow; and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown, lest David should start up, all of a sudden.

"How soundly he sleeps!" whispered the old gentleman. "From what a depth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income, for it would suppose health and an untroubled mind."

"And youth besides," said the lady. "Healthy and quiet age does not sleep thus. Our slumber is no more like his than our wakefulness."

The longer they looked, the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the unknown youth, to whom the wayside and the maple shade were as a secret chamber, with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside, so as to intercept it. And having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him.

"Providence seems to have laid him here," whispered she to her husband, "and to have brought us hither to find him, after our disappointment in our cousin's son. Methinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall we waken him?"

"To what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating. "We know nothing of the youth's character."

"That open countenance!" replied his wife, in the same hushed voice, yet earnestly. "This innocent sleep!"

While these whispers were passing, the sleeper's heart did not throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of interest. Yet Fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burthen of gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth, except a distant relative, with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. In such cases, people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician, and awaken a young man to splendor, who fell asleep in poverty.

"Shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady, persuasively.

"The coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind.

The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, mutually wondering that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous. The merchant threw himself back in the carriage, and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business. Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his nap.

The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two, when a pretty young girl came along with a tripping pace, which showed precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry kind of motion that caused--is there any harm in saying it?--her garter to slip its knot. Conscious that the silken girth, if silk it were, was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the shelter of the maple-trees, and there found a young man asleep by the spring! Blushing as red as any rose, that she should have intruded into a gentleman's bed-chamber, and for such a purpose, too, she was about to make her escape on tiptoe. But there was peril near the sleeper. A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead--buzz, buzz, buzz--now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free-hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove him from the maple shade. How sweet a picture! This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath, and a deeper blush, she stole a glance at the youthful stranger, for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air.

"He is handsome!" thought she, and blushed redder yet.

How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him, that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder, and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from his own, and whom, in all his vague but passionate desires, he yearned to meet. Her only could he love with a perfect love--him only could she receive into the depths of her heart--and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain by his side; should it pass away, its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again.

"How sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl.

She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came.

Now, this girl's father was a thriving country merchant in the neighborhood, and happened, at that identical time, to be looking out for just such a young man as David Swan. Had David formed a wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father's clerk, and all else in natural succession. So here, again, had good fortune--the best of fortunes--stolen so near, that her garments brushed against him; and he knew nothing of the matter.

The girl was hardly out of sight, when two men turned aside beneath the maple shade. Both had dark faces, set off by cloth caps, which were drawn down aslant over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartness. These were a couple of rascals, who got their living by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece of villainy on a game of cards, which was to have been decided here under the trees. But, finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow--

"Hist!--Do you see that bundle under his head?"

The other villain nodded, winked, and leered.

"I'll bet you a horn of brandy," said the first, "that the chap has either a pocket-book or a snug little hoard of small change, stowed away amongst his shirts. And if not there, we shall find it in his pantaloons' pocket."

"But how if he wakes?" said the other.

His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk, and nodded.

"So be it!" muttered the second villain.

They approached the unconscious David, and, while one pointed the dagger towards his heart, the other began to search the bundle beneath his head. Their two faces, grim, wrinkled, and ghastly with guilt and fear, bent over their victim, looking horribly enough to be mistaken for fiends, should he suddenly awake. Nay, had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they would hardly have known themselves, as reflected there. But David Swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his mother's breast.

"I must take away the bundle," whispered one.

"If he stirs, I'll strike," muttered the other.

But, at this moment, a dog, scenting along the ground, came in beneath the maple-trees, and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men, and then at the quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of the fountain.

"Pshaw!" said one villain. "We can do nothing now. The dog's master must be close behind."

"Let's take a drink, and be off," said the other.

The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom, and drew forth a pocket-pistol, but not of that kind which kills by a single discharge. It was a flask of liquor, with a block-tin tumbler screwed upon the mouth. Each drank a comfortable dram, and left the spot, with so many jests, and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickedness, that they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing. In a few hours they had forgotten the whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls, in letters as durable as eternity. As for David Swan, he still slept quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him, nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow was withdrawn.

He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour's repose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness with which many hours of toil had burthened it. Now he stirred--now moved his lips, without a sound--now talked in an inward tone to the noonday spectres of his dream. But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed through the dispersing mist of David's slumber--and there was the stage-coach. He started up, with all his ideas about him.

"Hallo, driver! Take a passenger?" shouted he.

"Room on top!" answered the driver.

Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily towards Boston, without so much as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike vicissitude. He knew not that a phantom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters, nor that one of Love had sighed softly to their murmur, nor that one of Death had threatened to crimson them with his blood--all, in the brief hour since he lay down to sleep. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen. Does it not argue a superintending Providence, that, while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves continually athwart our path, there should still be regularity enough in mortal life, to render foresight even

## partially available?

LIV. MY KATE.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.--1809-1861.

She was not as pretty as women I know, And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways, While she's still remember'd on warm and cold days-- My Kate.

Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; You turn'd from the fairest to gaze on her face: And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth-- My Kate.

Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, You look'd at her silence and fancied she spoke: When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone, Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone-- My Kate.

I doubt if she said to you much that could act As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer 'Twas her thinking of others, made you think of her-- My Kate.

She never found fault with you, never implied Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town The children were gladder that pull'd at her gown-- My Kate.

None knelt at her feet confess'd lovers in thrall; They knelt more to God than they used,--that was all; If you praised her as charming, some ask'd what you meant, But the charm of her presence was felt when she went-- My Kate.

The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, She took as she found them, and did them all good: It always was so with her: see what you have! She has made the grass greener even here ... with her grave-- My Kate.

My dear one!--when thou wast alive with the rest, I held thee the sweetest and lov'd thee the best: And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart-- My Kate?

LV. A DEAD ROSE.

MRS. BROWNING.

O Rose, who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft nor sweet, But pale and hard and dry as stubble wheat,-- Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odor up the lane to last all day,-- If breathing now, unsweeten'd would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee, And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn Till beam appear'd to bloom, and flower to burn,-- If shining now, with not a hue would light thee.

The dew that used to wet thee, And, white first, grow incarnadined because It lay upon thee where the crimson was,-- If dropping now, would darken where it met thee.

The fly that 'lit upon thee To stretch the tendrils of its tiny feet Along thy leafs pure edges after heat,-- If 'lighting now, would coldly overrun thee.

The bee that once did suck thee, And build thy perfumed ambers up his hive, And swoon in thee for joy, till scarce alive,-- If passing now, would blindly overlook thee.

The heart doth recognize thee, Alone, alone! the heart doth smell thee sweet, Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete, Perceiving all those changes that disguise thee.

Yes, and the heart doth owe thee More love, dead rose, than to any roses bold Which Julia wears at dances, smiling cold:-- Lie still upon this heart which breaks below thee!

LVI. TO THE EVENING WIND.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.--1794-1878.

Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day, Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow; Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray, And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee To the scorch'd land, thou wanderer of the sea.

Nor I alone;--a thousand bosoms round Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound Livelier at coming of the wind of night; And languishing to hear thy grateful sound, Lies the vast inland stretch'd beyond the sight. Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning from the innumerable boughs The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast; Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'er-shadowing branches sweep the grass.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moisten'd curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, And softly part his curtains to allow Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go,--but the circle of eternal change, Which is the life of nature, shall restore, With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more; Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, Shall tell the homesick mariner of the shore; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall dream He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

LVII.--DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR.[M]

THOMAS CARLYLE.--1795-1881.

_From_ OLIVER CROMWELL'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES.

And so we have now nothing more;--and Oliver has nothing more. His Speakings, and also his Actings, all his manifold Strugglings, more or less victorious, to utter the great God's-Message that was in him,--have here what we call ended. This Summer of 1658, likewise victorious after struggle, is his last in our World of Time. Thenceforth he enters the Eternities; and rests upon his arms _there_.

Oliver's look was yet strong; and young for his years, which were Fifty-nine last April. The "Three-score and ten years," the Psalmist's limit, which probably was often in Oliver's thoughts and in those of others there, might have been anticipated for him: Ten Years more of Life;--which, we may compute, would have given another History to all the Centuries of England. But it was not to be so, it was to be otherwise. Oliver's health, as we might observe, was but uncertain in late times; often "indisposed" the spring before last. His course of life had not been favorable to health! "A burden too heavy for man!" as he himself, with a sigh, would sometimes say. Incessant toil; inconceivable labor, of head and heart and hand; toil, peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near Twenty years now, had done their part: those robust life-energies, it afterwards appeared, had been gradually eaten out. Like a Tower strong to the eye, but with its foundations undermined; which has not long to stand; the fall of which, on any shock, may be sudden.--

The Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi, with their splendors, and congratulations about Dunkirk, interesting to the street-populations and general public, had not yet withdrawn, when at Hampton Court there had begun a private scene, of much deeper and quite opposite interest there. The Lady Claypole, Oliver's favorite Daughter, a favorite of all the world, had fallen sick we know not when; lay sick now,--to death, as it proved. Her disease was of a nature, the painfullest and most harassing to mind and sense, it is understood, that falls to the lot of a human creature. Hampton Court we can fancy once more, in those July days, a house of sorrow; pale Death knocking there, as at the door of the meanest hut. "She had great sufferings, great exercises of spirit." Yes:--and in the depths of the old Centuries, we see a pale anxious Mother, anxious Husband, anxious weeping Sisters, a poor young Frances weeping anew in her weeds. "For the last fourteen days" his Highness had been by her bedside at Hampton Court, unable to attend to any public business whatever. Be still, my Child; trust thou yet in God: in the waves of the Dark River, there too is He a God of help!--On the 6th day of August she lay dead; at rest forever. My young, my beautiful, my brave! She is taken from me; I am left bereaved of her. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the Name of the Lord!--...

In the same dark days, occurred George Fox's third and last interview with Oliver.--.... George dates nothing; and his facts everywhere lie round him like the leather-parings of his old shop: but we judge it may have been about the time when the Manzinis and the Ducs de Crequi were parading in their gilt coaches, That George and two Friends "going out of Town," on a summer day, "two of Hacker's men" had met them,--taken them, brought them to the Mews. "Prisoners there awhile:"--but the Lord's power was over Hacker's men; they had to let us go. Whereupon:

"The same day, taking boat I went down" (_up_) "to Kingston, and from thence to Hampton Court, to speak with the Protector about the Sufferings of Friends. I met him riding into Hampton-Court Park; and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his Lifeguard, I saw and felt a waft" (_whiff_) "of death go forth against him."----Or in favor of him, George? His life, if thou knew it, has not been a merry thing for this man, now or heretofore! I fancy he has been looking, this long while, to give it up, whenever the Commander-in-Chief required. To quit his laborious sentry-post; honorably lay-up his arms, and be gone to his rest:--all Eternity to rest in, O George! Was thy own life merry, for example, in the hollow of the tree; clad permanently in leather? And does kingly purple, and governing refractory worlds instead of stitching coarse shoes, make it merrier? The waft of death is not against _him_, I think,--perhaps against thee, and me, and others, O George, when the Nell-Gwynn Defender and Two Centuries of all-victorious Cant have come in upon us! My unfortunate George----"a waft of death go forth against him; and when I came to him, he looked like a dead man. After I had laid the Sufferings of Friends before him, and had warned him according as I was moved to speak to him, he bade me come to his house. So I returned to Kingston; and, the next day, went up to Hampton Court to speak farther with him. But when I came, Harvey, who was one that waited on him, told me the Doctors were not willing that I should speak with him. So I passed away, and never saw him more."

