?:-^ mr) ^^^^^^^ ^c^^i^6.^^ qMc ^^TSDSllPSc^^ JLo^o rl^^A'^m^. ../^ S T O N, FRIENDSHIP'S GIFT: SOUYET^IR FOR MDCCCXLVIII. EDITED BY WALTER PERCIVAL BOSTON: PUBLISriED BY JOHN P. HILL. 1848. fWjll ?7- mg of birds among apple-blossoms — the steady roar of the multitudinous ocean — the perpetual chiming of the stars — the rattling of the spring-brooks over pebbles and among the roots of old trees, and a ring- ing, hke the voices of children at play by the sea- shore. What, Will ! — mil, I say ! why, what 's the boy dreamm' about, now ? Wake up. Will ! wake up I Thou 'It never be a man, boy, an' thou spendest thy days half asleep i' the sunshuie, so ! Father ! — dear father — an' it please ye, I 've no desh-e to be a man-boy. Ah, Willy, Willy ! — an' thee do n't alter afore thy beard blossoms, thou 'It not hve out half thy days. An' I live out all my nights, father, I do n't care for the days. Hoity toity — this comes o' droppin' asleep, Hke the flowers in the sunshine — playing with the tassel of his night-cap, as he spoke — it was hke a full-blown thistle-top. An' it please ye, father, flowers do n't drop asleep in the smishme — at the worst, they but dream a little, as I do : but I was n't asleep, father. 20 FRIENDSHIP S GIFT. ]^o^ no — I warrant me ! no more than thou wast t' other day, when the Bible dropped out o' thy hands upon the church floor. An' waked the parson, father. Oh, my poor boy ! sleep or no sleep, asleep or awake, thou 'rt the strangest he in all Warrickshire — added the father, readjusting his night-cap with a petulant twitch — and if thou do n't cure thyself o' these idle pranks, I '11 — I '11 — zounds I if I do n't — What, father ? Bind thee 'prentice to an attorney. Why, dad ! you would n't, though. Yes, but I would, though -^ or to a chimney-swee]). Oh, as to that, father, I 'ye not a word to say. Thou graceless yagabond ! — that would suit thee, would n't it ? I yerily believe it would. The boy laughed, and began to whistle. Here, the attention of the father was called oft'; but he returned to the window, after a fcAV minutes, and renewed the conyersation — evidently pleased with the boy's pertncss. Not asleep, hey ? No, father, not asleep. Dreaming, though ? Ay ! that I was ! And angels were about me like bu-ds, father ; waters, like suiging creatures. Fiddle-de-dee ! Yes, father ! And the summer-winds blew, and the sunshmc flashed through the wet green leaves, WILL THE WIZARD. 21 till tlicy shivered and sparkled like live butterflies : and I thought, father — Oh, mj dear father, you must let me look at the great sea before I die ! Is the boj mad ? No, father ! But there was a huge wide feeling somehow, all about me — it came up, with one vast, long, steady heave, like the Ocean we read of — not Hke the undulations of a newly-foimd spring in the "wilderness, or a foimtain bubbling up among straw- berry-blossoms. The old gentleman stared with astonishment — the people stared — and before he knew it, he was walk- ing fore and aft the shop, and whistling too, with all his might and main. Yes, father ! And I saw the Wonders of the great deep, holding council together : Leviathans at play — Robui Goodfellow, astride of a swift dolphin, with gold and blue burnished scales — ^ mighty ships, holding on their way, with the instmct of birds, to the ends of the earth — ^ stars, dropping fire — and the great Sea flashmg to the wmd. The father stopped — gazed at the strange boy mth brimming eyes, for a moment, and then walking forth, he laid his two hands reverentially upon his upturned forehead, saying — The Lord be with thee I and prosper thee, thou wonderful creature ! Others may believe thee underwitted, or beside thyself, my poor boy ; but, in the eyes of one who knoAvs thee better, much better, thou art the type of sometliing 22 friendship's gift. unheard of in the history of niankmd. Awake, there- fore ! — stand up ! and thy foolish old father will stand up with tliee ! Here the people began to whisper together — and the boy, understanding by their eyes what another might have understood only by their language, drew his father into the shop ; while the multitude slowly went their way — the foremost, tapping his forehead with his finger — the next, thrusting his tong-ue into his cheek, as he turned the corner — and all the rest wagging their heads. And now, Willy, my boy — said his father, doffing his red night-cap, and ^\iping his bald pate, with a portentous flourish — I do n't care that for the kna\'es ! (snapping his fingers) and from tliis day forth, mstead of being tied to the shop, as they would have thee, thou shalt have books to read, and clothes to wear : and it shall go hard but thy old father '11 make a gen- tleman of thee, in spite of their talk, (fetching the boy a slap on the back ;) what d 'ye think o' that, YOU dog, you ? Thank ye, father ; but I 've no desire to be a gen- tleman. No desire to be a gentleman ! No, father, an' it please ye. And why not, Willy ? Because, father — Because^ father — because what, my boy ? — what 's the matter with thee ? — why dost turn away thy face ? Out with it, my boy — because what ? WILL THE WIZARD. 23 Because I 've observed that no woman ever falls in love with a gentleman^ father. Odds, my life ! — how shouldst thou know anything about love ? I say — father — Well, what now ? — leave playin' "v\qth thy fingers, and answer me. God 's life ! as her majesty saith — but I shall be out of all patience with thee I if thou speak not soon. Father ! -— Well — Did ye ever happen to see old Hathaway's daugh- ter ? Wliich daughter ? — Mary ? Mary indeed ! — why, Mary is a child. A child, hey ? — older than thou, by almost a year, my boy. Yes, father ; but not old enough — an' it please ye — for me. What — hey! — let me look into your eyes, you young rogue, you! Thou'rt not thinkuig of Anne Hathaway, I hope — hey ? And why not, father ? Is n't she the bravest g*irl in Warrickshire ? — did n't you tell mother so yourself, not a month ago ? To be sm*e I did ; and as beautiful as brave. But how, in the name of all the saints, camestthouto know anything about Anne Hathaway ? — why, she 's old enough to be thy mother, thou scapegrace. 24 friendship's gift. No, father, not quite — only seven years and four months older, come next Michaelmas. But how camest thou acquainted mth her, I say ? Answer me that, Willy. I 'm not acquainted with her, sii'. Not acquainted with her ? No sir ; I never saw her but once. And when was that, pray ? — thou mouthful of ^i jnnserbread. "When you took me to Kennilworth, to see the show. What ! four years ago, when thou wast but thir- teen years of age ? Yes, father. And there thou saw'st Anne Hathaway ? Yes, father. And what then ? — Nothing, father. Boy — boy — I ivill be answered ! There 's a mystery here, and it must be cleared up. It must, and it shall. The boy's lip trembled — a tear stood in his eye — and he breathed hard for a moment ; and then plant- ing his foot, and upheaving his forehead to the sky, and speaking with a voice he had never employed before, he continued. The mystery shall be cleared up, father. Y^ou shall be satisfied. I saw Anne Hathaway when the Queen spoke to her, and all eyes were upon her : I saw her WILL THE WIZARD. 25 when she brought the flowers to lay at her majesty's feet : and I saw her, when the great lord of Leicester would have snatched a kiss from her — and she flung him off, and bounded away like a startled fawn : — I saw her steal back to her father's cottage ; and though she was told that the Queen herself had inquired for her, she would n't return to Kennilworth again till the pageant was all over. And that 's true, my boy — I've had it all from her father himself, who told her the Queen had mquired for her, as the rosebud of Warrickshire. But, what has all this to do with thy not bemg a gentleman ? I do n't know, father ; but I do n't like these gen- tlemen, that wear white gloves, and go fingering their way through the wilderness, afraid to wet their feet, afraid to laugh, and afraid to pray. I know she 's a woman, father — a grown woman ; but what of that ? I can't help thinking my chance would be better than that of any o' these gaudy popinjays — these gentle- men^ forsooth — if I had but the courage to speak to her. My poor silly boy ! Call me anything but a hoy^ father ; I can't bear that. I have been a man ever since I first saw Anne Hathaway ; she has never been out of my head since — I dream of her — I go out and lie do^vn under- neath the old trees of the park, yonder, and look at the deer and the bright birds, till I drop asleep, and 2 26 friendship's gift. then she always appears to me — just as I saw her at Keiniilworth, Llushing and courtes^mig and stammer- ing, with all eyes wondering at her beauty — and then rmming off, with lord Leicester looking after her. Oh, but she 's a rare girl ! and with your leave, my dear father — now do n't be angry, will ye ? Can't promise thee, my boy ; thou 'It make a fool o' thy father, yet — mad as a March hare. Well, with my leave — why do n't ye speak ? "With your leave, (flinging both anus about his father's neck, and whispering in his ear) — What ! (starting up, and laughmg as if he would spht himself.) What ! Thou wilt marry Anne Hatha- way — God's life ! as her majesty saith — thou 'rt a precious fellow of thy inches ! By my faith ! I should like to hear thee pop the question. And here he burst forth into another obstreperous peal of laughter. The boy looked astonished — mortified — grieved to the very heart : his color came and went — and there was a bright small dew upon his upper lip, which instantly disappeared, as if breathed upon by a blast from the desert. Should you, father ? — said he at last, in reply — should you indeed ? Of a truth, should I. Then go with me to her father's ; for, so help me God I I '11 put the question to her before I sleep ! Boy or no boy, father — I '11 know from her own lips, whether it is a lying spirit, or the awful instinct of WILL THE WIZARD. 27 trutli, which has kept me awake for long years, dreaming of that girl as my future companion — yea, father, as my future ^vife. Night and day have I dreamed of her — year after year have I prayed for her — all that appears wonderful in my character or my language, or wild in my behavior — all that I know or wish to know — all my hopes and all my fears are connected with her. A^Ti}^ Sir! It was but yesterday that I fell asleep, thinking of her, under the great oak by the river, there — and I dreamed a dream, father — a dream that, awake or asleep, has haunted me for years. The father stood awe-struck and breathless before him, waiting the issue. There was a sound of trum- pets m the air, and he felt afraid of his own child. Ay, father — a dream ; a dream of power ; a pro- digious dream ! I tremble now to give it language. But I must. I saw palaces and thrones — and mighty men of war — and beautiful women : whole nations of both — mustering at my voice, and crowd- ing to hear me, as I stood alone and apart from all the rest of mankind, playing with a strange unearthly instrument — in shape, hke a human heart — which a spirit of gi^ace left A\ith me, one still, starry night, when I saw the skies rolling away forever, ■v^dth no hand to stay them : the Universe asleep, and God watching over it. I stood upon the mountain- top. The foundations of the Earth were opei«d to me ; and I saw gold there, and gems, like subter- ranean sunshine. Yea, father ! and I saw the sepul- 28 FRIENDSHIP S GIFT. chres of the giants — the bones of many a forgotten Empire — the skeleton of lost worlds — the store- houses of the great Deep — and the abiding-place of perpetual fire : and I lifted up my voice, and told the creatures of Earth what I saw, and they believed me not. And the winds blew, and the darkness drove by, like a midnight fog — and that generation was no more. Anon, another appeared — another, and yet another — and at last, there were those that under- stood me. And Avhen I talked of soils, that, once broken up — whether by earthquake or fire — by storm or deluge — teem with the seed of empire — with strange flowers, and stranger fruit, — they be- lieved me, though they understood me not. Boy — boy ! — what 's the matter with thee ! — what 's thee stretching forth thy arms for, so wildly ? — what 's thee reaching after — hey ! — Was I, father I — 0, I had forgotten myself! I was wandering by the sea-shore, and plucking at the bright-haired, unapproachable creatures that drifted by me. I was wondering to see shadows upon the deepest and blackest midnight sky — a firmament of polished ebony ; I was Hstening to Seas that thunder in their sleep from century to century. Of a truth, my boy, it makes my heart ache to hear thee — no good will come of this, I am sure ; and if anything should happen, there are those Avho wiy consider it a judgment upon thy poor old father, for trying to make a gentleman of tlice. WILL THE WIZARD. 29 And rightly enough too. Let God have his own way with the work of his own hands, father. If I am not to be a gentleman, I shall be something better, I hope ; and if I am^ why, God's will be done 1 — that 's all I have to say. But, poetry is a beggarly trade, my boy ; an' thee should n't betake thyself to that : and so is the making of speeches. I know it, father — and therefore I '11 none of it ! I am not without other and better resources. Boy though I am, I have learned something of human nature: I have learned to think for myself — and I have learned to disentangle the roots of error from the foundations of our strength — to look upon the mighty of earth, even the mightiest, as the playthings of the multitude. Have a care, boy ! These are perilous thoughts : they should be smothered, like monsters — stifled in the birth. Smothered I — stifled I I would as soon smother a child of my o^\TL begetting, as a thought worth pre- serving. Why should we stifle the princely ofispring of our intellectual spirits ? No, father ; I know what mankind are — and I know that we must be made of sterner stuff than others to communicate rather than to receive impressions. I have thought much of what we call the great of our day ; and I have quite another idea of greatness, let me tell you, father. The men I call great, are men of rock. Dominion 2* 30 FRIENDSHIP S GIFT. have they ; not over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, or the beasts of the field ; but over the Men of all the earth — of all ages and of all countries. There he goes, again 1 there he goes ! with all the heedlessness of a grasshopper — hit or miss ! Trees, father, cast ofi" their encumbering foliage, when they go to w^ar with the winds ; naked, they are in^Tllnerable ^ — ■ so with me. After a few years, I shall betake myself to the war ; and when I do, away with all this pageantry and pomp ! away with all strange hopes — and all strange dreaming ! It was but to-day, that I saw, with my eyes open, the whole embodied Future sailing before me, century after cen- tury, with all their wings outspread. I saw the Invisible at work — the mountains growing populous with giant sculpture — the Avarp and woof of the sky, and all the looms thereof, in full play ; and the chips flew, and the threads ran like fire, hither and thither, among the agitated clouds, and I saw great blocks of marble changing their shape, wiien there was nobody near ; and harps, playing in the sky to invisible fingers — what ! father — asleep ? then here goes ! And saying this, he darted through the door, and was off, at full speed, for the cottage of Anne Hatha- way. How he sped in his prayer, let the chronicles of that day — the day of the haughty Elizabeth — declare. At the age of seventeen, the boy married Anne Hathaway, who was then about twenty-five. And after that — wild and riotous, and urged on- WILL THE WIZARD. 