Part 9

Without heeding him, Grosket went up to Kate, and took her hand respectfully: 'Trust me, no harm will come of this to him. At all events, none compared with what would have befallen both of you, had Michael Rust succeeded in his plans. If ever there was a man in this world in whom the devil seems to live and move, it is Michael Rust. His sagacity and shrewdness have hitherto given him success; and hitherto he has laughed at law, and baffled detection; but his race is nearly run. He or I must fall; and of this one thing I am certain, _I_ shall not. Now, Sir,' said he, turning to Rhoneland, 'we'll go. But I'm puzzled where to look for another bail.'

'I shan't be perticklar about that,' said Mr. Chicken, quietly; 'I know something about Jacob Rhoneland, and he's good enough for me. We'll get this acknowledged, and then you may go.'

Rhoneland went to the door, and opening it, led the way into the street.

Many important events in life balance upon the doings of a moment; and had Rhoneland lingered but five minutes longer he would never have linked himself to Grosket; for not that time had elapsed after their departure, when the door of the room where Kate was still sitting alone was thrown open, and Michael Rust entered. His look was eager, and his usually slow, shuffling step was rapid.

'Where's Jacob?' said he, looking round.

'He's gone out,' replied Kate, coldly.

'Gone out!' repeated he; and then suddenly changing his manner, he said: 'Well, I wanted him; but he has left you in his place. It was kind in him. He knew that I was coming, Kate; that I doted on you; that there was nothing I loved like a little chat with you, and he couldn't have the heart to disappoint me; so he let you remain. Ah! Kate! troubles are thickening upon me. Don't you sympathize with me, Kate? I _know_ you do. I'm _sure_ you do. You're a noble girl!'

As he spoke, he advanced and took her hand. Kate drew it from him with an air of marked coldness; but not at all discouraged, he said:

'The sweetest hour of my life is when I steal away to sit by your side, Kate; to gaze in your face, and watch your eye as it peeps from under its long lashes, and the smile of your pouting, cherry lip. Ah! Kate!'

'Mr. Rust, this is really very unpleasant,' said Kate, with some anger in her manner. 'As my father's friend, you are welcome to this house. As his friend, also, you should not forget what is due to his daughter, and should refrain from a style of conversation which cannot but be offensive.'

'How sweetly she speaks!' continued Rust, in his old strain; 'how charmingly she looks when excited! Ah! Kate, you're a little devil; you've made sad havoc here!' said he, placing his hand on his heart--'sad havoc!'

'Mr. Rust,' returned Kate, angrily, 'unless you end this conversation, either you or I must leave the room.'

'Well, well, I don't believe you're in earnest, Kate; on my soul I don't; but I will drop it; but one favor--grant me only one favor. It's not a great one. I know you'll grant it, you're such an angel.'

Kate looked at him without speaking, and he went on:

'One kiss, Kate; one single, sweet kiss from my own dear darling, to comfort me amid my misfortunes!'

Kate Rhoneland started up, her eyes flashing fire. 'Leave this house, Sir!'

'Ho! ho! how sweetly she orders!' exclaimed Rust, advancing toward her; 'how bright her eyes are! how the rich color plays along her cheek! how beautiful my own Kate is! 'Leave this house,' indeed! The thing's impossible, with such a charmer within it. Come, Kate; one kiss--_only_ one; I'll tell no one, not even Ned. Upon my soul, I won't tell Ned.'

Kate made an attempt to spring past him, but he caught her by her dress, drew her to him, threw his arms about her waist, and pressed his lips to hers.

It was a dear kiss to him; for while she was struggling in his grasp, the door opened, a heavy blow lighted on his head, and he fell like a stone on the floor.

'If he's dead, be it so!' said a stern voice. But it was not so.

For a moment he lay like one who had seen his last sun; then he staggered up, pressed his hands to his temples, looked about him with a bewildered air, until his eyes encountered those of Jacob Rhoneland, bright with passion, and his whole frame quivering with rage. Gradually Rust's faculties began to rally, until he and Rhoneland stood gazing face to face.