Friday the 20th of August 1658, this was probably the day on which George Fox saw Oliver riding into Hampton Park with his Guards, for the last time. That Friday, as we find, his Highness seemed much better: but on the morrow a sad change had taken place; feverish symptoms, for which the Doctors rigorously prescribed quiet. Saturday to Tuesday the symptoms continued ever worsening: a kind of tertian ague, "bastard tertian" as the old Doctors name it; for which it was ordered that his Highness should return to Whitehall, as to a more favorable air in that complaint. On Tuesday accordingly he quitted Hampton Court;--never to see it more.

"His time was come," says Harvey; "and neither prayers nor tears could prevail with God to lengthen out his life and continue him longer to us. Prayers abundantly and incessantly poured out on his behalf, both publicly and privately, as was observed, in a more than ordinary way. Besides many a secret sigh,--secret and unheard by men, yet like the cry of Moses, more loud, and strongly laying hold on God, than many spoken supplications. All which,--the hearts of God's People being thus mightily stirred up,--did seem to beget confidence in some, and hopes in all; yea some thoughts in himself, that God would restore him."

"Prayers public and private:" they are worth imagining to ourselves. Meetings of Preachers, Chaplains, and Godly Persons; "Owen, Goodwin, Sterry, with a company of others, in an adjoining room"; in Whitehall, and elsewhere over religious London and England, fervent outpourings of many a loyal heart. For there were hearts to whom the nobleness of this man was known; and his worth to the Puritan Cause was evident. Prayers,--strange enough to us; in a dialect fallen obsolete, forgotten now. Authentic wrestlings of ancient Human Souls,--who were alive then, with their affections, awestruck pieties; with their Human Wishes, risen to be _transcendent_, hoping to prevail with the Inexorable. All swallowed now in the depths of dark Time; which is full of such, since the beginning!--Truly it is a great scene of World-History, this in old Whitehall: Oliver Cromwell drawing nigh to his end. The exit of Oliver Cromwell and of English Puritanism; a great Light, one of our few authentic Solar Luminaries, going down now amid the clouds of Death. Like the setting of a great victorious Summer Sun; its course now finished. "_So stirbt ein Held_," says Schiller, "So dies a Hero! Sight worthy to be worshipped!"--He died, this Hero Oliver, in Resignation to God; as the Brave have all done. "We could not be more desirous he should abide," says the pious Harvey, "than he was content and willing to be gone." The struggle lasted, amid hope and fear, for ten days....

On Monday August 30th, there roared and howled all day a mighty storm of wind.... It was on this stormy Monday, while rocking winds, heard in the sickroom and everywhere, were piping aloud, that Thurloe and an Official person entered to enquire, Who, in case of the worst, was to be his Highness's Successor? The Successor is named in a sealed Paper already drawn-up, above a year ago, at Hampton Court; now lying in such and such a place. The Paper was sent for, searched for; it could never be found. Richard's is the name understood to have been written in that Paper: not a good name; but in fact one does not know. In ten years' time, had ten years more been granted, Richard might have become a fitter man; might have been cancelled, if palpably unfit. Or perhaps it was Fleetwood's name,--and the Paper, by certain parties, was stolen? None knows. On the Thursday night following, "and not till then," his Highness is understood to have formally named "Richard",--or perhaps it might only be some heavy-laden "Yes, yes!" spoken, out of the thick death-slumbers, in answer to Thurloe's _question_ "Richard?" The thing is a little uncertain. It was, once more, a matter of much moment;--giving color probably to all the subsequent Centuries of England, this answer!--...

Thursday night the Writer of our old Pamphlet [Harvey] was himself in attendance on his Highness; and has preserved a trait or two; with which let us hasten to conclude. Tomorrow is September Third, always kept as a Thanksgiving day, since the Victories of Dunbar and Worcester. The wearied one, "that very night before the Lord took him to his everlasting rest," was heard thus, with oppressed voice, speaking:

"'Truly God is good; indeed He is; He will not'----Then his speech failed him, but as I apprehended, it was, 'He will not leave me.' This saying, 'God is good,' he frequently used all along; and would speak it with much cheerfulness, and fervor of spirit, in the midst of his pains.--Again he said: 'I would be willing to live to be farther serviceable to God and His People: but my work is done. Yet God will be with His People.'

"He was very restless most part of the night, speaking often to himself. And there being something to drink offered him, he was desired To take the same, and endeavor to sleep.--Unto which he answered: 'It is not my design to drink or sleep; but my design is, to make what haste I can to be gone.'--

"Afterwards, towards morning, he used divers holy expressions, implying much inward consolation and peace; among the rest he spake some exceeding self-debasing words, _annihilating_ and judging himself. And truly it was observed, that a public spirit to God's Cause did breathe in him,--as in his lifetime, so now to his very last."

When the morrow's sun rose, Oliver was speechless; between three and four in the afternoon, he lay dead. Friday 3rd September 1658. "The consternation and astonishment of all people," writes Fauconberg, "are inexpressible; their hearts seem as if sunk within them. My poor Wife,--I know not what on earth to do with her. When seemingly quieted, she bursts out again into a passion that tears her very heart in pieces."--Husht, poor weeping Mary! Here is a Life-battle right nobly done. Seest thou not,

"The storm is changed into a calm, At His command and will; So that the waves which raged before Now quiet are and still!

"Then are _they_ glad,--because at rest And quiet now they be: So to the haven He them brings Which they desired to see."

"Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord;" blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord. "Amen, saith the Spirit,"--Amen. "They do rest from their labors, and their works follow them."

"Their works follow them." As, I think, this Oliver Cromwell's works have done and are still doing! We have had our "Revolutions of Eighty-eight," officially called "glorious"; and other Revolutions not yet called glorious; and somewhat has been gained for poor Mankind. Men's ears are not now slit-off by rash Officiality; Officiality will, for long henceforth, be more cautious about men's ears. The tyrannous Star-chambers, branding-irons, chimerical Kings and Surplices at All-hallowtide, they are gone, or with immense velocity going. Oliver's works do follow him!--The works of a man, bury them under what guano-mountains and obscene owl-droppings you will, do not perish, cannot perish. What of Heroism, what of Eternal Light was in a Man and his Life, is with very great exactness added to the Eternities; remains forever a new divine portion of the Sum of Things; and no owl's voice, this way or that, in the least avails in the matter.--But we have to end here.

Oliver is gone; and with him England's Puritanism, laboriously built together by this man, and made a thing far-shining, miraculous to its own Century, and memorable to all the Centuries, soon goes. Puritanism, without its King, is _kingless_, anarchic; falls into dislocation, self-collision; staggers, plunges into ever deeper anarchy; King, Defender of the Puritan Faith there can now none be found;--and nothing is left but to recall the old disowned Defender with the remnants of his Four Surplices, and Two Centuries of _Hypocrisis_ (or Play-acting _not_ so-called), and put-up with all that, the best we may. The Genius of England no longer soars Sunward, world-defiant, like an Eagle through the storms, "mewing her mighty youth," as John Milton saw her do: the Genius of England, much liker a greedy Ostrich intent on provender and a whole skin mainly, stands with its _other_ extremity Sunward; with its Ostrich-head stuck into the readiest bush, of old Church-tippets, King-cloaks, or what other "sheltering Fallacy" there may be, and _so_ awaits the issue. The issue has been slow; but it is now seen to have been inevitable. No Ostrich, intent on gross terrene provender, and sticking its head into Fallacies, but will be awakened one day,--in a terrible _a-posteriori_ manner, if not otherwise!----Awake before it come to that; gods and men bid us awake! The Voices of our Fathers, with thousand-fold stern monition to one and all, bid us awake.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] The author's use of capital letters and punctuation marks has been retained.

LVIII. EACH AND ALL.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.--1803-1882.

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloak'd clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down; The heifer that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, While his files sweep round yon Alpine height; Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one-- Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home in his nest, at even, He sings the song, but it pleases not now; For I did not bring home the river and sky; He sang to my ear--they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam-- I fetch'd my sea-born treasures home; But the poor unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore, With the sun and the sand, and the wild uproar.

The lover watch'd his graceful maid, As 'mid the virgin train she stray'd; Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; The gay enchantment was undone-- A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhoods cheat-- I leave it behind with the games of youth." As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burrs; I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; Over me soar'd the eternal sky, Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird; Beauty through my senses stole-- I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

LIX. WATERLOO.

CHARLES JAMES LEVER.--1806-1872.

_From_ CHARLES O'MALLEY.

"This is the officer that I spoke of," said an aid-de-camp, as he rode up to where I was standing, bare-headed and without a sword. "He has just made his escape from the French lines, and will be able to give your lordship some information."

The handsome features and gorgeous costume of Lord Uxbridge were known to me; but I was not aware, till afterwards, that a soldierlike, resolute looking officer beside him, was General Graham. It was the latter who first addressed me.

"Are you aware, Sir," said he, "if Grouchy's force is arrived?"

"They had not: on the contrary, shortly before I escaped, an aid-de-camp was despatched to Gembloux, to hasten his coming. And the troops, for they must be troops, debouching from the wood yonder--they seem to form a junction with the corps to the right--they are the Prussians. They arrived there before noon from St. Lambert, and are part of Buelow's corps. Count Loebau and his division of ten thousand men were despatched, about an hour since, to hold them in check."

"This is great news," said Lord Uxbridge. "Fitzroy must know it at once."

So saying he dashed spurs into his horse, and soon disappeared amid the crowd on the hill top.

"You had better see the Duke, Sir," said Graham: "your information is too important to be delayed. Captain Calvert, let this officer have a horse; his own is too tired to go much further."

"And a cap, I beg of you," added I, in an under tone; "for I have already found a sabre."

