CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Egerton glanced over the pile of letters placed beside him, and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and threw them into the waste-basket. Public men have such odd out-of-the-way letters that their waste-baskets are never empty: letters from amateur financiers proposing new ways to pay off the National Debt; letters from America, (never free!) asking for autographs; letters from fond mothers in country villages, recommending some miracle of a son for a place in the king's service; letters from freethinkers in reproof of bigotry; letters from bigots in reproof of freethinking; letters signed Brutus Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the writer has a dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are not forthwith adjusted; letters signed Matilda or Caroline, stating that Caroline or Matilda has seen the public man's portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart sensible to its attractions may be found at No. ---- Piccadilly; letters from beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers--all food for the waste-basket.

From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr. Egerton first selected those on business, which he put methodically together in one division of his pocket-book; and secondly, those of a private nature, which he as carefully put into another. Of these last there were but three--one from his steward, one from Harley L'Estrange, one from Randal Leslie. It was his custom to answer his correspondence at his office; and to his office, a few minutes afterward, he slowly took his way. Many a passenger turned back to look again at the firm figure, which, despite the hot summer day, was buttoned up to the throat; and the black frock-coat thus worn, well became the erect air, and the deep full chest of the handsome senator. When he entered Parliament Street, Audley Egerton was joined by one of his colleagues, also on his way to the cares of office.

After a few observations on the last debate, this gentleman said--

"By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to meet Lansmere? He comes up to town to vote for us on Monday."

"I had asked some people to dine with me," answered Egerton, "but I will put them off. I see Lord Lansmere too seldom, to miss any occasion to meet a man whom I respect so much."

"So seldom! True, he is very little in town; but why don't you go and see him in the country? Good shooting--pleasant old-fashioned house."

"My dear Westbourne, his house is '_nimium vicina Cremonæ_,' close to a borough in which I have been burned in effigy."

"Ha--ha--yes--I remember you first came into Parliament for that snug little place; but Lansmere himself never found fault with your votes, did he?"

"He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not presumed to consider me his mouthpiece; and then, too, I am so intimate with L'Estrange."

"Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England?"

"He comes, generally every year, for a few days, just to see his father and mother, and then goes back to the Continent."

"I never meet him."

"He comes in September or October, when you, of course, are not in town, and it is in town that the Lansmeres meet him."

"Why does he not go to them?"

"A man in England but once a year, and for a few days, has so much to do in London, I suppose."

"Is he as amusing as ever?"

Egerton nodded.

"So distinguished as he might be!" continued Lord Westbourne.

"So distinguished as he is!" said Egerton formally; "an officer selected for praise, even in such fields as Quatre Bras and Waterloo; a scholar, too, of the finest taste; and as an accomplished gentleman, matchless!"

"I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in these ill-natured days," answered Lord Westbourne. "But still, though L'Estrange is doubtless all you say, don't you think he rather wastes his life--living abroad?"

"And trying to be happy, Westbourne? Are you sure it is not we who waste our lives? But I can't stay to hear your answer. Here we are at the door of my prison."

"On Saturday, then?"

"On Saturday. Good day."

For the next hour, or more, Mr. Egerton was engaged on the affairs of the state. He then snatched an interval of leisure, (while awaiting a report, which he had instructed a clerk to make him,) in order to reply to his letters. Those on public business were soon dispatched; and throwing his replies aside, to be sealed by a subordinate hand, he drew out the letters which he had put apart as private.

He attended first to that of his steward: the steward's letter was long, the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt himself was scarcely more negligent of his private interests and concerns than Audley Egerton--yet, withal, Audley Egerton was said by his enemies to be an egotist.

The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that, though longer, was far from prolix: it ran thus--

"Dear Mr. Leslie,--I appreciate your delicacy in consulting me, whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean's invitation to call at the Hall. Since you are asked, I can see no objection to it. I should be sorry if you appeared to force yourself there; and for the rest, as a general rule, I think a young man who has his own way to make in life had better avoid all intimacy with those of his own age who have no kindred objects nor congenial pursuits.

"As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to London. The report I receive of your progress at Eton renders it unnecessary, in my judgment, that you should return there. If your father has no objection, I propose that you should go to Oxford at the ensuing term. Meanwhile, I have engaged a gentleman who is a fellow of Baliol, to read with you; he is of opinion, judging only by your high repute at Eton, that you may at once obtain a scholarship in that college. If you do so, I shall look upon your career in life as assured.

Your affectionate friend, and sincere well-wisher, A.E."

The reader will remark that, in this letter, there is a certain tone of formality. Mr. Egerton does not call his _protegé_ "Dear Randal," as would seem natural, but coldly and stiffly, "Dear Mr. Leslie." He hints, also, that the boy has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to guard against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which his generosity may have excited?

The letter to Lord L'Estrange was of a very different kind from the others. It was long, and full of such little scraps of news and gossip as may interest friends in a foreign land; it was written gaily, and as with a wish to cheer his friend; you could see that it was a reply to a melancholy letter; and in the whole tone and spirit there was an affection, even to tenderness, of which those who most liked Audley Egerton would have scarcely supposed him capable. Yet, notwithstanding, there was a kind of constraint in the letter, which perhaps only the fine tact of a woman would detect. It had not that _abandon_, that hearty self-outpouring, which you might expect would characterize the letters of two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and which did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sentences of his correspondent. But where was the evidence of the constraint? Egerton is off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate to others; it is simply that he says nothing about himself--that he avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and feeling. But perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling! How can you expect that a steady personage in practical life, whose mornings are spent in Downing Street, and whose nights are consumed in watching government bills through committee, can write in the same style as an idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna or on the banks of Como.

Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, when the attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a deputation from a provincial trading town, the members of which deputation he had appointed to meet at two o'clock. There was no office in London at which deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which Mr. Egerton presided.

The deputation entered--some score or so of middle-aged, comfortable-looking persons, who nevertheless had their grievance--and considered their own interests, and those of the country, menaced by a certain clause in a bill brought in by Mr. Egerton.

The Mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and he spoke well--but in a style to which the dignified official was not accustomed. It was a slap-dash style--unceremonious, free, and easy--an American style. And, indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance and bearing of the Mayor which savored of residence in the Great Republic. He was a very handsome man, but with a look sharp and domineering--the look of a man who did not care a straw for president or monarch, and who enjoyed the liberty to speak his mind, and "wallop his own nigger!"

His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great respect; and Mr. Egerton had penetration enough to perceive that Mr. Mayor must be a rich man, as well as an eloquent one, to have overcome those impressions of soreness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to create in the self-love of his equals.

Mr. Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by mere manner; and, though he stared somewhat haughtily when he found his observations actually pooh-poohed, he was not above being convinced. There was much sense and much justice in Mr. Mayor's arguments, and the statesman civilly promised to take them into full consideration.

He then bowed out the deputation; but scarcely had the door closed before it opened again, and Mr. Mayor presented himself alone, saying aloud to his companions in the passage, "I forgot something I had to say to Mr. Egerton; wait below for me."

"Well, Mr. Mayor," said Audley, pointing to a seat, "what else would you suggest?"

The Mayor looked round to see that the door was closed; and then, drawing his chair close to Mr. Egerton's, laid his forefinger on that gentleman's arm, and said, "I think I speak to a man of the world, sir."

Mr. Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but he gently removed his arm from the touch of the forefinger.

_Mr. Mayor._--"You observe, sir, that I did not ask the members whom we return to Parliament to accompany us. Do better without 'em. You know they are both in Opposition--out-and-outers."

_Mr. Egerton._--"It is a misfortune which the Government cannot remember, when the question is whether the trade of the town itself is to be served or injured."

_Mr. Mayor._--"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to have two members to support Ministers after the next election."

_Mr. Egerton_, smilingly.--"Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor."

_Mr. Mayor._--"And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have the town in my pocket; so I ought, I spend a great deal of money in it. Now, you see, Mr. Egerton, I have passed a part of my life in a land of liberty--the United States--and I come to the point when I speak to a man of the world. I am a man of the world myself, sir. And if so be the Government will do something for me, why, I'll do something for the Government. Two votes for a free and independent town like ours--that's something, isn't it?"

_Mr. Egerton_, taken by surprise--"Really I--"

_Mr. Mayor_, advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the official.--"No nonsense, you see, on one side or the other. The fact is that I have taken it into my head that I should like to be knighted. You may well look surprised, Mr. Egerton--trumpery thing enough, I dare say; still every man has his weakness and I should like to be Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you may just name your two members for the next election--that is, if they belong to your own set, enlightened men, up to the times. That's speaking fair and manful, isn't it?"

_Mr. Egerton_, drawing himself up.--"I am at a loss to guess why you should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition."

_Mr. Mayor_, nodding good-humoredly.--"Why, you see, I don't go all along with the Government; you're the best of the bunch. And maybe you'd like to strengthen your own party. This is quite between you and me, you understand; honor's a jewel!"

_Mr. Egerton_, with great gravity.--"Sir, I am obliged by your good opinion; but I agree with my colleagues in all the great questions affecting the government of the country, and--"

_Mr. Mayor_, interrupting him.--"Ah, of course you must say so; very right. But I guess things would go differently if you were Prime Minister. However, I have another reason for speaking to you about my little job. You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you came in but by two majority, eh?"

_Mr. Egerton._--"I know nothing of the particulars of that election; I was not present."

_Mr. Mayor._--"No; but, luckily for you, two relatives of mine were, and they voted for you. Two votes, and you came in by two! Since then, you have got into very snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on you--"

_Mr. Egerton._--"Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I was and am a stranger in Lansmere; and, if the electors did me the honor to return me to Parliament, it was in compliment rather to--"

_Mr. Mayor_, again interrupting the official.--"Rather to Lord Lansmere, you were going to say; unconstitutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of the realm. But, never mind, I know the world; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere to do my affair for me, only I hear he is as proud as Lucifer."

_Mr. Egerton_, in great disgust, and settling his papers before him.--"Sir, it is not in my department to recommend to his Majesty candidates for the honor of knighthood, and it is still less in my department to make bargains for seats in Parliament."

_Mr. Mayor._--"Oh, if that's the case, you'll excuse me; I don't know much of the etiquette in these matters. But I thought that, if I put two seats in your hands, for your own friends, you might contrive to take the affair into your department, whatever it was. But since you say you agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. Now you must not suppose I want to sell the town, and that I can change and chop my politics for my own purpose. No such thing! I don't like the sitting members; I'm all for progressing, but they go _too_ much ahead for me; and, since the Government is disposed to move a little, why I'd as lief support them as not. But, in common gratitude, you see, (added the Mayor, coaxingly,) I ought to be knighted! I can keep up the dignity, and do credit to his Majesty."

_Mr. Egerton_, without looking up from his papers.--"I can only refer you, sir, to the proper quarter."

_Mr. Mayor_, impatiently.--"Proper quarter! Well, since there is so much humbug in this old country of ours, that one must go through all the forms and get at the job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to."

_Mr. Egerton_, beginning to be amused as well as indignant.--"If you want a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you must ask the Prime Minister; if you want to give the Government information relative to seats in Parliament, you must introduce yourself to Mr. ----, the Secretary of the Treasury."

_Mr. Mayor._--"And if I go to the last chap, what do you think he'll say?"

_Mr. Egerton_, the amusement preponderating over the indignation.--"He will say, I suppose, that you must not put the thing in the light in which you have put it to me; that the Government will be very proud to have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a gentleman like you, in the proud position of Mayor, may well hope to be knighted on some fitting occasion. But that you must not talk about the knighthood just at present, and must confine yourself to converting the unfortunate political opinions of the town."

_Mr. Mayor._--"Well, I guess that chap there would want to do me! Not quite so green, Mr. Egerton. Perhaps I'd better go at once to the fountain-head. How d'ye think the Premier would take it?"

_Mr. Egerton_, the indignation preponderating over the amusement.--"Probably just as I am about to do."

Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared.

"Show Mr. Mayor the way out," said the Minister.

The Mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked straight to the door; but, suffering the attendant to precede him along the corridor, he came back with rapid stride, and clinching his hands, and with a voice thick with passion, cried, "Some day or other I will make you smart for this, as sure as my name's Dick Avenel!"

"Avenel!" repeated Egerton, recoiling, "Avenel!"

But the Mayor was gone.

Audley fell into a deep and musing reverie which seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door.

He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it toward him, and wrote, "A man has just left me, who calls himself Aven--" in the middle of the name his pen stopped. "No, no," muttered the writer, "what folly to reopen the old wounds there," and he carefully erased the words.

Audley Egerton did not ride in the park that day, as was his wont, but dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse's head toward Westminster Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly, as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[From the Journal des Chasseurs.]

WILD SPORTS IN ALGERIA.

BY M. JULES GERARD.

I knew of a large old lion in the Smauls country and betook myself in that direction. On arriving I heard that he was in the Bonarif, near Batnah. My tent was not yet pitched at the foot of the mountain, when I learned that he was at the Fed Jong, where, on my arrival, I found he had gained the Aures. After traveling one hundred leagues in ten days in the trace of my brute without catching a glimpse of anything but his footprints, I was gratified on the night of the 22d of August with the sound of my lord's voice. I had established my tent in the valley of Ousten. As there is only one path across this thickly covered valley, I found it an easy task to discover his track and follow it to his lair. At six o'clock in the evening I alighted upon a hillock commanding a prospect of the country around. I was accompanied by a native of the country and my spahi, one carrying my carbine, the other my old gun. As I had anticipated, the lion roared under cover at dawn of day; but instead of advancing toward me, he started off in a westerly direction at such a pace that it was impossible for me to come up with him. I retraced my steps at midnight and took up my quarters at the foot of a tree upon the path which the lion had taken. The country about this spot was cleared and cultivated. The moon being favorable, the approach of anything could be descried in every direction. I installed myself and waited. Weary after a ride of several hours over a very irregular country, and not expecting any chance that night, I enjoined my spahi to keep a good watch, and lay down. I was just about to fall asleep when I felt a gentle pull at my burnous. On getting up I was able to make out two lions, sitting one beside the other, about one hundred paces off, and exactly on the path in which I had taken up my position. At first I thought we had been perceived, and prepared to make the best of this discovery. The moon shed a light upon the entire ground which the lions would have to cross in order to reach the tree, close to which all within a circumference of ten paces was completely dark, both on account of the thickness of the tree and the shadow cast by the foliage. My spahi, like me, was in range of the shadow, while the Arab lay snoring ten paces off in the full light of the moon. There was no doubting the fact--it was this man who attracted the attention of the lions. I expressly forbade the spahi to wake up the Arab, as I was persuaded that when the action was over he would be proud of having served as a bait even without knowing it. I then prepared my arms and placed them against the tree and got up, in order the better to observe the movements of the enemy. They were not less than half an hour traversing a distance of one hundred metres. Although the ground was open, I could only see them when they raised their heads to make sure that the Arab was still there. They took advantage of every stone and every tuft of grass to render themselves almost invisible; at last the boldest of them came up crouching on his belly to within ten paces of me and fifteen of the Arab. His eye was fixed on the latter, and with such an expression that I was afraid I had waited too long. The second, who had stayed a few paces behind, came and placed himself on a level with and about four or five paces from the first. I then saw for the first time that they were full-grown lionesses. I took aim at the first, and she came rolling and roaring down to the foot of the tree. The Arab was scarcely awakened when a second ball stretched the animal dead upon the spot. The first bullet went in at the muzzle and came out at the tail; the second had gone through the heart. After making sure that my men were all right, I looked out for the second lioness. She was standing up within fifteen paces, looking at what was going on around her. I took my gun and leveled it at her. She squatted down. When I fired she fell down roaring, and disappeared in a field of maize on the edge of the road. On approaching I found by her moaning that she was still alive, and did not venture at night into the thick plantation which sheltered her. As soon as it was day I went to the spot where she had fallen, and all I found were bloodmarks showing her track in the direction of the wood. After sending the dead lioness to the neighboring garrison, who celebrated its arrival by a banquet, I returned to my post of the previous night. A little after sunset the lion roared for the first time, but instead of quitting his lair he remained there all night, roaring like a madman. Convinced that the wounded lioness was there, I sent on the morning of the 24th two Arabs to explore the cover. They returned without daring to approach it. On the night of the 24th there was the same roaring and complaining of the lion on the mountain and under cover. On the 25th, at five in the evening, I had a young goat muzzled, and proceeded with it to the mountain. The lair was exceedingly difficult of access. Nevertheless I succeeded at last by crawling now on my hands and now on my belly in reaching it. Having discovered certain indications of the presence of the inhabitants of this locality, I had the goat unmuzzled and tied to a tree. Then followed the most comical panic on the part of the Arabs, who were carrying my arms. Seeing themselves in the middle of the lion's lair, whom they could distinctly smell, and hearing the horrified goat calling them with all its might, was a position perfectly intolerable to them. After consulting together as to whether it were better to climb up a tree or clamber on a rock, they asked my permission to remain near the goat. This confidence pleased me and obtained them the privilege of a place by my side. I had not been there a quarter of an hour when the lioness appeared; she found herself suddenly beside the goat, and looked about her with an air of astonishment. I fired, and she fell without a struggle. The Arabs were already kissing my hands, and I myself believed her dead, when she got up again as though nothing was the matter and showed us all her teeth. One of the Arabs who had run toward her was within six paces of her. On seeing her get up he clung to the lower branches of the tree to which the goat was tied, and disappeared like a squirrel. The lioness fell dead at the foot of the tree, a second bullet piercing her heart. The first had passed out of the nape of the neck without breaking the skull bone.