'So it was _you_, was it, good Jacob?' said he, moving to the door. 'Thank you, my kind friend; I'll not forget you! Farewell, good Jacob. To your dying day you shall have cause to remember that you struck Michael Rust.' He bowed profoundly to them, shut the door, and went out.

EPIGRAM: FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.

THOU gazest on the stars, my Star, And would I were the sky, To view thy lovely face afar With many a burning eye!

W. H. W.

THE PRINTER.

'THE printer, in his folio, heraldeth the world. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, wars, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, shipwrecks, piracies, sea-fights, law-suits, pleas, proclamations, embassies, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays; then again, as in a new-shifted scene, treasons, cheating-tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical then tragical matters. To-day we hear of new offices created, to-morrow of great men deposed, and then again of fresh honors conferred; one is let loose, another prisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh; he thrives, his neighbor turneth bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, and so forth. Thus do we daily hear such like, both public and private news.'

OLD BORTON.

HE stood there alone at that shadowy hour, By the swinging lamp dimly burning; All silent within, save the ticking type, All without, save the night-watch turning; And heavily echoed the solemn sound, As slowly he paced o'er the frozen ground.

And dark were the mansions so lately that shone, With the joy of festivity gleaming, And hearts that were beating in sympathy then, Were now living it o'er in their dreaming; Yet the PRINTER still worked at his lonely post, As slowly he gathered his mighty host.

And there lay the merchant all pillowed in down, And building bright hopes for the morrow, Nor dreamed he that Fate was then waving a wand That would bring to him fear and sorrow; Yet the PRINTER was there in his shadowy room, And he set in his frame-work that rich man's doom!

The young wife was sleeping, whom lately had bound The ties that death only can sever; And dreaming she started, yet woke with a smile, For she thought they were parted for ever! But the PRINTER was clicking the types that would tell On the morrow _the truth_ of that midnight spell!

And there lay the statesman, whose feverish brow And restless, the pillow was pressing, For he felt through the shadowy mist of his dream His loftiest hopes now possessing; Yet the PRINTER worked on, mid silence and gloom, And dug for Ambition its lowliest tomb.

And slowly that workman went gathering up His budget of grief and of gladness; A wreath for the noble, a grave for the low, For the happy, a full cup of sadness; Strange stories of wonder, to enchant the ear, And dark ones of terror, to curdle with fear.

Full strange are the tales which that dark host shall bear To palace and cot on the morrow; Oh welcome, thrice welcome, to many a heart! To many a bearer of sorrow; It shall go like the wild and wandering air, For life and its changes are impressed there.

_Boston, August, 1843._ MODUS.

CÀ ET LÀ.

BY THE FLANEUR.

WHAT was Mr. Liner's plan? We will give it shortly, and hurry to a conclusion. He packed up his daughter and despatched her to Boston by Harnden's Express, in the month of September, carefully directed to a maternal uncle who resided there. With her went a letter explaining his peculiar situation. How Mrs. Liner and himself were afraid that their daughter, although now a '_dame charmante de vingt six ans moins un mois_,' might become a middle-aged, ay, a very middle-aged single lady; how all her friends had married about her, even to Frederica Frizzle, who, like the Colossus of Rhodes, was very tall and very brazen; how Shuffleshanks had loved and died, leaving no sign; how the young man from Tobolsk had offered himself and been refused, and how the _sparks_ no longer _flew up_ when she appeared. That, in short, he despaired of settling her at home, although she was rich; as the New-Yorkers have an invincible aversion to any thing that has been long on hand; and Catharine, though certainly not _passée_ was as certainly _passante_. He therefore requested the uncle to introduce her in Boston as a widow; the relict of a rich planter who died in New-Orleans of the yellow fever, leaving his wife the fee simple of all his slaves and half-breeds. To which the uncle willingly consented, as he was promised a handsome percentage if he succeeded; and Catharine herself was nothing loth, for she yearned to get married; and deceit, as we will prove one of these days, is the ground-work of the female character.