By a slight circuitous route, we reached the road upon which a mass of dismounted artillery-carts, baggage-wagons, and tumbrils, were heaped together as a barricade against the attack of the French dragoons, who more than once had penetrated to the very crest of our position. Close to this, and on a little rising ground, from which a view of the entire field extended from Hougoumont to the far left, the Duke of Wellington stood, surrounded by his staff. His eye was bent upon the valley before him, where the advancing columns of Ney's attack still pressed onwards; while the fire of sixty great guns poured death and carnage into his lines. The second Belgian division, routed and broken, had fallen back upon the twenty-seventh regiment, who had merely time to throw themselves into square, when Milhaud's cuirassiers, armed with a terrible long straight sword, came sweeping down upon them. A line of impassable bayonets, a living _chevaux-de-frise_ of the best blood of Britain, stood firm and motionless before the shock: the French _mitraille_ played mercilessly on the ranks; but the chasms were filled up like magic, and in vain the bold horsemen of Gaul galloped round the bristling files. At length the word "fire!" was heard within the square, and as the bullets at pistol range rattled upon them, the cuirass afforded them no defence against the deadly volley. Men and horses rolled indiscriminately upon the earth: then would come a charge of our dashing squadrons, who, riding recklessly upon the foe, were, in their turn, to be repulsed by numbers, when fresh attacks would pour down upon our unshaken infantry.

"That column yonder is wavering: why does he not bring up his supporting squadrons?" inquired the Duke, pointing to a Belgian regiment of light dragoons, who were formed in the same brigade with the seventh hussars.

"He refuses to oppose his light cavalry to cuirassiers, my lord," said an aid-de-camp, who had just returned from the division in question.

"Tell him to march his men off the ground," said the Duke, with a quiet and impassive tone.

In less than ten minutes the regiment was seen to defile from the mass, and take the road to Brussels, to increase the panic of that city, by circulating and strengthening the report, that the English were beaten,--and Napoleon in full march upon the capital.

"What's Ney's force? can you guess, Sir?" said Lord Wellington turning to me.

"About twelve thousand men, my lord."

"Are the Guard among them?"

"No, Sir; the Guard are in reserve above La Belle Alliance."

"In what part of the field is Buonaparte?"

"Nearly opposite to where we stand."

"I told you, gentlemen, Hougoumont never was the great attack. The battle must be decided here," pointing, as he spoke, to the plain beneath us, where still Ney poured on his devoted columns, where yet the French cavalry rode down upon our firm squares.

As he spoke an aid-de-camp rode up from the valley.

"The ninety-second requires support, my lord: they cannot maintain their positions half an hour longer, without it."

"Have they given way, Sir?"

"No----"

"Well, then, they must stand where they are. I hear cannon towards the left; yonder, near Frischermont."

At this moment the light cavalry swept past the base of the hill on which we stood, hotly followed by the French heavy cuirassier brigade. Three of our guns were taken; and the cheering of the French infantry, as they advanced to the charge, presaged their hope of victory.

"Do it, then," said the Duke, in reply to some whispered question of Lord Uxbridge; and shortly after the heavy trot of advancing squadrons was heard behind.

They were the Life Guards and the Blues, who, with the first Dragoon Guards and the Enniskilleners, were formed into close column.

"I know the ground, my Lord," said I to Lord Uxbridge.

"Come along, Sir, come along," said he, as he threw his hussar jacket loosely behind him, to give freedom to his sword-arm.--"Forward, my men, forward; but steady, hold your horses in hand; threes about, and together charge."

"Charge!" he shouted; while, as the word flew from squadron to squadron, each horseman bent upon his saddle, and that mighty mass, as though instinct with but one spirit, dashed like a thunder-bolt upon the column beneath them. The French, blown and exhausted, inferior beside in weight both of man and horse, offered but a short resistance. As the tall corn bends beneath the sweeping hurricane, wave succeeding wave, so did the steel-clad squadrons of France fall before the nervous arm of Britain's cavalry. Onward they went, carrying death and ruin before them, and never stayed their course, until the guns were recaptured, and the cuirassiers, repulsed, disordered, and broken, had retired beneath the protection of their artillery.

There was, as a brilliant and eloquent writer on the subject mentions, a terrible sameness in the whole of this battle. Incessant charges of cavalry upon the squares of our infantry, whose sole manoeuvre consisted in either deploying into line to resist the attack of infantry, or falling back into square when the cavalry advanced--performing those two evolutions under the devastating fire of artillery, before the unflinching heroism of that veteran infantry whose glories had been reaped upon the blood-stained fields of Austerlitz, Marengo, and Wagram--or opposing an unbroken front to the whirlwind swoop of infuriated cavalry;--such were the enduring and devoted services demanded from the English troops, and such they failed not to render. Once or twice had temper nearly failed them, and the cry ran through the ranks, "Are we never to move forward?--Only let us at them!" But the word was not yet spoken which was to undam the pent-up torrent, and bear down with unrelenting vengeance upon the now exulting columns of the enemy.

It was six o'clock: the battle had continued with unchanged fortune for three hours. The French, masters of La Haye Sainte, could never advance further into our position. They had gained the orchard of Hougoumont, but the chateau was still held by the British Guards, although its blazing roof and crumbling walls made its occupation rather the desperate stand of unflinching valor than the maintenance of an important position. The smoke which hung upon the field rolled in slow and heavy masses back upon the French lines, and gradually discovered to our view the entire of the army. We quickly perceived that a change was taking place in their position. The troops which on their left stretched far beyond Hougoumont, were now moved nearer to the centre. The attack upon the chateau seemed less vigorously supported, while the oblique direction of their right wing, which, pivoting upon Planchenoit, opposed a face to the Prussians,--all denoted a change in their order of battle. It was now the hour when Napoleon was at last convinced that nothing but the carnage he could no longer support could destroy the unyielding ranks of British infantry; that although Hougoumont had been

## partially, La Haye Sainte, completely, won; that although upon the right

the farm-houses Papelotte and La Haye were nearly surrounded by his troops, which with any other army must prove the forerunner of defeat: yet still the victory was beyond his grasp. The bold stratagems, whose success the experience of a life had proved, were here to be found powerless. The decisive manoeuvre of carrying one important point of the enemy's lines, of turning him upon the flank, or piercing him through the centre, were here found impracticable. He might launch his avalanche of grape-shot, he might pour down his crashing columns of cavalry, he might send forth the iron storm of his brave infantry; but, though death in every shape heralded their approach, still were others found to fill the fallen ranks, and feed with their heart's blood the unslaked thirst for slaughter. Well might the gallant leader of this gallant host, as he watched the reckless onslaught of the untiring enemy, and looked upon the unflinching few, who, bearing the proud badge of Britain, alone sustained the fight, well might he exclaim, "Night, or Bluecher!"

It was now seven o'clock, when a dark mass was seen to form upon the heights above the French centre, and divide into three gigantic columns, of which the right occupied the Brussels road. These were the reserves, consisting of the Old and Young Guards, and amounting to twelve thousand--the _elite_ of the French army--reserved by the Emperor for a great _coup-de-main_. These veterans of a hundred battles had been stationed, from the beginning of the day, inactive spectators of the fight; their hour was now come, and, with a shout of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" which rose triumphantly over the din and crash of battle, they began their march. Meanwhile, aids-de-camp galloped along the lines, announcing the arrival of Grouchy, to reanimate the drooping spirits of the men; for, at last, a doubt of victory was breaking upon the minds of those who never before, in the most adverse hour of fortune, deemed _his_ star could set that led them on to glory.

"They are coming: the attack will be made on the centre, my lord," said Lord Fitzroy Somerset, as he directed his glass upon the column. Scarcely had he spoke when the telescope fell from his hand, as his arm, shattered by a French bullet, fell motionless to his side.

"I see it," was the cool reply of the Duke, as he ordered the Guards to deploy into line, and lie down behind the ridge, which now the French artillery had found the range of, and were laboring at with their guns. In front of them the fifty-second, seventy-first, and ninety-fifth were formed; the artillery, stationed above and partly upon the road, loaded with grape, and waited but the word to open.

It was an awful, a dreadful moment: the Prussian cannon thundered on our left; but so desperate was the French resistance, they made but little progress: the dark columns of the Guard had now commenced the ascent, and the artillery ceased their fire as the bayonets of the grenadiers showed themselves upon the slope. Then began that tremendous cheer from right to left of our line which those who heard never can forget. It was the impatient, long-restrained burst of unslaked vengeance. With the instinct which valor teaches, they knew the hour of trial was come; and that wild cry flew from rank to rank, echoing from the blood-stained walls of Hougoumont to the far-off valley of La Papelotte. "They come! they come!" was the cry; and the shout of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" mingled with the outburst of the British line.

Under an overwhelming shower of grape, to which succeeded a charge of cavalry of the Imperial Guard, the head of Ney's column fired its volley and advanced with the bayonet. The British artillery now opened at half range, and although the plunging fire scathed and devastated the dark ranks of the Guards, on they came,--Ney himself, on foot, at their head. Twice the leading division of that gallant column turned completely round, as the withering fire wasted and consumed them; but they were resolved to win.

Already they had gained the crest of the hill, and the first line of the British were falling back before them. The artillery closes up; the flanking fire from the guns upon the road opens upon them; the head of their column breaks like a shell; the Duke seizes the moment, and advances on foot towards the ridge.

"Up, Guards, and at them!" he cried.

The hour of triumph and vengeance had arrived. In a moment the Guards were on their feet; one volley was poured in; the bayonets were brought to the charge; they closed upon the enemy: then was seen the most dreadful struggle that the history of all war can present. Furious with long restrained passion, the guards rushed upon the leading divisions; the seventy-first, and ninety-fifth, and twenty-sixth overlapped them on the flanks. Their generals fell thickly on every side; Michel, Jamier, and Mallet are killed: Friant lies wounded upon the ground; Ney, his dress pierced and ragged with balls, shouts still to advance; but the leading files waver; they fall back; the supporting divisions thicken; confusion, panic succeeds; the British press down; the cavalry come galloping up to their assistance; and, at last, pell-mell, overwhelmed and beaten, the French fall back upon the Old Guard. This was the decisive moment of the day;--the Duke closed his glass, as he said:

"The field is won. Order the whole line to advance."

On they came, four deep, and poured like a torrent from the height.

"Let the Life Guards charge them," said the Duke; but every aid-de-camp on his staff was wounded, and I myself brought the order to Lord Uxbridge.