31 ward bj the unappeasable spirit of his childhood, he betook himself to that great world in miniature — London. There he lived ; and there he laid the foundations of that glory, which hath smce outblazed the wildest hope of his youth. After many years, men built temples to him, and established a priesthood, who gradually extended the worship of that boy — for it was worship — over the whole of the enlightened earth. His name Avas a star — his language in everybody's mouth. Milhons were able to repeat his commonest sayings ; and millions went in pilgrimage to that small shop, in that little one- story village of England, there to look at what his eyes had looked upon, two hundred and fifty years before ; there to breathe the air he breathed, in the outbreak- ing of his fiery, intrepid, ungovernable nature. And of the multitude that went m pilgrimage there, some left their names on the whitewashed wall of the bed-chamber, over the shop ; and some, a word or two of wretched poetry. And of the multitude that came away, all had pretty much the same story to tell — and did tell it ; and yet the public Avere never weary — or, if weary, would never own it — such was the magic of the boy's name. Of these, nobody inquired more faithfully or diligently than the author, whose memorandum, faithfully transcribed from the original page, must now end this article. " Stratfordrupon-Avon. Eighteen miles from Co- ventry. Four s. fare ; one s. coach ; two s. to Mary 32 friendship's gift. Hornly ; one s. cliiircli ; six d. boy ; one s. house ; six d. hall. House he was born in plastered outside, between the black beams, running so as to stripe it equally. jNIary Hornly is a relation of his, by mar- riage and descent — keeps ready-made tragedies, from eighteen pence to two-and-six pence a piece ; one is en- titled Waterloo — warranted genuine — ' made by her- self! ' — shows sundry chairs, and a long, old table, * cut to pieces hy the nobility ; ' — called my attention 'to the carved postesses of the bed, — mentioned in the will, — if I'd take the trouble to look at it.' One is reminded of the knife, to be seen for a penny, with which a terrible murder had been perpetrated — whereupon, a neighbor advertised the fork, belonging to the hiife, to be seen next door for only a half- penny. Here was a wooden picture, also, represent- ing David with the cramp in his right arm, blazing away at poor Gohath, with an old motto newly fur- bished up — somewhat after this fashion : Goliath waxeth wroth — David with a sling, (Something I can't make out) Doth down Goliath bring ! though not half so good. She exhibited, moreover, a sword, a looking glass, a pin-cushion — a jubilee ditto — and a clumsy wooden candlestick, once gilt, and in some way connected with Garrick and the Festival. A very ignorant, vulgar, pleasant woman, WILL THE WIZARD. 33 — about fiftj-five — say sixty, now. She was turned out of the true house — on which the rent was un- expectedly ' riz ' from twenty to forty pounds. Brought away with her everything that people cared for, and left the remainder to be whitewashed. A book, full of names, lay upon the table : I found in it George Rex, Byron, Scott, the Archduke of Austria. And sooth to say. King George's E. was quite tolerable for a King, though by no means equal to that I had been led to hope from Blackwood. Left my name : ' , United States, Janu- ary 29, 1824,' and would have added in prose — but could 'nt — Put off thy shoes ! the ground whereon thou standest is holy ! &c. &c. &c. ; and, as for poetry, I 'd foresworn poetry ; and what is more, I had never undertaken a real impromptu in my life — and never but one which I ventured to pass for one. I left the house, therefore, 2i\togetlcier flabberr/asted — wondering to find myself unable to say boh ! to a goose, where so many others had been able to say nothing else. — Washington Irving among the rest. Well, I proceeded to the church — stood over the bones of the dead giant, with my foot upon his neck : yea, trampled upon the ashes of his mighty heart and paid sixpence for the privilege : was beset again by the cockney-muse — and longed to cry out Wliat, ho I to my o^vn shadow, as I saw it pro- jected along the walls, hatted and cloaked, by the particular desire of the attendant ; and heard, on the 34 friendship's gift. paved floor, the rattling of my boots, wMcli were pro- vided with iron heels, and the rude, noisy echoes that followed every step I took ! One ought to be shod with iron, or hrass^ thought I, to tread amid the ashes of such a furnace. On my way back to my lodgings, I felt another throe — and another — and before I well knew where I was, I had brought forth the following, which I offer as a suitable inscription. Rash man ! — Forbear ! Thou wilt not surely tread On the anointed head Of him that slumbereth there ! Would'st meet the God of such as thou, With that untroubled brow ! With covered head and covered feet ! Where William Shakspeare used to meet His God, Uncovered and unshod, In prayer ! Thou wilt not surely venture where But sleeps the awful Dead, With that irreverent air, And that alarming tread ! What, ho ! Beware I The very dust, below The haui,'hty Dead, will wake — The walls about thee shake, If that uplifted heel. Shod as it is with steel, Should full on Shakspeare's head ! WILL THE WIZARD. 35 Thence, ha\Tiig acliieved mv impromptu, I went to the house where ' he hved and breathed and had his bemg ; ' and began forth^^-ith to scatter the golden cobweb, (the stuff that dreams are made of), wliich I had spun, Hke a silk-worm, out of my own vitals. There was the very room — that ! where the bard was born. I was perfectly sure of it. And why ? — because, the moment I set my foot there, a miracle happened. Being requested to write my name, as I had been requested before, both at the church and at the house of the woman ivhat made plays, both of whom desired to be remembered to all my friends coming that way ! (I could have told her that my friends were hkely to go quite another way.) I seat- ed myself and began to write ; all at once — just when I had got *as far as ' ISorth America,^ which sounds fifty times grander, m such a place, than United States, beside being altogether more intelli- gible to the gi-eat body of British statesmen, to say nothing of the multitude — the best of them being not much better informed to this day, respectmg our geography, than they were when the ' Island of Vir- ginia ' was first mentioned in the house of Lords — or the ' State of New-England ' thought proper to set herself m array agauist the ' great President,' I came to a full stop ! I had fiiiished forever, as I thought, and was about to adjourn — by my faith it is true — when a queer sensation — a sort of trickling from my heart — a something, that 'zvent a rippling to 36 friendship's gift. the finger ends,'* prevented me. I tried to get up — I couldn't — to fling down the pen — it Avould n't budge — so Avrite I must, and write I did ; and the following real, honest, do^iiright impromptu was the result. The ground is holy here — the very air ! Ye breathe what Shakspeare breathed. Rash men, beware ! Oh, yes ! — Will Shakspeare teas born here. The question was settled forever — and ever. I could n't help sliding into ' extrumpery.' 0, ye walls ! cov- ered with pencilled names, on whitewashed plaster ! Kings ! Princes I and Immortals — if they were ever there — or, if only such as understood him had written there, no hghts would be needed to show the manger of Shakspeare. The walls would be luminous with their handwritincr — the sim-manuals of them that write with imperishable fire, light burning not only under water, but under earth, and throughout all the earth. But enough — our story is about ' Wizard Will; —not ' WHl Wizard:' and there- fore know we when to stop. THE BACHELOR'S DREAM. ANONYMOUS. The music ceased, the last quadrille was o'er, And one by one the waning beauties fled ; The garlands vanished from the frescoed floor, The nodding fiddler hung his weary head. And I — a melancholy single man — Retired to mourn my solitary fate — i slept awhile ; but o'er my slumbers ran The sylph-like image of my blooming Kate. I dreamt of mutual love, and Hymen's joys. Of happy moments and connubial blisses r And then I thought of little girls and boys, The mother's glances, and the infant's kisses. I saw them all, in sweet perspective sitting In winter's eve around a blazing fire. The children playing, and the mother knitting, Or fondly gazing on the happy Sire. The scene was changed. In came the Baker's bill I stared to see the hideous consummation Of pies and puddings that it took to fill The bellies of the rising generation. 3 9 friendship's gift. There was no end to eating : — legs of mutton Were vanquislied daily by this little host ; To see them, you'd have thought each tiny glutton Had laid a wager who could eat the most. The massy pudding smoked upon the platter, The ponderous sirloin reared its head in vain ; The little urchins kicked up such a clatter, That scarce a remnant e'er appeared again. Then came the School bill : Board and Education So much per annum ; but the extras mounted To nearly twice the primal stipulation. And every little bagatelle was counted ! To mending tuck ; — A new Homeri Ilias ; — A pane of glass ; — Repairing coat and breeches ; A slate and pencil ; — Binding old Virgilius; — Drawing a tooth ; — An open draft and leeches. And now I languished for the single state, The social glass, the horse and chaise on Sunday, The jaunt to Windsor with my sweetheart Kate, And cursed again the weekly bills of Monday. Here Kate began to scold — I stampt and swore. The kittens squeak, the children loudly scream ; And thus awaking with the wild uproar, I thanked mv stars that it was but a dream. LAST HOURS OF A SINGLE GENTLEMAN. ANONYMOUS. This morning, April 1, at half past eleven, pre- cisely^, an unfortunate young man, Mr. Edwin Pink- nej, underv/ent the extreme penalty of infatuation, by expiating his attachment to Mary Ann Gale, in front of the Altar railings of St. Mary's Church, Islington. It will be ha the recollection of all those friends of the parties wiio were at the Joneses' party at Brixton, two years ago, that Mr. Pinkney was there, and there first introduced to Mary Ann, to whom he instantly began to direct particular attentions — danc- ing with her no less than six sets that evening, and handing her things at supper in the most devoted manner. From that period commenced the mtimacy between them which terminated in this morning's catastrophe. Poor Pinkney had barely attained to his twenty- eighth year ; but there is reason to believe that, but for reasons of a pecuniary nature, his shigle life would have come earher to an untimely end. A 40 friendship's gift. change for the better, however, having occurred m his circumstances, the young lady's friends were induced to sanction his addresses, and thus to become accessories to the course for wliich he has just suf- fered. The unhappy man passed the last night of his bachelor existence in his solitary chamber. From half-past eight to ten, he was busily engaged in writ- ing letters. Shortly after ten o'clock, his younger brother Henry knocked at the door, when the doomed youth told him in a firm voice to come in. On being asked when he meant to go to bed, he rephed, " Not yet." The question was then put to him how he thought he could sleep ; to which his answer was, " I don't know." He then expressed a desire for a cigar and a glass of grog, which were supplied him. His brother, w^ho sat do^Nii and partook of the like refreshments, now demanded if he would want any thing more that night. He said, " Nothing," in a firm voice. His affectionate brother then rose to take leave, when the devoted one considerately^ advised huTi to take care of himself. Precisely at a quarter of a minute to seven the next morning, the victim of Cupid, having been called according to his desire, rose and promptly dressed himself. He had the self-control to shave himself without the slightest injury ; for even not a scratch upon his chin appeared after the operation. It would seem that he had devoted a lon<2:er time to his toilet than usual. LAST HOURS OF A SINGLE GENTLEMAN. 41 The wretched man was attired in a light blue dress- coat, with frosted metal buttons, a white waisi>coat, and nankeen trousers, w^ith patent leather boots. He w^ore around his neck a variegated satin scarf, which partially concealed the Corazza of his bosom. In front of the scarf w^as inserted a breast pin of con- spicuous dimensions. Having descended the stair- case with a quick step, he entered the apartment where his brother and a few friends were awaiting him. He shook hands cordially with all present, and on bemg asked how he had slept, answered, " Very well," and to the farther demand as to the state of his mind, he said, " He felt happy." One of the party having hereupon suggested that it would be as well to take something before the mel- ancholy ceremony was gone through, he exclaimed with some emphasis, " Decidedly." Breakfast was accordingly served, when he ate the whole of a Frencli roll, a large round of toast, two sausages, and three new laid eggs, which he washed down with two great breakfast cups of tea. In reply to an expres- sion of astonishment on the part of a person present, at his appetite, he declared that he never felt it heartier in his life. Having inquired the time, and ascertained that it was ten minutes to eleven, he remarked, that " it would soon be over." His brother then inquired if he could do anything for him; when he said he 3* 49 friendship's gift. should like to have a glass of ale. Having drank this, he appeared satisfied. The fatal moment now approaching, he devoted the remaining brief portion of his time to distributing among his friends those little articles which he would soon no longer want. To one he gave his cigar case, to another his tobacco stopper, and he charged his brother Henry with his latch key, with instructions to deliver it after all was over, with due solemnity, to his landlady. The clock at length struck eleven; and at the same moment he was informed that a cab was at the door. He merely said, " I am ready," and allowed himself to be conducted to the vehicle ; into which he got with his brother — his friends followed in others. Arrived at the tragical spot, a short but anxious delay of some seconds took place ; after which they were joined by the lady with her friends. Little was said on either side ; but Miss Gale, with customary decorum, shed tears. Pinkney endeavored to pre- serve a composure ; but a slight twitching in his mouth and eyebrows proclaimed his inward agitation. The ill-starred bachelor having submitted quietly to have a large white bow pinned to his button-hole, now walked, side by side with Miss Gale, with a finn step to the altar. He surveyed the imposing prepa- rations with calmness : and gazed, unmoved, on the LAST HOURS OF A SINGLE GENTLEMAN. 