[From the Spectator.]

RECENT DEATHS IN THE FAMILY OF ORLEANS.

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin:" there is not one among the millions who read of the mortal sufferings endured by Queen Louise of Belgium that will not sympathize with the sorrowing relatives around her deathbed; especially with that aged lady who has seen so many changes, survived so many friends, mourned so many dear ones. To the world Queen Amélie is like a relative to whom we are endeared by report without having seen her; and as we read of her journey to pay the last sad offices to her daughter, we forget the "royal personage," in regard for that excellent lady who has been made known to us by so many sorrows.

The Orleans family, in its triumphs and in its adversities, may be taken as a living and most striking illustration of "principle,"--of principle working to ends that are certain. Louis Philippe's character shone best in his personal and family relation. He was a shifty expedientist in politics: a great national crisis came to him as a fine opportunity to the commercial man for pushing some particular kind of traffic. He adopted the cant of the day, as mere traders adopt produce, ready made; taking the correctness of the earlier stages for granted. He adopted "the Monarchy surrounded by Republican institutions," as a Member of Parliament takes the oaths, for form's sake: it was the form of accepting the crown, its power and dignity; and he did what was suggested as the proper thing to be done: but did he ever trouble himself about the "Republican institutions?" He adopted the National Guard, as a useful instrument to act by way of breastwork, under cover of which his throne could repose secure, while the royal power could shoot as it pleased _over_ that respectable body at the people: but did he ever trouble himself with the purpose of a national guard?--No more than a beadle troubles his head with the church theology or parochial constitution. He never meddled with the stuff and vital working of politics; and when the time came that required him to maintain his post by having a hold on the nation of France, by acting with the forces then at work, wholly incompetent to the unsought task, he let go, and was drifted away by the flood of events. But still, though the most signal instance of opportunity wasted and success converted to failure before the eyes of Europe, he retained a considerable degree of respectability. First, the vitality of the man was strong, and had been tested by many vicissitudes; and the world sympathizes with that sort of leasehold immortality. Further, his family clung around him: the respectable, amiable paterfamilias, whose personal qualities had been somewhat obscured by the splendors of the throne, now again appeared unvailed, and that which was sterling in the man was once more known--again tried, again sound. Louis Philippe failed as a king, he succeeded as a father.

Queen Amélie placed her faith less on mundane prosperity than on spiritual welfare; and she was so far imbued by faith as a living principle that it actuated her in her conduct as a daily practice. With the obedience of the true Catholic, she combined the spirit of active Christianity. While some part of her family has been inspired mainly by the paternal spirit, some took their spirit from the mother; and none, it would appear, more decidedly than Queen Louise. The accounts from Belgium liken her to our own Queen Adelaide, in whom was exhibited the same spirit of piety and practical Christianity; and we see the result in the kind of personal affection that she earned. Agree with these estimable women in their doctrine or not, you cannot but respect the firmness of their own faith or the spirit of self-sacrifice which remained uncorrupted through all the trials of temptations, so rife, so _devitalizing_ in the life of royalty.

Death visits the palace and the cottage, and we expect his approach: we understand his aspect, and know how he affects the heart of mortality. Be they crowned or not, we understand what it is that mortal creatures are enduring under the affliction; and we well know what it means when parent and children, brothers and sisters, collect around the deathbed.

King Leopold we have twice seen under the same trial, and again remember how much he has rested of his life on the personal relation. We note these things; we call to mind all that the family, illustrious not less by its vicissitudes and its adversities than by its exaltation, has endured; and while we sympathize with its sorrows, we feel how much it must be sustained by those reliances which endure more firmly than worldly fortune. But our regard does not stop with admiration; we notice with satisfaction this example to the family and personal relation--this proof that amid the splendors of royalty the firmest reliances and the sweetest consolations are those which are equally open to the humblest.

[From "Leaves from the Journal of a Naturalist," in Fraser's Magazine.]

PLEASANT STORY OF A SWALLOW.

In September, 1800, the Rev. Walter Trevelyan wrote from Long-Wilton, Northumberland, in a letter to the editor of Bewick's "British Birds," the following narrative, which is so simply and beautifully written, and gives so clear an account of the process of taming, that it would be unjust to recite it in any words but his own for the edification of those who may wish to make the experiment:--"About nine weeks ago (writes the good clergyman), a swallow fell down one of our chimneys, nearly fledged, and was able to fly in two or three days. The children desired they might try to rear him, to which I agreed, fearing the old ones would desert him; and as he was not the least shy they succeeded without any difficulty, for he opened his mouth for flies as fast as they could supply them, and was regularly fed to a whistle. In a few days, perhaps a week, they used to take him into the fields with them, and as each child found a fly and whistled, the little bird flew for his prey from one to another; at other times he would fly round about them in the air, but always descended at the first call, in spite of the constant endeavors of the wild swallows to seduce him away; for which purpose several of them at once would fly about him in all directions, striving to drive him away when they saw him about to settle on one of the children's hands, extended with the food. He would very often alight on the children, uncalled, when they were walking several fields distant from home." What a charming sketch of innocence and benevolence, heightened by the anxiety of the pet's relations to win him away from beings whom they must have looked upon as so many young ogres! The poor flies, it is true, darken the picture a little; but to proceed with the narrative:--"Our little inmate was never made a prisoner by being put into a cage, but always ranged about the room at large wherever the children were, and they never went out of doors without taking him with them. Sometimes he would sit on their hands or heads and catch flies for himself, which he soon did with great dexterity. At length, finding it take up too much of their time to supply him with food enough to satisfy his appetite (for I have no doubt he ate from seven hundred to a thousand flies a day), they used to turn him out of the house, shutting the window to prevent his returning for two or three hours together, in hopes he would learn to cater for himself, which he soon did; but still was no less tame, always answering their call, and coming in at the window to them (of his own accord) frequently every day, and always roosting in their room, which he has regularly done from the first till within a week or ten days past. He constantly roosted on one of the children's heads till their bed-time; nor was he disturbed by the child moving about, or even walking, but would remain perfectly quiet with his head under his wing, till he was put away for the night in some warm corner, for he liked much warmth." The kind and considerate attempt to alienate the attached bird from its little friends had its effect. "It is now four days (writes worthy Mr. Trevelyan, in conclusion) since he came in to roost in the house, and though he then did not show any symptoms of shyness, yet he is evidently becoming less tame, as the whistle will not now bring him to the hand; nor does he visit us as formerly, but he always acknowledges it when within hearing by a chirp, and by flying near. Nothing could exceed his tameness for about six weeks; and I have no doubt it would have continued the same had we not left him to himself as much as we could, fearing he would be so perfectly domesticated that he would be left behind at the time of migration, and of course be starved in the winter from cold and hunger." And so ends this agreeable story: not, however, that it was "of course" that the confiding bird would be starved if it remained, for the Rev. W.F. Cornish, of Totness, kept two tame swallows, one for a year and a half, and the other for two years, as he informed Mr. Yarrell.

[From Mure's Literature of Ancient Greece.]

EXCLUSION OF LOVE FROM GREEK POETRY.

One of the most prominent forms in which the native simplicity and purity of the Hellenic bard displays itself is the entire exclusion of sentimental or romantic love from his stock of poetical materials. This is a characteristic which, while inherited in a greater or less degree by the whole more flourishing age of Greek poetical literature, possesses also the additional source of interest to the modern scholar, of forming one of the most striking points of distinction between ancient and modern literary taste. So great an apparent contempt, on the part of so sensitive a race as the Hellenes, for an element of poetical pathos which has obtained so boundless an influence on the comparatively phlegmatic races of Western Europe, is a phenomenon which, although it has not escaped the notice of modern critics, has scarcely met with the attention which its importance demands. By some it has been explained as a consequence of the low estimation in which the female sex was held in Homer's age, as contrasted with the high honors conferred on it by the courtesy of medieval chivalry; by others as a natural effect of the restrictions placed on the free intercourse of the sexes among the Greeks. Neither explanation is satisfactory. The latter of the two is set aside by Homer's own descriptions, which abundantly prove that in his time, at least, women could have been subjected to no such jealous control as to interfere with the free course of amorous intrigue. Nor even, had such been the case, would the cause have been adequate to the effect. Experience seems rather to evince that the greater the difficulties to be surmounted the higher the poetical capabilities of such adventures. Erotic romance appears, in fact, to have been nowhere more popular than in the East, where the jealous separation of the sexes has, in all ages, been extreme. As little can it be said that Homer's poems exhibit a state of society in which females were lightly esteemed. The Trojan war itself originates in the susceptibility of an injured husband: and all Greece takes up arms to avenge his wrong. The plot of the Odyssey hinges mainly on the constant attachment of the hero to the spouse of his youth; and the whole action tends to illustrate the high degree of social and political influence consequent on the exemplary performance of the duties of wife and mother. Nor surely do the relations subsisting between Hector and Andromache, or Priam and Hecuba, convey a mean impression of the respect paid to the female sex in the heroic age. As little can the case be explained by a want of fit or popular subjects of amorous adventure. Many of the favorite Greek traditions are as well adapted to the plot of an epic poem or tragedy of the sentimental order, as any that modern history can supply. Still less can the exclusion be attributed to a want of sensibility, on the part of the Greek nation, to the power of the tender passions. The influence of those passions is at least as powerfully and brilliantly asserted in their own proper sphere of poetical treatment, in the lyric odes, for example, of Sappho or Mimnermus, as in any department of modern poetry. Nor must it be supposed that even the nobler Epic or Tragic Muse was insensible to the poetical value of the passion of love. But it was in the connection of that passion with others of a sterner nature to which it gives rise, jealousy, hatred, revenge, rather than in its own tender sensibilities, that the Greek poets sought to concentrate the higher interest of their public. Any excess of the amorous affections which tended to enslave the judgment or reason was considered as a weakness, not an honorable emotion; and hence was confined almost invariably to women. The nobler sex are represented as comparatively indifferent, often cruelly callous, to such influence; and, when subjected to it, are usually held up as objects of contempt rather than admiration. As examples may be cited the amours of Medea and Jason, of Phædra and Hippolytus, of Theseus and Ariadne, of Hercules and Omphale. The satire on the amorous weakness of the most illustrious of Greek heroes embodied in the last mentioned fable, with the glory acquired by Ulysses from his resistance to the fascinations of Circe and Calypso, may be jointly contrasted with the subjection by Tasso of Rinaldo and his comrades to the thraldom of Armida, and with the pride and pleasure which the Italian poet of chivalry appears to take in the sensual degradation of his heroes. The distinction here drawn by the ancients is the more obvious, that their warriors are least of all men described as indifferent to the pleasures of female intercourse. They are merely exempt from subjection to its unmanly seductions. Ulysses, as he sails from coast to coast, or island to island, willingly partakes of the favors which fair goddesses or enchantresses press on his acceptance. But their influence is never permitted permanently to blunt the more honorable affections of his bosom, or divert his attention from higher objects of ambition.

[From the Spectator.]

THE GATEWAY OF THE OCEANS.

The forcing of the barrier which for three hundred years has defied and imperiled the commerce of the world seems now an event at hand. One half of the contract for the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific, obtained from the State of Nicaragua last year by the promptitude of the Americans, is to be held at the option of English capitalists; and an understanding is at length announced, that if the contemplated ship-canal can be constructed on conditions that shall leave no uncertainty as to the profitableness of the enterprise, it is to be carried forward with the influence of our highest mercantile firms. The necessary surveys have been actually commenced; and as a temporary route is at the same time being opened, an amount of information is likely soon to be collected which will familiarize us with each point regarding the capabilities of the entire region. It is understood, moreover, that when the canal-surveys shall be completed, they are to be submitted to the rigid scrutiny of Government engineers both in England and the United States; so that before the public can be called upon to consider the expediency of embarking in the undertaking, every doubt in connection with it, as far as practical minds are concerned, will have been removed.

The immediate steps now in course of adoption may be explained in a few words. At present the transit across the Isthmus of Panama occupies four days, and its inconveniences and dangers are notorious. At Nicaragua, it is represented, the transit may possibly be effected in one day, and this by a continuous steam-route with the exception of fifteen miles by mule or omnibus. The passage would be up the San Juan, across Lake Nicaragua to the town of that name, and thence to the port of San Juan del Sur on the Pacific. On arriving at this terminus, (which is considerably south of the one contemplated for the permanent canal, namely Realejo,) the passenger would find himself some six or seven hundred miles nearer to California than if he had crossed at the Isthmus of Panama; and as the rate of speed of the American steamers on this service is upward of three hundred miles a day, his saving of three days in crossing, coupled with the saving in sea distance, would be equivalent to a total of fifteen hundred miles, measured in relation to what is accomplished by these vessels. A lower charge for the transit, and a comparatively healthy climate, are also additional inducements; and under these circumstances, anticipations are entertained that the great tide of traffic will be turned in the new direction. This tide, according to the last accounts from Panama, was kept up at the rate of 70,000 persons a year; and it was expected to increase.

The navigability of the San Juan, however, in its present state, remains yet to be tested. The American company who have obtained the privilege of the route have sent down two vessels of light draught, the Nicaragua and the Director, for the purpose of forthwith placing the matter beyond doubt. At the last date, the Director had safely crossed the bar at its mouth, and was preparing to ascend; the Nicaragua had previously gone up the Colorado, a branch river, where, it is said, through the carelessness of her engineer, she had run aground upon a sand-bank, though without sustaining any damage. The next accounts will possess great interest. Whatever may be the real capabilities of the river, accidents and delays must be anticipated in the first trial of a new method of navigating it: even in our own river, the Thames, the first steamer could scarcely have been expected to make a trip from London Bridge to Richmond without some mishap. Should, therefore, the present experiment show any clear indications of success, there will be reasonable ground for congratulation; and it forms so important a chapter in the history of enterprise, that all must regard it with good wishes.

If the results of this temporary transit should realize the expectations it seems to warrant, there can be little doubt the completion of the canal will soon be commenced with ardor. Supposing the surveys should show a cost not exceeding the sum estimated in 1837 by Lieutenant Baily, the prospect of the returns would, there is reason to believe, be much larger than the public have at any time been accustomed to suppose. There is also the fact that the increase of these returns can know no limit so long as the commerce of the world shall increase; and indeed, already the idea of the gains to accrue appears to have struck some minds with such force as to lead them to question if the privileges which have been granted are not of a kind so extraordinarily favorable that they will sooner or later be repudiated by the State of Nicaragua. No such danger however exists; as the company are guaranteed in the safe possession of all their rights by the treaty of protection which has been ratified between Great Britain and the United States.

One most important sign in favor of the quick completion of the ship-canal is now furnished in the circumstance that there are no rival routes. At Panama, a cheap wooden railway is to be constructed, which will prove serviceable for much of the passenger-traffic to Peru and Chili; but the project for a canal at that point has been entirely given up. The same is the case at Tehuantepec, where the difficulties are far greater than at Panama.

It is true, the question naturally arises, whether if an exploration were made of other parts of Central America or New Grenada, some route might not be discovered which might admit of the construction of a canal even at a less cost than will be necessary at Nicaragua. But in a matter which concerns the commerce of the whole world for ages, there are other points to be considered besides mere cheapness; and those who have studied the advantages of Nicaragua maintain that enough is known of the whole country both north and south of that State, to establish the fact that she possesses intrinsic capabilities essential to the perfectness of the entire work, which are not to be found in any other quarter, and for the absence of which no saving of any immediate sum would compensate. In the first place, it is nearer to California by several hundred miles than any other route that could be pointed out except Tehuantepec, while at the same time it is so central as duly to combine the interests both of the northern and southern countries of the Pacific; in the next place, it contains two magnificent natural docks, where all the vessels in the world might refresh and refit; thirdly, it abounds in natural products of all kinds, and is besides comparatively well-peopled; fourthly, it possesses a temperature which is relatively mild, while it is also in most parts undoubtedly healthy; and finally, it has a harbor on the Pacific, which, to use the words of Dunlop in his book on Central America, is as good as any port in the known world, and decidedly superior even to Portsmouth, Rio Janeiro, Port Jackson, Talcujana, Callao, and Guayaquil. The proximity to California moreover settles the question as to American cooperation; which, it may be believed, would certainly not be afforded to any route farther south, and without which it would be idle to contemplate the undertaking.