Lord Uxbridge had already anticipated his orders, and bore down with four regiments of heavy cavalry upon the French centre. The Prussian artillery thundered upon their flank, and at their rear. The British bayonet was in their front; while a panic fear spread through their ranks, and the cry "_Sauve qui peut!_" resounded on all sides. In vain Ney, the bravest of the brave; in vain Soult, Bertrand, Gourgaud, and Labedoyere, burst from the broken disorganized mass, and called on them to stand fast. A battalion of the Old Guard, with Cambronne at their head, alone obeyed the summons: forming into square, they stood between the pursuers and their prey, offering themselves a sacrifice to the tarnished honor of their arms: to the order to surrender, they answered with a cry of defiance; and, as our cavalry, flushed and elated with victory, rode round their bristling ranks, no quailing look, no craven spirit was there. The Emperor himself endeavored to repair the disaster; he rode with lightening speed hither and thither, commanding, ordering, nay imploring too; but already the night was falling, the confusion became each moment more inextricable, and the effort was a fruitless one. A regiment of the Guards, and two batteries were in reserve behind Planchenoit; he threw them rapidly into position; but the overwhelming impulse of flight drove the mass upon them, and they were carried away upon the torrent of the beaten army. No sooner did the Emperor see this his last hope desert him, than he dismounted from his horse, and, drawing his sword, threw himself into a square, which the first regiment of chasseurs of the Old Guard had formed with a remnant of the battalion; Jerome followed him, as he called out:

"You are right, brother: here should perish all who bear the name of Buonaparte."

The same moment the Prussian light artillery rend the ranks asunder, and the cavalry charge down upon the scattered fragments. A few of his staff, who never left him, place the Emperor upon a horse,--and fly.

* * * * *

_Wellington, Thy great work is but begun! With quick seed his end is rife Whose long tale of conquering strife Shows no triumph like his life Lost and won._

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.--1828-1882. _On Wellington's Funeral, Nov. 18th, 1852._

LX. THE DIVER.

EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON.--1805-1873.

_Translated from the German of Schiller_.

"O where is the knight or the squire so bold As to dive to the howling Charybdis below?-- I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold, And o'er it already the dark waters flow; Whoever to me may the goblet bring, Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king."

He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep, That, rugged and hoary, hung over the verge Of the endless and measureless world of the deep, Swirl'd into the maelstrom that madden'd the surge. "And where is the diver so stout to go-- I ask ye again--to the deep below?"

And the knights and the squires that gather'd around, Stood silent--and fix'd on the ocean their eyes; They look'd on the dismal and savage profound, And the peril chill'd back every thought of the prize. And thrice spoke the monarch: "The cup to win, Is there never a wight who will venture in?"

And all as before heard in silence the king, Till a youth with an aspect unfearing but gentle, 'Mid the tremulous squires stepp'd out from the ring, Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle; And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder, On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder.

As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave One glance on the gulf of that merciless main, Lo! the wave that for ever devours the wave, Casts roaringly up the Charybdis again: And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom, Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom.

And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars, As when fire is with water commix'd and contending, And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars, And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending; And it never _will_ rest, nor from travail be free, Like a sea that is laboring the birth of a sea.

Yet, at length, comes a lull o'er the mighty commotion, And dark through the whiteness, and still through the swell, The whirlpool cleaves downward and downward in ocean A yawning abyss, like the pathway to hell; The stiller and darker the farther it goes, Suck'd into that smoothness the breakers repose.

The youth gave his trust to his Maker! Before That path through the riven abyss closed again, Hark! a shriek from the gazers that circle the shore,-- And, behold! he is whirl'd in the grasp of the main! And o'er him the breakers mysteriously roll'd, And the giant-mouth closed on the swimmer so bold.

All was still on the height, save the murmur that went From the grave of the deep, sounding hollow and fell, Or save when the tremulous, sighing lament Thrill'd from lip unto lip, "Gallant youth, fare thee well!" More hollow and more wails the deep on the ear,-- More dread and more dread grows suspense in its fear.

--If thou shouldst in those waters thy diadem fling, And cry, "Who may find it shall win it and wear"; God wot, though the prize were the crown of a king, A crown at such hazard were valued too dear. For never shall lips of the living reveal What the deeps that howl yonder in terror conceal.

Oh, many a bark, to that breast grappled fast, Has gone down to the fearful and fathomless grave; Again, crash'd together the keel and the mast, To be seen toss'd aloft in the glee of the wave!-- Like the growth of a storm ever louder and clearer, Grows the roar of the gulf rising nearer and nearer.

And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars, As when fire is with water commix'd and contending; And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars, And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending, And as with the swell of the far thunder-boom, Rushes roaringly forth from the heart of the gloom.

And, lo! from the heart of that far-floating gloom, Like the wing of the cygnet--what gleams on the sea? Lo! an arm and a neck glancing up from the tomb! Steering stalwart and shoreward: O joy, it is he! The left hand is lifted in triumph; behold, It waves as a trophy the goblet of gold!

And he breathed deep, and he breathed long, And he greeted the heavenly light of the day. They gaze on each other,--they shout as they throng, "He lives--lo, the ocean has render'd its prey! And safe from the whirlpool, and free from the grave, Comes back to the daylight the soul of the brave!"

And he comes, with the crowd in their clamor and glee; And the goblet his daring has won from the water He lifts to the king as he sinks on his knee And the king from her maidens has beckon'd his daughter. She pours to the boy the bright wine which they bring, And thus spoke the diver; "Long life to the King!

"Happy they whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice, The air and the sky that to mortals are given! May the horror below nevermore find a voice,-- Nor man stretch too far the wide mercy of Heaven! Nevermore,--nevermore may he lift from the sight The veil which is woven with terror and night!

"Quick brightening like lightning the ocean rush'd o'er me, Wild floating, borne down fathom-deep from the day; Till a torrent rush'd out on the torrents that bore me, And doubled the tempest that whirl'd me away. Vain, vain was my struggle,--the circle had won me, Round and round in its dance the mad element spun me.

"From the deep then I call'd upon God, and He heard me; In the dread of my need, He vouchsafed to mine eye A rock jutting out from the grave that interr'd me; I sprung there, I clung there,--and death pass'd me by. And, lo! where the goblet gleam'd through the abyss, By a coral reef saved from the far Fathomless.

"Below, at the foot of that precipice drear, Spread the gloomy and purple and pathless Obscure! A silence of horror that slept on the ear, That the eye more appall'd might the horror endure; Salamander, snake, dragon--vast reptiles that dwell In the deep--coil'd about the grim jaws of their hell.

"Dark crawl'd, glided dark, the unspeakable swarms, Clump'd together in masses, misshapen and vast; Here clung and here bristled the fashionless forms; Here the dark-moving bulk of the hammer-fish pass'd; And, with teeth grinning white, and a menacing motion, Went the terrible shark,--the hyena of ocean.

"There I hung, and the awe gather'd icily o'er me, So far from the earth, where man's help there was none! The one human thing, with the goblins before me-- Alone--in a loneness so ghastly--ALONE! Deep under the reach of the sweet living breath, And begirt with the broods of the desert of Death.

"Methought, as I gazed through the darkness, that now IT saw--a dread hundred-limb'd creature--its prey! And darted, devouring; I sprang from the bough Of the coral, and swept on the horrible way; And the whirl of the mighty wave seized me once more, It seized me to save me, and dash to the shore."

On the youth gazed the monarch, and marvell'd: quoth he, "Bold diver, the goblet I promised is thine; And this ring I will give, a fresh guerdon to thee-- Never jewels more precious shone up from the mine-- If thou'lt bring me fresh tidings, and venture again, To say what lies hid in the _innermost_ main."

Then out spake the daughter in tender emotion: "Ah! father, my father, what more can there rest? Enough of this sport with the pitiless ocean: He has serv'd thee as none would, thyself hast confest. If nothing can slake thy wild thirst of desire, Let thy knights put to shame the exploit of the squire!"

The king seized the goblet, he swung it on high, And whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide; "But bring back that goblet again to my eye, And I'll hold thee the dearest that rides by my side; And thine arms shall embrace as thy bride, I decree, The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee."

And Heaven, as he listen'd, spoke out from the space, And the hope that makes heroes shot flame from his eyes; He gazed on the blush in that beautiful face-- It pales--at the feet of her father she lies! How priceless the guerdon!--a moment--a breath-- And headlong he plunges to life and to death!

They hear the loud surges sweep back in their swell, Their coming the thunder-sound heralds along! Fond eyes yet are tracking the spot where he fell. They come, the wild waters, in tumult and throng, Roaring up to the cliff,--roaring back as before, But no wave ever brings the lost youth to the shore!

LXI. THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS.

CARDINAL NEWMAN.--1801-

_From_ CALLISTA.

Juba's finger was directed to a spot where, amid the thick foliage, the gleam of a pool or of a marsh was visible. The various waters round about, issuing from the gravel, or drained from the nightly damps, had run into a hollow, filled with the decaying vegetation of former years. Its banks were bordered with a deep, broad layer of mud, a transition substance between the rich vegetable matter which it once had been, and the multitudinous world of insect life which it was becoming. A cloud or mist at this time was hanging over it, high in air. A harsh and shrill sound, a whizzing or a chirping, proceeded from that cloud to the ear of the attentive listener. What these indications portended was plain....

The plague of locusts, one of the most awful visitations to which the countries included in the Roman empire were exposed, extended from the Atlantic to Ethiopia, from Arabia to India, and from the Nile and Red Sea to Greece and the north of Asia Minor. Instances are recorded in history of clouds of the devastating insect crossing the Black Sea to Poland, and the Mediterranean to Lombardy. It is as numerous in its species as it is wide in its range of territory. Brood follows brood, with a sort of family likeness, yet with distinct attributes. It wakens into existence and activity as early as the month of March; but instances are not wanting, as in our present history, of its appearance as late as June. Even one flight comprises myriads upon myriads passing imagination, to which the drops of rain or the sands of the sea are the only fit comparison; and hence it is almost a proverbial mode of expression in the East, by way of describing a vast invading army, to liken it to the locusts. So dense are they, when upon the wing, that it is no exaggeration to say that they hide the sun, from which circumstance indeed their name in Arabic is derived. And so ubiquitous are they when they have alighted on the earth, that they simply cover or clothe its surface.

This last characteristic is stated in the sacred account of the plagues of Egypt, where their faculty of devastation is also mentioned. The corrupting fly and the bruising and prostrating hail preceded them in that series of visitations, but _they_ came to do the work of ruin more thoroughly. For not only the crops and fruits, but the foliage of the forest itself, nay, the small twigs and the bark of the trees are the victims of their curious and energetic rapacity. They have been known even to gnaw the door-posts of the houses. Nor do they execute their task in so slovenly a way, that, as they have succeeded other plagues, so they may have successors themselves. They take pains to spoil what they leave. Like the Harpies, they smear every thing that they touch with a miserable slime, which has the effect of a virus in corroding, or as some say, in scorching and burning. And then, perhaps, as if all this were little, when they can do nothing else, they die; as if out of sheer malevolence to man, for the poisonous elements of their nature are then let loose and dispersed abroad, and create a pestilence; and they manage to destroy many more by their death than in their life.