43 clergyman, who, assisted by the clerk, was waiting behmd the railings. All requisite preliminaries having now been settled, and the prescribed melancholy formalities gone through, the usual question was put, " Wilt thou have this w^oman for thy wdfe ? " To which the rash youth replied, in a distinct voice, " I will." He then put the fatal ring upon Miss Gale's finger ; the hymeneal noose was adjusted, and the poor fellow was launched into matrimony. THE EVENING STAR. BY BARRY CORNWALL. The Evening Star, the lover's star, The beautiful star comes hither ! He steereth his barque Through the azure dark, And brings us the bright blue weather, — Love! The beautiful bright blue weather. The birds lie dumb, when the night stars come, And silence broods o'er the covers; But a voice now wakes In the thorny brakes. And singeth a song for lovers, — Love ! A sad sweet song for lovers ! It singeth a song of grief and wrong, A passionate song for others; Yet its own sweet pain Can never be vain. If it 'wakeneth love in others, — Love ! It 'wakeneth love in others. JACQUELINE. H. W. LONGFELLOW. Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. Shakspearb. " Dear mother, is it not the bell I hear ? " " Yes, mj child ; the bell for morning prayers. It is Sunday to-day." " I had forgotten it. But now all days are ahke to me. Hark! it sounds again — louder — louder. Open the window, for I love the sound. There ; the sunshine and the fresh morning air revive me. And the church-bell — oh, mother — it rennnds me of the holy Sabbath mornings by the Loire — so calm, so hushed, so beautiful ! Now give me my prayer-book, and draw the curtain back, that I may see the green trees and the church spire. I feel better to-day, dear mother." It was a bright cloudless morning in August. The dew still glistened on the trees ; and a slight breeze wafted to the sick chamber of Jacqueline the 46 friendship's gift. song of the birds, the rustle of the leaves, and the solenm chime of the church-bells. She had been raised up in bed, and reclming upon the pillow, was gazing wistfully upon the quiet scene without. Her mother gave her the prayer-book, and then turned away to hide a tear that stole down her cheek. At length the bells ceased. Jacqueline crossed herself, kissed a pearl crucifix that hung around her neck, and opened the silver clasps of her missal. For a time she seemed wholly absorbed in her devotions. Her Hps moved, but no soimd was audible. At intervals the solemn voice of the priest was heard at a distance, and then the confused responses of the congregation, dying away in inartic- ulate murmurs. Ere long the thrilling chant of the Catholic service broke upon the ear. At first it was low, solemn, and indistinct ; then it became more earnest and entreating, as if interceding, and im- ploring pardon for sin ; and then arose louder and louder, full, harmonious, majestic, as it wafted the song of praise to heaven, and suddenly ceased. Then the sweet tones of the organ were heard, — trem])ling, thrilling, and rising higher and higher, and filling the whole air with their rich melodious music. What exquisite accords! — what noble har- monies ! — what touching pathos ! The soul of the sick girl seemed to kindle into more ardent devotion, and to be rapt away to heaven in the full harmonious chorus, as it swelled onward, doubling and redoubhng. JACQUELINE. 41f and rolling upward in a full burst of rapturous devo- tion ! Then all was hushed again. Once more the low soimd of the bell smote the air, and announced the elevation of the host. The invalid seemed entranced in prayer. Her book had fallen beside her, — her hands were clasped, — her eyes closed, — her soul retired within its secret chambers. Then a more triumphant peal of bells arose. The tears gushed from her closed and swollen lids ; her cheek was flushed : she opened her dark eyes, and fixed them with an expression of deep adoration and pen- itence upon an image of the Saviour on the cross, which hung at the foot of her bed, and her lips again moved in prayer. Her countenance expressed the deepest resignation. She seemed to ask only that she might die in peace, and go to the bosom of her Redeemer. The mother was kneeling by the wmdow, Avith her face concealed in the folds of the curtain. She arose, and going to the bedside of her child, threw her arms around her and burst into tears. " My dear mother, I shall not live long ; I feel it here. This piercing pain — at times it seizes me, and I cannot — cannot breathe." '' My child, you will be better soon." " Yes, mother, I shall be better soon. All tears, and pain, and sorrow will be over. The hymn of adoration and entreaty I have just heard, I shall never hear again on earth. Next Sabbath, mother. ^ friendship's gift. kneel again by that window as to-day. I shall not be here, upon this bed of pam and sickness ; but when you hear the solemn hymn of worship, and the beseeching tones that wing the spirit up to God, think, mother, that I am there, — with my sweet sister who has gone before us, — kneehng at our Saviour's feet, and happy — oh, how happy ! " The afflicted mother made no reply, — her heart was too full to speak. " You remember, mother, how calmly Amie died. Poor child, she was so young and beautiful ! I always pray that I may die as she did. I do not fear death as I did before she was taken from us. But oh — this pain — this cruel pain — it seems to draw my muid back from heaven. When it leaves me I shall die in peace." " My poor child ! God's holy will be done ! " The invahd soon sank into a quiet slumber. The excitement was over, and exhausted nature sought rehef in sleep. The persons between whom this scene passed, were a widow and her sick daughter, from the neighbor- hood of Tom-s. They had left the banks of the Loire to consult the more experienced physicians of the metropolis, and had been directed to the Maison tie Sante at Auteuil for the benefit of the pm-e air. But all in vain. The health of the suffering but uncomplaining patient grew worse and worse, and it soon became evident that the closing scene was drawing near. JACQUELINE. 49 Of this Jacqueline herself seemed conscious ; and towards evening she expressed a wish to receive the last sacraments of the church. A priest was sent for ; and ere long the tinkling of a little bell in the street announced his approach. He bore in his hand a silver vase containing the consecrated wafer, and a small vessel filled -with the holj oil of the extreme unction hung from his neck. Before him walked a boy carrying a little bell, whose sound announced the passing of these symbols of the Cathohc faith. In the rear, a few of the villagers, bearing lighted wax tapers, formed a short and melancholy procession. They soon entered the sick chamber, and the glim- mer of the tapers mmgled with the red light of the setting sun, that shot his farewell rays through the open window. The vessel of oil, and the vase con- taining the consecrated wafer, were placed upon the table in front of a crucifix that hung upon the wall, and all present, excepting the priest, threw themselves upon their knees. The priest then approached the bed of the dying girl, and said, in a slow and solemn tone, — '' The King of kings and Lord of lords has passed thy threshold. Is thy spirit ready to receive him?" " It is, father." " Hast thou confessed thy sins ? " " Holy father, no." " Confess thyself, then, that thy sins may be for- given and thy name recorded in the book of life." 4 50 friendship's gift. And turning to the kneeling crowd around, he waved his hand for them to retire, and was left alone ^vith the sick girl. He seated himself beside her pillow, and the subdued w^hisper of the confession mingled with the murmur of the evening air, which lifted the heavy folds of the curtains, and stole in upon the holy scene. Poor Jacquehne had few sins to confess, — a secret thought or two towards the pleasures and dehghts of the world, — a wish to live, unuttered, but which to the eye of her self-accusmg spirit seemed to resist the wise providence of God ; — no more. The confession of a meek and lowdy heart is soon made. The door was again opened ; the attendants entered, and knelt around the bed, and the priest proceeded, — " And now prepare thyself to receive with contrite heart the body of our blessed Lord and Redeemer. Dost thou believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary ? " " I believe." And all present joined in the solemn response — " I believe." " Dost thou beheve that the Father is God, that the son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, — three persons and one God ? " " I believe." " Dost thou believe that the Son is seated on the JACQUELINE. 51 right-hand of the Majesty on high, whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead ? " " I beUeve." " Dost thou believe that by the holy sacraments of the church thy sins are forgiven thee, and that thus thou art made worthy of eternal life ? " " I believe." " Dost thou pardon, with all thy heart, all who have offended thee in thought, word, or deed ? " " I pardon them." " And dost thou ask pardon of God and thy neigh- bor for all offences thou hast committed against them, ■either in thought, word, or deed ? " '^Ido/' " Then repeat after me : Lord Jesus, I am not worthy, nor do I merit, that thy divine Majesty should enter this poor tenement of clay ; but accord- ing to thy holy promises be my sins forgiven, and my soul washed white from all transgression." Then taking a consecrated wafer from the vase, he placed it between the lips of the dying girl, and while the assistant sounded the httle silver bell, said, — " Corjnis Domini nost7i Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam eternamy And the kneeling crowd smote their breasts and responded in one solemn voice, — "Amen!" The priest then took from the silver box on the '98 FRIENDSHIP S GIFT. table a little golden rod, and dipping it in holy oil, annointed the invalid upon the hands, feet, and breast, in the form of tlie cross. "When these ceremonies were comi)leted, the priest and his attendants retired, leaving the mother alone with her dying child, who, from the exhaustion caused by the preceding scene, sank mto a death-like sleep. "Between two worlds life hovered like a star, 'Twixt niglit and moni ii})on ihe horizon's verge." The long twilight of the summer evening stole on ; the shadows deepened without, and the night-lamp glimmered feebly in the sick chamber ; but still she slept. She was lying with her hands clasped upon her breast, — her pallid cheek resting upon the pillow, and her bloodless lips apart, but motionless and silent as the sleep of death. Not a breath m- terrupted the silence of her slumber. Not a move- ment of the heavy and sunken eyelid — not a tremble of the lip, not a shadow on the marble brow, told when the spirit took its flight. It passed to a better world than this. "There's a perpetual spring, — perpetual youth; No joint-])enunihing cold, nor scorching heat, Famine nor age, have any being there." OUR YANKEE SHIPS. JAMES T. FIELDS. Our Yankee ships ! in fleet career, They linger not behind, Where galhint sails fiom other lands- Court favoring tide and wind. With banners on the breeze, they leap As gaily o'er the foam As stately barks from prouder seas, That long have learned to roam. The Indian wave with luring smiles Swept round them bright to-day. And havens to Atlantic i>?les Are opening on their way; Ere yet these evening shailows close, Or this frail song is o'er. Full inany a straining mast will rise To greet a foreign shore. High up the lashing Northern deep, Where glimmering watch-lights beam Away in beauty where the stars In tropic brightness gleam ; 4* 54 OUR YANKEE SHIPS. Where 'cr the sea-bird wets her beak, Or blows the stormy gale ; On to the Water's farthest verge, Our ships majestic sail. They dip their keels in every stream That mirrors back the sky ; And where the restless billows heave, Their lofty pennants fly ; They furl their sails in threatening clouda That float across the main, To link with love earth's distant bays In many a golden chain. They deck our halls with sparkling gems, That shone on Orient strands, And garlands round the hills they bind. From far-off sunny lands ; But we will ask no gaudy wreath From foreign clime or realm, Willie safely glides our ship of State With Genius at the helm. THE MELANCHOLY MAN. BY THEODORE S. FAY. Mav. — I feel 'tis so. Thus have I been since first the plague broke out, A term, methinks, of many hundred years ! As if the world were heJl, and I condemned To walk through wo to all eternity. I will do suicide. Astrologer — Thou canst not, fool ! Thou lovest life with all its agonies ; Buy ])oison, and 'twill lie for years untouched Beneath thy pillow, when thy midnight horrors Are at iheir worst. Coward ! thou canst not die. WUsoii's City of the Plague. I HAVE been all my life haunted with a desire to commit suicide. It has crossed me — it stiU crosses me continually. It is partly the result of constitu- tion, and partly of early and frequent misfortunes, and a habit of brooding over them. This dreadful disease has for ever caused me to look with sickly eves on the charms of life and the beauties of nature. I shall not here write any Idstory of myself. It 56 friendship's gift. would not interest others. Those incidents which have made me wretched, happier dispositions would soon forget. / can