At the same time, however, it must be admitted, that if any body of persons would adopt the example now set by the American company, and commence a survey of any new route at their own expense, they would be entitled to every consideration, and to rank as benefactors of the community, whatever might be the result of their endeavors. There are none who can help forward the enterprise, either directly or indirectly, upon whom it will not shed honor. That honor, too, will not be distant. The progress of the work will unite for the first time in a direct manner the two great nations upon whose mutual friendship the welfare of the world depends; and its completion will cause a revolution in commerce more extensive and beneficent than any that has yet occurred, and which may still be so rapid as to be witnessed by many who even now are old.

[From the Spectator.]

THE MURDER MARKET.

"The Doddinghurst murder," "the Frimley murder," "the Regent's Park burglary," "the Birmingham burglary," "the Liverpool plate robberies,"--the plots thicken to such a degree that society turns still paler; and having last week asked for ideas on the subject of better security for life and property, asks this week, still more urgently, for _more_ security. We must then penetrate deeper into the causes.

Yes, civilization is observable in nothing more than in the development of criminality. Whether it is that _pennyalining_ discloses it more, or that the instances really are more numerous, may be doubtful; but why, in spite of modern improvements to illumine, order, and guard society, does crime stalk abroad so signally unchecked?--_that_ is the question.

We believe that the causes are various; and that to effect a thorough amendment, we must deal with _all_ the causes, radically. Let us reckon up some of them. One is, that the New Police, which at first acted as a scarecrow, has grown familiar to the ruffianly or roguish: it has been discovered that a Policeman is not ubiquitous, and if you know that he is walking toward Berkhamstead you are certain that he is not going toward Hemel Hempstead. In some counties the Policeman is the very reverse of ubiquitous, being altogether non-inventus, by reason of parsimony in the rate-payers. The disuse of arms and the general unfamiliarity with them help to embolden the audacious. The increase of wealth is a direct attraction: the more silver spoons and épergnes, the more gold-handled knives and dish-covers electro-gilt, are to be found in pantry, the more baits are there set for the wild animals of society; and if there be no trap with the bait, then the human vermin merely run off with it. But he will bite if you offer any let. With the general luxury grows the burglarious love of luxury: as peers and cits grow more curious in their appetites, so burglars and swell-mobsmen. The tasteful cruet which tempts Lady Juliana, and is gallantly purchased by her obliging husband Mr. Stubbs, has its claims also for Dick Stiles; and the champagne which is so relished by the guests round Mr. Stubbs's mahogany is pleasant tipple under a hedge. Another cause, most pregnant with inconvenience to the public, is the practice in which we persist in letting our known criminals go about at large, on constitutional scruples against shutting the door till the steed be gone. We are bound to treat a man as innocent until he be found guilty,--which means, that we must not hang him or pillory him without proof before a jury: but an innocent man may be suspected, and _ought_ to be suspected, if appearances are against him. So much for the suspected criminal, whom we will not take into custody until he has galloped off in our own saddle. But even the convicted ruffian is to be set at large, under the system of time sentences. Yes, "the liberty of the subject" demands the license of the burglar.

A sixth cause is the mere increase of the population hereditarily given to crime,--a caste upon which we have made so little impression, either by prison discipline, ragged schools, or any other process. In education we rely upon book learning or theological scrap teaching, neither of which influences will reach certain minds; for there are many, and not the worst dispositions, that never can be brought under a very active influence of a studious or spiritual kind. But we omit the right kind of training, the physical and material, for that order of mind.

Other causes are--the wide social separation in this country, by virtue of which our servants are strangers in the house, alien if not hostile to the family; the want of our present customs to give scope for such temperaments as need excitement; the state of the Poor-law, which makes the honest man desperate and relaxes the proper control over the vagrant.

The remedies for these causes must go deeper than bells for shutters or snappish housedogs for the night: meanwhile, we must be content to read of murders, and to use the best palliatives we can--even shutter-bells and vigilant little dogs.

[From the Examiner.]

STATUES.

Statues are now rising in every quarter of our metropolis, and mallet and chisel are the chief instruments in use. Whatever is conducive to the promotion of the arts ought undoubtedly to be encouraged; but love in this instance, quite as much as in any, ought neither to be precipitate nor blind. A true lover of his country should be exempted from the pain of blushes, when a foreigner inquires of him, "_Whom does this statue represent? and for what merits was it raised?_" The defenders of their country, not the dismemberers of it, should be first in honor; the maintainers of the laws, not the subverters of them, should follow next. I may be asked by the studious, the contemplative, the pacific, whether I would assign a higher station to any public man than to a Milton and a Newton. My answer is plainly and loudly, _Yes_. But the higher station should be in the streets, in squares, in houses of parliament: such are their places; our vestibules and our libraries are best adorned by poets, philosophers, and philanthropists. There is a feeling which street-walking and public-meeting men improperly call _loyalty_; a feeling intemperate and intolerant, smelling of dinner and wine and toasts, which raises their stomachs and their voices at the sound of certain names reverberated by the newspaper press. As little do they know about the proprietary of these names as pot-wallopers know about the candidates at a borough election, and are just as vociferous and violent. A few days ago, I received a most courteous invitation to be named on a Committee for erecting a statue to Jenner. It was impossible for me to decline it; and equally was it impossible to abstain from the observations which I am now about to state. I recommended that the statue should be placed before a public hospital, expressing my sense of impropriety in confounding so great a benefactor of mankind, in any street or square or avenue, with the Dismemberer of America and his worthless sons. Nor would I willingly see him among the worn-out steam-engines of parliamentary debates. The noblest parliamentary men who had nothing to distribute, not being ministers, are without statues. The illustrious Burke, the wisest, excepting Bacon, who at any time sat within the people's House; Romilly, the sincerest patriot; Huskisson, the most intelligent in commercial affairs, has none. Peel is become popular, not by his incomparable merits, but by his untimely death. Shall we never see the day when Oliver and William mount the chargers of Charles and George; and when a royal swindler is superseded by the purest and most exalted of our heroes, Blake?

Walter Savage Landor.

[From the last Edinburgh Review.]

RESPONSIBILITY OF STATESMEN.

It is of the last moment that all who are, or are likely to be, called to administer the affairs of a free state, should be deeply imbued with the statesmanlike virtues of modesty and caution, and should act under a profound sense of their personal responsibility. It is an awful thing to undertake the government of a great country; and no man can be any way worthy of that high calling who does not from his inmost soul feel it to be so. When we reflect upon the fearful consequences, both to the lives, the material interests, and the moral well-being of thousands, which may ensue from a hasty word, an erroneous judgment, a temporary carelessness, or a lapse of diligence; when we remember that every action of a statesman is pregnant with results which may last for generations after he is gathered to his fathers; that his decisions may, and probably must, affect for good or ill the destinies of future times; that peace or war, crime or virtue, prosperity or adversity, the honor or dishonor of his country, the right or wrong, wise or unwise solution of some of the mightiest problems in the progress of humanity, depend upon the course he may pursue at those critical moments which to ordinary men occur but rarely, but which crowd the daily life of a statesman; the marvel is that men should be forthcoming bold enough to venture on such a task. Now, among public men in England this sense of responsibility is in general adequately felt. It affords an honorable (and in most cases we believe a true) explanation of that singular discrepancy between public men when in and when out of office--that inconsistency between the promise and the performance,--between what the leader of the opposition urges the minister to do, and what the same leader, when minister himself, actually does,--which is so commonly attributed to less reputable motives. The independent member may speculate and criticise at his ease; may see, as he thinks, clearly, and with an undoubting and imperious conviction, what course on this or that question ought to be pursued; may feel so unboundedly confident in the soundness of his views, that he cannot comprehend or pardon the inability of ministers to see as he sees, and to act as he would wish; but as soon as the overwhelming responsibilities of office are his own, as soon as he finds no obstacle to the carrying out of his plans, except such as may arise from the sense that he does so at the risk of his country's welfare and his own reputation--he is seized with a strange diffidence, a new-born modesty, a mistrust of his own judgment which he never felt before; he re-examines, he hesitates, he delays; he brings to bear upon the investigation all the new light which official knowledge has revealed to him; and finds at last that he scruples to do himself what he had not scrupled to insist upon before. So deep-rooted is this sense of responsibility with our countrymen, that whatever parties a crisis of popular feeling might carry into power, we should have comparatively little dread of rash, and no dread of corrupt, conduct on their part; we scarcely know the public man who, when his country's destinies were committed to his charge, could for a moment dream of acting otherwise than with scrupulous integrity, and to the best of his utmost diligence and most cautious judgment,--at all events till the dullness of daily custom had laid his self-vigilance asleep. We are convinced that were Lord Stanhope and Mr. Disraeli to be borne into office by some grotesque freak of fortune, even they would become sobered as by magic, and would astonish all beholders, not by their vagaries, but by their steadiness and discretion. Now, of this wholesome sense of awful responsibility, we see no indications among public men in France. Dumont says, in his "Recollections of Mirabeau," "I have sometimes thought that if you were to stop a hundred men indiscriminately in the streets of Paris and London, and propose to each to undertake the government, ninety-nine of the Londoners would refuse, and ninety-nine of the Parisians would accept." In fact, we find it is only one or two of the more experienced _habitués_ of office who in France ever seem to feel any hesitation. Ordinary deputies, military men, journalists, men of science, accept, with a _naive_ and simple courage, posts for which, except that courage, they possess no single qualification. But this is not the worst; they never hesitate, at their country's risk and cost, to carry out their own favorite schemes to an experiment; in fact, they often seem to value office mainly for that purpose, and to regard their country chiefly as the _corpus vile_ on which the experiment is to be made. To make way for their theories, they relentlessly sweep out of sight the whole past, and never appear to contemplate either the possibility or the parricidal guilt of failure.

[From the New Monthly Magazine.]

THE COW TREE OF SOUTH AMERICA.

Mr. Higson met with two species of cow tree, which he states to be abundant in the deep and humid woods of the provinces of Chocó and Popayán. In an extract from his diary, dated Ysconde, May 7, 1822, he gives an account of an excursion he made, about twelve miles up the river, in company with the alcaide and two other gentlemen, in quest of some of these milk trees, one species of which, known to the inhabitants by the name of Popa, yields, during the ascent of the sap, a redundance of a nutritive milky juice, obtained by incisions made into the thick bark which clothes the trunk, and which he describes as of an ash color externally, while the interior is of a clay red. Instinct, or some natural power closely approaching to the reasoning principle, has taught the jaguars, and other wild beasts of the forest, the value of this milk, which they obtain by lacerating the bark with their claws and catching the milk as it flows from the incisions. A similar instinct prevails amongst the hogs that have become wild in the forests of Jamaica, where a species of Rhus, the _Rhus Metopium_ of botanists, grows, the bark of which, on being wounded, yields a resinous juice, possessing many valuable medicinal properties, and among them that of rapidly cicatrizing wounds. How this valuable property was first discovered by the hogs, or by what peculiar interchange of ideas the knowledge of it was communicated by the happy individual who made it to his fellow hogs, is a problem which, in the absence of some porcine historiographer, we have little prospect of solving. But, however this may be, the fact is sufficiently notorious in Jamaica, where the wild hogs, when wounded, seek out one of these trees, which, from the first discoverers of its sanative properties, have been named "Hog Gum Trees," and, abrading the bark with their teeth, rub the wounded part of their bodies against it, so as to coat the wound with a covering of the gummy, or rather gum-resinous fluid, that exudes from the bark. In like manner, as Mr. Higson informs us, the jaguars, instructed in the nutritious properties of the potable juice of the Popa, jump up against the stem, and lacerating the bark with their claws greedily catch the liquid nectar as it issues from the wound. By a strange perverseness of his nature, man, in the pride of his heart and the intoxication of his vanity, spurns this delicious beverage, which speedily fattens all who feed on it, and contents himself with using it, when inspissated by the sun, as a bird-lime to catch parrots; or converting it into a glue, which withstands humidity, by boiling it with the gum of the mangle-tree (_Sapium aucuparium?_), tempered with wood ashes. Mr. Higson states that they caught plenty of the milk, which was of the consistence of cream, of a bland and sweetish taste, and a somewhat aromatic flavor, and so white as to communicate a tolerably permanent stain wherever it fell; it mixed with spirit, as readily as cow's milk, and made, with the addition of water, a very agreeable and refreshing beverage, of which they drank several tutumos full. They cut down a tree, one of the tallest of the forest, in order to procure specimens, and found the timber white, of a fine grain, and well adapted for boards or shingles. They were about a month too late to obtain the blossoms, which were said to be very showy, but found abundance of fruit, disposed on short foot-stalks in the alæ of the leaves; these were scabrous, and about the size of a nutmeg. The leaves he describes as having very short petioles, hearted at the base, and of a coriaceous consistence, and covered with large semi-globular glands.

Besides the Popa, he speaks of another lactescent tree, called Sandé, the milk of which, though more abundant, is thinner, bluish, like skimmed milk, and not so palatable.

This, inspissated in the sun, acquires the appearance of a black gum, and is so highly valued for its medicinal properties, especially as a topical application in inflammatory affections of the spleen, pleura, and liver, that it fetches a dollar the ounce in the Valle del Cauca. The leaves are described as resembling those of the _Chrysophyllum cainito_, or broad-leaved star apple, springing from short petioles, ten or twelve inches long, oblong, ovate, pointed, with alternate veins, and ferruginous on the under surface. The locality of the Sandé he does not point out, but says that a third kind of milk tree, the juice of which is potable, grows in the same forests, where it is known by the name of Lyria. This he regards as identical with the cow tree of Caracas, of which Humboldt has given so graphic a description.

[From the Illustrated London News.]

SONG OF THE SEASONS.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

I heard the language of the trees, In the noons of the early summer; As the leaves were moved like rippling seas By the wind--a constant comer. It came and it went at its wanton will; And evermore loved to dally, With branch and flower, from the cope of the hill To the warm depths of the valley. The sunlight glow'd; the waters flow'd; The birds their music chanted, And the words of the trees on my senses fell-- By a spirit of Beauty haunted:-- Said each to each, in mystic speech:-- "The skies our branches nourish;-- The world is good,--the world is fair,-- Let us _enjoy_ and flourish!"

Again I heard the steadfast trees; The wintry winds were blowing; There seem'd a roar as of stormy seas, And of ships to the depths down-going And ever a moan through the woods were blown, As the branches snapp'd asunder, And the long boughs swung like the frantic arms Of a crowd in affright and wonder. Heavily rattled the driving hail! And storm and flood combining, Laid bare the roots of mighty oaks Under the shingle twining. Said tree to tree, "These tempests free Our sap and strength shall nourish; Though the world be hard, though the world be cold, We can endure and flourish!"

[From Eliza Cook's Journal.]

THE WANE OF THE YEAR.

But autumn wanes, and with it fade the golden tints, and burning hues, and the warm breezes; for winter, with chilling clasp and frosty breath, hurries like a destroyer over the fields to bury their beauties in his snow, and to blanch and wither up with his frozen breath, the remnants of the blooming year. The harvests are gathered, the seeds are sown, the meadow becomes once more green and velvet-like as in the days of spring: the weeds and flowers run to seed, and stand laden with cups, and urns, and bells, each containing the unborn germs of another summer's beauty, and only waiting for the winter winds to scatter them, and the spring sunshine to fall upon them, where they fall to break into bud and leaf and flower, and to whisper to the passing wind that the soul of beauty dies not. It is now upon the waning of the sunshine and the falling of the leaf that the bleak winds rise angrily, and the gloom of the dying year deepens in the woods and fields. We hear the plying of the constant flail mingling with the clatter of the farm-yard; we are visited by fogs and moving mists, and heavy rains that last for days together; upon the hill the horn of the hunter is heard, and in the mountain solitudes the eagle's scream; up among craggy rifts the red deer bound, and the waterfall keeps up its peals of thunder; and although the autumn, having ripened the fruits of summer, and gathered into the garnery the yellow fruitage of the field, must hie away to sunbright shores and islands in the glittering seas of fairy lands, she leaves the spirits of the flowers to hover hither and thither amid the leafless bowers to bewail in midnight dirges the loss of leaves and blossoms and the joyful tide of song. It is one of these of whom the poet speaks; for he, having been caught up by the divine ether into the regions of eternal beauty, has seen, as mortals seldom see, the shadows of created things, and has spoken with the angel spirits of the world:--

A spirit haunts the year's last hours, Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers; To himself he talks: For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh. In the walks Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers, Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly, Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

The air is damp, and hush'd and close, As a sick man's room when he taketh repose An hour before death; My very heart faints, and my whole soul grieves, At the rich moist smell of the rotting leaves, And the breath Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year's last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly, Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.--_Tennyson._

The black clouds are even now gathering upon the fringes of the sky, and the mellow season of the fruitage ends. Thus all the changes of the earth pass round, each imprinting its semblance on the brow of man, and writing its lessons on his soul; that like the green earth beneath his feet, he may, through cold and heat, through storm and sun, be ever blossoming with fragrant flowers, and yielding refreshing fruit from the inexhaustible soil of a regenerated heart.

[From Slack's Ministry of the Beautiful, just published by A. Hart, Philadelphia.]