So Miss Liner was shipped; as old fashioned goods often are, in newer boxes. The bill of lading was marked thus:

Mr. Liner was confident that she would arrive safe, as her case was the very antipodes of the vinous accident alluded to in scripture.

Here ends the authentic history of Miss Liner. All else is either fabulous or deeply tinged with mythology. But it is at least certain that her widowhood allowed her to be so much more lively and fascinating, and explained so satisfactorily why she was single at her age; and her fortune came in so strongly and opportunely to urge on admirers, that in less than a month she was engaged, and in less than two, married. Our uncle pocketed his commission and kept his secret.

After Catharine Julia had left New-York on her marital journey, a small closely-written sheet of paper was found in her room, which was evidently intended for publication. She said in a short preface that she took the idea from Shuffleshanks, and that after his death, in her pensive moments, when

... 'oft at even as she sat In a little summer-house in the garden without a hat,'

her experience of society shaped itself into the following rules, which she resolved to leave as a legacy to the beau sexe of the beau monde, among whom she had so long been conspicuous:

'RULES FOR BECOMING A PERFECT _ZAZA_.

'The accomplished belle, flowered, flounced, fanning, figuring, flirting, flinging herself in all directions with the timidity of the gazelle, and its endurance, approaches to the grand ideal of belles; the peerless _Zaza_.

'Zazas are like Pachas of one, two, or three tails; (no double entendre meant.) A _Zaza_ of one tail has one or two regular beaux; one of two tails has five or six; one of three tails has as many as she pleases. This is the summit of _Zazaism_. A demoiselle with no beaux is a nobody; (_nobeaudy_;) a poor creature; something quite despicable.

'RULE I. When about to seat yourself, pull your dress strongly on both sides to prevent its wrinkling; then subside. Consequently, upon rising, the dress must be raised again with the left hand, and three or four slaps given on each side, to complete the circle. The gesture of smoothing the front hair with the flat of the hand may be tolerated----in the darkest closet of a house with stone walls, or in the centre of the great desert of Sahara when no caravan is in sight.

'RULE II. You should always endeavor to be sportive. The lambkin and the very young cat style take well, and are quite _Zaza_. A frisk just tinged with the _soupçon_ of a tremble is a very beautiful display.

'RULE III. If you perceive a friend arriving, and go to meet her across a large room, always proceed with three skips on the points of your toes, then two quick steps, then three more skips, and so on alternately. Take care that your face does not express more anxiety for the success of your _pas seul_ than joy at greeting your friend. When you attain your très _cherè_, groan _Zaza_, seize her hand and kiss her twice. This is a simple and effective meeting. The _coup d'oeil_ is excellent when both young ladies are of the Zaza school. The three-skip gait is admirably adapted to entering a room unexpectedly; where there is a gentleman, or in leaving one at home tolerably full of company, when called out by a servant. It is invaluable at pic-nics.

'RULE IV. Walk into a drawing-room behind your mamma. You appear timid and retiring, and she acts as a standard-bearer, announces your arrival, and people are better prepared to stare.

'RULE V. Encourage only beaux who can add to your power by making you a great _Zaza_; such as great waltzers, singers; men who are rich, and who seem to be attentive '_pour le bon motif_,' must of course be fed upon faint hopes.

'RULE VI. When sitting in a drawing-room, always cross your arms about your waist; each hand covering the small ribs on the opposite side, as if, like the gallant old soldier in Pelham, you wanted your hands to guard your heart. It is no objection to this style that it is always adopted by awkward _cantatrices_ on the stage--and off.

'RULE VII. It is well for a _Zaza_, if she lives in a fashionable street, to read or embroider in a conspicuous window, which she may call her _beau_-window.

'RULE VIII. In talking, do not make your lips and head go faster than your tongue. The _Zaza_ is languid and shakes her head slowly, looking all the while intently and impressively at the person whom she is entertaining with----if he be a foreigner, a fortune, or a Coryphæus.