never forget them. I feel that mv game of life has been played and lost. Those secret springs of joy and hope, which give elasticity to other minds, in me are broken. I have been always struggling against the current ; and sometimes, nay often, it has appeared to me as if some awful and inexorable power were present at my undertakings, and took a mysterious delight in bringing them to ruin. True, my reason often teaches me that this is merely an absurd fancy, and that it cannot be. Yet / tliink it is, and that is sufficient to make me wretch- ed. Sometimes, in the endeavor to coml»at this opin- ion as a superstition, I have compelled myself to embark in a design, or to entertain an affection ; but invariably I have met with such severe disappoint- ments, that I have long since ceased to hope. When I first reached the years of manhood, I found this in all my pecuniary business. Stock fell if I touched it ; banks broke as soon as I became interested. The fable relates, that whatever the celebrated king of Phrygia touched, turned to gold. "Wherever / laid my hand, I was sure to produce destruction. At length I have grown so timid, that I am afraid to love, afraid to form a friendship, afraid to offer advice. He who peruses this, will doul)tless smile incredulous- ly on me ; he will say it is an impossibility. Well, let liim. Indeed it seems equally so to me. I have THE MELANCHOLY MAN. 57 racked mj brain to believe it merely an accidental train of unfavorable events, which to-morrow may change ; yet it has not changed, and I am half fain to abandon myself to the startling and terrible thought, that I am branded with some mysterious curse. Whatever may be the cause, I am miserable, and always have been so beyond description. I look for nothing this side the grave. I became acquainted, sometime ago, with a Httle girl, eight or nine years old, with unusual powers of mind and charms of person. The sight of her face positively dispelled the shadows which brooded over my mind. She discovered a singular attachment to me. I was delighted with her thousand winning ways. I was almost happy while under the influence of her irrepressible happiness. It was a joy for me to meet her in the street. I have caught a gleam of her beautiful bright countenance, amid a group of her companions going to school early in the morning, which haunted me all day. "Shall I love this creature?" said I to myself; " will it not be bringing down upon her sweet young head the dark influence which has ever pursued me and mine ? Yes," said I, " I ivill love her. I will once more try this fearful experiment. I will watch to see in what form the efiects of my interest in her welfare will fall on her ; to what doom it will consign her ? Will the turf soon press her tender breast ? Will some moui-nful doom darken her hvinor heart ? " 88 friendship's gift. I made these reflections one morning as she passed me, with a smile, in the street. One week after, a single line in the newspaper answered my interrogatories. She had died of a sudden and painful attack of the scarlet fever. As I perused the information, I positively thought I heard the laugh of a demon in my ear, whispered on the passing breeze. It is not one, two, nor indeed twenty circumstances of this kind which could have alone prostrated my love of hfe so utterly. I never had a real friend, except my mother, and she died just w^hen I was old enough to moui-n for her acutely. Among my other tortures, disease has not been wanting. A violent pain in my chest has, at certain intervals, incapaci- tated me for all employment. Sometimes my head grows dizzy, or burns with shooting pains. I feel like Caliban, forever contending against a supernatu- ral enemy, whose spirits appear busy about me. That speech of the deformed monster ever haunts my memory : " For every trifle they are set upon me : Sometimes like apes, that mow and chatter at me, And after, hite me ; then, hke hedgehogs, which Lie timihhng in my barefoot way, and mount Their {)ricks at my footfall. Sometimes I am All vvound with adders, who, with cloven tongues, - Do hiss me ijito madness." THE MELANCHOLY MAN. &^ The idea of being perpetually encumbered with a disease, which, while it takes from your heart the secret hope that leads to action, does not exclude you from the necessities of toil, is one of the most be- numbing and wretched evils that man can suffer. He wanders through the crowd, without participating in their gladness. He gazes on nature with an admira- tion which only heightens his inward anguish. In the most soft and alluring periods of pleasure, the loathsome image of a grave continually obtrudes itself upon his imagination ; the icy hand of death is ever on his shoulder, and he hears the phantom whispering, " Victim of my unrelenting power, haste ye through these sunny scenes ; in a short time you must quit them forever." I have felt all this ; who can wonder that I am tired of life ? I have loved in this world but few, and none successfully. No man, nor wo- man, nor child has ever been to me other than as gleamings of what my fellow creatures have enjoyed. I recoil from one who excites in me any feehngs of affection. No one shall suffer the fatahty of my friendship. Who is shocked to learn that I covet my last sleep ? Death, mysterious power ! language can- not express the intense curiosity with which I have watched every thing appertaining to it. Yes, I have pursued the ghastly phantom in all its forms. I have gone to the prison house, and pryed into the mind of the felon who was at the break of day to expiate his crimes on the scaffold. I have planted myself there QO friendship's gift. to behold him take his last gaze for ever and for ever on the sky, the green earth, the river, the light. How strange it has seemed that he, that being, that breath- ing, living creature, formed as I am, who speaks, and thinks, and utters requests, and walks, and takes me by the hand to say farewell ; how difficult to conceive, how awful, how deeply thrilling to reflect that, in one minute more, he will not exist I That which addresses you now, ivill not he. Its semblance only will remain, to mock you, with a vivid recollection of the original nature you had held communion with. I once formed a vague resolution of suicide, and I thus strengthened it. I wished to become familiar with death. I would gaze quietly on him, and apply what I saw concern- ing him to myself, I strained my fancy to conceive how / should feel, and act, and appear in such a crisis. I have held a loaded pistol to my brain some- times, or a vial of poison to my lips ; or I have stood leaning over the edge of a dizzy height ; or I have looked down into the clear ocean billows, and goaded myself on to pass the dreadful gulf. Alas I coward that I was, I feared to die as Avell as to live, and have turned to my lonely walk with a relief, and put off till some other period the execution of the design. One day I met a fine fellow, from whom I had been separated many years. He was a scholar and an observer, and, some how or other, he had the art to draw from me an account of the true state of my fcehngs. THE MELANCHOLY MAN. 61 " Pray," said he, when I had finished pretty much what I have related above ; " pray, what time do you rise ? " " At ten," said I, rather surprised at the oddity of the question. " And what time do you retire to bed ? " "At one, two, or three o'clock," said I, "just as it happens." " And how is your appetite ? " " Enormous." " And you gratify it to — ? " " The full extent." " What do you drink ? " " Brandy and water, gin and water, &c." He laughed heartily, although it made me angry ; also, I confess, it made me excessively ashamed to have talked about suicide. " Do you know what ails you ? " said he. " Yes," I replied, " I have a broken heart." " Broken fiddlestick," said he, " you have the dys- pepsy. Diet yourself ; go to bed early ; rise early ; exercise much." I have done so ; I am now a healthy and a happy man. I smile to thmk I was going to blow my brains out, because I had the dyspepsy. 5 THE OLD WORLD. BY GEORGE LUNT. There was once a world, and a brave old world, Away ill the ancient time, When tlie men were brave and the women fair, And the world was in its prime ; And the priest he had his book, And the scholar had his gown, And the old knight stout, he walked about, With his broad sword hanging down. Ye may see this world was a brave old world, In the days long past and gone, And the sun it shone, and the rain it rained. And the world went merrily on. The shepherd kept his sheep, And the milkmaid milked the kine. And the serving man was a sturdy loon, In a cap and a doublet fine. And I 've been told in this brave old world. There were jolly times and free. And they danced and sung, till the welkin rung, All under the greenwood tree. THE OLD WORLD. 63 The sexton chimed his sweet, sweet bells, And the huntsman blew his horn, And the hunt went out with a merry shout, Beneath the jovial morn. Oh ! the golden days of the brave old world Made hall and cottage shine ; The squire he sat in his oaken chair, And quaffed the good red wine ; The lovely village maiden, She was the village queen. And, by the mass, tript through the grass To the May-pole on the green. When trumpets roused this brave old world, And the banners flaunted wide, The knight bestrode the stalwart steed, The page rode by his side ; And plumes and pennons tossing bright. Dashed through the wild melee. And he who prest amid them best Was lord of all, that day. And ladies fair, in the brave old world, They ruled with wondrous sway; ' But the stoutest knight was lord of right, As the strongest is to-day. The baron bold he kept his hold. Her bower his bright ladye, But the forester kept the good greenwood. All under the greenwood tree. Oh, how they laughed in the brave old world, And flung grim care away! And when they were tired of working, They held it time to play. 64 friendship's gift. The bookman was a reverend wight, With a studious face so pale, And the curfew bell, with its sullen swell, Broke duly on the gale. And so passed on, in the brave old world. Those merry days and free ; The king drank wine, and the clown drank ale, Each man in his degree. And some ruled well, and some ruled ill. And thus passed on the time, With jolly ways in those brave old days, When the world was in its prime. o house. Horse- men were in readiness, soon as the verdict should be returned, to carry the intelligence — of life or death — to all those glens. A few words will suffice to tell the trial, the nature of the evidence, and its issue. The prisoner, who stood at the bar in black, appeared — thouglf miserably changed from a man of great muscular power and activity, a magnificent man, into a tall thin shadow — perfectly unappalled ; but in a face so white, and wasted, and wo-begone, the most profound physiognomist could read not one faintest symptom either of hope or fear, trembling or trust, guilt or innocence. He hardly seemed to be- long to this world, and stood fearfully and ghastly conspicuous between the officers of justice, above all the crowd that devoured him with their eyes, all leaning towards the bar to catch the first sound of his voice, TALE OF EXPIATION. 243 when to the indictment he should plead " Not Guilty." These words he did utter, in a liollow voice altogether passionless, and then was suffered to sit down, which he did in a manner destitute of all emotion. During all the many long hours of his trial, he never moved head, limbs, or body except once, when he drank some water, which he had not asked for, but which was given to him by a friend. The evidence was en- tirely circumstantial, and consisted of a few damning facts, and of many of the very slightest sort, which, taken singly, seemed to mean nothing, but which, when considered all together, seemed to mean some- thing against him — how much, or how little, there were among the agitated audience many differing opinions. But slight as they were, either singly or togctlier, they told fearfully against the prisoner, when connected with the fatal few which no ingenuity could ever explain away — and though ingenuity did all it could do, when wielded by eloquence of the highest order — and as the prisoner's counsel sat down, there went a rustle and a buzz through the court, and a communication of looks and whispers, that seemed to denote that there were hopes of his acquittal — yet, if such hopes there were, they were deadened by the recollection of the calm, clear, logi- cal address to the jury by the counsel for the crown, and destroyed by the judge's charge, which amounted almost to demonstration of guilt, and concluded with a confession due to his oath and conscience, that he saw 244 friendship's gift. not how the jury could do their duty to their Creator and their fellow-creatures, but by returning one ver- dict. They retired to consider it ; and, during a death-like silence, all eyes were bent on ^ death-like image. It had appeared in evidence, that the murder had been committed, at least all the gashes inflicted — for there were also finger-marks of strangulation — with a bill-hook, such as foresters use in lopping trees ; and several witnesses swore that the bill-hook which was shown them, stained with blood, and with hair stick- ing on the haft — belonged to Ludovic Adamson. It was also given in evidence — though some doubts rest- ed on the nature of the precise words — that on that day, in the room with the corpse, he had given a wild and incoherent denial to the question then put to Ir.m in the din, " What he had done with the bill-hook." Nobody had seen it in his possession since the spring before ; but it had been found, after several weeks' search, in a hag in the moss, in the direction that he would have most probably taken — had he been the murderer — when flying from the spot to the loch where he was seized. The shoes which he had on when taken, fitted the foot-marks on the ground, not far from the place of the murder, but not so perfectly as another pair which were found in the house. But that other pair, it was proved, belonged to the old man ; and therefore the correspondence between the foot-marks and the prisoner's shoes, though not per- TALE OF EXPIATION. 