THE FOUNTAIN IN THE WOOD.

A little way apart from a great city was a fountain in a wood. The water gushed from a rock and ran in a little crystal stream to a mossy basin below; the wildflowers nodded their heads to catch its tiny spray; tall trees overarched it; and through the interspaces of their moving leaves the sunlight came and danced with rainbow feet upon its sparkling surface.

There was a young girl who managed every day to escape a little while from the turmoil of the city, and went like a pilgrim to the fountain in the wood. The water was sparkling, the moss and fern looked very lovely in the gentle moisture which the fountain cast upon them, and the trees waved their branches and rustled their green leaves in happy concert with the summer breeze. The girl loved the beauty of the scene and it grew upon her. Every day the fountain had a fresh tale to tell, and the whispering murmur of the leaves was ever new. By-and-by she came to know something of the language in which the fountain, the ferns, the mosses, and the trees held converse. She listened very patiently, full of wonder and of love. She heard them often regret that man would not learn their language, that they might tell him the beautiful things they had to say. At last the maiden ventured to tell them that she knew their tongue, and with what exquisite delight she heard them talk. The fountain flowed faster, more sunbeams danced on its waters, the leaves sang a new song, and the ferns and mosses grew greener before her eyes. They all told her what joy thrilled through them at her words. Human beings had passed them in abundance, they said, and as there was a tradition among the flowers that men once spoke, they hoped one day to hear them do so again. The maiden told them that all men spoke, at which they were astonished, but said that making articulate noises was not speaking, many such they had heard, but never till now real human speech; for that, they said, could come alone from the mind and heart. It was the voice of the body which men usually talked with, and that they did not understand, but only the voice of the soul, which was rare to hear. Then there was great joy through all the wood, and there went forth a report that at length a maiden was found whose soul could speak, and who knew the language of the flowers and the fountain. And the trees and the stream said one to another, "Even so did our old prophets teach, and now hath it been fulfilled." Then the maiden tried to tell her friends in the city what she had heard at the fountain, but could explain very little, for although they knew her words, they felt not her meaning. And certain young men came and begged her to take them to the wood that they might hear the voices. So she took one after another, but nothing came of it, for to them the fountain and the trees were mute. Many thought the maiden mad, and laughed at her belief, but they could not take the sweet voices away from her. Now the maidens wished her to take them also, and she did, but with little better success. A few thought they heard something, but knew not what, and on their return to the city its bustle obliterated the small remembrance they had carried away. At length a young man begged the maiden to give him a trial, and she did so. They went hand in hand to the fountain, and he heard the language, although not so well as the maiden; but she helped him, and found that when both heard the words together they were more beautiful than ever. She let go his hand, and much of the beauty was gone; the fountain told them to join hands and lips also, and they did it. Then arose sweeter sounds than they had ever heard, and soft voices encompassed them saying, "Henceforth be united; for the spirit of truth and beauty hath made you one."

[From Dr. Marcy's Homeopathic Theory and Practice of Medicine.]

WEARING THE BEARD.

One great cause of the frequent occurrence of chronic bronchitis may be found in the reprehensible fashion of shaving the beard. That this ornament was given by the Creator for some useful purpose, there can be no doubt, for in fashioning the human body, he gave nothing unbecoming a perfect man, nothing useless, nothing superfluous. Hair being an imperfect conductor of caloric, is admirably calculated to retain the animal warmth of that part of the body which is so constantly and necessarily exposed to the weather, and thus to protect this important portion of the respiratory passage from the injurious effects of sudden checks of perspiration.

When one exercises for hours his vocal organs, with the unremitted activity of a public declamation, the pores of the skin in the vicinity of the throat and chest become relaxed, so that when he enters the open air, the whole force of the atmosphere bears upon these parts, and he sooner or later contracts a bronchitis; while, had he the flowing beard with which his Maker has endowed him, uncut, to protect these important parts, he would escape any degree of exposure unharmed.

The fact that Jews and other people who wear the beard long, are but rarely afflicted with bronchitis and analogous disorders, suggests a powerful argument in support of these views.

[From "Ada Greville," by Peter Leicester.]

A VIEW OF BOMBAY.

They had soon reached the Apollo Bunder, where they were to land, and where Ada's attention was promptly engaged by the bustle awaiting her there; and where, from among numbers of carriages, and palanquins, and carts in waiting--many of them of such extraordinary shapes--some moved by horses, some by bullocks, and some by men, and all looking strange; from their odd commixture, Mr. McGregor's phaeton promptly drew up, and he placed the ladies in it, himself driving, and the two maids following in a palanquin carriage. This latter amused Ada exceedingly; a _vis-à-vis_, in fact, very long, and very low, drawn by bullocks, whose ungainly and uneven paces were very unlike any other motion to which, so far, her experience had been subjected; but they went well enough, and quickly too, and Ada soon forgot their eccentricities in her surprise at the many strange things she saw by the way. The airy appearance of the houses, full of windows and doors, and all cased round by verandahs; the native mud bazaars, so rude and uncouth in their shapes, and daubed over with all kinds of glaring colours; with the women sitting in the open verandahs, their broad brooms in hand, whisking off from their food-wares the flies, myriads of which seem to contend with them for ownership; the native women in the streets carrying water, in their graceful dress, their scanty little jackets and short garments exhibiting to advantage their beautiful limbs and elegant motion, the very poorest of them covered with jewels--the wonted mode, indeed, in which they keep what little property they have--the women, too, working with the men, and undertaking all kinds of labor; the black, naked coolies running here and there to snatch at any little employment that would bring them but an _anna_. Contrasting with these, and mixed up pell mell with them, the smart young officers cantering about, the carriages of every shape and grade, from the pompous hackery, with its gaudy, umbrella-like top, and no less pompous occupant, in his turban and jewels, his bullocks covered with bells making more noise than the jumbling vehicle itself, down to the meager bullock cart, at hire, for the merest trifle. Here and there, too, some other great native, on his sumptuously caparisoned horse, with arched neck and long flowing tail sweeping the ground, and feeling as important as his rider; and the popish priests, in their long, black gowns, and long beards; and the civilians, of almost every rank, in their light, white jackets; and the umbrellas; and the universal tomtoms, incessantly going; and above all, the numbers of palanquins, each with its eight bearers, running here, there, and everywhere; everything, indeed, so unlike dear old England; everything, even did not the burning sun of itself tell the fact, too sensibly to be mistaken, reminding the stranger that she was in the Indian land.

From "The Memorial:"

[The most brilliant and altogether attractive gift-book of the season, edited by Mrs. Hewitt, and published by Putnam.]

FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.

BY RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD.

From the beginning of our intellectual history women have done far more than their share in both creation and construction. The worshipful Mrs. Bradstreet, who two hundred years ago held her court of wit among the classic groves of Harvard, was in her day--the day in which Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton sung--the finest poet of her sex whose verse was in the English language; and there was little extravagance in the title bestowed by her London admirers, when they printed her works as those "of the Tenth Muse, recently sprung up in America." In the beginning of the present century we had no bard to dispute the crown with Elizabeth Townsend, whose "Ode to Liberty" commanded the applause of Southey and Wordsworth in their best days; whose "Omnipresence of the Deity" is declared by Dr. Cheever to be worthy of those great poets or of Coleridge; and who still lives, beloved and reverenced, in venerable years, the last of one of the most distinguished families of New England.

More recently, Maria Brooks, called in "The Doctor" _Maria del Occidente_, burst upon the world with "Zophiel," that splendid piece of imagination and passion which stands, the vindication of the subtlety, power and comprehension of the genius of woman, justifying by comparison, the skepticism of Lamb when he suggested, to the author of "The Excursion," whether the sex had "ever produced any thing so great." Of our living and more strictly contemporary female poets, we mention with unhesitating pride Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Hewett, Mrs. Whitman, Mrs. Welby, Alice Carey, "Edith May," Miss Lynch, and Miss Clarke, as poets of a genuine inspiration, displaying native powers and capacities in art such as in all periods have been held sufficient to insure to their possessors lasting fame, and to the nations which they adorned, the most desirable glory.

It is Longfellow who says,

----"What we admire in a woman, Is her affection, not her intellect."

The sentiment is unworthy a poet, the mind as well as the heart claims sympathy, and there is no sympathy but in equality; we need in woman the completion of our own natures; that her finer, clearer, and purer vision should pierce for us the mysteries that are hidden from our own senses, strengthened, but dulled, in the rude shocks of the out-door world, from which she is screened, by her pursuits, to be the minister of God to us: to win us by the beautiful to whatever in the present life or the immortal is deserving a great ambition. We care little for any of the mathematicians, metaphysicians, or politicians, who, as shamelessly as Helen, quit their sphere. Intellect in woman, so directed, we do not admire, and of affection such women are incapable. There is something divine in woman, and she whose true vocation it is to write, has some sort of inspiration, which relieves her from the processes and accidents of knowledge, to display only wisdom in all the range of gentleness, and all the forms of grace. The equality of the sexes is one of the absurd questions which have arisen from a denial of the _distinctions_ of their faculties and duties--of the masculine energy from the feminine refinement. The ruder sort of women cannot comprehend that there is a distinction, not of dignity, but of kind; and so, casting aside their own eminence, for which they are too base, and seeking after ours, for which they are too weak, they are hermaphroditish disturbers of the peace of both. In the main our American women are free from this reproach; they have known their mission, and have carried on the threads of civility through the years, so strained that they have been melodiously vocal with every breath of passion from the common heart. We turn from the jar of senates, from politics, theologies, philosophies, and all forms of intellectual trial and conflict, to that portion of our literature which they have given us, coming like dews and flowers after glaciers and rocks, the hush of music after the tragedy, silence and rest after turmoil of action. The home where love is refined and elevated by intellect, and woman, by her separate and never-superfluous or clashing mental activity, sustains her part in the life-harmony, is the vestibule of heaven to us; and there we hear the poetesses repeat the songs to which they have listened, when wandering nearer than we may go to the world in which humanity shall be perfect again, by the union in all of all power and goodness and beauty.

The finest intelligence that woman has in our time brought to the ministry of the beautiful, is no longer with us. Frances Sargent Osgood died in New-York, at fifteen minutes before three o'clock, in the afternoon of Sunday, the twelfth of May, 1850. These words swept like a surge of sadness wherever there was grace and gentleness, and sweet affections. All that was in her life was womanly, "pure womanly," and so is all in the undying words she left us. This is her distinction.

Mrs. Osgood was of a family of poets. Mrs. Anna Maria Wells, whose abilities are illustrated in a volume of "Poems and Juvenile Sketches" published in 1830, is a daughter of her mother; Mrs. E.D. Harrington, the author of various graceful compositions in verse and prose, is her youngest sister; and Mr. A.A. Locke, a brilliant and elegant writer, for many years connected with the public journals, was her brother. She was a native of Boston, where her father, Mr. Joseph Locke, was a highly accomplished merchant. Her earlier life, however, was passed principally in Hingham, a village of peculiar beauty, well calculated to arouse the dormant poetry of the soul; and here, even in childhood, she became noted for her poetical powers. In their exercise she was rather aided than discouraged by her parents, who were proud of her genius and sympathized with all her aspirations. The unusual merit of some of her first productions attracted the notice of Mrs. Child, who was then editing a Juvenile Miscellany, and who foresaw the reputation which her young contributor afterwards acquired. Employing the _nomme de plume_ of "Florence," she made it widely familiar by her numerous contributions in the Miscellany, as well as, subsequently, for other periodicals.

In 1834, she became acquainted with Mr. S.S. Osgood, the painter--a man of genius in his profession--whose life of various adventure is full of romantic interest; and while, soon after, she was sitting for a portrait, the artist told her his strange vicissitudes by sea and land; how as a sailor-boy he had climbed the dizzy maintop in the storm; how, in Europe he followed with his palette in the track of the flute-playing Goldsmith: and among the

Antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,

of South America, had found in pictures of the crucifixion, and of the Liberator Bolivar--the rude productions of his untaught pencil--passports to the hearts of the peasant, the partizan, and the robber. She listened, like the fair Venetian; they were married, and soon after went to London, where Mr. Osgood had sometime before been a pupil of the Royal Academy.

During this residence in the Great Metropolis, which lasted four years, Mr. Osgood was successful in his art--painting portraits of Lord Lyndhurst, Thomas Campbell, Mrs. Norton, and many other distinguished characters, which secured for him an enviable reputation--and Mrs. Osgood made herself known by her contributions to the magazines, by a miniature volume, entitled "The Casket of Fate," and by the collection of her poems published by Edward Churton, in 1839, under the title of "A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England." She was now about twenty-seven years of age, and this volume contained all her early compositions which then met the approval of her judgment. Among them are many pieces of grace and beauty, such as belong to joyous and hopeful girlhood, and one, of a more ambitious character, under the name of "Elfrida"--a dramatic poem, founded upon incidents in early English history--in which there are signs of more strength and tenderness, and promise of greater achievement, though it is without the unity and proportion necessary to eminent success in this kind of writing.

Among her attached friends here--a circle that included the Hon. Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Hofland, the Rev. Hobart Caunter, Archdeacon Wrangham, the late W. Cooke Taylor, LL.D., and many others known in the various departments of literature--was the most successful dramatist of the age, James Sheridan Knowles, who was so much pleased with "Elfrida," and so confident that her abilities in this line, if duly cultivated, would enable her to win distinction, that he urged upon her the composition of a comedy, promising himself to superintend its production on the stage. She accordingly wrote "The Happy Release, or The Triumphs of Love," a play in three acts, which was accepted, and was to have been brought out as soon as she could change slightly one of the scenes, to suit the views of the manager as to effect, when intelligence of the death of her father suddenly recalled her to the United States, and thoughts of writing for the stage were abandoned for new interests and new pursuits.

Mr. and Mrs. Osgood arrived in Boston early in 1840, and they soon after came to New-York, where they afterward resided; though occasionally absent, as the pursuit of his profession, or ill health, called Mr. Osgood to other parts of the country. Mrs. Osgood was engaged in various literary occupations. She edited, among other books, "The Poetry of Flowers, and Flowers of Poetry," (New-York, 1841,) and "The Floral Offering," (Philadelphia, 1847,) two richly embellished souvenirs; and she was an industrious and very popular writer for the literary magazines and other miscellanies.

She was always of a fragile constitution, easily acted upon by whatever affects health, and in her latter years, except in the more genial seasons of the spring and autumn, was frequently an invalid. In the winter of 1847-8, she suffered more than ever previously, but the next winter she was better, and her husband, who was advised by his physicians to discontinue, for a while, the practice of his profession, availed himself of the opportunity to go in pursuit of health and riches to the mines of the Pacific. He left New-York on the fifth of February, 1849, and was absent one year. Mrs. Osgood's health was variable during the summer, which she passed chiefly at Saratoga Springs, in the company of a family of intimate friends; and as the colder months came on, her strength decayed, so that before the close of November, she was confined to her apartments. She bore her sufferings with resignation, and her natural hopefulness cheered her all the while, with remembrances that she had before come out with the flowers and the embracing airs, and dreams that she would again be in the world with nature. Two or three weeks before her death, her husband carried her in his arms, like a child, to a new home, and she was happier than she had been for months, in the excitement of selecting its furniture, brought in specimens or patterns to her bedside. "_We shall be so happy!_" was her salutation to the few friends who were admitted to see her; but they saw, and her physicians saw, that her life was ebbing fast, and that she would never never again see the brooks and greens fields for which she pined, nor even any of the apartments but the one she occupied of her own house. I wrote the terrible truth to her, in studiously gentle words, reminding her that in heaven there is richer and more delicious beauty, that there is no discord in the sweet sounds there, no poison in the perfume of the flowers there, and that they know not any sorrow who are with Our Father. She read the brief note almost to the end silently, and then turned upon her pillow like a child, and wept the last tears that were in a fountain which had flowed for every grief but hers she ever knew. "I cannot leave my beautiful home," she said, looking about upon the souvenirs of many an affectionate recollection; "and my noble husband, and Lily and May!" These last are her children. But the sentence was confirmed by other friends, and she resigned herself to the will of God. The next evening but one, a young girl went to amuse her, by making paper flowers for her, and teaching her to make them: and she wrote to her these verses--her dying song:

You've woven roses round my way, And gladdened all my being; How much I thank you none can say Save only the All-seeing....

_I'm going through the Eternal gates Ere June's sweet roses blow; Death's lovely angel leads me there-- And it is sweet to go._

May 7th, 1850.

At the end of five days, in the afternoon of Sunday, the twelfth of May, as gently as one goes to sleep, she withdrew into a better world.