Such are the locusts. And now they are rushing upon a considerable tract of that beautiful region of which we have spoken with such admiration. The swarm to which Juba pointed grew and grew till it became a compact body, as much as a furlong square; yet it was but the vanguard of a series of similar hosts, formed one after another out of the hot mould or sand, rising into the air like clouds, enlarging into a dusky canopy, and then discharged against the fruitful plain. At length the huge innumerous mass was put into motion, and began its career, darkening the face of day. As became an instrument of divine power, it seemed to have no volition of its own; it was set off, it drifted, with the wind, and thus made northwards, straight for Sicca. Thus they advanced, host after host, for a time wafted on the air, and gradually declining to the earth, while fresh broods were carried over the first, and neared the earth, after a longer flight, in their turn. For twelve miles did they extend from front to rear, and their whizzing and hissing could be heard for six miles on every side of them. The bright sun, though hidden by them, illumined their bodies, and was reflected from their quivering wings; and as they heavily fell earthward, they seemed like the innumerable flakes of a yellow-colored snow. And like snow did they descend, a living carpet, or rather pall, upon fields, crops, gardens, copses, groves, orchards, vineyards, olive woods, orangeries, palm plantations, and the deep forests, sparing nothing within their reach, and where there was nothing to devour, lying helpless in drifts, or crawling forward obstinately, as they best might, with the hope of prey. They could spare their hundred thousand soldiers twice or thrice over, and not miss them; their masses filled the bottoms of the ravines and hollow ways, impeding the traveller as he rode forward on his journey and trampled by thousands under his horse-hoofs. In vain was all this overthrow and waste by the roadside, in vain their loss in river, pool, and watercourse. The poor peasants hastily dug pits and trenches as their enemy came on; in vain they filled them from the wells or with lighted stubble. Heavily and thickly did the locusts fall; they were lavish of their lives; they choked the flame and the water, which destroyed them the while, and the vast living hostile armament still moved on.

They moved right on like soldiers in their ranks, stopping at nothing, and straggling for nothing; they carried a broad furrow or wheal all across the country, black and loathsome, while it was as green and smiling on each side of them and in front, as it had been before they came. Before them, in the language of prophets, was a paradise, and behind them a desert. They are daunted by nothing they surmount walls and hedges, and enter enclosed gardens or inhabited houses. A rare and experimental vineyard has been planted in a sheltered grove. The high winds of Africa will not commonly allow the light trellice or the slim pole; but here the lofty poplar of Campania has been possible, on which the vine plant mounts so many yards into the air, that the poor grape-gatherers bargain for a funeral pile and a tomb as one of the conditions of their engagement. The locusts have done what the winds and lightning could not do, and the whole promise of the vintage, leaves and all, is gone, and the slender stems are left bare. There is another yard, less uncommon, but still tended with more than common care; each plant is kept within due bounds by a circular trench round it, and by upright canes on which it is to trail; in an hour the solicitude and long toil of the vine-dresser are lost, and his pride humbled. There is a smiling farm; another sort of vine, of remarkable character, is found against the farmhouse. This vine springs from one root, and has clothed and matted with its many branches the four walls. The whole of it is covered thick with long clusters, which another month will ripen. On every grape and leaf there is a locust. Into the dry caves and pits, carefully strewed with straw, the harvest-men have (safely, as they thought just now) been lodging the far-famed African wheat. One grain or root shoots up into ten, twenty, fifty, eighty, nay, three or four hundred stalks: sometimes the stalks have two ears apiece, and these shoot into a number of lesser ones. These stores are intended for the Roman populace, but the locusts have been beforehand with them. The small patches of ground belonging to the poor peasants up and down the country, for raising the turnips, garlic, barley, water-melons, on which they live, are the prey of these glutton invaders as much as the choicest vines and olives. Nor have they any reverence for the villa of the civic decurion or the Roman official. The neatly arranged kitchen garden, with its cherries, plums, peaches, and apricots, is a waste; as the slaves sit round, in the kitchen in the first court, at their coarse evening meal, the room is filled with the invading force, and news comes to them that the enemy has fallen upon the apples and pears in the basement, and is at the same time plundering and sacking the preserves of quince and pomegranate, and revelling in the jars of precious oil of Cyprus and Mendes in the store-rooms.

They come up to the walls of Sicca, and are flung against them into the ditch. Not a moment's hesitation or delay; they recover their footing, they climb up the wood or stucco, they surmount the parapet, or they have entered in at the windows, filling the apartments, and the most private and luxurious chambers, not one or two, like stragglers at forage or rioters after a victory, but in order of battle, and with the array of an army. Choice plants or flowers about the _impluvia_ and _xysti_, for ornament or refreshment, myrtles, oranges, pomegranates, the rose and the carnation, have disappeared. They dim the bright marbles of the walls and the gilding of the ceilings. They enter the triclinium in the midst of the banquet; they crawl over the viands and spoil what they do not devour. Unrelaxed by success and by enjoyment, onward they go; a secret mysterious instinct keeps them together, as if they had a king over them. They move along the floor in so strange an order that they seem to be a tessellated pavement themselves, and to be the artificial embellishment of the place; so true are their lines, and so perfect is the pattern they describe. Onward they go, to the market, to the temple sacrifices, to the bakers' stores, to the cookshops, to the confectioners, to the druggists; nothing comes amiss to them; wherever man has aught to eat or drink, there are they, reckless of death, strong of appetite, certain of conquest....

Another and a still worse calamity. The invaders, as we have already hinted, could be more terrible still in their overthrow than in their ravages. The inhabitants of the country had attempted, where they could, to destroy them by fire and water. It would seem as if the malignant animals had resolved that the sufferers should have the benefit of this policy to the full; for they had not got more than twenty miles beyond Sicca when they suddenly sickened and died. When they thus had done all the mischief they could by their living, when they thus had made their foul maws the grave of every living thing, next they died themselves, and made the desolated land their own grave. They took from it its hundred forms and varieties of beautiful life, and left it their own fetid and poisonous carcases in payment. It was a sudden catastrophe; they seemed making for the Mediterranean, as if, like other great conquerors, they had other worlds to subdue beyond it; but, whether they were overgorged, or struck by some atmospheric change, or that their time was come and they paid the debt of nature, so it was that suddenly they fell, and their glory came to nought, and all was vanity to them as to others, and "their stench rose up, and their corruption rose up, because they had done proudly."

The hideous swarms lay dead in the moist steaming underwoods, in the green swamps, in the sheltered valleys, in the ditches and furrows of the fields, amid the monuments of their own prowess, the ruined crops and the dishonored vineyards. A poisonous element, issuing from their remains, mingled with the atmosphere, and corrupted it. The dismayed peasant found that a plague had begun; a new visitation, not confined to the territory which the enemy had made its own, but extending far and wide, as the atmosphere extends, in all directions. Their daily toil, no longer claimed by the fruits of the earth, which have ceased to exist, is now devoted to the object of ridding themselves of the deadly legacy which they have received in their stead. In vain; it is their last toil; they are digging pits, they are raising piles, for their own corpses, as well as for the bodies of their enemies. Invader and victim lie in the same grave, burn in the same heap; they sicken while they work, and the pestilence spreads.

LXII. THE CANE-BOTTOM'D CHAIR.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.--1811-1863.

In tatter'd old slippers that toast at the bars, And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars, Away from the world and its toils and its cares, I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure, But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure; And the view I behold on a sunshiny day Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is cramm'd in all nooks With worthless old knicknacks and silly old books, And foolish old odds and foolish old ends, Crack'd bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.

Old armor, prints, pictures, pipes, china, (all crack'd,) Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-back'd; A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see; What matter? 'tis pleasant to you, friend, and me.

No better divan need the Sultan require, Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire; And 'tis wonderful, surely, what music you get From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.

That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp; By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp; A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn: 'Tis a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes, Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times; As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest, There's one that I love and I cherish the best; For the finest of couches that's padded with hair I never would change thee, my cane-bottom'd chair.

'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat, With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet; But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there, I bless thee, and love thee, old cane-bottom'd chair.

If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms, A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms! I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair; I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair.

It was but a moment she sat in this place, She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face! A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair, And she sat there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair.

And so I have valued my chair ever since, Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince; Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare, The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair.

When the candles burn low, and the company's gone, In the silence of night as I sit here alone-- I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair-- My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair.

She comes from the past and revisits my room; She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom; So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair, And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair.

LXIII. THE RECONCILIATION.[N]

THACKERAY.

There was scarce a score of persons in the Cathedral beside the Dean and some of his clergy, and the choristers, young and old, that performed the beautiful evening prayer. But Mr. Tusher was one of the officiants, and read from the eagle in an authoritative voice, and a great black periwig; and in the stalls, still in her black widow's hood, sat Esmond's dear mistress, her son by her side, very much grown, and indeed a noble-looking youth, with his mother's eyes, and his father's curling brown hair, that fell over his _point de Venise_--a pretty picture such as Vandyke might have painted. Mons. Rigaud's portrait of my Lord Viscount, done at Paris afterwards, gives but a French version of his manly, frank English face. When he looked up there were two sapphire beams out of his eyes such as no painter's palette has the color to match, I think. On this day there was not much chance of seeing that

## particular beauty of my young lord's countenance; for the truth is, he

kept his eyes shut for the most part, and, the anthem being rather long, was asleep.

But the music ceasing, my lord woke up, looking about him, and his eyes lighting on Mr. Esmond, who was sitting opposite him, gazing with no small tenderness and melancholy upon two persons who had so much of his heart for so many years, Lord Castlewood, with a start; pulled at his mother's sleeve (her face had scarce been lifted from her book), and said, "Look, mother!" so loud, that Esmond could hear on the other side of the church, and the old Dean on his throned stall. Lady Castlewood looked for an instant as her son bade her, and held up a warning finger to Frank; Esmond felt his whole face flush, and his heart throbbing, as that dear lady beheld him once more. The rest of the prayers were speedily over; Mr. Esmond did not hear them; nor did his mistress, very likely, whose hood went more closely over her face, and who never lifted her head again until the service was over, the blessing given, and Mr. Dean, and his procession of ecclesiastics, out of the inner chapel.

Young Castlewood came clambering over the stalls before the clergy were fairly gone, and running up to Esmond, eagerly embraced him. "My dear, dearest old Harry!" he said, "are you come back? Have you been to the wars? You'll take me with you when you go again? Why didn't you write to us? Come to mother."

Mr. Esmond could hardly say more than a "God bless you, my boy," for his heart was very full and grateful at all this tenderness on the lad's part; and he was as much moved at seeing Frank as he was fearful about that other interview which was now to take place: for he knew not if the widow would reject him as she had done so cruelly a year ago.