245 feet, was a circumstance of much suspicion. But a far stronger fact, in this part of the evidence, was sworn to against the prisoner. Though there was no blood on his shoes — when apprehended his legs were bare — though that circumstance, strange as it may seem, had never been noticed till he was on the way to prison ! His stockings had been next day found lying on the sward, near the . shore of the loch, mani- festly after having been washed and laid out to dry in the sun. At mention of this circumstance a cold shudder ran through the court ; but neither that, nor indeed any other circumstance in the evidence — not even the account of the appearance w^hich the mur- dered body exhibited when found on the moor, or when afterwards laid on the bed — extorted from the prisoner one groan — one sigh — or touched the im- perturbable deathliness of his countenance. It was proved, that when searched — in prison, and not be- fore ; for the agitation that reigned over all assembled in the room at Moorside that dreadful day, had con- founded even those accustomed to deal -with suspected criminals — there were found in his pocket a small French gold watch, and also a gold brooch, which the ladies of the Castle had given to Margaret Burnside. On these being taken from him, he had said nothing, but looked aghast. A piece of torn and bloody paper, which had been picked up near the body, was sworn to be in his handwriting ; and though the meaning of the words — yet legible — was obscure, they seemed 20* 946 friendship's gift. to express a request that Margaret would meet him on the moor on that Saturday afternoon she was mur- dered. The words " Saturday " — " meet me " — "last time," — were not indistinct, and the paper was of the same quality and color with some found in a drawer in his bed-room at Moorside. It was proved that he had been drinking with some dissolute per- sons — poachers and the like — in a neighboring parish all Saturday, till well on in the afternoon, when he left them in a state of intoxication — and was then seen runnin<]i; alonor the hill side in the direction of the moor. Where he passed the night between the Sat- urday and the Sabbath, he could give no account, except once when unasked, and as if speaking to himself he was overheard by the jailer to mutter, "Oh! that fatal night— that fatal night ! " xind then, when suddenly mterrogated, " Where were you ? " he answered, " Asleep on the hill ; " and immediately relapsed into a state of mental abstrac- tion. These were the chief circumstances against him, which his counsel had striven to explain away. That most eloquent person dwelt with affecting earnestness on the wickedness of putting any evil construction on the distracted behavior of the wretch- ed man when brought without warning upon the sud- den sight of the mangled corpse of the beautiful girl, whom all allowed he had most passionately and ten- derly loved ; and he strove to prove — as he did prove to the conviction of many — that such behavior TALE OF EXPIATION. 247 was incompatible with such guilt, and almost of itself established his innocence. All that was sworn to against him, as having passed in that dreadful room, was in truth for him — unless all our knowledge of the best and of the worst of human nature were not, as folly, to be given to the winds. He beseeched the jury, therefore, to look at all the other circumstances that did indeed seem to bear hard upon the prisoner, in the light of his innocence, and not of his guilt, and that they would all fade into nothing. What mat- tered his possession of the watch and other trinkets ? Lovers as they were, might not the unhappy girl have given them to him for temporary keepsakes ? Or might he not have taken them from her in some play- ful mood, or received them — (and the brooch was cracked, and the mainspring of the watch broken, though the glass was whole) — to get them repaired in the town which he often visited, and she never ? Could human credulity for one moment believe that such a man as the prisoner at the bar had been sworn to be by a host of witnesses — and especially by that witness, who, with such overwhelming solemnity, had declared he loved him as his own son, and would have been proud if Heaven had given him such a son — he who had baptized him, and known him well ever since a child — that such a man could roh the body of her whom he had violated and murdered ? If, under the instigation of the devil, he had violated and mur- dered her, and for a moment were made the hideous 248 friendship's gift. supposition, did vast hell hold that demon whose voice would have tempted the violator and murderer — suppose him both — yea, that man at the bar — sworn to by all the parish, if need w^ere, as a man of tender est charities, and generosity unbounded — in the lust of lucre, consequent on the satiating of another lust — to rob his victim of a few trinkets ! Let loose the wildest imagination into the realms of wildest wickedness, and yet they dared not, as they feared God, to credit for a moment the union of such appalling and such paltry guilt, in that man who now trembled not before them, but who seemed cut off from all the sensibilities of this life, by the scythe of Misery that had shorn him down ! But why try to recount, however feebly, the line of defence taken by the speaker, w^ho on that day seemed all but inspired. The sea may overturn rocks, or fire consume them till they split in pieces ; but a crisis there sometimes is in man's destiny, which all the powers ever lodged in the lips of man, were they touched with a coal from heaven, cannot avert, and when even he who strives to save, feels and knows that he is striving all in vain — ay, vain, as a worm — to arrest the tread of Fate about to trample down its victim into the dust. All hoped — many almost be- lieved — that the prisoner would be acquitted — that a verdict of " Not Proven," at least, if not of " Not Guilty," would be returned ; but they had not been sworn to do justice before man and before God — and, if need were, to seal up even the fountains of mercy TALE OF EXPIATION. 249 in their hearts — flowing, and easily set a-flowing, by such a spectacle as that bar presented — a man al- ready seeming to belong unto the dead ! In about a quarter of an hour the jury returned to the box — and the verdict having been sealed with black wax, was handed up to the Judge, who read, " AYe unanimously find the prisoner Guilty." He then stood up to receive the sentence of death. Not a dry eye was in the court during the Judge's solemn and affecting address to the criminal — except those of the shadow on whom had been pronounced the doom. " Your, body will be hung in chains on the moor — on a gibbet erected on the spot where you murdered the victim of your unhallowed lust, and there will 3'our bones bleach in the sun, and rattle in the wind, after the insects and the birds of the air have devoured your flesh ; and in all future times, the spot on which, God-forsaking and God-forsaken, you perpetrated that double crime, at which all humanity shudders, will be looked on from afar by the traveller passing through that lonesome wild with a sacred hor- ror ! " Here the voice of the Judge faltered, and he covered his face with his hands ; but the prisoner stood unmoved in figure, and in face untroubled — and when all was closed, was removed from the bar, the same ghostlike and unearthly phantom, seemingly unconscious of what had passed, or even of his own existence. Surely now he will suffer his old father to visit him 250 friendship's gift. in his cell ! ^' Once more only — only once more let me see him before I die!" were his words to the clergyman of the parish, whose Manse he had so often visited when a young and happy boy. That servant of Christ had not forsaken him whom now all the world had forsaken. As free from sin himself as might be mortal and fallen man — mortal because fallen — he knew from Scripture and from nature, that in " the lowest deep there is still a lower deep " in wickedness, into which all of woman born may fall, unless held back by the arm of the Almighty Being, whom they must serve steadfastly in hohness and truth. He knew, too, from the same source, that man cannot sin beyond the reach of God's mercy — if the worst of all imaginable sinners seek, in a Bible- breathed spirit at last, that mercy through the Atone- ment of the Redeemer. Daily — and nightly — he visited that cell ; nor did he fear to touch the hand — now wasted to the bone — which at the temptation of the Prince of the Air, who is mysteriously suffered to enter in at the gates of every human heart that is guarded not by the flaming sword of God's own sera- phim — was lately drenched in the blood of the most innocent creature that ever looked on the day. Yet a sore trial it was to his Christianity to find the criminal so obdurate. He would make no confession. Yet said that it was fit — that it was far best that he should die — that he deserved death! But ever when the deed without a name was alluded to. TALE OF EXPIATION. 251 liis tongue was tied ; and once in the midst of an impassioned prajer, beseeching him to listen to con- science and confess — he that prayed shuddered to behold him frown, and to hear bursting out in terrible energy, " Cease — cease to torment me, or you will drive me to deny my God ! " No father came to visit him in his cell. On the day of trial he had been missing from Moorside, and was seen next morning — (where he had been all night never was known — though it was afterwards rumored that one like him had been seen sitting, as the gloaming darkened, on the very spot of the mur- der) — wandering about the hills, hither and thither, and round and round about, like a man stricken with blindness, and vainly seekmg to find his home. "\Yhen brought into the house, his senses were gone, and he had lost the power of speech. All he could do was to mutter some disjointed syllables, which he did continually, without one moment's cessation, one unintelligible and most rueful moan ! The figure of his daughter seemed to cast no image on his eyes — blind and dumb he sat where he had been placed, perpetually wringing his hands, with his shaggy eye- brows drawn high up his forehead, and the fixed orbs — though stone blind at least to all real things — beneath them flashing fire. He had borne up bravely — almost to the last — but had some tongue syllabled his son's doom in the solitude, and at that instant had insanity smitten him ! 252 friendship's gift. Such utter prostration of intellect had been ex- pected by none ; for the old man, up to the very night before the trial, had expressed the most confi- dent trust of his son's acquittal. Nothing had ever served to shake his conviction of his innocence — though he had always forborne speaking about the circumstances of the murder — and had communi- cated to nobody any of the grounds on which he more than hoped in a case so hopeless ; and though a trouble in his eyes often gave the lie to his lips, when he used to say to the silent neighbors, " AYe shall soon see him back at Moorside." Had his belief in Ludovic's innocence, and his trust in God that that innocence would be established and -set free, been so sacred, that the blow when it did come, struck him like a hammer, and felled him to the ground, from which he had risen with a riven brain ? In whatever way the shock had been given, it had been terrible ; for old Gilbert Adamson was now a confirmed lunatic, and keepers were in Moorside — not keepers from a mad- house — for his daughter could not afibrd such tend- ence — but two of her brother's friends, who sat up with him alternately, night and day, wliile the arms of the old man, in his distraction, had to be bound with cords. That dreadful moaning was at an end now ; but the echoes of the hills responded to his yells and shrieks ; and people were afraid to go near the house. It was proposed among the neighbors to take Alice and httle Ann out of it ; and an asylum for them was TALE OF EXPIATION. 253 in the Manse ; but Alice would not stir at all their entreaties ; and as, in such a case, it would have been too shocking to tear her away by violence, she was suffered to remain with him who knew her not, but who often — it was said — stared distractedly upon her, as if she had been some fiend sent in upon his insanity from the place of punishment. Weeks passed on, and still she was there — hiding herself at times from those terrifying eyes ; and from her watching corner, waitmg from morn till night, and from night till morn — for she seldom lay down to sleep, and had never undressed herself since that fatal sentence — for some moment of exhausted horror, when she might steal out, and carry some sHght gleam of comfort, however evanescent, to the glimmer or the gloom in wliich the brain of her Father swam through a dream of blood. But there were no lucid intervals ; and ever as she moved towards him, like a pitying angel, did he furi- ously rage against her, as if she had been a fiend. At last, she who, though yet so young, had lived to see the murdered corpse of her dearest friend — murdered by her own only brother, whom, in secret, that mur- dered maiden had most tenderly loved — that murder- ous brother loaded with prison-chains, and condemned to the gibbet for inexpiable and unpardonable crimes — her father raving like a demon, self-murderous, were his hands but free, nor visited by one glimpse of mercy from Him who rules the skies — after having borne more than, as she meekly said, had ever poor girl 21 214 friendship's gift. borne, she took to her bed quite heart-broken, and, the night before the day of execution, died. As for poor httle Ann, she had been wiled away some weeks before ; and in the blessed thoughtlessness of child- hood, was not without hours of happiness among her playmates on the braes. The Morning of that Day arose, and the Moor was all blackened with people round the tall gibbet, that seemed to have grown, with its horrid arms, out of the ground during the night. No sound of axes or ham- mers had been heard clinking during the dark hours — nothing had been seen passing along the road ; for the windows of all the houses from which any thing could have been seen, had been shut fast against all horrid sights — and the horses' hoofs and the wheels must have been muffled that had brought that hideous Framework to the Moor. But there it now stood — a dreadful Tree ! The sun moved higher and higher up the sky, and all the eyes of that congregation were at once turned towards the east, for a dull sound, as frumbhng wheels and trampling feet, seemed shaking the Moor in that direction ; and lo ! surrounded with armed men on horseback, and environed with halberds, came on a cart, in which three persons seemed to be sitting, he in the middle all dressed in white — the death-clothes of the murderer — the unpitying shedder of most innocent blood. There was no bell to toll there — but at the very moment he was ascending the scaffold, a black cloud TALE OF EXPIATION. 