On Tuesday, her remains were removed to Boston, to be interred in the cemetery of Mount Auburn. It was a beautiful day, in the fulness of the spring, mild and calm, and clouded to a solemn shadow. In the morning, as the company of the dead and living started, the birds were singing what seemed to her friends a sadder song than they were wont to sing; and, as the cars flew fast on the long way, the trees bowed their luxuriant foliage, and the flowers in the verdant fields were swung slowly on their stems, filling the air with the gentlest fragrance; and the streams, it was fancied, checked their turbulent speed to move in sympathy, as from the heart of Nature tears might flow for a dead worshipper. God was thanked that all the elements were ordered so, that sweetest incense, and such natural music, and reverent aspect of the silent world, should wait upon her, as so many hearts did, in this last journey. She slept all the while, nor waked when, in the evening, in her native city, a few familiar faces bent above her, with difficult looks through tears, and scarcely audible words, to bid farewell to her. On Wednesday she was buried, with some dear ones who had gone before her--beside her mother and her daughter--in that City of Rest, more sacred now than all before had made it, to those whose spirits are attuned to Beauty or to Sorrow--those twin sisters, so rarely parted, until the last has led the first to Heaven.

The character of Mrs. Osgood, to those who were admitted to its more minute observance, illustrated the finest and highest qualities of intelligence and virtue. In her manners, there was an almost infantile gaiety and vivacity, with the utmost simplicity and gentleness, and an unfailing and indefectable grace, that seemed an especial gift of nature, unattainable, and possessed only by her and the creatures of our imaginations whom we call the angels. The delicacy of her organization was such that she had always the quick sensibility of childhood. The magnetism of life was round about her, and her astonishingly impressible faculties were vital in every part, with a polarity toward beauty, all the various and changing rays of which entered into her consciousness, and were refracted in her conversation and action. Though, from the generosity of her nature, exquisitely sensible to applause, she had none of those immoralities of the intellect, which impair the nobleness of impulse--no unworthy pride, or vanity, or selfishness--nor was her will ever swayed from the line of truth, except as the action of the judgment may sometimes have been irregular from the feverish play of feeling. Her friendships were quickly formed, but limited by the number of genial hearts brought within the sphere of her knowledge and sympathy. Probably there was never a woman of whom it might be said more truly that to her own sex she was an object almost of worship. She was looked upon for her simplicity, purity, and childlike want of worldly tact or feeling, with involuntary affection; listened to, for her freshness, grace, and brilliancy, with admiration; and remembered, for her unselfishness, quick sympathy, devotedness, capacity of suffering, and high aspirations, with a sentiment approaching reverence. This regard which she inspired in women was not only shown by the most constant and delicate attentions in society, where she was always the most loved and honored guest, but it is recorded in the letters and other writings of many of her most eminent contemporaries, who saw in her an angel, haply in exile, the sweetness and natural wisdom of whose life elevated her far above all jealousies, and made her the pride and boast and glory of womanhood. Many pages might be filled with their tributes, which seem surely the most heartfelt that mortal ever gave to mortal, but the limits of this sketch of her will suffer only a few and very brief quotations from her correspondence. Unquestionably one of the most brilliant literary women of our time is Miss Clarke, so well known as "Grace Greenwood." She wrote of Mrs. Osgood with no more earnestness than others wrote of her, yet in a letter to the "Home Journal," in 1846, she says:

"And how are the critical Cæsars, one after another, 'giving in' to the graces, and fascinations, and soft enchantments of this Cleopatra of song. She charms _lions_ to sleep, with her silver lute, and then throws around them the delicate net-work of her exquisite fancy, and lo! when they wake, they are well content in their silken prison.

'From the tips of her pen a melody flows, Sweet as the nightingale sings to the rose.'

"With her beautiful Italian soul--with her impulse, and wild energy, and exuberant fancy, and glowing passionateness--and with the wonderful facility with which, like an almond-tree casting off its blossoms, she flings abroad her heart-tinted and love-perfumed lays, she has, I must believe, more of the improvisatrice than has yet been revealed by any of our gifted countrywomen now before the people. Heaven bless her, and grant her ever, as now, to have laurels on her brows, and to browse on her laurels! Were I the President of these United States, I would immortalize my brief term of office by the crowning of our Corinna, at the Capitol."

And about the same period, having been introduced to her, she referred to the event:

"It seems like a 'pleasant vision of the night' that I have indeed seen 'the idol of my early dreams,' that I have been within the charmed circle of her real presence, sat by her very side, and lovingly watched the shadow of each feeling that moved her soul, glance o'er that radiant face!'"

And writing to her:

"Dear Mrs. Osgood, let me lay this sweet weight off my heart--look down into my eyes--believe me--long, long before we met, I loved you, with a strange, almost passionate love. You were my literary idol: I repeated some of your poems so often, that their echo never had time to die away; your earlier, bird-like warblings so chimed in with the joyous beatings of my heart, that it seemed it could not throb without them; and when you raised 'your lightning glance to heaven,' and sang your loftiest song, the liquid notes fell upon my soul like baptismal waters. With an 'intense and burning,' almost unwomanly ambition, I have still joyed in _your_ success, and gloried in your glory; and all because Love laid its reproving finger on the lip of Envy. I cannot tell you how much this romantic interest has deepened,

Now I have looked upon thy face, Have felt thy twining arms' embrace, Thy very bosom's swell;-- One moment leaned this brow of mine On song's sweet source, and love's pure shrine, And music's 'magic cell!"

Another friend of hers, Miss Hunter, whose pleasing contributions to our literature are well known, probably on account of some misapprehension, had not visited her for several months, but hearing of her illness she wrote:

"Learning this, by chance, I have summoned courage once more to address you--overcoming my fear of being intrusive, and offering as my apology the simple assertion that it is my _heart_ prompts me. Till to-day pride has checked me: but you are 'very ill,' and I can no longer resist the impulse. With the assurance that I will never again trouble you, that now I neither ask nor expect the slightest response, suffer me thus to steal to your presence, to sit beside your bed, and for the last time to speak of a love that has followed you through months of separation, rejoicing when you have rejoiced, and mourning when you have mourned. You know how, from childhood, I have worshipped you, that since our first meeting you have been my idol, the realization of my dreams; and do not suppose that because I have failed to inspire you with a lasting interest, I shall ever feel for you a less deep or less fervent devotion. The blame or misfortune of our estrangement I have always regarded as only mine. I know I have seemed indifferent when I panted for expression. You have thought me unsympathizing when my every nerve thrilled to your words. I have lived in comparative seclusion; I have an unconquerable reserve, induced by such an experience; and when I have been with you my soul has had no voice.

"The time has been when I could not bear the thought of never regaining your friendship in this world--when I would say 'The years! oh, the years of this earth-life, that must pass so slowly!' And when I saw any new poem of yours, I experienced the most sad emotions,--every word I read was so like you, it seemed as if you had passed through the room, speaking to others near me kindly, but regarding me coldly, or not seeing me. But one day I read in a book by Miss Bremer, 'It is a sad experience, who can describe its bitterness! when we see the friend, on whom we have built for eternity, grow cold, and become lost to us. But believe it not, thou loving, sorrowing soul--believe it not! continue thyself only, and the moment will come when thy friend will return to thee. Yes, _there_, where all delusions cease, thy friend will find thee gain, in a higher light,--will acknowledge thee and unite herself to thee forever.' And I took this assurance to my heart.... We may meet in heaven, if not here. I shall not go see you, though my heart is wrung by this intelligence of your illness. So good-bye, darling! May good angels who have power to bless you, linger around your pillow with as much love as I shall feel for you forever.

"March 6, 1850."

I have been permitted to transcribe this letter, and among Mrs. Osgood's papers that have been confided to me are very many such, evincing a devotion from women that could have been won only by the most angelic qualities of intellect and feeling.

It was the custom in the last century, when there was among authors more of the _esprit du corps_ than now, for poets to greet each other's appearance in print with complimental verses, celebrating the qualities for which the seeker after bays was most distinguished. Thus in 1729, we find the _Omnium Opera_ of John Duke of Buckingham prefaced by "testimonials of authors concerning His Grace and his writings;" and the names of Garth, Roscommon, Dryden, and Prior, are among his endorsers. There have been a few instances of the kind in this country, of which the most noticeable is that of Cotton Mather, in whose _Magnalia_ there is a curious display of erudition and poetical ingenuity, in gratulatory odes. The literary journals of the last few years furnish many such tributes to Mrs. Osgood, which are interesting to her friends for their illustration of the personal regard in which she was held. I cannot quote them here; they alone would fill a volume, as others might be filled with the copies of verses privately addressed to her, all through her life, from the period when, like a lovely vision, she first beamed upon society, till that last season, in which the salutations in assemblies she had frequented were followed by saddest inquiries for the absent and dying poetess. They but repeat, with more or less felicity, the graceful praise of Mrs. Hewitt, in a poem upon her portrait:

She dwells amid the world's dark ways Pure as in childhood's hours; And all her thoughts are poetry, And all her words are flowers.

Or that of another, addressed to her:

Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything, which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love--a simple duty.

Among men, generally, such gentleness and sweetness of temper, joined to such grace and wit, could not fail of making her equally beloved and admired. She was the keeper of secrets, the counsellor in difficulties, the ever wise missionary and industrious toiler, for all her friends. She would brave any privation to alleviate another's sufferings; she never spoke ill of any one; and when others assailed, she was the most prompt of all in generous argument. An eminent statesman having casually met her in Philadelphia, afterward described her to a niece of his who was visiting that city:

"If you have opportunity do not fail to become acquainted with Mrs. Osgood. I have never known such a woman. She continually surprised me by the strength and subtlety of her understanding, in which I looked for only sportiveness and delicacy. She is entirely a child of nature and Mrs. ----, who introduced me to her, and who has known her many years I believe, very intimately, declares that she is an angel. Persuade her to Washington, and promise her everything you and all of us can do for her pleasure here."

For her natural gaiety, her want of a certain worldly tact, and other reasons, the determinations she sometimes formed that she would be a housekeeper, were regarded as fit occasions of jesting, and among the letters sent to her when once she ventured upon the ambitious office, is one by her early and always devoted friend, Governor ----, in which we have glimpses of her domestic qualities:

"It is not often that I waste fine paper in writing to people who do not think me worth answering. I generally reserve my 'ornamental hand' for those who return two letters for my one. But you are an exception to all rules,--and when I heard that you were about to commence _housekeeping_, I could not forbear sending a word of congratulation and encouragement. I have long thought that your eminently _practical_ turn of mind, my dear friend, would find congenial employment in superintending an 'establishment.' What a house you will keep! nothing out of place, from garret to cellar--dinner always on the table at the regular hour--everything like clock-work--and wo to the servant who attempts to steal anything from your store-room! wo to the butcher who attempts to impose upon you a bad joint, or the grocer who attempts to cheat you in the weight of sugar! Such things never will do with you! When I first heard of your project, I thought it must be Ellen or May going to play housekeeping with their baby-things, but on a moment's reflection I was convinced that you knew more about managing for a family than either of them--certainly more than May, and I think, upon the whole, more than even Ellen! Let Mr. Osgood paint you with a bunch of keys in your belt, and do send me a daguerreotype of yourself the day after you are installed."

She was not indeed fitted for such cares, or for any routine, and ill health and the desire of freedom prevented her again making such an attempt until she finally entered "her own home" to die.

There was a very intimate relation between Mrs. Osgood's personal and her literary characteristics. She has frequently failed of justice, from critics but superficially acquainted with her works, because they have not been able to understand how a mind capable of the sparkling and graceful trifles, illustrating an exhaustless fancy and a natural melody of language, with which she amused society in moments of half capricious gaiety or tenderness, could produce a class of compositions which demand imagination and passion. In considering this subject, it should not be forgotten that these attributes are here to be regarded as in their feminine development.

Mrs. Osgood was, perhaps, as deserving as any one of whom we read in literary history, of the title of improvisatrice. Her beautiful songs, displaying so truly the most delicate lights and shadows of woman's heart, and surprising by their unity, completeness, and rhythmical perfection, were written with almost the fluency of conversation. The secret of this was in the wonderful sympathy between her emotions and faculties, both of exquisite sensibility, and subject to the influences of whatever has power upon the subtler and diviner qualities of human nature. Her facility in invention, in the use of poetical language, and in giving form to every airy dream or breath of passion, was astonishing. It is most true of men, that no one has ever attained to the highest reach of his capacities in any art--and least of all in poetry--without labor--without the application of the "second thought," after the frenzy of the divine afflatus is passed--in giving polish and shapely grace. The imagination is the servant of the reason; the creative faculties present their triumphs to the constructive--and the seal to the attainable is set, by every one, in repose and meditation. But this is scarcely a law of the feminine intelligence, which, when really endowed with genius, is apt to move spontaneously, and at once, with its greatest perfection. Certainly, Mrs. Osgood disclaimed the wrestling of thought with expression. For the most part her poems cost her as little effort or reflection, as the epigram or touching sentiment that summoned laughter or tears to the group about her in the drawing-room.

She was indifferent to fame; she sung simply in conformity to a law of her existence; and perhaps this want of interest was the cause not only of the most striking faults in her compositions, but likewise of the common ignorance of their variety and extent. Accustomed from childhood to the use of the pen--resorting to it through a life continually exposed to the excitements of gaiety and change, or the depressions of affliction and care, she strewed along her way with a prodigality almost unexampled the choicest flowers of feeling: left them unconsidered and unclaimed in the repositories of friendship, or under fanciful names, which she herself had forgotten, in newspapers and magazines,--in which they were sure to be recognised by some one, and so the purpose of their creation fulfilled. It was therefore very difficult to make any such collection of her works as justly to display her powers and their activity; and the more so, that those effusions of hers which were likely to be most characteristic, and of the rarest excellence, were least liable to exposure in printed forms, by the friends, widely scattered in Europe and America, for whom they were written. But notwithstanding these disadvantages, the works of Mrs. Osgood with which we are acquainted, are more voluminous than those of Mrs. Hemans or Mrs. Norton.[8] Besides the "Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England," which appeared during her residence in London, a collection of her poems in one volume was published in New York in 1846; and in 1849, Mr. Hart, of Philadelphia, gave to the public, in a large octavo illustrated by our best artists and equalling or surpassing in its tasteful and costly style any work before issued from the press of this country, the most complete and judiciously edited collection of them that has appeared. This edition, however, contains less than half of her printed pieces which she acknowledged; and among those which are omitted are a tragedy, a comedy, a great number of piquant and ingenious _vers de societe_, and several sacred pieces, which strike us as among the best writings of their kind in our literature, which in this department, we may admit, is more distinguishable for the profusion than for the quality of its fruits.

[8: Besides the books by her which have been referred to, she published _The Language of Gems_, (London); _The Snow Drop_, (Providence); _Puss in Boots_, (New York); _Cries of New York_, (New York); _The Flower Alphabet_, (Boston); _The Rose: Sketches in Verse_, (Providence); _A Letter About the Lions, addressed to Mabel in the Country_, (New York). The following list of her prose tales, sketches, and essays, is probably very incomplete: A Day in New England; A Crumpled Rose Leaf; Florence Howard; Ida Gray; Florence Errington; A Match for the Matchmaker; Mary Evelyn; Once More; Athenais; The Wife; The Little Lost Shoe; The Magic Lute; Feeling _vs._ Beauty; The Doom; The Flower and Gem; The Coquette; The Soul Awakened; Glimpses of a Soul, (in three parts); Lizzie Lincoln; Dora's Reward; Waste Paper; Newport Tableaux; Daguerreotype Pictures; Carry Carlisle; Valentine's Day; The Lady's Shadow; Truth; Virginia; The Waltz and the Wager; The Poet's Metamorphosis; Pride and Penitence; Mabel; Pictures from a Painter's Life; Georgiana Hazleton; A Sketch; Kate Melbourne; Life in New York; Leonora L'Estrange; The Magic Mirror; The Blue Belle; and Letters of Kate Carol, (a series of sketches of men, women and books;) contributed for the most part to Mr. Labree's _Illustrated Magazine_.]

Mrs. Osgood's definition of poetry, that it is the rhythmical creation of beauty, is as old as Sydney; and though on some grounds objectionable, it is, perhaps, on the whole, as just as any that the critics have given us. An intelligent examination, in the light of this principle, of what she accomplished, will, it is believed, show that she was, in the general, of the first rank of female poets; while in her special domain, of the Poetry of the Affections, she had scarcely a rival among women or men. As Pinckney said,

Affections were as thoughts to her, the measure of her hours-- Her feelings had the fragrancy and freshness of young flowers.

Of love, she sung with tenderness and delicacy, a wonderful richness of fancy, and rhythms that echo all the cadences of feeling. From the arch mockery of the triumphant and careless conqueror, to the most passionate prayer of the despairing, every variety and height and depth of hope and fear and bliss and pain is sounded, in words that move us to a solitary lute or a full orchestra of a thousand voices; and with an _abandon_, as suggestive of genuineness as that which sometimes made the elder Kean seem "every inch a king." It is not to be supposed that all these caprices are illustrations of the experiences of the artist, in the case of the poet any more than in that of the actor: by an effort of the will, they pass with the liberties of genius into their selected realms, assume their guises, and discourse their language. If ever there were

--Depths of tenderness which showed when woke, That _woman_ there as well as angel spoke,

they are not to be looked for in the printed specimens of woman's genius. Mrs. Osgood guarded herself against such criticism, by a statement in her preface, that many of her songs and other verses were written to appear in prose sketches and stories, and were expressions of feeling suitable to the persons and incidents with which they were at first connected.