"It was kind of you to come back to us, Henry," Lady Esmond said. "I thought you might come."

"We read of the fleet coming to Portsmouth. Why did you not come from Portsmouth?" Frank asked, or my Lord Viscount, as he now must be called.

Esmond had thought of that too. He would have given one of his eyes so that he might see his dear friends again once more; but believing that his mistress had forbidden him her house, he had obeyed her, and remained at a distance.

"You had but to ask, and you knew I would be here," he said.

She gave him her hand, her little fair hand: there was only her marriage ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief and estrangement was passed. They never had been separated. His mistress had never been out of his mind all that time. No, not once. No, not in the prison; nor in the camp; nor on shore before the enemy; nor at sea under the stars of solemn midnight; nor as he watched the glorious rising of the dawn: not even at the table, where he sat carousing with friends, or at the theatre yonder, where he tried to fancy that other eyes were brighter than hers. Brighter eyes there might be, and faces more beautiful, but none so dear--no voice so sweet as that of his beloved mistress, who had been sister, mother, goddess to him during his youth--goddess now no more, for he knew of her weaknesses; and by thought, by suffering, and that experience it brings, was older now than she; but more fondly cherished as woman perhaps than ever she had been adored as divinity. What is it? Where lies it? the secret which makes one little hand the dearest of all? Who ever can unriddle that mystery? Here she was, her son by his side, his dear boy. Here she was, weeping and happy. She took his hand in both hers; he felt her tears. It was a rapture of reconciliation....

"And Harry's coming home to supper. Huzzay! huzzay!" cries my lord. "Mother, I shall run home and bid Beatrix put her ribbons on. Beatrix is a maid of honor, Harry. Such a fine set-up minx!"

"Your heart was never in the Church, Harry," the widow said, in her sweet low tone, as they walked away together. (Now, it seemed they had never been parted, and again, as if they had been ages asunder.) "I always thought you had no vocation that way; and that 'twas a pity to shut you out from the world. You would but have pined and chafed at Castlewood: and 'tis better you should make a name for yourself. I often said so to my dear lord. How he loved you! 'Twas my lord that made you stay with us."

"I asked no better than to stay near you always," said Mr. Esmond.

"But to go was best, Harry. When the world cannot give peace, you will know where to find it; but one of your strong imagination and eager desires must try the world first before he tires of it. 'Twas not to be thought of, or if it once was, it was only by my selfishness, that you should remain as chaplain to a country gentleman and tutor to a little boy. You are of the blood of the Esmonds, kinsman; and that was always wild in youth. Look at Francis. He is but fifteen, and I scarce can keep him in my nest. His talk is all of war and pleasure, and he longs to serve in the next campaign. Perhaps he and the young Lord Churchill shall go the next. Lord Marlborough has been good to us. You know how kind they were in my misfortune. And so was your--your father's widow. No one knows how good the world is, till grief comes to try us. 'Tis through my Lady Marlborough's goodness that Beatrix hath her place at Court; and Frank is under my Lord Chamberlain. And the dowager lady, your father's widow, has promised to provide for you--has she not?"

Esmond said, "Yes. As far as present favor went, Lady Castlewood was very good to him. And should her mind change," he added gaily, "as ladies' minds will, I am strong enough to bear my own burden, and make my way somehow. Not by the sword very likely. Thousands have a better genius for that than I, but there are many ways in which a young man of good parts and education can get on in the world; and I am pretty sure, one way or other, of promotion!" Indeed, he had found patrons already in the army, and amongst persons very able to serve him, too; and told his mistress of the flattering aspect of fortune. They walked as though they had never been parted, slowly, with the grey twilight closing round them.

"And now we are drawing near to home," she continued, "I knew you would come, Harry, if--if it was but to forgive me for having spoken unjustly to you after that horrid--horrid misfortune. I was half frantic with grief then when I saw you. And I know now--they have told me. That wretch, whose name I can never mention, even has said it: how you tried to avert the quarrel, and would have taken it on yourself, my poor child: but it was God's will that I should be punished, and that my dear lord should fall."

"He gave me his blessing on his death-bed," Esmond said. "Thank God for that legacy!"

"Amen, amen! dear Henry," said the lady, pressing his arm. "I knew it. Mr. Atterbury, of St. Bride's, who was called to him, told me so. And I thanked God, too, and in my prayers ever since remembered it."

"You had spared me many a bitter night, had you told me sooner," Mr. Esmond said.

"I know it, I know it," she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility, as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. "I know how wicked my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear. But I knew you would come back--I own that. And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, 'When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream,' I thought yes, like them that dream--them that dream. And then it went, 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth forth and weepeth, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him;' I looked up from the book and saw you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I knew you would come, my dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your head."

She smiled an almost wild smile as she looked up at him. The moon was up by this time, glittering keen in the frosty sky. He could see, for the first time now clearly, her sweet careworn face.

"Do you know what day it is?" she continued. "It is the 29th day of December--it is your birthday! But last year we did not drink it--no, no. My lord was cold, and my Harry was likely to die: and my brain was in a fever; and we had no wine. But now--now you are come again, bringing your sheaves with you, my dear." She burst into a wild flood of weeping as she spoke; she laughed and sobbed on the young man's heart, crying out wildly, "bringing your sheaves with you--your sheaves with you!"

As he had sometimes felt, gazing up from the deck at midnight into the boundless starlit depths overhead, in a rapture of devout wonder at that endless brightness and beauty--in some such a way now, the depth of this pure devotion quite smote upon him, and filled his heart with thanksgiving. Gracious God, who was he, weak and friendless creature, that such a love should be poured out upon him? Not in vain--not in vain has he lived--hard and thankless should he be to think so--that has such a treasure given him. What is ambition compared to that, but selfish vanity? To be rich, to be famous? What do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under the ground, along with idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you--follows your memory with secret blessing--or precedes you, and intercedes for you. _Non omnis moriar_--if dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.

FOOTNOTES:

[N] _From "The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne. Written by himself."_

The late Lord Castlewood had been killed in a duel, and young Esmond, who had lived in his house as a dependant (reputed to have been illegitimately related to a former Viscount of Castlewood), devotedly attending him at his death-bed, received from the dying man confession and proof that he, the supposed obscure orphan, was the true inheritor, and in justice ought to have been the possessor, of the Castlewood titles and estates. But Esmond, for the love he had borne his patron, and from devotion to Lady Castlewood, who had much befriended him, immediately destroyed the proofs which were given him of his honorable parentage, and ever afterwards kept his claim a secret. After the duel, while Esmond was in prison, Lady Castlewood visited him, and in the wildness of her grief for her murdered husband, reproached her loyal kinsman for not having saved her lord's life, or avenged his death. In the estrangement which these reproaches occasioned, Esmond sought his fortune abroad in war; but subsequently, desiring to learn of the welfare of his mistress and her family, whose happiness he prized more than his own, he returned to England, and went to Winchester, near which was Walcote, Lady Castlewood's home. The family were attending service in the cathedral, and there the reconciliation took place.--Esmond had formerly been promised the living of Walcote, but the vacancy occurring while the estrangement continued. Lady Castlewood had given it to one Mr. Tusher.

LXIV. THE ISLAND OF THE SCOTS.

(DECEMBER, 1697.)

WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN.--1813-1865.

The Rhine is running deep and red, the island lies before,-- "Now is there one of all the host will dare to venture o'er? For not alone the river's sweep might make a brave man quail; The foe are on the further side, their shot comes fast as hail. God help us, if the middle isle we may not hope to win! Now is there any of the host will dare to venture in?"

"The ford is deep, the banks are steep, the island-shore lies wide; Nor man nor horse could stem its force, or reach the further side. See there! amidst the willow-boughs the serried bayonets gleam; They've flung their bridge,--they've won the isle; the foe have cross'd the stream! Their volley flashes sharp and strong,--by all the saints! I trow There never yet was soldier born could force that passage now!"

So spoke the bold French Mareschal with him who led the van, Whilst rough and red before their view the turbid river ran. Nor bridge nor boat had they to cross the wild and swollen Rhine, And thundering on the other bank far stretch'd the German line. Hard by there stood a swarthy man was leaning on his sword, And a sadden'd smile lit up his face as he heard the Captain's word. "I've seen a wilder stream ere now than that which rushes there; I've stemm'd a heavier torrent yet and never thought to dare. If German steel be sharp and keen, is ours not strong and true? There may be danger in the deed, but there is honor too."

The old lord in his saddle turn'd, and hastily he said, "Hath bold Duguesclin's fiery heart awaken'd from the dead? Thou art the leader of the Scots,--now well and sure I know, That gentle blood in dangerous hour ne'er yet ran cold nor slow, And I have seen ye in the fight do all that mortal may: If honor is the boon ye seek, it may be won this day,-- The prize is in the middle isle, there lies the adventurous way, And armies twain are on the plain, the daring deed to see,-- Now ask thy gallant company if they will follow thee!"

Right gladsome look'd the Captain then, and nothing did he say, But he turn'd him to his little band,--O, few, I ween, were they! The relics of the bravest force that ever fought in fray. No one of all that company but bore a gentle name, Not one whose fathers had not stood in Scotland's fields of fame. All they had march'd with great Dundee to where he fought and fell, And in the deadly battle-strife had venged their leader well: And they had bent the knee to earth when every eye was dim, As o'er their hero's buried corpse they sang the funeral hymn; And they had trod the Pass once more, and stoop'd on either side To pluck the heather from the spot where he had dropp'd and died; And they had bound it next their hearts, and ta'en a last farewell Of Scottish earth and Scottish sky, where Scotland's glory fell. Then went they forth to foreign lands like bent and broken men, Who leave their dearest hope behind, and may not turn again.

"The stream," he said, "is broad and deep, and stubborn is the foe,-- Yon island-strength is guarded well,--say, brothers, will ye go? From home and kin for many a year our steps have wander'd wide, And never may our bones be laid our fathers' graves beside. No children have we to lament, no wives to wail our fall; The traitor's and the spoiler's hand have reft our hearths of all. But we have hearts, and we have arms, as strong to will and dare As when our ancient banners flew within the northern air. Come, brothers! let me name a spell shall rouse your souls again, And send the old blood bounding free through pulse and heart and vein. Call back the days of bygone years,--be young and strong once more; Think yonder stream, so stark and red, is one we've cross'd before. Rise, hill and glen! rise, crag and wood! rise up on either hand,-- Again upon the Garry's banks, on Scottish soil we stand! Again I see the tartans wave, again the trumpets ring; Again I hear our leader's call: 'Upon them for the King!' Stay'd we behind that glorious day for roaring flood or linn? The soul of Graeme is with us still,--now, brothers, will ye in?"