255 knelled thunder, and many hundreds of people all at once fell down upon theu- knees. The man m white lifted up his eyes, and said, " Lord God of Heaven ! and Thou his blessed Son, who died to save sinners ! accept this sacrifice ! " Not one in all that immense crowd could have known that that white apparition was Ludovic Adamson. His hair, that had been almost jet-black, was now white as his face — as his figure, dressed, as it seemed, for the grave. Are they going to execute the murderer in his shroud ? Stone-blind, and stone-deaf, there he stood — yet had he, without help, walked up the steps of the scaffold. A hymn of several voices arose — the man of God close beside the criminal, with the Bible in his uplifted hands ; but those bloodless lips had iio motion — with him tliis world was not, though yet he was in life — in hfe, and no more ! And was this the man who, a few months ago, flmging the fear of death from him, as a flash of sunshine flings aside the shades, had descended into that pit which an hour before had been bellowing, as the foul vapors exploded like cannons, and brought up the bodies of them who had perished in the womb of the earth ? Was this he who once leaped into the devouring fire, and re-ap peared, after all had given over for lost the glorious boy, with an infant in his arms, while the flames seemed to eddy back, that they might scathe not the head of the deliverer, and a shower of blessings fell upon him as he laid it in its mother's bosom, and made the heart 256 friendship's gift. of tlie -widow to sing for joy ? It is he. And now the executioner pulls down the cord from the beam, and fastens it round the criminal's neck. His face is already covered, and that fatal hankerchief is in his hand. The whole crowd are now kneeling, and one multitudinous sob convulses the air ; — when wild out- cries, and shrieks, and yells, are at that moment heard from the distant gloom of the glen that opens up to Moorside, and three figures, one far in advance of the others, come flying, as on the wings of the wind, to the gibbet. Hundreds started to then- feet, and " 'Tis the maniac — 'tis the lunatic ! " was the cry. Pre- cipitating himself down a rocky hill-side, that seemed hardly accessible but to the goats, the maniac, the lunatic, at a few desperate leaps and bounds, just as it was expected he would have been dashed in picc-r, ahghted unstunned upon the level greensward ; and now, far ahead of his keepers, with incredible swift- ness neared the scaffold — and the dense crowd making a lane for him in their fear and astonishment, he flew up the ladder to the horrid platform, and grasping his son in his arms, howled dreadfully over him; and then with a loud voice cried, " Saved — saved — saved!" So sudden had been that wild rush, that all the officers of justice — the very executioner — stood aghast ; and now the prisoner's neck is free from that accursed cord — his face is once more visible without that hideous shroud — and he sinks down senseless on I TALE OF EXPIATION. 257 the scaffold. " Seize him — seize him ! " and he was seized — but no maniac — no lunatic — was the father noAY — for during the night, and during the dawn, and during the morn, and on to midday — on to the Hour OF One — when all rueful preparations were to be completed — had Pro\ddence been clearing and calm- ing the tumult in that troubled brain ; and as the cot- tage clock struck one, memory brightened at the chime into a perfect knowledge of the past, and prophetic imagination saw the future lowering upon the dismal present. All night long, with the cunning of a mad- man — for all night long he had still been mad — the miserable old man had been disengaging his hands from the manacles, and that done, springing like a wild beast from his cage, he flew out of the open door, nor could a horse's speed on that fearful road have over- taken him before he reached the scaffold. No need was there to hold the miserable man. He who had been so furious in his manacles at Moorside, seemed now, to the people at a distance, calm as when he used to sit in the elder's seat beneath the pulpit in that small kirk. But they who were near or on the scaffold, saw something horrid in the fixedness of his countenance. " Let go your hold of me, ye fools I " he muttered to some of the mean wretches of the law, who still had him in their clutch — and tossing his hands on high, cried with a loud voice, — " Give ear, ye Heavens ! and hear, Earth ! I am the Violator — I am the Murderer ! " 21* 258 friendship's gift. The moor groaned as in earthquake — and then all that congregation bowed their heads with a rustling noise, like a wood smitten by the wind. Had they heard aright the unimaginable confession ? His head had long been gray — he had reached the term allotted to man's mortal life here below — threescore and ten. Morning and evening, never had the Bible been out of his hands at the hour set apart for family worship. And who so eloquent as he in expounding its most dreadful mysteries ? The unregenerate heart of man, he had ever said — in scriptural phrase — was " des- perately wicked." Desperately wicked indeed ! And now again he tcssed his arms wrathfully — so the wild motion looked — in the wrathful skies. " I ravished — I murdered her — ye know it, ye evil spirits in the depths of hell ! " Consternation now fell on the minds of all — and the truth was clear as light — and all eyes knew at once that now indeed they looked on the murderer. The dreadful delusion under which all their understandings had been brought by the power of circumstances, was by that voice destroyed — the obduracy of him who had been about to die was now seen to have been the most heroic virtue — the self- sacrifice of a son to save a father from ignominy and death. " monster, beyond the reach of redemption ! and the very day after the murder, while the corpse was lying in blood on the INIoor, he was with us in the House of God ! Tear him in pieces — rend him hmb TALE OF EXPIATION. 259 from limb — tear him into a thousand pieces ! " " The Evil One had power given him to prevail against me, and I fell under the temptation. It was so written in the Book of Predestination, and the deed lies at the door of God ! " " Tear the blasphemer into pieces ! Let the scaffold drink his blood ! " — " So let it be if it be so written, good people ! Satan never left me since the murder till this day — he sat by my sida in the kirk — when I was ploughing in the field — there — ever as I came back from the other end of the furrow — he stood on the headrig — in the shape of a black shadow. But now I see him not — he has returned to his den in the pit. I cannot im- agine what I have been doing, or what has been done to me, all the time between the day of trial and this of execution. Was I mad ? No matter. But you shall not hang Ludovic — he, poor boy, is innocent; — here, look at him — here — I tell you again — is the Violator and the Murderer ! " But shall the men in authority dare to stay the ex- ecution at a maniac's words ? If they dare not — that multitude will, now all rising together like the waves of the sea. " Cut the cords asunder that bind our Ludovic's arms," — a thousand voices cried ; and the murderer, unclasping a knife, that, all unknown to his keepers, he had worn in his breast when a maniac, sheared them asunder as the sickle shears the corn. But his son stirred not — and on being hfted up by his father, gave not so much as a groan. His heart had 260 friendship's gift. burst, and he was dead. No one touched the gray- headed murderer, who knelt down — not to pray — but to look into his son's eves — and to examine his lips — and to feel his left breast — and to search out all the symptoms of a fainting-fit, or to assure himself, and many a corpse had the plunderer handled on the field after hush of the noise of battle — that this was death. He rose ; and standing forward on the edge of the scaffold, said, with a voice that shook not, deep, strong, hollow and hoarse — " Good people ! I am likewise now the murderer of my daughter and of my son! and of myself! " Next moment the knife was in his heart — and he fell down a corpse on the corpse of his Ludovic. All round the sultry horizon the black clouds had for hours been gathering — and now came the thunder and the lightning — and the storm. Again the whole multitude prostrated themselves on the moor — and the Pastor, bending over the dead bodies, said, " This is Expiation ! " I •^ f. a '7 FAIR INES. BY THOMAS HOOD. O SAW ye not fair Ines ? She's gone into the West, To dazzle when the sun is down, And rob the world of rest: She took our daylight with her. The smiles that w^e love best, With morning blushes on her cheek, And pearls upon her breast. turn again, fair Ines, Before the fall of night. For fear the moon should shine alone, And stars unrivall'd bright ; And blessed will the lover be. That walks beneath their light, And breathes the love against my cheek 1 dare not even write ! friendship's gift. Would I had been, fair Ines, That gallant cavalier, Who rode so gayly by thy side. And whisper'd thee so near ! Were there no bonny dames at home, Or no true lovers here, That he should cross the seas to win The dearest of the dear ? I saw thee, lovely Ines, Descend along the shore. With bands of noble gentlemen. And banners waved before ; And gentle youth and maidens gay. And snowy plumes they wore ; It would have been a beautious dream, — If it had been no more ! Alas, alas, fair Ines, She went away with song, With Music waiting on her steps, And shoutings of the throng; But some were sad and felt no mirth, But only Music's wrong, In sounds that sang Farewell, farewell, To her you've loved so long. Farewell, farewell, fair Ines, That vessel never bore So fair a lady on its deck. Nor danced so ligiit before, — FAIR INES. 263 Alas for pleasure on the sea, And sorrow on the shore ! The smile that blest one lover's heart Has broken many more ! LOVE. ANONYMOUS. Of all passions in the world, love not only is the most tyrannical, and takes the deepest hold, but it is also the speediest in its transformation, and in its change of the scenery around us ; nay, the scenery environing the heart. That love is the great sweet- ener of life — the active and stirring principle — the spring which sets everything in motion — the vivid awakener, exponent, and representative of all the finest, most delicate, and most subtle movements in our spiritual nature, who can deny ? But as all minds differ, so all must love differently : the tasteful can love but with taste ; the dehcate with delicacy ; the fervent and eager with high impellent strength, and burning completeness and abandonment. There is love which, once aroused — called to the surface from its tender fountain, and boiling up out of its placid depths, becomes like the torrent, sweeping on in impetuosity, rising up against and surmounting with fury all petty obstacles and small interruptions LOVE. 265 ^vhich tlie envy or cautious policy, the coldness or worldiiness of man seek to interpose to it. Love is such a giant power that it seems to gather Strength from obstructions, and at every difficulty- rises to higher might. It is all dominant — all con- i^uering ; a grand leveler which can bring down to its own universal hue of equalization the proudest heights, and remove the most stubborn impediments : " Like death, it levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook beside the sceptre." There is no hope of resistmg it, for it outwatches the most vigilent — submerges everything, acquiring strength as it proceeds ; ever growing, nay, growing out of itself. Love is the light, the majesty of life : that principle to which, after all oui' struggling, and writhing, and twisting, all things must be resolved. Take it away, and what becomes of the world ! It is a barren ^^ilderness ! A world of monuments, each standing upright and erumbhng ; an army of gray stones, without a chaplet, without a leaf to take off, with its glimpse of green, their flat insipidity and offensive uniformity upon a shrubless plain. Things base and foul, creeping and obscure, withered, bloodless, and brainless, could alone spring from such a marble hearted soil. Its vegetation must be fdnt ; its grass but fields of spiculce, like white coral, shivering to the feet. Sandy deserts, springless, herbless ; slatey rocks and Hmc- stone splinters, cold and impenetrable as Egyptian obelisks, scattered, to stand for ever in the profundity 22 266 friendship's gift. of their own desolation, and to rear their giant shapes to a heaven of lead, whose clouds sluggishly and ponderously move, like marble islands, in an atmos" phere of hopeless depression, stagnant and unmoving. Love is the sun of the moral world ; which revives, invigorates, calls into life, and illumines all objects ; gives strength to the weak, fire to our plans and pur- poses, brings about great things, and is at once the mainspring and grand mover of all that is not only sweet, graceful, and beautiful in our constitution, but noble, bold, and aspiring. Love's darts are silver ; when they turn to fire in the noble heart they im- part a portion of that heavenly flame which is their element. Love is of such a refining, elevating char- acter, that it expels all that is mean and base ; bids us think great thoughts, do great deeds, and changes our common clay into fine gold. It illuminates our path, dark and mysterious as it may be, with torch- lights lit from the one great light. Oh, poor, weak, and inexpressive are words when sought to strew, as with stars, the path and track of the expression of love's greatness and power ! Dull, pitiful, and cold ; a cheating, horny gleam, as strung stones by the side of precious gems, and the far-flashing of the sparkhng ruby with his heart of fire ! The blue eyes of tur- quoises, or the liquid light of the sapphire, should alone be tasked to spell along, and character our thoughts of love. RECOLLECTIONS. BY MRS. NORTON. Do you remember all the sunny places, Where in bright days, long {)ast, we played together ? Do you remember all the old home faces That gatliered round the hearth in wintry weather ? Do you remember all the happy meetings, In Summer evenings round the open door — Kind looks, kind hearts, kind words and tender greetings A ad clasping hands whose pulses beat no more ? Do you remember them ? Do you remember all the merry laughter ; The voices round the swing in our old garden : The dog that, when we ran, still followed after; The teasing frolic, sure of speedy pardon : We were but children then, young, happy creatures. And hardly knew how much we had to lose — But now the dreamlike memory of those features Comes back, and bids my darkened spirit muse. Do you remember them ? Do you remember when we first departed From all the old companions who were round us, How very soon again we grew light-hearted. 