In this last edition, to which only reference will be made in these paragraphs, her works are arranged under the divisions of _Miscellaneous Poems_--embracing, with such as do not readily admit another classification, her most ambitious and sustained compositions; _Sacred Poems_--among which, "The Daughter of Herodias," the longest, is remarkable for melodious versification and distinct painting: _Tales and Ballads_--all distinguished for a happy play of fancy, and two or three for the fruits of such creative energy as belongs to the first order of poetical intelligences; _Floral Fancies_--which display a gaiety and grace, an ingenuity of allegory, and elegant refinement of language, that illustrate her fairy-like delicacy of mind and purity of feeling; and _Songs_--of which we shall offer some particular observations in their appropriate order. Scattered through the book we have a few poems for children, so perfect in their way as to induce regret that she gave so little attention to a kind of writing in which few are really successful, and in which she is scarcely equalled.

The volume opens with a brief voluntary, which is followed by a beautiful and touching address to The Spirit of Poetry, displaying the perfection of her powers, and her consciousness that they had been too much neglected while ministering more than all things else to her happiness. If ever from her heart she poured a passionate song, it was this, and these concluding lines of it admit us to the sacredest experiences of her life:

Leave me not yet! Leave me not cold and lonely, Thou star of promise o'er my clouded path! Leave not the life that borrows from thee only All of delight and beauty that it hath! Thou that, when others knew not how to love me, Nor cared to fathom half my yearning soul, Didst wreathe thy flowers of light around, above me, To woo and win me from my grief's control: By all my dreams, the passionate and holy, When thou hast sung love's lullaby to me, By all the childlike worship, fond and lowly, Which I have lavish'd upon thine and thee: By all the lays my simple lute was learning To echo from thy voice, stay with me still! Once flown--alas! for thee there's no returning! The charm will die o'er valley, wood and hill. Tell me not Time, whose wing my brow has shaded, Has wither'd Spring's sweet bloom within my heart; Ah, no! the rose of love is yet unfaded, Though hope and joy, its sister flowers, depart.

Well do I know that I have wrong'd thine altar, With the light offerings of an idler's mind, And thus, with shame, my pleading prayer I falter, Leave me not, spirit! deaf, and dumb, and blind! Deaf to the mystic harmony of nature, Blind to the beauty of her stars and flowers; Leave me not, heavenly yet human teacher, Lonely and lost in this cold world of ours; Heaven knows I need thy music and thy beauty Still to beguile me on my dreary way, To lighten to my soul the cares of duty, And bless with radiant dreams the darken'd day; To charm my wild heart in the worldly revel, Lest I, too, join the aimless, false and vain. Let me not lower to the soulless level Of those whom now I pity and disdain! Leave me not yet!--Leave me not cold and pining, Thou bird of Paradise, whose plumes of light, Where'er they rested, left a glory shining-- Fly not to heaven, or let me share thy flight!

After this comes one of her most poetical compositions, "Ermengarde's Awakening," in which, with even more than her usual felicity of diction, she has invested with mortal passion a group from the Pantheon. It is too long to be quoted here, but as an example of her manner upon a similar subject, and in the same rhythm, we copy the poem of "Eurydice:"

With heart that thrill'd to every earnest line, I had been reading o'er that antique story, Wherein the youth, half human, half divine, Of all love-lore the Eidolon and glory, Child of the Sun, with music's pleading spell, In Pluto's palace swept, for love, his golden shell!

And in the wild, sweet legend, dimly traced, My own heart's history unfolded seem'd; Ah! lost one! by thy lover-minstrel graced With homage pure as ever woman dreamed, Too fondly worshipp'd, since such fate befell, Was it not sweet to die--because beloved too well!

The scene is round me! Throned amid the gloom, As a flower smiles on Etna's fatal breast, Young Proserpine beside her lord doth bloom; And near--of Orpheus' soul, oh, idol blest!-- While low for thee he tunes his lyre of light, I see _thy_ meek, fair form dawn through that lurid night!

I see the glorious boy--his dark locks wreathing Wildly the wan and spiritual brow; His sweet, curved lip the soul of music breathing; His blue Greek eyes, that speak Love's loyal vow; I see him bend on _thee_ that eloquent glance, The while those wondrous notes the realm of terror trance.

I see his face with more than mortal beauty Kindling, as, armed with that sweet lyre alone, Pledged to a holy and heroic duty, He stands serene before the awful throne, And looks on Hades' horrors with clear eye, Since thou, his own adored Eurydice, art nigh.

Now soft and low a prelude sweet uprings, As if a prison'd angel--pleading there For life and love--were fetter'd 'neath the strings, And poured his passionate soul upon the air! Anon it clangs with wild, exulting swell, Till the full pæan peals triumphantly through Hell.

And thou, thy pale hands meekly lock'd before thee, Thy sad eyes drinking _life_ from _his_ dear gaze, Thy lips apart, thy hair a halo o'er thee Trailing around thy throat its golden maze; Thus, with all words in passionate silence dying, Within thy _soul_ I hear Love's eager voice replying:

"Play on, mine Orpheus! Lo! while these are gazing, Charm'd into statues by the god-taught strain, I, I alone--to thy dear face upraising My tearful glance--the life of life regain! For every tone that steals into my heart Doth to its worn weak pulse a mighty power impart.

"Play on, mine Orpheus! while thy music floats Through the dread realm, divine with truth and grace, See, dear one! how the chain of linked notes Has fetter'd every spirit in its place! Even Death, beside me, still and helpless lies, And strives in vain to chill my frame with his cold eyes.

"Still, my own Orpheus, sweep the golden lyre! Ah! dost thou mark how gentle Proserpine, With clasped hands and eyes whose azure fire Gleams thro' quick tears, thrilled by thy lay, doth lean Her graceful head upon her stern lord's breast, Like an o'erwearied child, whom music lulls to rest!

"Play, my proud minstrel! strike the chords again! Lo, Victory crowns at last thy heavenly skill! For Pluto turns relenting to the strain-- He waves his hand--he speaks his awful will! My glorious Greek, lead on! but ah, _still_ lend Thy soul to thy sweet lyre, lest yet thou lose thy friend!

"Think not of me! Think rather of the time, When, moved by thy resistless melody To the strange magic of a song sublime, Thy argo grandly glided to the sea; And in the majesty Minerva gave, The graceful galley swept, with joy, the sounding wave.

"Or see, in Fancy's dream, thy Thracian trees, Their proud heads bent submissive to the sound, Sway'd by a tuneful and enchanted breeze, March to slow music o'er the astonished ground; Grove after grove descending from the hills, While round thee weave their dance, the glad harmonious rills.

"Think not of me! Ha! by thy mighty sire, My lord, my king, recall the dread behest! Turn not, ah! turn not back those eyes of fire! Oh! lost, forever lost! undone! unblest! I faint, I die!--the serpent's fang once more Is here!--nay, grieve not thus! Life, but _not Love_, is o'er!"

This is a noble poem, with too many interjections, and occasional redundancies of imagery and epithet, betraying the author's customary haste: but with unquestionable signs of that genuineness which is the best attraction of the literature of sentiment. The longest and more sustained of Mrs. Osgood's compositions is one entitled "Fragments of an Unfinished Story" in which she has exhibited such a skill in blank verse--frequently regarded as the easiest, but really the most difficult of any--as induces regret that she so seldom made use of it. We have here a masterly contrast of character in the equally natural expressions of feeling by the two principal persons, both of whom are women: the haughty Ida, and the impulsive child of passion, Imogen. It displays in eminent perfection, that dramatic faculty which Sheridan Knowles and the late William Cooke Taylor recognised as the most striking in the composition of her genius. She had long meditated, and in her mind had perfectly arranged, a more extended poem than she has left to us, upon Music. It was to be in this measure, except some lyrical interludes, and she was so confident of succeeding in it, that she deemed all she had written of comparatively little worth. "These," she said to me one day, pointing to the proof-leaves of the new edition of her poems, "these are my 'Miscellaneous Verses:' let us get them out of the way, and never think of them again, as the public never will when they have MY POEM!" And her friends who heard the splendid scheme of her imagination, did not doubt that when it should be clothed with the rich tissues of her fancy, it would be all she dreamed of, and vindicate all that they themselves were fond of saying of her powers. It was while her life was fading; and no one else can grasp the shining threads, or weave them into song, such as she heard lips, touched with divinest fire, far along in the ages, repeating with her name. This was not vanity, or a low ambition. She lingered, with subdued and tearful joy, when all the living and the present seemed to fail her, upon the pages of the elect of genius, and was happiest when she thought some words of hers might lift a sad soul from a sea of sorrow.

It was perhaps the key-note of that unwritten poem, which she sounded in these verses upon its subject, composed while the design most occupied her attention:

The Father spake! In grand reverberations Through space roll'd on the mighty music-tide, While to its low, majestic modulations, The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside.

The Father spake: a dream that had been lying Hush'd, from eternity, in silence there, Heard the pure melody, and low replying, Grew to that music in the wondering air--

Grew to that music--slowly, grandly waking-- Till, bathed in beauty, it became a world! Led by his voice, its spheric pathway taking, While glorious clouds their wings around it furl'd.

Nor yet has ceased that sound, his love revealing, Though, in response, a universe moves by; Throughout eternity its echo pealing, World after world awakes in glad reply.

And wheresoever, in his grand creation, Sweet music breathes--in wave, or bird, or soul-- 'Tis but the faint and far reverberation Of that great tune to which the planets roll.

Mrs. Osgood produced something in almost every form of poetical composition, but the necessary limits of this article permit but few illustrations of the variety or perfectness of her capacities. The examples given here, even if familiar, will possess a new interest now; and no one will read them without a feeling of sadness that she who wrote them died so young, just as the fairest flowers of her genius were unfolding. One of the most exquisite pieces she had written in the last few years, is entitled "Calumny," and we know not where to turn for anything more delicately beautiful than the manner in which the subject is treated.

A whisper woke the air, A soft, light tone, and low, Yet barbed with shame and wo. Ah! might it only perish there, Nor farther go!

But no! a quick and eager ear Caught up the little, meaning sound; Another voice has breathed it clear; And so it wandered round From ear to lip, and lip to ear, Until it reached a gentle heart That throbbed from all the world apart, And that--it broke!

It was the only _heart_ it found, The only heart 't was meant to find, When first its accents woke. It reached that gentle heart at last, And that--it broke!

Low as it seemed to other ears, It came a thunder-crash to _hers_-- That fragile girl, so fair and gay. 'Tis said a lovely humming bird, That dreaming in a lily lay, Was killed but by the gun's _report_ Some idle boy had fired in sport-- So exquisitely frail its frame, The very _sound_ a death-blow came-- And thus her heart, unused to shame, Shrined in _its_ lily too, (For who the maid that knew, But owned the delicate, flower-like grace Of her young form and face!)-- Her light and happy heart, that beat With love and hope so fast and sweet, When first that cruel word it heard, It fluttered like a frightened bird-- Then shut its wings and sighed, And, with a silent shudder, died!

In some countries this would, perhaps, be the most frequently quoted of the author's effusions; but here, the terse and forcible piece under the title of "Laborare est Orare," will be admitted to all collections of poetical specimens; and it deserves such popularity, for a combination as rare as it is successful of common sense with the form and spirit of poetry:

Pause not to dream of the future before us; Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us; Hark, how Creation's deep musical chorus, Unintermitting, goes up into heaven! Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing; Never the little seed stops in its growing; More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing, Till from its nourishing stem it is riven.

"Labor is worship!"--the robin is singing; "Labor is worship!"--the wild bee is ringing; Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing Speaks to thy soul from out nature's great heart. From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower; From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower; From the small insect, the rich coral bower; Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part.

Labor is life! 'Tis the still water faileth; Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth; Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth; Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. Labor is glory!--the flying cloud lightens; Only the waving wing changes and brightens; Idle hearts only the dark future frightens; Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune!

Labor is rest--from the sorrows that greet us; Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, Rest from world-syrens that lure us to ill. Work--and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow; Work--thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow; Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow; Work with a stout heart and resolute will!

Labor is health! Lo! the husbandman reaping, How through his veins goes the life current leaping! How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping, True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides. Labor is wealth--in the sea the pearl groweth; Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth; From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth; Temple and statue the marble block hides.

Droop not, tho' shame, sin, and anguish are round thee! Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee; Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee; Rest not content in they darkness--a clod! Work--for some good, be it ever so slowly; Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly; Labor!--all labor is noble and holy; Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God.

In fine contrast with this is the description of a "Dancing Girl," written in a longer poem, addressed to her sister soon after her arrival in London, in the autumn of 1834. It is as graceful as the vision it brings so magically before us:

She comes--the spirit of the dance! And but for those large, eloquent eyes, Where passion speaks in every glance, She'd seem a wanderer from the skies.

So light that, gazing breathless there, Lest the celestial dream should go, You'd think the music in the air Waved the fair vision to and fro!

Or that the melody's sweet flow Within the radiant creature play'd And those soft wreathing arms of snow And white sylph feet the music made.

Now gliding slow with dreamy grace, Her eyes beneath their lashes lost; Now motionless, with lifted face, And small hands on her bosom cross'd.

And now with flashing eyes she springs, Her whole bright figure raised in air, As if her soul had spread its wings And poised her one wild instant there!

She spoke not; but, so richly fraught With language are her glance and smile, That, when the curtain fell, I thought She had been talking all the while.

In illustration of what we have said of Mrs. Osgood's delineations of refined sentiment, we refer to the poems from pages one hundred and eleven to one hundred and thirty-one, willing to rest upon them our praises of her genius. It may be accidental, but they seem to have an epic relation, and to constitute one continuous history, finished with uncommon elegance and glowing with a beauty which has its inspiration in a deeper profound than was ever penetrated by messengers of the brain. The third of these glimpses of heart-life--all having the same air of sad reality--exhibits, with a fidelity and a peculiar power which is never attained in such descriptions by men, the struggle of a pure and passionate nature with a hopeless affection:

Had we but met in life's delicious spring, When young romance made Eden of the world; When bird-like Hope was ever on the wing, (In _thy_ dear breast how soon had it been furled!)

Had we but met when both our hearts were beating With the wild joy, the guileless love of youth-- Thou a proud boy, with frank and ardent greeting, And I a timid girl, all trust and truth!--

Ere yet my pulse's light, elastic play Had learn'd the weary weight of grief to know, Ere from these eyes had passed the morning ray, And from my cheek the early rose's glow;--

Had we but met in life's delicious spring, Ere wrong and falsehood taught me doubt and fear, Ere Hope came back with worn and wounded wing, To die upon the heart it could not cheer;

Ere I love's precious pearl had vainly lavish'd, Pledging an idol deaf to my despair; Ere one by one the buds and blooms were ravish'd From life's rich garland by the clasp of Care.

Ah! had we _then_ but met!--I dare not listen To the wild whispers of my fancy now! My full heart beats--my sad, droop'd lashes glisten-- I hear the music of thy _boyhood's_ vow!

I see thy dark eyes lustrous with love's meaning, I feel thy dear hand softly clasp mine own-- Thy noble form is fondly o'er me leaning-- It is too much--but ah! the dream has flown.

How had I pour'd this passionate heart's devotion In voiceless rapture on thy manly breast! How had I hush'd each sorrowful emotion, Lull'd by thy love to sweet, untroubled rest.

How had I knelt hour after hour beside thee, When from thy lips the rare scholastic lore Fell on the soul that all but deified thee, While at each pause I, childlike, pray'd for more.

How had I watch'd the shadow of each feeling, That mov'd thy soul-glance o'er that radiant face, "Taming my wild heart" to that dear revealing, And glorifying in thy genius and thy grace!

Then hadst thou loved me with a love abiding, And I had now been less unworthy thee, For I was generous, guileless, and confiding, A frank enthusiast, buoyant, fresh, and free!

But _now_--my loftiest aspirations perish'd, My holiest hopes a jest for lips profane, The tenderest yearnings of my soul uncherish'd, A soul-worn slave in Custom's iron chain:

Check'd by these ties that make my lightest sigh, My faintest blush, at thought of thee, a crime-- How must I still my heart, and school my eye, And count in vain the slow dull steps of Time!

Wilt thou come back? Ah! what avails to ask thee Since honor, faith, forbid thee to return! Yet to forgetfulness I dare not task thee, Lest thou too soon that _easy lesson_ learn!

Ah! come not back, love! even through Memory's ear Thy tone's melodious murmur thrills my heart-- Come not with that fond smile, so frank, so dear; While yet we may, let us for ever part!