No stay,--no pause. With one accord, they grasp'd each other's hand, Then plunged into the angry flood, that bold and dauntless band. High flew the spray above their heads, yet onward still they bore, Midst cheer, and shout, and answering yell, and shot, and cannon-roar,-- "Now, by the Holy Cross! I swear, since earth and sea began, Was never such a daring deed essay'd by mortal man!"

Thick blew the smoke across the stream, and faster flash'd the flame: The water plash'd in hissing jets as ball and bullet came. Yet onwards push'd the Cavaliers all stern and undismay'd, With thousand armed foes before, and none behind to aid. Once, as they near'd the middle stream, so strong the torrent swept, That scarce that long and living wall their dangerous footing kept. Then rose a warning cry behind, a joyous shout before: "The current's strong,--the way is long,--they'll never reach the shore! See, see! they stagger in the midst, they waver in their line! Fire on the madmen! break their ranks, and whelm them in the Rhine!"

Have you seen the tall trees swaying when the blast is sounding shrill, And the whirlwind reels in fury down the gorges of the hill? How they toss their mighty branches struggling with the tempest's shock; How they keep their place of vantage, cleaving firmly to the rock? Even so the Scottish warriors held their own against the river; Though the water flash'd around them, not an eye was seen to quiver; Though the shot flew sharp and deadly, not a man relax'd his hold; For their hearts were big and thrilling with the mighty thoughts of old. One word was spoke among them, and through the ranks it spread,-- "Remember our dead Claverhouse!" was all the Captain said. Then, sternly bending forward, they wrestled on a while, Until they clear'd the heavy stream, then rush'd towards the isle.

The German heart is stout and true, the German arm is strong; The German foot goes seldom back where armed foemen throng. But never had they faced in field so stern a charge before, And never had they felt the sweep of Scotland's broad claymore. Not fiercer pours the avalanche adown the steep incline, That rises o'er the parent-springs of rough and rapid Rhine,-- Scarce swifter shoots the bolt from heaven than came the Scottish band Right up against the guarded trench, and o'er it sword in hand. In vain their leaders forward press,--they meet the deadly brand!

O lonely island of the Rhine,--where seed was never sown, What harvest lay upon thy sands, by those strong reapers thrown? What saw the winter moon that night, as, struggling through the rain, She pour'd a wan and fitful light on marsh, and stream, and plain? A dreary spot with corpses strewn, and bayonets glistening round; A broken bridge, a stranded boat, a bare and batter'd mound; And one huge watch-fire's kindled pile, that sent its quivering glare To tell the leaders of the host the conquering Scots were there!

And did they twine the laurel-wreath, for those who fought so well? And did they honor those who liv'd, and weep for those who fell? What meed of thanks was given to them let aged annals tell. Why should they bring the laurel-wreath,--why crown the cup with wine? It was not Frenchmen's blood that flow'd so freely on the Rhine,-- A stranger band of beggar'd men had done the venturous deed: The glory was to France alone, the danger was their meed. And what cared they for idle thanks from foreign prince and peer? What virtue had such honey'd words the exiled heart to cheer? What matter'd it that men should vaunt and loud and fondly swear, That higher feat of chivalry was never wrought elsewhere? They bore within their breasts the grief that fame can never heal,-- The deep, unutterable woe which none save exiles feel. Their hearts were yearning for the land they ne'er might see again,-- For Scotland's high and heather'd hills, for mountain, loch and glen-- For those who haply lay at rest beyond the distant sea, Beneath the green and daisied turf where they would gladly be!

Long years went by. The lonely isle in Rhine's tempestuous flood Has ta'en another name from those who bought it with their blood:

And, though the legend does not live,--for legends lightly die-- The peasant, as he sees the stream in winter rolling by, And foaming o'er its channel-bed between him and the spot Won by the warriors of the sword, stills calls that deep and dangerous ford The Passage of the Scot.

* * * * *

_Sacrifice and Self-Devotion hallow earth and fill the skies._

LORD HOUGHTON.--1809-1885.

LXV. THE GAMBLING PARTY.

EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.--1805-1881.

_From_ THE YOUNG DUKE.

The young Duke had accepted the invitation of the Baron de Berghem for to-morrow, and accordingly, himself, Lords Castlefort and Dice, and Temple Grace assembled in Brunswick Terrace at the usual hour. The dinner was studiously plain, and very little wine was drunk; yet everything was perfect. Tom Cogit stepped in to carve in his usual silent manner. He always came in and went out of a room without anyone observing him. He winked familiarly to Temple Grace, but scarcely presumed to bow to the Duke. He was very busy about the wine, and dressed the wild fowl in a manner quite unparalleled. He took particular care to send a most perfect portion to the young Duke, and he did this, as he paid all attentions to influential strangers, with the most marked consciousness of the sufferance which permitted his presence: never addressing his Grace, but audibly whispering to the servant, "Take this to the Duke"; or asking the attendant, "whether his Grace would try the Hermitage?"

After dinner, with the exception of Cogit, who was busied in compounding some wonderful liquid for the future refreshment, they sat down to _ecarte_. Without having exchanged a word upon the subject, there seemed a general understanding among all the parties that to-night was to be a pitched battle, and they began at once, briskly. Yet, in spite of their universal determination, midnight arrived without anything decisive. Another hour passed over, and then Tom Cogit kept touching the Baron's elbow and whispering in a voice which everybody could understand. All this meant that supper was ready. It was brought into the room.

Gaming has one advantage, it gives you an appetite; that is to say, so long as you have a chance remaining. The Duke had thousands; for at present his resources were unimpared, and he was exhausted by the constant attention and anxiety of five hours. He passed over the delicacies and went to the side-table, and began cutting himself some cold roast beef. Tom Cogit ran up, not to his Grace, but to the Baron, to announce the shocking fact that the Duke of St. James was enduring great trouble; and then the Baron asked his Grace to permit Mr. Cogit to serve him. Our hero devoured: we use the word advisedly, as fools say in the House of Commons: he devoured the roast beef, and rejecting the Hermitage with disgust, asked for porter.

They set to again fresh as eagles. At six o'clock accounts were so complicated that they stopped to make up their books. Each played with his memoranda and pencil at his side. Nothing fatal had yet happened. The Duke owed Lord Dice about five thousand pounds, and Temple Grace owed him as many hundreds. Lord Castlefort also was his debtor to the tune of seven hundred and fifty, and the Baron was in his books, but slightly. Every half-hour they had a new pack of cards, and threw the used one on the floor. All this time Tom Cogit did nothing but snuff the candles, stir the fire, bring them a new pack, and occasionally make a tumbler for them. At eight o'clock the Duke's situation was worsened. The run was greatly against him, and perhaps his losses were doubled. He pulled up again the next hour or two; but nevertheless, at ten o'clock, owed every one something. No one offered to give over; and everyone, perhaps, felt that his object was not obtained. They made their toilets and went down-stairs to breakfast. In the meantime the shutters were opened, the room aired, and in less than an hour they were at it again.

They played till dinner-time without intermission; and though the Duke made some desperate efforts, and some successful ones, his losses were, nevertheless, trebled. Yet he ate an excellent dinner and was not at all depressed; because the more he lost, the more his courage and his resources seemed to expand. At first he had limited himself to ten thousand; after breakfast it was to have been twenty thousand; then thirty thousand was the ultimatum; and now he dismissed all thoughts of limits from his mind, and was determined to risk or gain everything.

At midnight, he had lost forty-eight thousand pounds. Affairs now began to be serious. His supper was not so hearty. While the rest were eating, he walked about the room, and began to limit his ambition to recovery, and not to gain. When you play to win back, the fun is over: there is nothing to recompense you for your bodily tortures and your degraded feelings; and the very best result that can happen, while it has no charms, seems to your cowed mind impossible.

On they played, and the Duke lost more. His mind was jaded. He floundered, he made desperate efforts, but plunged deeper in the slough. Feeling that, to regain his ground, each card must tell, he acted on each as if it must win, and the consequences of this insanity (for a gamester at such a crisis is really insane) were, that his losses were prodigious.

Another morning came, and there they sat, ankle-deep in cards. No attempt at breakfast now, no affectation of making a toilet or airing the room. The atmosphere was hot, to be sure, but it well became such a Hell. There they sat, in total, in positive forgetfulness of everything but the hot game they were hunting down. There was not a man in the room, except Tom Cogit, who could have told you the name of the town in which they were living. There they sat, almost breathless, watching every turn with the fell look in their cannibal eyes which showed their total inability to sympathize with their fellow-beings. All forms of society had been long forgotten. There was no snuff-box handed about now, for courtesy, admiration, or a pinch; no affectation of occasionally making a remark upon any other topic but the all-engrossing one. Lord Castlefort rested with his arms on the table: a false tooth had got unhinged. His Lordship, who, at any other time, would have been most annoyed, coolly put it in his pocket. His cheeks had fallen, and he looked twenty years older. Lord Dice had torn off his cravat, and his hair hung down over his callous, bloodless cheeks, straight as silk. Temple Grace looked as if he were blighted by lightning; and his deep blue eyes gleamed like a hyena's. The Baron was least changed. Tom Cogit, who smelt that the crisis was at hand, was as quiet as a bribed rat.

On they played till six o'clock in the evening, and then they agreed to desist till after dinner. Lord Dice threw himself on a sofa. Lord Castlefort breathed with difficulty. The rest walked about. While they were resting on their oars, the young Duke roughly made up his accounts. He found that he was minus about one hundred thousand pounds.

Immense as this loss was, he was more struck, more appalled, let us say, at the strangeness of the surrounding scene, than even by his own ruin. As he looked upon his fellow gamesters, he seemed, for the first time in his life, to gaze upon some of those hideous demons of whom he had read. He looked in the mirror at himself. A blight seemed to have fallen over his beauty, and his presence seemed accursed. He had pursued a dissipated, even more than a dissipated career. Many were the nights that had been spent by him not on his couch; great had been the exhaustion that he had often experienced; haggard had sometimes even been the lustre of his youth. But when had been marked upon his brow this harrowing care? when had his features before been stamped with this anxiety, this anguish, this baffled desire, this strange unearthly scowl, which made him even tremble? What! was it possible? it could not be, that in time he was to be like those awful, those unearthly, those unhallowed things that were around him. He felt as if he had fallen from his state, as if he had dishonored his ancestry, as if he had betrayed his trust. He felt a criminal. In the darkness of his meditations a flash burst from his lurid mind, a celestial light appeared to dissipate this thickening gloom, and his soul felt as if it were bathed with the softening radiancy. He thought of May Dacre, he thought of everything that was pure, and holy, and beautiful, and luminous, and calm. It was the innate virtue of the man that made this appeal to his corrupted nature. His losses seemed nothing; his dukedom would be too slight a ransom for freedom from these ghouls, and for the breath of the sweet air.