268 friendship's gift. And talked with smiles of all the links which bound us ? And after, when our footsteps were returning. With unfelt weariness, o'er hill and plain ; How our young hearts kept boiling up and burning, To think how soon we'd be at home again, — Do you remember this ? Do you remember how the dreams of glory Kept fading from us like a f dry treasure ; How we thought less of being famed in story, And more of those to whom our fame gave pleasure. Do you remember in far countries, weeping, When a light breeze, a flower, hath brought to mind, Old happy thoughts^ which till that hour were sleeping, And made us yearn for ihose we left behind ? Do you remember this r Do you remember when no sound 'woke gladly, But desolate echoes through our home were ringing, How for a while we talked — then paused full sadly, Because our voices bitter thoughts were bringing ? Ah me ! those days — those days ! my friend, my brother Sit down and let us talk of all our woe, For we have nothing left but one another ; — Yet where they went, old playmate, ive shall go — Let us remember this. THE LAST CAB-DRIVER. BY CHARLES DICKENS. Of all the cabriolet-drivers whom we ever had the honor and gratification of knowing by sight — and our acquaintance in this way has been most extensive — there is one who made an impression on our mind which can never be effaced, and who awakened in our bosom a feehng of admiration and respect, which we entertain a presentiment will never be called forth again by any human being. He was a man of most simple and prepossessing appearance. He was a brown-whiskered, white-hatted, no-coated, cab-man ; his nose was generally red, and his bright blue eye not unfrequently stood out in bold relief against a black border of artificial workmanship ; his boots were of the Wellington form, pulled up to meet his corduroy knee smalls, or at least to approach as near them as their dimensions would admit of; and his neck was usually garnished with a bright yellow handkerchief. In summer he carried in his mouth a flower ; in winter, 22* b 270 friendship's gift. a straw — slight, but to a contemplative mind, certain indications of a love of nature, and a taste for botany. His cabriolet was gorgeously painted — a bright red ; and wherever we went. City or West End, Pad- dinglon or Halloway, IS^orth, East, "West, or South^ there was the red cab, bumping up against the posts at the street corners, and turning in and out, among hackney-coaches, and drays, and carts, and wagons, and omnibuses, and contriving hj some strange means or other, to get out of places which no other veliicle but the red cab could ever by any possibility have con- trived to aet into at all. Our fondness for that red cab was unbounded. How we should have liked to see it in the circle at i^-stley's ! Our hfe upon it, that it should have performed such evolutions as would have put the whole company to shame — Indian chiefs, knights, Swiss peasants, and all. Some people, object to the exertion of getting into cabs, and others object to the diinculty of getting out of them ; we think both these are objections which take their rise in perverse and ill-conditioned minds. The getting into a cab is a very pretty and graceful process, which, when well performed, is essentially mclo-dramatic. First, there is the expressive panto- mime of everv one of the eii2;hteen cabmen on the stand, the moment you raise your eyes from the ground. Then there is your own pantomime in reply — quite a little ballet. Four cabs immediately leave the stand, for your especial accommodation ; and the evolutions THE LAST CAB-DRIVEK. 271 of the animals who draw them, are bcautifiil in the extreme, as thej grate the wheels of the cabs against the curb-stones, and sport plajfiiUy in the kennel. You single out a particular cab, and dart swiftly towards it. One bound and you are on the first step ; turn your body lightly round to the right, and you are on the second ; bend gracefully beneath the reins, working round to the left at the same time, and you are in the cab. There is no diffiGulty in finding a seat ; the apron knocks you comfortably into it at once, and ofTyou go. The getting out of a cab, is, perhaps rather more complicated in its theory, and a shade more difficult in its execution. We have studied the subject a great deal, and we think the be^t way is, to throw yourself out, and trust to chance for alighting on your feet. If you make the driver alight first, and then throw your. self upon him, you will find that he breaks your fall materially. In the event of your contemplating an OiLor of eight-pence, on no account make the tender, or show the money, until you are safely on the pave- ment. It is very bad policy attenaptlng to save the fourpence. You are very much in the power of a cabman, and he considers it a kind of fee not to do you any wilful damage. Any iuotruction, how- ever, in the art of getting out of a cab, is wholly un- necessary if you are going any distance, because the probability is, that you will be shot lightly out before you have completed the third mile. We are not aware of any instance on record in 272 friendship's gift. which a cab-horse has performed three consecutive miles without going down once. What of that ? It is all excitement. And in these days of derangement of the nervous system and universal lassitude, people are content to pay handsomely for excitement ; where can it be procured at a cheaper rate ? But to return to the cab ; it was omnipresent. You had but to walk down Holborn, or Fleet-street, or any of the principal thoroughfares in which there is a great deal of traffic, and judge for j^ourself. You had hardly turned into the street, when you saw a trunk or two, lying on the ground ; an uprooted post, a hat-box, a portmanteau, and a carpet-bag, strewed about in a very picturesque manner ; a horse in a cab standing by, looking about him with great unconcern ; and a crowd, shoutino; and screaming; ^-ith delio;ht, coolin^; their flushed faces against the glass windows of a chemist's shop. — " What 's the matter here, can you tell me ? " " O'ny a cab, sir." — " Any body hurt, do you know ?" " O'ny the fare, sir. I see him a turnin' the corner, and I ses to another gen'lm'n, ' that 's a reg'lar little oss, that, and he 's a comin along rayther sweet, an't he ! ' — ' He just is,' ses the other gen'lm'n, ven bump they cums agin the post, and out flies the fare like bricks." Need we say it was the red cab ; or that the gentleman with the straw in his mouth, who emerged so coolly from the chemist's shop and philo- sophically climbing into the little dickey, started off at full gallop, was the red cab's licensed driver ? i THE LAST CAB-DRIVER. 273 The ubiqiiitv of this red cab, and the influence it exercised OA'cr the risible muscles of justice itself, was perfectly astonishing. You walked into the justice- room of the Mansion-house ; the whole court resounded with merriment. The Lord Major threw himself back in his chair, in a state of frantic delight at his own joke, every vein in Mr. liobler's countenance was swollen with laughter, partly at the Lord Mayor's iacetionsness, but more at his own ; the constables and police-officers were (as in duty bound) in ecstacies at Mr. Hobler and the Lord Mayor combined ; and the very paupers, glancing respectfully at the beadle's countenance, tried to smile, as even he relaxed. A tall, weazen-faced man, with an impediment in his speech, would be endeavoring to state a case of impo- sition against the red cab's driver ; and the red cab's driver, and the Lord Mayor, and Mr. Ilobler, would be having a little fun among themselves, to the inordi- nate delight of every body but the complainant. In the end, justice would be so tickled with the red-cab- driver's native humor, that the fine would be miti- gated, and he would go away full gallop, in the red cab, to impose on somebody else without loss of time. The driver of the red cab, confident in the strength of his own moral principles, like many other philoso- phers, was wont to set. the feelings and opinions of society at complete defiance. Generally speaking, perhaps, he would as soon carry a fare safely to his destination, as he v.ould upset him — sooner, perhaps, 274 friendship's gift. because in that case he not only got the money, but had the additional amusement of running a longer heat against some smart rival. But society made war upon him in the shape of penalties, and he must make war upon society in his own way. This was the rea- soning of the red-cab-driver. So, he bostowed a searching look upon the fare, as he put his hand in his waistcoat pocket, when he had gone half the mile, to get the money ready ; and if he brought forth eight- pence, out he went. The last time we saw our friend was one wet even- ing in Tottenham-court-road, when he was engaged in a very warm and somewhat personal altercation with a loquacious httle gentleman in a green coat. Poor fellow ! there were great excuses to be made for him ; he had not received above eighten-pence more than his fare, and consequently labored under a great deal of very natural indignation. The dispute had attained a pretty considerable height, when at last the loqua- cious little gentleman, making a mental calculation of the distance, and finding that he had already paid mare than he ought, avowed his unalterable determina- tion to " pull up " the cabman in the morning. " Now, just mark this, young man," said the little gentleman, " I'll pull you up to-morrow morning." " No ! will you though ? " said our friend, with a sneer. " I will," replied the little gentleman, " mark my words, that 's all. If I live till to-morrow morning, you shall repent this." THE LAST CAB-DRIVER. 275 There was a steadiness of pm-pose, and indignation of speech about the little gentleman, as he took an angry pinch of snuff, after this last declaration, which made a visible impression on the mind of the red-cab- driver. He appeared to hesitate for an instant. It was only for an instant; his resolve was soon taken. " You '11 pull me up, will you ?" said our friend. " I will," rejoined the little gentleman, with even greater vehemence than before. " Very well," said our friend, tucking up his shirt sleeves very calmly. '' There '11 be three veeks for that. Wery good ; that '11 bring me up to the middle o' next month. Three veeks more would carry me on to my birth day, and then I 've got ten pound to draw. I may as well get board, lodgin', and washin', till then, out of the county, as pay for it myself; conse- quently here goes ! " So, without more ado, the red-cab-driver knocked the Httle gentleman down, and then called the police to take himself into custody, with all the civihty in the world. A story is nothing without the sequel ; and there- fore, we may state, that to our certain knowledge, the board, lodghig, and washiug, were all provided in due course. We happen, to know the fact, for it came to our knowledge thus : "We went over the House of Correction for the county of jSIiddlesex shortly after, to witness the operation of the silent system ; and looked on all " the wheels " with the greatest anxiety 276 FRIEISDSHIP'S GIFT. in search of our long-lost friend. He was nowhere to be seen, however, and we began to think that the little gentleman in the green coat must have relented, when, as we were traversing the kitchen-garden, which lies in a sequestered part of the prison, we were startled by hearing a voice, which apparently proceeded from the wall, pouring forth its soul in the plaintive air of " all round my hat," which was then just beginning to form a recognized portion of our national music. We started. — '^ Vv^hat voice is that ?" said we. The Governor shook his head. " Sad fellow," he repUed, " very sad. He posi- tively refused to work on the wheel : so, after many trials, I was compelled to order him into solitary con- finement. He says he likes it very much though, and I am afraid he does, for he lies on his back on the floor, and sings comic songs all day ! " Shall we add, that our heart had not deceived us ; and that the comic singer was no other than our eager- ly-sought friend, the red-cab-driver ? We have never seen him since, but we have strong reason to suspect that this noble individual was a dis- tant relative of a waterman of our acquaintance, who, on one occasion, when we were passing the coach-stand over which he presides, after standing very quietly to see a tall man struggle into a cab, ran rip very briskly when it was all over (as his brethren invariably do,) and touching his hat, asked as a matter of course, for " a copper for the waterman." Now, the fare was THE LAST CAB-DRIVER. 277 by no means a handsome man ; and, waxing very indignant at the demand, he replied — " Money What for ? Comeing up and looking at me, I sup- pose ? " — " Veil, sir," rejoined the waterman, with a smile of immovable complacency, " Tliat 's worth twopence, at least." Tliis identical waterman afterwards attained a very prominent station in society ; and as we know some- thmg of his life, and have often thought of teUmg what we do know, perhaps we shall never have a better opportunity than the present. Mr. William Barker, then, for that was the gentle- man's name. Mr. Wilham Barker was born but why need we relate where Mr. William Barker was born, or when ? Why scrutmize the entries in paro- chial ledgers, or seek to penetrate the Lucinian mys- teries of lying-in hospitals ? Mr. William Barker was born, or he had never been. There is a son — there was a father. There is an effect — there was a cause. Surely this is sufficient information for the most Fati- ma-like curiosity ; and, if it be not, we regret our ina- bility to supply any further evidence on the pouit. Can there be a more satisfactory, or more strictly parliamentary course ? Impossible. We at once avow a similar inability to record at what precise period, or by what particular process, this gentleman's patronymic, of William Barker, became corrupted into " Bill Boorker." Mr. Barker acquired a high standing, and no uiconsiderable repu- 23 278 friendship's gift. tation, among the members of that profession to which he more peculiarly devoted his energies ; and to them he -was generally known, either by the famihar appel- lation of " Bill Boorker," or the flattering designation of " Aggerawatin Bill," the latter being a playful and expressive sobriquet^ illustrative of Mr. Barker's great talent in " aggerawatin " and rendering wild such subjects of her Majesty as are conveyed from place to place, through the instrumentality of omnibuses. Of the early life of INIr. Barker little is known, and even that little involved in considerable doubt and obscurity. A want of apphcation, a restlessness of purpose, a thirsting after porter, a love of all that is roving and cadger-hke in nature, shared in common with many other great geniuses, appear to have been his leading characteristics. The busy hum of a parochial free school, and the shady repose of a county gaol, were ahke inefficacious in producing the slightest alteration in Mr. Barker's disposition. His feverish attachment to change and variety, nothing could repress ; his na- tive daring no punishment could subdue. If Mr. Barker can be fairly said to have had any weakness in his earlier years, it was an amiable one — love ; love in its most comprehensive form — a love of ladies, liquids, and pocket-handkerchiefs. It was no selfish feehng ; it was not confined to his own posses- sions, which but two many men regard with exclusive complacency. No ; it was a nobler love — a general THE LAST CAB-DRIVER. 