'RULE IX. In drinking tea, coffee, or lemonade, hold the cup with the thumb and the fore and middle fingers, and allow the others to point rigidly into the air, at as great a distance as possible from the three first enumerated.

'RULE X. In playing or singing, timidity and tremors are quite out of date. The _Zaza_ glides up to the instrument as if she had graduated at the Conservatoire, and sung three years at the Académie Royale. The only expression of face allowable is the smile of conscious power; such a smile as Jupiter's phiz might wear when contemplating the feeble struggles of sublunarians. On earth this smile may be often seen in female rope-dancers.

'RULE XI. If a person asks to be presented, the _Zaza_ 'really don't know;' she 'has so many acquaintances;' _languidissimo_.

'RULE XII. If a _Zaza_ of three tails, always dance at the head of a cotillon and lead off the waltz.

'RULE XIII. When a bad or an uncertain waltzer requests the honor, the _Zaza_ is always engaged; but she may hint to a Shuffleshanks to beg for a turn, or even ask him outright. This has often been successfully practised by _Zazas_ of two tails.

'RULE XIV. If you have received a bouquet from an anonymous admirer, or from your father, thank the most fashionable man, or the _Great Catch_, or both; and loud enough to be overheard. You believe not one word of their protestations, of course, and set it down to modesty.

'RULE XV. When two _Zazas_, accompanied by their respective cavaliers, meet in the ball-room, they should always stop for a moment, interchange a few dulcet words, tell each other 'how sweetly pretty you look to-night,' and present for a moment a lovely picture of child-like simplicity and utter guilelessness--to the respective cavaliers and observers in general.'

HERE the MS. ends abruptly.

THE DYING STUDENT.

I.

LET him look out upon Earth's fair domain, And feast his spirit mid its time-worn hills, Feeling the fresh blood flow through every vein As the new sight his weary bosom thrills: Oh! let him gaze beyond that shoreless sea, Whither his spirit fain would take its flight, To wander in those far-off depths, and be Where the pure sky hath hung her robe of light.

II.

Oh! let him gaze upon Earth's jewelled sky, And breathe Spring's earliest, sweetest breath again; And once more follow with a ravished eye Faces and forms of loved ones, loved in vain! To catch the inspiring sound of Music's voice, To hear the solemn chant of Ocean's roar; To linger at the threshold of his joys, And feel Earth's sunshine on his head once more.

III.

Life's solemn lights are dimly burning now, And feeble shadows o'er his vision fall; Still, one brief hour is his, and in its flow Moments are years, and in those years his all! Rouse him from death, without one brief delay, And call his spirit back from Time's dark tide; He lingers yet, as on the verge of day, And Hope and Heaven his heart's pure home divide.

IV.

His spirit freshens at the glorious sight, And far away his eager eyes are turning, To those bright paths in yonder sky of light, Where Heaven's imperial stars are brightly burning. Back flows the life-blood to his swelling heart, And thence again with impulse free and strong; Old memories gather round him and depart, Phalanx to phalanx joined, and throng to throng!

V.

Dim grow the visions that o'erreach his brain, And shadowy forms seem floating in his eye; Tears fall around him, as the soul's bright rain, Poured from the heart for one too young to die. Stars are now hovering o'er the brink of day, And sun-light lingers on each tower and hill; But prayer hath passed from silent lips away, The heart hath shed its sorrow--and is still!

_New-York, August, 1843._ EDMOND BREWSTER GREEN.

LITERARY NOTICES.

DONNA FLORIDA: A TALE. By the Author of 'Atlantis,' 'Southern Passages and Pictures,' etc. Charleston: BURGESS AND JAMES.