He advanced to the Baron, and expressed his desire to play no more. There was an immediate stir. All jumped up, and now the deed was done. Cant, in spite of their exhaustion, assumed her reign. They begged him to have his revenge, were quite annoyed at the result, had no doubt he would recover if he proceeded. Without noticing their remarks, he seated himself at the table, and wrote cheques for their respective amounts, Tom Cogit jumping up and bringing him the inkstand. Lord Castlefort, in the most affectionate manner, pocketed the draft; at the same time recommending the Duke not to be in a hurry, but to send it when he was cool. Lord Dice received his with a bow, Temple Grace with a sigh, the Baron with an avowal of his readiness always to give him his revenge.

The Duke, though sick at heart, would not leave the room with any evidence of a broken spirit; and when Lord Castlefort again repeated, "Pay us when we meet again," he said, "I think it very improbable that we shall meet again, my Lord. I wished to know what gaming was. I had heard a great deal about it. It is not so very disgusting; but I am a young man, and cannot play tricks with my complexion."

He reached his house. He gave orders for himself not to be disturbed, and he went to bed; but in vain he tried to sleep. What rack exceeds the torture of an excited brain and an exhausted body? His hands and feet were like ice, his brow like fire; his ears rung with supernatural roaring; a nausea had seized upon him, and death he would have welcomed. In vain, in vain he courted repose; in vain, in vain he had recourse to every expedient to wile himself to slumber. Each minute he started from his pillow with some phrase which reminded him of his late fearful society. Hour after hour moved on with its leaden pace; each hour he heard strike, and each hour seemed an age. Each hour was only a signal to cast off some covering, or shift his position. It was, at length, morning. With a feeling that he should go mad if he remained any longer in bed, he rose, and paced his chamber. The air refreshed him. He threw himself on the floor; the cold crept over his senses, and he slept.

LXVI. THE PICKWICKIANS DISPORT THEMSELVES ON ICE.[O]

CHARLES DICKENS.--1812-1870.

_From_ THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB.

"Now," said Wardle, after a substantial lunch had been done ample justice to; "what say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time."

"Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen.

"Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.

"You skate, of course, Winkle?" said Wardle.

"Ye-yes; oh, yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I--I--am _rather_ out of practice."

"Oh, _do_ skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I like to see it so much."

"Oh, it is _so_ graceful," said another young lady.

A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was "swan-like."

"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I have no skates."

This objection was at once over-ruled. Trundle had a couple of pair, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down stairs: whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable.

Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies: which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they called a reel.

All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.

"Now, then, sir," said Sam, in an encouraging tone; "off vith you, and show 'em how to do it."

"Stop, Sam, stop!" said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of Sam's arms with the grasp of a drowning man. "How slippery it is, Sam!"

"Not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Hold up, sir!"

This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore reference to a demonstration Mr. Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice.

"These--these--are very awkward skates; ain't they, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle, staggering.

"I'm afeerd there's a orkard gen'l'm'n in 'em, sir," replied Sam.

"Now, Winkle," cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was anything the matter. "Come; the ladies are all anxiety."

"Yes, yes," replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. "I'm coming."

"Just a goin' to begin," said Sam, endeavoring to disengage himself. "Now, sir, start off!"

"Stop an instant, Sam," gasped Mr. Winkle, clinging most affectionately to Mr. Weller. "I find I've got a couple of coats at home that I don't want, Sam. You may have them, Sam."

"Thank'ee, sir," replied Mr. Weller.

"Never mind touching your hat, Sam," said Mr. Winkle, hastily. "You needn't take your hand away to do that. I meant to have given you five shillings this morning for a Christmas-box, Sam. I'll give it you this afternoon, Sam."

"You're wery good, sir," replied Mr. Weller.

"Just hold me at first, Sam; will you?" said Mr. Winkle. "There--that's right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam; not too fast."

Mr. Winkle stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swan-like manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite bank:

"Sam!"

"Sir?"

"Here. I want you."

"Let go, sir," said Sam. "Don't you hear the governor a callin'? Let go, sir."

With a violent effort, Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the agonized Pickwickian, and, in so doing, administered a considerable impetus to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty. Mr. Winkle struck wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in skates. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish was depicted on every lineament of his countenance.

"Are you hurt?" inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety.

"Not much," said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard.

"I wish you'd let me bleed you," said Mr. Benjamin, with great eagerness.

"No, thank you," replied Mr. Winkle hurriedly.

"I really think you had better," said Allen.

"Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle; "I'd rather not."

"What do _you_ think, Mr. Pickwick?" inquired Bob Sawyer.

Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller, and said in a stern voice, "Take his skates off."

"No; but really I had scarcely begun," remonstrated Mr. Winkle.

"Take his skates off," repeated Mr. Pickwick firmly.

The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it in silence.

"Lift him up," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise.

Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and uttered in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words:

"You're a humbug, sir."

"A what?" said Mr. Winkle, starting.

"A humbug, sir. I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, sir."

With these words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined his friends.

While Mr. Pickwick was delivering himself of the sentiment just recorded, Mr. Weller and the fat boy, having by their joint endeavors cut out a slide, were exercising themselves thereupon, in a very masterly and brilliant manner. Sam Weller, in particular, was displaying that beautiful feat of fancy-sliding which is currently denominated "knocking at the cobbler's door," and which is achieved by skimming over the ice on one foot, and occasionally giving a postman's knock upon it with the other. It was a good long slide, and there was something in the motion which Mr. Pickwick, who was very cold with standing still, could not help envying.

"It looks a nice warm exercise that, doesn't it?" he inquired of Wardle, when that gentleman was thoroughly out of breath, by reason of the indefatigable manner in which he had converted his legs into a pair of compasses, and drawn complicated problems on the ice.

"Ah, it does indeed," replied Wardle. "Do you slide?"

"I used to do so on the gutters, when I was a boy," replied Mr. Pickwick.

"Try it now," said Wardle.

"Oh do, please, Mr. Pickwick!" cried all the ladies.

"I should be very happy to afford you any amusement," replied Mr. Pickwick, "but I haven't done such a thing these thirty years."

"Pooh! pooh! Nonsense!" said Wardle, dragging off his skates with the impetuosity which characterized all his proceedings. "Here; I'll keep you company; come along!" And away went the good tempered old fellow down the slide, with a rapidity which came very close upon Mr. Weller, and beat the fat boy all to nothing.

Mr. Pickwick paused, considered, pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat: took two or three short runs, baulked himself as often, and at last took another run, and went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of all the spectators.

"Keep the pot a bilin', sir!" said Sam; and down went Wardle again, and then Mr. Pickwick, and then Sam, and then Mr. Winkle, and then Mr. Bob Sawyer, and then the fat boy, and then Mr. Snodgrass, following closely upon each other's heels, and running after each other with as much eagerness as if all their future prospects in life depended on their expedition.

It was the most intensely interesting thing, to observe the manner in which Mr. Pickwick performed his share in the ceremony; to watch the torture of anxiety with which he viewed the person behind, gaining upon him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up; to see him gradually expend the painful force he had put on at first, and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started; to contemplate the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had accomplished the distance, and the eagerness with which he turned round when he had done so, and ran after his predecessor: his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through the snow, and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness through his spectacles. And when he was knocked down (which happened upon the average every third round), it was the most invigorating sight that can possibly be imagined, to behold him gather up his hat, gloves, and handkerchief, with a glowing countenance, and resume his station in the rank, with an ardor and enthusiasm that nothing could abate.

The sport was at its height, the sliding was at the quickest, the laughter was at the loudest, when a sharp smart crack was heard. There was a quick rush towards the bank, a wild scream from the ladies, and a shout from Mr. Tupman. A large mass of ice disappeared; the water bubbled up over it; Mr. Pickwick's hat, gloves, and handkerchief were floating on the surface; and this was all of Mr. Pickwick that anybody could see.

Dismay and anguish were depicted on every countenance, the males turned pale, and the females fainted, Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle grasped each other by the hand, and gazed at the spot where their leader had gone down, with frenzied eagerness: while Mr. Tupman, by way of rendering the promptest assistance, and at the same time conveying to any persons who might be within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the catastrophe, ran off across the country at his utmost speed, screaming "Fire!" with all his might.

It was at this moment, when old Wardle and Sam Weller were approaching the hole with cautious steps, and Mr. Benjamin Allen was holding a hurried consultation with Mr. Bob Sawyer on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice--it was at this very moment, that a face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of Mr. Pickwick.

"Keep yourself up for an instant--for only one instant!" bawled Mr. Snodgrass.

"Yes, do; let me implore you--for my sake!" roared Mr. Winkle, deeply affected. The adjuration was rather unnecessary; the probability being, that if Mr. Pickwick had declined to keep himself up for anybody else's sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so, for his own.

"Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow?" said Wardle.

"Yes, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, wringing the water from his head and face, and gasping for breath. "I fell upon my back. I couldn't get on my feet at first."

The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick's coat as was yet visible, bore testimony to the accuracy of this statement; and as the fears of the spectators were still further relieved by the fat boy's suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, prodigies of valor were performed to get him out. After a vast quantity of splashing, and cracking, and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on dry land.

"Oh, he'll catch his death of cold," said Emily.

"Dear old thing!" said Arabella. "Let me wrap this shawl round you, Mr. Pickwick."

"Ah, that's the best thing you can do," said Wardle; "and when you've got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into bed directly."

A dozen shawls were offered on the instant. Three or four of the thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and started off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller: presenting the singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman, dripping wet, and without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground, without any clearly defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an hour.

But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen chimney was on fire--a calamity which always presented itself in glowing colors to the old lady's mind, when anybody about her evinced the smallest agitation.

Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller lighted a blazing fire in his room, and took up his dinner, and afterwards a great rejoicing was held in honor of his safety.

FOOTNOTES:

[O] MR. PICKWICK, a benevolent, simple-minded old gentleman, is the founder of the Pickwick Club. He and three other members, Mr. Winkle, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Tupman, form the Corresponding Society of the club, and they travel over England together, meeting with many laughable adventures. They are accompanied by Samuel Weller, Mr. Pickwick's servant, an inimitable compound of cool impudence, quaint humor, and fidelity. The Pickwickians have accepted the invitation of Mr. Wardle, of Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, to be present at the marriage of his daughter, Isabella, to Mr. Trundle. Among the guests are also Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen, two medical students, and Mr. Allen's sister, Arabella. Other members of Mr. Wardle's household are Mr. Wardle's mother, the "old lady" of Manor Farm, his daughter, Emily, and Joe, a servant lad, known as the "fat boy." The wedding takes place on the twenty-third of December, and then follow the Christmas festivities, of which the skating forms a part.

LXVII. THE HANGING OF THE CRANE.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.--1807-1882.