The passages commencing, "Thank God, I glory in thy love;" "Ah, let our love be still a folded flower;" "Believe me, 'tis no pang of jealous pride;" "We part forever: silent be our parting;" are in the same measure, and in perfect keeping, but evince a still deeper emotion and greater pathos and power. We copy the closing cantatas, "To Sleep," and "A Weed"--a prayer and a prophecy--in which the profoundest sorrow is displayed with touching simplicity and unaffected earnestness. First, to Death's gentle sister:

Come to me, angel of the weary hearted; Since they, my loved ones, breathed upon by thee, Unto thy realms unreal have departed, I, too, may rest--even I; ah! haste to me.

I dare not bid thy darker, colder brother With his more welcome offering, appear, For these sweet lips, at morn, will murmur, "Mother," And who shall soothe them if I be not near?

Bring me no dream, dear Sleep, though visions glowing With hues of heaven thy wand enchanted shows; I ask no glorious boon of thy bestowing, Save that most true, most beautiful--repose.

I have no heart to rove in realms of Faery-- To follow Fancy at her elfin call; I am too wretched--too soul-worn and weary; Give me but rest, for rest to me is all.

Paint not the future to my fainting spirit, Though it were starr'd with glory like the skies; There is no gift that mortals may inherit That could rekindle hope in these cold eyes.

And for the Past--the fearful Past--ah! never Be Memory's downcast gaze unveil'd by thee; Would thou couldst bring oblivion forever Of all that is, that has been, and will be!

And more mournful still, the dream of the after days:

When from our northern woods pale summer flying, Breathes her last fragrant sigh--her low farewell-- While her sad wild flowers' dewy eyes, in dying, Plead for her stay, in every nook and dell.

A heart that loved too tenderly and truly, Will break at last; and in some dim, sweet shade, They'll smooth the sod o'er her you prized unduly, And leave her to the rest for which she pray'd.

Ah! trustfully, not mournfully, they'll leave her, Assured that deep repose is welcomed well; The pure, glad breeze can whisper naught to grieve her; The brook's low voice no wrongful tale can tell.

They'll hide her where no false one's footsteps, stealing, Can mar the chasten'd meekness of her sleep; Only to Love and Grief her grave revealing, And they will hush their chiding _then_--to weep!

And some, (for though too oft she err'd, too blindly, She was beloved--how fondly and how well!)-- Some few, with faltering feet, will linger kindly, And plant dear flowers within that silent dell.

I know whose fragile hand will bring the bloom Best loved by both--the violet's--to that bower; And one will bid white lilies bless the gloom; And one, perchance, will plant the passion flower;

Then do _thou_ come, when all the rest have parted-- Thou, who alone dost know her soul's deep gloom! And wreathe above the lost, the broken-hearted, Some idle _weed_, that _knew not how to bloom_.

We pass from these painful but exquisitely beautiful displays of sensitive feeling and romantic fancy, to pieces exhibiting Mrs. Osgood's more habitual spirit of arch playfulness and graceful invention, scattered through the volume, and constituting a class of compositions in which she is scarcely approachable. The "Lover's List," is one of her shorter ballads:

"Come sit on this bank so shady, Sweet Evelyn, sit with me! And count me your loves, fair lady-- How many may they be?"

The maiden smiled on her lover, And traced with her dimpled hand, Of names a dozen and over Down in the shining sand.

"And now," said Evelyn, rising, "Sir Knight! your own, if you please; And if there be no disguising, The list will outnumber these;

"Then count me them truly, rover!" And the noble knight obeyed; And of names a dozen and over He traced within the shade.

Fair Evelyn pouted proudly; She sighed "Will he never have done?" And at last she murmur'd loudly, "I thought he would write but _one_!"

"Now read," said the gay youth, rising; "The scroll--it is fair and free; In truth, there is no disguising That list is the world to me!"

She read it with joy and wonder, For the first was her own sweet name; And again and again written under, It was still--it was still the same!

It began with--"My Evelyn fairest!" It ended with--"Evelyn best!" And epithets fondest and dearest Were lavished between on the rest.

There were tears in the eyes of the lady As she swept with her delicate hand, On the river-bank cool and shady, The list she had traced in the sand.

There were smiles on the lip of the maiden As she turned to her knight once more, And the heart was with joy o'erladen That was heavy with doubt before!

And for its lively movement and buoyant feeling--equally characteristic of her genius--the following song, upon "Lady Jane," a favorite horse:

Oh! saw ye e'er creature so queenly, so fine, As this dainty, aerial darling of mine! With a toss of her mane, that is glossy as jet, With a dance and a prance, and a frolic curvet, She is off! she is stepping superbly away! Her dark, speaking eye full of pride and of play. Oh! she spurns the dull earth with a graceful disdain, My fearless, my peerless, my loved Lady Jane!

Her silken ears lifted when danger is nigh, How kindles the night in her resolute eye! Now stately she paces, as if to the sound Of a proud, martial melody playing around, Now pauses at once, 'mid a light caracole, To turn her mild glance on me beaming with soul; Now fleet as a fairy, she speeds o'er the plain, My darling, my treasure, my own Lady Jane!

Give her rein! let her go! Like a shaft from a bow, Like a bird on the wing, she is speeding, I trow-- Light of heart, lithe of limb, with a spirit all fire, Yet sway'd and subdued by my idlest desire-- Though daring, yet docile, and sportive but true, Her nature's the noblest that ever I knew. How she flings back her head, in her dainty disdain! My beauty, my graceful, my gay Lady Jane!

It is among the one hundred and thirteen songs, of which this is one, and which form the last division of her poems, that we have the greatest varieties of rhythm, cadence, and expression; and it is here too that we have, perhaps, the most clear and natural exhibitions of that class of emotions which she conceives with such wonderful truth. The prevailing characteristic of these pieces is a native and delicate raillery, piquant by wit, and poetical by the freshest and gracefullest fancies; but they are frequently marked by much tenderness of sentiment, and by boldness and beauty of imagination. They are in some instances without that singleness of purpose, that unity and completeness, which ought invariably to distinguish this sort of compositions, but upon the whole it must be considered that Mrs. Osgood was remarkably successful in the song. The fulness of our extracts from other parts of the volume will prevent that liberal illustration of her excellence in this which would be as gratifying to the reader as to us; and we shall transcribe but a few specimens, which, by various felicities of language, and a pleasing delicacy of sentiment, will detain the admiration:

Oh! would I were only a spirit of song, I'd float forever around, above you: If I were a spirit, it wouldn't be wrong, It couldn't be wrong, to love you!

I'd hide in the light of a moonbeam bright, I'd sing Love's lullaby softly o'er you, I'd bring rare visions of pure delight From the land of dreams before you.

Oh! if I were only a spirit of song, I'd float forever around, above you, For a musical spirit could never do wrong, And it wouldn't be wrong to love you!

The next, an exquisitely beautiful song, suggests its own music:

She loves him yet! I know by the blush that rises Beneath the curls That shadow her soul-lit cheek; She loves him yet! Through all Love's sweet disguises In timid girls, A blush will be sure to speak.

But deeper signs Than the radiant blush of beauty, The maiden finds, Whenever his name is heard; Her young heart thrills, Forgetting herself--her duty-- Her dark eye fills, And her pulse with hope is stirr'd.

She loves him yet!-- The flower the false one gave her, When last he came, Is still with her wild tears wet. She'll ne'er forget, Howe'er his faith may waver, Through grief and shame, Believe it--she loves him yet.

His favorite songs She will sing--she heeds no other; With all her wrongs Her life on his love is set. Oh! doubt no more! She never can wed another; Till life be o'er, She loves--she will love him yet!

And this is not less remarkable for a happy adaptation of sentiment to the sound:

Low, my lute--breathe low!--She sleeps!-- Eulalie! While his watch her lover keeps, Soft and dewy slumber steeps Golden tress and fringed lid With the blue heaven 'neath it hid-- Eulalie! Low my lute--breathe low!--She sleeps!-- Eulalie! Let thy music, light and low, Through her pure dream come and go. Lute on Love! with silver flow, All my passion, all my wo, Speak for me! Ask her in her balmy rest Whom her holy heart loves best! Ask her if she thinks of me!-- Eulalie! Low, my lute!--breathe low!--She sleeps!-- Eulalie! Slumber while thy lover keeps Fondest watch and ward for thee, Eulalie!

The following evinces a deeper feeling, and has a corresponding force and dignity in its elegance:--

Yes, "lower to the level" Of those who laud thee now! Go, join the joyous revel, And pledge the heartless vow! Go, dim the soul-born beauty That lights that lofty brow! Fill, fill the bowl! let burning wine Drown in thy soul Love's dream divine!

Yet when the laugh is lightest, When wildest goes the jest, When gleams the goblet brightest, And proudest heaves thy breast, And thou art madly pledging Each gay and jovial guest-- A ghost shall glide amid the flowers-- The shade of Love's departed hours!

And thou shalt shrink in sadness From all the splendor there, And curse the revel's gladness, And hate the banquet's glare; And pine, 'mid Passion's madness For true love's purer air, And feel thou'dst give their wildest glee For one unsullied sigh from me!

Yet deem not this my prayer, love, Ah! no, if I could keep Thy alter'd heart from care, love, And charm its griefs to sleep, Mine only should despair, love, I--I alone would weep! I--I alone would mourn the flowers That fade in Love's deserted bowers!

Among her poems are many which admit us to the sacredest recesses of the mother's heart: "To a Child Playing with a Watch," "To Little May Vincent," "To Ellen, Learning to Walk," and many others, show the almost wild tenderness with which she loved her two surviving daughters--one thirteen, and the other eleven years of age now;--and a "Prayer in Illness," in which she besought God to "take them first," and suffer her to lie at their feet in death, lest, deprived of her love, they should be subjected to all the sorrow she herself had known in the world, is exquisitely beautiful and touching. Her parents, her brothers, her sisters, her husband, her children, were the deities of her tranquil and spiritual worship, and she turned to them in every vicissitude of feeling, for hope and strength and repose. "Lilly" and "May," were objects of a devotion too sacred for any idols beyond the threshold, and we witness it not as something obtruded upon the outer world, but as a display of beautified and dignified humanity which is among the ministries appointed to be received for the elevation of our natures. With these holy and beautiful songs is intertwined one, which under the title of "Ashes of Roses," breathes the solemnest requiem that ever was sung for a child, and in reading it we feel that in the subject was removed into the Unknown a portion of the mother's heart and life. The poems of Mrs. Osgood are not a laborious balancing of syllables, but a spontaneous gushing of thoughts, fancies and feelings, which fall naturally into harmonious measures; and so perfectly is the sense echoed in the sound, that it seems as if many of her compositions might be intelligibly written in the characters of music. It is a pervading excellence of her works, whether in prose or verse, that they are graceful beyond those of any other author who has written in this country; and the delicacy of her taste was such that it would probably be impossible to find in all of them a fancy, a thought, or a word offensive to that fine instinct in its highest cultivation or subtlest sensibility. It is one of her great merits that she attempted nothing foreign to her own affluent but not various genius.

There is a stilted ambition, common lately to literary women, which is among the fatalest diseases to reputation. She was never betrayed into it; she was always simple and natural, singing in no falsetto key, even when she entered the temples of old mythologies. With an extraordinary susceptibility of impressions, she had not only the finest and quickest discernment of those peculiarities of character which give variety to the surface of society, but of certain kinds and conditions of life she perceived the slightest undulations and the deepest movements. She had no need to travel beyond the legitimate sphere of woman's observation, to seize upon the upturnings and overthrows which serve best for rounding periods in the senate or in courts of criminal justice--trying everything to see if poetry could be made of it. Nor did she ever demand audience for rude or ignoble passion, or admit the moral shade beyond the degree in which it must appear in all pictures of life. She lingered with her keen insight and quick sensibilities among the associations, influences, the fine sense, brave perseverance, earnest affectionateness, and unfailing truth, which, when seen from the romantic point of view, are suggestive of all the poetry which it is within the province of woman to write.

I have not chosen to dwell upon the faults in her works; such labor is more fit for other hands, and other days; and so many who attempt criticism seem to think the whole art lies in the detection of blemishes, that one may sometimes be pardoned for lingering as fondly as I have done, upon an author's finer qualities. It must be confessed, that in her poems there is evinced a too unrestrained partiality for particular forms of expression, and that--it could scarcely be otherwise in a collection so composed--thoughts and fancies are occasionally repeated. In some instances too, her verse is diffuse, but generally, where this objection is made, it will be found that what seems most careless and redundant is only delicate shading: she but turns her diamonds to the various rays; she rings no changes till they are not music; she addresses an eye more sensitive to beauty and a finer ear than belong to her critics. The collection of her works is one of the most charming volumes that woman has contributed to literature; of all that we are acquainted with the most womanly; and destined, for that it addresses with truest sympathy and most natural eloquence the commonest and noblest affections, to be always among the most fondly cherished Books of the Heart.

Reluctantly I bring to a close these paragraphs--a hasty and imperfect tribute, from my feelings and my judgment, to one whom many will remember long as an impersonation of the rarest intellectual and moral endowments, as one of the loveliest characters in literary or social history. Hereafter, unless the office fall to some one worthier, I may attempt from the records of our friendship, and my own and others' recollections, to do such justice to her life and nature, that a larger audience and other times shall feel how much of beauty with her spirit left us.

This requiem she wrote for another, little thinking that her friends would so soon sing it with hearts saddened for her own departure.

The hand that swept the sounding lyre With more than mortal skill, The lightning eye, the heart of fire, The fervent lip are still: No more in rapture or in wo, With melody to thrill, Ah! nevermore!

Oh! bring the flowers she cherish'd so, With eager child-like care: For o'er her grave they'll love to grow, And sigh their sorrow there; Ah me! no more their balmy glow May soothe her heart's despair, No! nevermore!

But angel hands shall bring her balm For every grief she knew, And Heaven's soft harps her soul shall calm With music sweet and true; And teach to her the holy charm Of Israfel anew. For evermore!

Love's silver lyre she played so well, Lies shattered on her tomb; But still in air its music-spell Floats on through light and gloom, And in the hearts where soft they fell, Her words of beauty bloom For evermore!

Recent Deaths.

SAMUEL YOUNG.

The Hon. Samuel Young, long one of the most eminent politicians of the democratic party in the State of New-York, died of apoplexy, at his home at Ballston Spa, on the night of the third of November. Col. Young was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, in 1778. Soon after he completed his legal studies he emigrated to Ballston Spa, in this State. The following facts respecting his subsequent career are condensed from the _Tribune_.

"He was first chosen to the Legislature in 1814, and was reëlected next year on a split ticket, which for a time clouded his prospects. In 1824, he was again in the Assembly, was Speaker of the House in that memorable year, and helped remove De Witt Clinton from the office of Canal Commissioner. The Fall Election found him a candidate for Governor on the 'Caucus' interest opposed to the 'People's' demand that the choice of Presidential Electors be relinquished by the Legislature to the Voters of the State. Col. Young professed to be personally a 'Peoples' man, and in favor of Henry Clay for President; the 'Caucus' candidate being Wm. H. Crawford. De Witt Clinton was the opposing candidate for Governor, and was elected by 16,000 majority. Col. Young's political fortunes never recovered from the blow thus inflicted. He had already been chosen a Canal Commissioner by the Legislature, and he continued to hold the office till the Political revolution of 1838-9, when he was superseded by a Whig. He was afterwards twice a State Senator for four years, and for three years Secretary of State. He carried into all the stations he has filled signal ability and unquestioned rectitude. He was a man of strong prejudices, violent temper and implacable resentments, but a Patriot and a determined foe of time-serving, corruption, prodigality, and debt. He was a warm friend of Educational Improvement, and did the cause good service while Secretary of State. For the last three years he has held no office, but lived in that peaceful retirement to which his years and his services fairly entitled him. He leaves behind him many who have attained more exalted positions on a smaller capital of talent and aptitude for public service. We have passed lightly over his vehement denunciations of the Internal Improvement policy during the latter years of his public life. We attribute the earnestness of his hostility to a temper soured by disappointment, and especially to his great defeat in '24, at the hands of the illustrious champion of the Canals. But, though his vision was jaundiced, his purpose was honest. He thought he was struggling to save the State from imminent bankruptcy and ruin."

* * * * *

Henry T. Robinson, for many years an active maker of political and other caricatures, by which he made a fortune, here and in Washington, and of nude and other indecent prints, by the seizure of a large quantity of which, with other causes, he was impoverished, died at Newark, New-Jersey, on the third of November. He was born on Bethnal Common in England, in 1785, and about 1810 emigrated to this country, where he was one of the first to practise lithography.