'THE poem,' says the author of this miniature pamphlet-volume, 'of which the four first cantos (he means the _first four_, no doubt) are here submitted to the reader, was chiefly the work of the writer's youth.' He does not claim, however, that this fact forms any sufficient excuse for giving it to the public at this late day; but offers rather the natural tenacity 'with which the mind treasures up, and seeks to preserve, the performances which revive its early associations.' We have run through these cantos with some attention. The story does not strike us as possessing either great originality or interest. The verse itself is after the model of 'Don Juan,' then recently published, and rife in the literary world; but like the thousand-and-one imitations which we have encountered of that most facile and felicitous composition, its 'laborious ease' cannot be concealed. With BYRON, the play of fancy and of words was equally unconstrained, in this species of versification; but all his imitators have evidently been stretched upon Procrustean beds; and with all the seeming _abandon_ of their manner, and the smirk of their 'varnished faces,' it has yet been but too evident that their situation was any thing but comfortable. In 'Donna Florida' however there is a good degree of cleverness. There are many thoughts interspersed throughout its cantos which the reader will encounter with surprise and remember with pleasure. Nevertheless we are compelled to say, that where the stanzas are most original, they are the least to our liking. We enter our protest against the writer's frequent habit of saying a plain thing in an involved, roundabout way, as well as against numerous words and similes which he employs. 'You can call a hat,' says Mr. YELLOWPLUSH, a 'glossy four-and-nine' or a 'swart sombréro;' but in the long run praps it's as well to call it _a hat_. It _is_ a hat; and where's the use o' mystifying?' Would it not, for example, be 'as well' also, and quite as natural, to write 'half of the rest,' as 'the subdivision of the remaining moïety?' Or in saying that old jokes were laughed at, to express it in less magniloquent phrase than

'Old jokes _found revivified expansion_?'

Where does Mr. SIMMS find authority for such a word as '_voicing_?'--'the voicings of a bird?' In any dictionary of the English language? Guess not! As little do we admire the simile which makes a lady's eye the 'polar light in love's astrology,' or which represents it as

----'peering beneath her forehead like a star, Bestowing a sweet glory on the sky.'

All these are 'affectations, look you;' and are in our judgment even worse sins against taste (to say nothing of truth) than the occasional instances of an opposite tendency which might be pointed out; such as 'the beast enjoying his _grunt and stye_;' or the coy damsel, of whom the writer says:

'One moment grows she most abruptly willing, The next, she _slaps the chaps that think of billing_!'

We should not have felt ourselves justified in passing unnoticed the defects which we have indicated; the more that the following stanzas evince the ability of the writer, when he gives to natural thoughts their natural expression, to avoid these and kindred errors:

'GLANCING my vision o'er the world's affairs, Surveying this and that, of strange and common, Its double singles and divided pairs, Its human brutes and brutes that might be human, All vexing life with sad and fruitless cares, Yet all made agents of that creature, woman; I've come to this conclusion: that 't were better If we poor bachelors had never met her.

'Better we had not seen and could not fancy So sad and strange conception; could not want Her presence, nor beneath her necromancy Feel the torn bosom and vex'd pulses pant, With dreams and hopes that not a step advance ye To health or happiness, but rather daunt, At each impassion'd move, the weary spirit, That sees the joy receding as we near it.

'Better in single blessedness had Adam, Stout father-farmer, in his garden trod; Unvexed by daily strife with maid or madam, And free to eat his fruit and meet his God: I'm sure his fate had not been half so sad--am Certain he had not then been thrust abroad With breeches made of fig-leaves, quickly rended, More quickly than his wife could get them mended.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

'Have you not seen her in the public way, Snare-setting? In the ball-room marked her eyes, Pursuing, like a very snake's, her prey? And vainly would he dodge them, and be wise! In flight alone is safety. Do you stray Beside her, when the moon is in the skies? Or by the brooklet, or along the sea, Or in the garden, parlor, buttery?'

'Do you stray beside her in the--_buttery_!' Does not this word 'buttery' seem _impressed_ for the sake of oddity and the rhyme? To our apprehension and ear it is objectionable, alike in truth and in sound; scarcely less so, indeed, than the close of the annexed lines, which require no comment. DON PONCE, a Spanish knight,

'Had passed his days in _stupor most sublime_, His nights in deep allegiance to his pillow; Untroubled by the crown, the church-bell's chime, Sleep, garlic, wine, and oil, a _constant fill o'_!'