* * * * *

Joseph Hardy died a few weeks ago at Rathmines, aged ninety-three years. When twenty years old he invented a machine for doubling and twisting cotton yarn, for which the Dublin Society awarded him a premium of twenty guineas. Four years after he invented a scribbling machine for carding wool, to be worked by horse or water power, for which the same society awarded him one hundred guineas. He next invented a machine for measuring and sealing linen, and was in consequence appointed by the linen board seals-master for all the linen markets in the county of Derry, but the slightest benefit from this he never derived, as the rebellion of '98 broke out about the time he had all his machines completed, and political opponents having represented by memorials to the board that by giving so much to one man, hundreds who then were employed would be thrown out of work, the board changed the seal from the spinning wheel to the harp and crown, thereby rendering his seals useless, merely giving him 100_l._ by way of remuneration for his loss. About the year 1810 he demonstrated by an apparatus attached to one of the boats of the Grand Canal Company at Portobello the practicability of propelling vessels on the water by paddle wheels; but having placed the paddles on the bow of the boat, the action of the backwater on the boat was so great as to prevent its movement at a higher speed than three miles per hour. This appearing not to answer, without further experiment he broke up the machinery, and allowed others to profit by the ideas he gave on the subject, and to complete on the open sea what he had attempted within the narrow limits of a canal. He also invented a machine for sawing timber; but the result of all his inventions during a long life was very considerable loss of time and property without the slightest recompense from Government, or the country benefited by his talents.

* * * * *

Major-General Slessor died at Sidmouth, Devonshire, on the 11th October, aged seventy-three. He entered the army in 1794, and served in Ireland during the rebellion, and subsequently against the French force commanded by General Humbert, on which last occasion he was wounded. In 1806 he accompanied his regiment (the 35th) to Sicily, and the next year he served in the second expedition to Egypt, and was wounded in the retreat from Rosetta to Alexandria. He then served with Sir J. Oswald against the Greek Islands, and was employed in the Mediterranean. He also served in the Austrian army, under Count Nugent, and in the Waterloo campaign.

* * * * *

Joseph Signay, Roman Catholic Archbishop of the Ecclesiastical Province of Quebec, died on the 3d of October. He was born at Quebec November 8, 1778, appointed Coadjutor of Quebec and Bishop of Fussala the 15th of December, 1826, and was consecrated under that title the 20th of May, 1827. He succeeded to the See of Quebec the 19th of February, 1833, and was elevated to the dignity of Archbishop by His Holiness Pope Gregory XVI., on the 12th of July, 1844, and received the "Pallium" during the ensuing month.

* * * * *

Dr. Fouquier, one of the most celebrated physicians of Paris, who was _le medecin_ of the ex-king Louis Philippe, and Professor of _clinique interne_ at the Academy, died on the 1st of October. His loss is much felt among the _savants_.

* * * * *

Lieut.-Colonel Cross, K.H., a distinguished Peninsular officer, died near London on the 27th of October. He served in the Peninsular war from 1808 until its close in 1814, and was at the battle of Waterloo, where he received a severe contusion.

* * * * *

Thomas Amyot, F.R.S., &c.--whose life, extended to the age of seventy-six, was passed in close intercourse with the literary and antiquarian circles of London, participating in their pursuits and aiding their exertions--died on the 28th of September. He was an active and respected member of almost every metropolitan association which had for its object the advancement of literature. He was a constant and valuable contributor to the _Archæologia_, the private secretary of Mr. Windham, the editor of Windham's speeches, and for many years treasurer to the Society of Antiquaries of London, and a director of the Camden Society. He was a native of Norwich, and obtained the friendship and patronage of Windham while actively engaged in canvassing in favor of an opponent of that gentleman for the representation of Norwich in the House of Commons. A Life of Windham was one of his long-promised and long-looked-for contributions to the biographies of English statesmen; but no such work has been published, and there is reason to believe that very little, if indeed any portion of it, was ever completed for publication. The journals of Mr. Windham were in the possession of Mr. Amyot; and if we may judge of the whole by the account of Johnson's conversation and last illness, printed by Croker in his edition of Boswell, we may assert that whenever they may be published they will constitute a work of real value in illustration of political events and private character,--a model in respect of fullness and yet succinctness, which future journalists may copy with advantage. Whatever Windham preserved of Johnson's conversation well merited preservation. Mr. Amyot's most valuable literary production is, his refutation of Mr. Tytler's supposition that Richard the Second was alive and in Scotland in the reign of Henry the Fourth.

* * * * *

Madame Branchu, so famous in the opera in the last century, is dead. The first distinct idea which many have entertained respecting the _Grande Opera_ of Paris may have been derived from a note in Moore's _Fudge Family_ in which the "shrill screams of Madame Branchu" were mentioned. She retired from the theater in 1826, after twenty-five years of _prima donna_ship--having succeeded to the scepter and crown of Mdlle. Maillard and Madame St. Huberty. She died at Passy, having almost entirely passed out of the memory of the present opera-going generation. She must have been a forcible and impassioned rather than an elegant or irreproachable vocalist--and will be best remembered perhaps as the original _Julia_ in "La Vestale" of Spontini.

* * * * *

Major-General Wingrove, of the Royal Marines, died on the 7th October, aged seventy years. He entered the Royal Marines in 1793, served at the surrender of the Cape of Good Hope in 1795, the battle of Trafalgar, the taking of Genoa in 1814, was on board the Boyne when that ship singly engaged three French ships of the line and three frigates, off Toulon, in 1814, and on board the Hercules in a single action, off Cape Nichola Mole. In 1841 he was promoted to the rank of a major-general.

* * * * *

The Duke of Palmella, long eminent in the affairs of Portugal, died at Lisbon on the 12th of October. He was born on the 8th of May, 1781, and had, consequently, completed his sixty ninth year. A very considerable part of his life was dedicated to the diplomatic service of Portugal, which he represented at the Congress of Vienna, in 1814; and he was one of the General Committee of the eight powers who signed the Peace of Paris. When the debate respecting the slave-trade took place in the Congress, he warmly opposed the immediate abolition by Portugal, which had been demanded by Lord Castlereagh. He was also one of the foreign ministers who signed the declaration of the 13th of March, 1815, against Napoleon; immediately after which he was nominated representative of Portugal at the British Court. In 1816, however, he was recalled to fill the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Brazil. In February, 1818, he visited Paris, for the purpose of making some arrangements relative to Monte Video, with the Spanish Ambassador, Count Fernan Nunez. After the Portuguese Revolution, he retired for a time from active life. He was next selected to attend at the coronation of Queen Victoria; and his great wealth enabled him to vie, on that occasion, with the representatives of the other courts of Europe. He was several times called to preside over the councils of his Sovereign, but only held office for a limited period. Though a member of the ancient nobility, all his titles were honorably acquired by his own exertions, and were the rewards of distinguished abilities and meritorious services. No Portuguese statesman acquired greater celebrity abroad, and no man acted a more consistent part in all the political vicissitudes of the last thirty years, throughout which he was a most prominent character. It is related of the Duke, when Count de Palmella, that during the contest in Spain and Portugal, Napoleon one day hastily addressed him with--"Well, are you Portuguese willing to become Spanish?" "No," replied the Count, in a firm tone. Far from being displeased with this frank and laconic reply, Napoleon said next day to one of his officers, "The Count de Palmella gave me yesterday a noble 'No.'"

* * * * *

Carl Rottmann, the distinguished Bavarian artist and painter to the King, died near the end of October. He had been sent by King Ludwig to Italy and to Greece to depict the scenery and monuments of those countries. His pictures of the Temple of Juno Lucina, Girgenti, the theater of Taormina, &c., have never been excelled, and the king had characterized them by illustrative poems. The Grecian monuments which Rottmann sketched in 1835 and 1836 are destined for the new Pinakothek; and the Battle-Field of Marathon is spoken of as a wonderful composition. The frescoes of Herr Rottmann adorn the ceiling of the upper story of the palace at Munich.

* * * * *

François de Villeneuve-Bargemont, Marquis de Trans, a member of the French Academy of Inscriptions of Belles-Lettres, and author, amongst other works, of the Histories of King Réné of Anjou, of St. Louis, and of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, is named in the late Paris obituaries.

* * * * *

The _Augsburg Gazette_ announces the death of the celebrated Bavarian painter Ch. Schorn, Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts at Munich, on the 7th October, aged forty-seven.

* * * * *

Richard M. Johnson, Ex-Vice-President of the United States, died at Frankfort, Ky., on the morning of November 19, having for some time been deprived of his reason. He was about seventy years of age. In 1807 he was chosen a member of the House of Representatives, which post he held twelve years. In 1813 he raised 1,000 men, to fight the British and Indians in the North-west. In the campaign which followed he served gallantly under Gen. Harrison as Colonel of his regiment. At the battle of the Thames he distinguished himself by breaking the line of the British infantry. The fame of killing Tecumseh, in this battle, has been given to Colonel J., but the act has other claimants. In 1819 he was transferred from the House of Representatives to the Senate, to serve out an unexpired term. When that expired he was re-chosen, and thus remained in the Senate till 1829. Then, another re-election being impossible, he went back into the House, where he remained till 1839, when he became Vice-President under Mr. Van Buren. In 1829 the Sunday Mail agitation being brought before the House, he, as Chairman of the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads, presented a report against the suspension of mails on Sunday. It was able, though its ability was much exaggerated; it disposed of the subject, and Col. J. received what never belonged to him, the credit of having written it. From 1837 to 1841 he presided over the Senate. From that time he did not hold any office.

* * * * *

William Blacker, Esq., the distinguished agricultural writer and economist, died on the 20th of October, at his residence in Armagh, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. Engaged extensively, in early life, in mercantile pursuits, he devoted himself at a maturer period to the development of the agricultural and economic resources of Ireland. By his popularly-written "Hints to Small Farmers," annual reports of experimental results, essays, &c. he managed to spread, not only a spirit of inquiry into matters of such vital importance to his country, but to point out and urge into the best and most advantageous course of action, the well-inclined and the energetic.

* * * * *

Mrs. Bell Martin, the author of a very clever novel, lately reprinted by the Harpers, entitled "Julia Howard" and originally published under the name of Mrs. Martin Bell, died in this city on the 7th of November. Mrs. Martin was the daughter of one of the wealthiest commoners of England. She came to this country it is said entirely for purposes connected with literature. She was the author of several other works, most of which were written in French.

* * * * *

The _Patria_, of Corfu mentions the death by cholera of Signor Niccolo Delviniotti Baptistide, a distinguished literary character, and author of several very interesting works.

* * * * *

General du Chastel, one of the remains of the French Imperial Army, died at Saumur, in October, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

* * * * *

Among the other recent deaths in Europe, we notice that of Mr. Watkyns, the son-in-law and biographer of Ebenezer Elliot; Dr. Medicus, Professor of Botany at Munich, and a member of the Academy of Sciences in that capital; M. Ferdinand Laloue, a dramatic author of some reputation in Paris; and Dr. C.F. Becker, eminent for his philosophical works on grammar and the structure of language.

NICHOLAS WISEMAN, D.D., LL.D., CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER.

The topic of the month in Europe has been the public and formal resumption of jurisdiction by the Pope in England, and the appointment of the ablest and most illustrious person in the Catholic Church to be Archbishop of Westminster. Dr. Wiseman is known and respected by all Christian scholars for his abilities, and their devotion to the vindication of our common faith. His admirable work on _The Connection between Science and Revealed Religion_ is a text-book in Protestant as well as in Roman Catholic seminaries. Cardinal Wiseman is now in his forty-ninth year, having been born at Seville, on the second of August, 1802. He is descended from an Irish family, long settled in Spain. At an early age he was carried to England, and sent for his education to St. Cuthbert's Catholic College, near Durham. Thence he was removed to the English College at Rome, where he distinguished himself by an extraordinary attachment to learning. At eighteen he published in Latin a work on the Oriental languages; and he bore off the gold medal at every competition of the colleges of Rome. His merit recommended him to his superiors; he obtained several honors, was ordained a priest, and made a Doctor of Divinity. He was several years a Professor in the Roman University, and then Rector of the English College, where he achieved his earliest success. He went to England in 1835, and immediately became a conspicuous teacher and writer on the side of the Catholics. In 1836 he vindicated in a course of lectures the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and gave so much satisfaction to his party that they presented him with a gold medal, to express their esteem and gratitude. He returned to Rome, and seems to have been instrumental in inducing Pope Gregory XVI. to increase the vicars apostolic in England. The number was doubled, and Dr. Wiseman went back as coadjutor to Bishop Walsh, of the Midland district. He was appointed President of St. Mary's College, Oscott, and contributed, by his teaching, his preaching, and his writings, very much to promote the spread of Catholicism in England. He was a contributor to the _Dublin Review_, and the author of some controversial pamphlets. In 1847 he again repaired to Rome on the affairs of the Catholics, and no doubt prepared the way for the present change. His second visit to Rome led to further preferment. He was made Pro-Vicar Apostolic of the London district; subsequently appointed coadjutor to Dr. Walsh, and in 1849, on the death of Dr. Walsh, Vicar Apostolic of the London district. Last August he went again to Rome, "not expecting," as he says, "to return;" but "delighted to be commissioned to come back" clothed in his new dignity. In a Consistory held September 30, Nicholas Wiseman was elected to the dignity of Cardinal, by the title of Saint Prudentiani, and appointed Archbishop of Westminster. Under the Pope, he is the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, and a Prince of the Church of Rome.

Ladies' Fashions for December.

Fig. I. _Promenade Costume._--Robe of striped silk: the ground a richly shaded brown, and the stripes of the same color, but of darker hue. The skirt of the dress is quite plain, the corsage high, and the sleeves not very wide at the ends, showing white under-sleeves of very moderate size. Mantle of dark green satin. The upper part or body is shaped like a pardessus, with a small basque at the back. Attached to this body is a double skirt, both the upper and lower parts of which are set on in slight fullness, and nearly meeting in front. The body of the mantle, as well as the two skirts, is edged with quilling of satin ribbon of the color of the cloak. Loose Chinese sleeves, edged with the same trimming. Drawn bonnet of brown velvet; under trimming small red flowers; strings of brown therry velvet ribbon.

Fig. II.--Back view of dress of claret-colored broché silk; the pattern large detached sprigs. Cloak of rich black satin. The upper part is a deep cape, cut so as to fit closely to the figure, and pointed at the back. By being fastened down at each side of the arms, this cape presents the effect of sleeves. Round the back, and on that part which falls over the arms, the cape is edged with a very broad and rich fringe, composed of twisted silk chenille, and headed by passementerie. The skirt of the cloak is cut bias way and nearly circular, so that it hangs round the figure in easy fullness. The fronts are trimmed with ornaments of passementerie in the form of large flowers. The bonnet is of green therry velvet, trimmed with black lace, two rows of which are laid across the front. Under trimming of pale pink roses.

[Transcriber's Notes:

Page vi: Transcribed "Bronte" as "Brontë". As originally printed: "Bronte and her Sisters".

Transcribed "in" as "on". As originally printed: "Herr Kielhau, in Geology".

Pages vi & 142: Transcribed "Charles Rottman" as "Carl Rottmann".

Page vii: Transcribed "this" as "his". As originally printed: "Swift, Dean, and this Amours."

Page 13: Supplied "from" in the following phrase (shown here in brackets): "It caused Richard Steele to be expelled [from] the House of Commons".

Page 13: Transcribed "colleague's" as "colleagues". As originally printed: "triumphed over his colleague's".

Page 16: Transcribed "Smollet" as "Smollett". As originally printed: "the best productions of Mendoza, Smollet, or Dickens" (presumably, Tobias Smollett).

Page 20: Transcribed "Uniersberg" as "Untersberg". As originally printed: "Charlemagne in the Uniersberg at Salzburg".

Pages 18-22: Alternate spellings of Leipzig/Leipzic have been left as printed in the original publication.

Page 24: A closing quotation is missing in the original publication for material commencing: "we shall see him as he was, both adventurous and patient....

Page 27: Transcribed "Cosmo" as "Cosimo". As originally printed: "but of Cosmo de Medici, Lorenzo his great descendant".

Page 28: Transcribed "Eoratii" as "Horatii". As originally printed: "The Eoratii, one of the master pieces of David".

Page 73: Transcribed "bonhommie" as "bonhomie". As originally printed: "the Visconte, with equal _bonhommie_".

Page 113: Transcribed "vacilliating" as "vacillating". As originally printed: "made a blind vacilliating attack".

Page 127: A closing quotation is missing in the original publication for material commencing: "I have sometimes thought that if you were to stop a hundred men....

Transcribed "habituès" as "habitués". As originally printed: "the more experienced _habituès_ of office".

Page 128: Transcribed "Chocò and Popayan" as "Chocó and Popayán". As originally printed: "deep and humid woods of the provinces of Chocò and Popayan".

Transcribed "Caraccas" as "Caracas". As originally printed: "as identical with the cow tree of Caraccas".

Page 129: "garnery" in "gathered into the garnery" has been left as printed in the original publication. Likely misspelling of "granary".

Page 136: Transcribed "paen" as "pæan". As originally printed: "Till the full paen".

Page 139: Transcribed "singleness that of purpose" as "that singleness of purpose". As originally printed: "They are in some instances without singleness that of purpose".

Transcribed "waiver" as "waver". As originally printed: "Howe'er his faith may waiver".

Page 142: Transcribed "Pinakotheka" as "Pinakothek". As originally printed: "destined for the new Pinakotheka".

Transcribed "François de Villenueve-Bargemont" as "François de Villeneuve-Bargemont".]