279 principle. It extended itself with equal force to the property of other people. There is something very affecting in this. It is still more affecting to know, that such philanthropy is but imperfectly rewarded. Bow-street, Newgate, and Millbank, are a poor return for general benevolence, evincing itself in an irrepressible love for all created objects. Mr. Barker felt it so. After a lengthened interview with the highest legal authorities, he quitted his ungrateful country, with the consent, and at the expense, of its Government ; proceeded to a distant shore, and there employed himself, hke another Cincin- natus, in clearing and cultivating the soil — a peaceful pursuit, in which a term of seven years glided almost imperceptibly away. AVliether, at the expiration of the period we have just mentioned, the British Government required Mr. Barker's presence here, or did not require his resi- dence abroad, we have no distinct means of ascertain- ing. We should be inclined, however, to favor the latter position, inasmuch as we do not find that he was advanced to any other public post on his return, than the post at the comer of the Haymarket, where he oflSciated as assistant waterman to the hackney-coach- stand. Seated in this capacity, on a couple of tubs near the curb-stone, with a brass-plate and number suspended round his neck by a massive chain, and his ankles curiously enveloped in haybands, he is supposed 280 to have made those observations on human nature which exercised so material an influence over all his proceed- ings in later hfe. Mr. Barker had not officiated for many months in this capacity, when the appearance of the first omni- bus caused the public mind to go in a new direction, and prevented a great many hackney coaches from going in any direction at all. The genius of Mr. Barker at once perceived the whole extent of the in- jury that would be eventually inflicted on cab and coach stands, and, by consequence, on water-men also, by the progi^ess of the system of which the first omni- bus was a part. He saw, too, the necessity of adopt- ing some more profitable profession ; and his active mind at once perceived how much might be done in the way of enticing the youthful and unwary, and shoving the old and helpless into the wrong buss, and carrying them oif, until, reduced to despair, they ran- somed themselves by the payment of sixpence a-head, or, to adopt his own figurative expression in all its native beauty, " till they was rig'larly done over, and forked out the stumpy." An opportunity for realizing his fondest anticipations soon presented itself. Bumors were rife on the hack- ney-coach-stands, that a buss was building, to run from Lisson-grove to the Bank, down Oxford-street and Holborn ; and the rapid increase of busses on the Paddington-road, encouraged the idea. Mr. Barker secretly and cautiously inquired in the proper quar- THE LAST CAB-DRTVER. 281 ters. The report was correct ; the " Royal Wil- liam" was to make its first journey on the following Monday. It was a crack affair altogether. An en- terprising young cabman, of established reputation as a dashing whip — for he had compromised with the parents of three scrunched children, and just " worked out " his fine, for knocking down an old lady — was the driver ; and the spirited proprietor, knowing Mr. Barker's qualifications, appointed him to the vacant office of cad on the very first application. The buss began to run, and Mr. Barker entered into a new suit of clothes, and on a new sphere of action. To recapitulate all the improvements introduced by this extraordinary man, into the omnibus system — gradually, indeed, but surely, would occupy a far greater space than we are enabled to devote to this imperfect memoir. To him is universally assigned the original suggestion of the practice which afterwards became so general — of the driver of a second buss keeping constantly behind the first one, and driving the pole of his vehicle either into the door of the other, every time it was opened, or through the body of any lady or gentleman who might make an attempt to get into it ; a humorous and pleasant invention, exhibiting all that originality of idea, and fine bold flow of spirits, so conspicuous in every action of this great man. Mr. Barker had opponents of course ; what man in public fife has not ? But even his worst enemies can- 23* 282 friendship's gift. not deny that he has taken more old ladies and gentle- men to Paddington who wanted to go to the Bank, and more old ladies and gentlemen to the Bank who wanted to go to Paddington, than any six men on the road ; and however much malevolent spirits may pretend to doubt the accuracy of the statement, they well know it to be an established fact, that he has forcibly conveyed a variety of ancient persons of either sex, to both places, who had not the slightest or more distant intention of going any where at all. Mr. Barker was the identical cad who nobly distin- guished himself, sometime since, by keeping a trades- man on the step — the omnibus going at full speed all the time — till he had thrashed him to his entire satis- faction, and finally throwing him away, when he had quite done with him. Mr. Barker it ought to have been, who, honestly indignant at being ignominously ejected from a house of public entertainment, kicked the landlord in the knee, and thereby caused his death. We say it ought to have been Mr. Barker, because the action was not a common one, and could have emanated from no ordinary mind. It has now become matter of history ; it is recorded in the Newgate Calendar ; and we wish we could at- tribute this piece of daring heroism to Mr. Barker. We regret being compelled to state that it was not performed by him. Would, for the family credit, we could add, that it was achieved by his brother ! It was in the exercise of the nicer details of his THE LAST CAB-DRIVER. 283 profession, that Mr. Barker's knowledge of human nature was beautifully displayed. He could tell at a glance where a passenger wanted to go to, and would shout the name of the place accordingly, without the slightest reference to the real destination of the veliicle. He knew exactly the kind of old lady that would be too much flurried by the process of pushing in, and pulling out of the caravan, to discover where she had been put down, until too late ; had an intuitive perception of what was passing in a passenger's mind when he inwardly resolved to " pull that cad up to- morrow morning ; " and never failed to make himself agreeable to female servants, whom he would place next the door and talk to all the way. Human judgment is never infallible, and it would occasionally happen that Mr. Barker experimentalized with the timidity or forbearance of the wrong per- son, in which case a summons to a Police-office, was, on more than one occasion, followed by a committal to prison. It was not in the power of trifles such as these, however, to subdue the freedom of his spirit. As soon as they passed away, he resumed the duties of his profession with unabated ardor. We have spoken of Mr. Barker and of the red- cab-driver, in the past tense. Alas ! Mr. Barker has again become an absentee ; and the class of men to which they both belonged are fast disappear- ing. Improvement has peered beneath the aprons of our cabs, and penetrated to the very mnermost 284 friendship's gift. recesses of our omnibuses. Dirt and fustion will vanish before cleanliness and livery. Slang will be forgotten when civihty becomes general ; and that enlightened, eloquent, sage, and profound body, the magistracy of London, will be deprived of half their amusement, and half their occupation. t MUTUAL LOVE. COLERIDGE. All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay Beside the ruin'd tower. The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve ; And she was tliere, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve ! She leant against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight ; She stood and listen'd to my lay, Amid the lingering light. 286 friendship's gift. My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve ! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve. I played a soft and doleful air, I sang an old and moving story — An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary. She listen'd with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes and modest grace ; For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face. I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand ; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land. I told her how he pined : and ah ! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love. Interpreted my own. She listened with a flitting blush. With downcast eyes, and modest grace, And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face. But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night ; MUTUAL LOVE. 287 That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, There came and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright ; And that he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight ! And that, unknowing what he did. He leap'd amid a murderous band. And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land! And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees ; And how she tended him in vain — And ever strove to expiate The scorn that crazed his brain. And that she nursed him in a cave ; And how his madness went away. When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay. His dying words — but when I reach'd That tenderest strain of all the ditty. My faultering voice and pausing harp, Disturbed her soul with pity ! All impulses of soul and sense Had thrill'd my guiltless Genevieve ; The music and the doleful tale. The rich and balmy eve ; 288 friendship's gift. And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng, And gentle wishes long subdued, Subdued and cherish'd long ! She wept with pity and delight, She blush'd with love, and virgin shame And like the murmur of a di-eam, I heard her breath my name. Her bosom heaved — she stept aside, As conscious of my look she stepp'd — Then suddenly, with timorous eye, She fled to me and wept. She half enclosed me with her arms, She press'd me with a meek embrace ; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face. 'T was partly Love, and partly Fear, And partly 't was a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart. I calm'd her fears, and she was calm. And told her love with virgin pride ; And so I won my Genevieve, My bright and beautious Bride. THE HOLY CHILD. BY TROF. WILSON. This House of ours is a prison — this Study of ours a cell. Time has laid his fetters on our feet — fetters fine as the gossamer, but strong as Sampson's ribs, silken-soft to wise submission, but to vain impar tience galling as cankered wound that keeps ceaselessly eating into the bone. But while our bodily feet are thus bound by an inevitable and inexorable law, our mental wings are free as those of the lark, the dove, or the eagle — and they shall be expanded as of yore, in calm or tempest, now touching with their tips the bosom of this dearly beloved earth, and now aspiring heavenwards, beyond the realms of mist and cloud, even unto the very core of the still heart of that other- TN-ise unapproachable sky which graciously opens to receive us on our flight, when, disencumbered of the burden of all grovelHng thoughts, and strong in spirit- uality, we exult to soar " Beyond this vissible diurnal sphere," 24 290 friendship's gift. nearing and nearing the native region of its own incomprehensible being. Now touching, we said, with their tips the bosom of this dearly beloved earth ! How sweet that attraction to imagination's wings ! How delightful in that lower flight to skim along the green ground, or as now along the soft-bosomed beauty of the virgin snow ! We were asleep all night long — sound asleep as children — while the flakes were falling, " and soft as snow on snow " were all the descendings of our untroubled dreams. The moon and all her stars were wilhng that their lustre should be veiled by that peaceful shower ; and now the sun, j)leased with the purity of the morning earth, all white as innocence, looks dowTi from heaven with a meek unmeltuig light, and still leaves undissolved the stainless splendor. There is frost in the air — but he " does his spiriting gently," studding the ground-snow thickly with diamonds, and shaping the tree-snow according to the pecuhar and characteristic beauty of the leaves and sprays, on which it has alighted almost as gently as the dews of spring. You know every kind of tree still by its own spirit showing itself through that fairy veil — momen- tarily disguised from recognition — but admired the more in the sweet surprise with which again your heart salutes its familiar branches, all fancifully orna- mented with their snow foliage, that murmurs not like the green leaves of summer, that like the yellow leaves of autumn strews not the earth Avith de- cay, but often melts away into changes so invisible THE HOLY CHILD. 291 and inaudible that you wonder to find that it is all vanished, and to see the old tree again standing in its own faint-green glossy bark, with its many million buds, which perhaps fancy suddenly expands into a power of umbrage impenetrable to the sun in Scorpio. A sudden burst of sunshine ! bringing back the pensive spirit from the past to the present, and kind- ling it, till it dances like hght reflected from a burning mirror. A cheerful Sun-scene, though almost desti- tute of life. An undulating Landscape, hillocky and hilly, but not mountainous, and buried under the weight of a day and night's incessant and continuous snow-fall. The weather has not been windy — and now that the flakes have ceased falling, there is not a cloud to be seen, except some delicate braidings here and til ere along the calm of the Great Blue Sea of Heaven. Most luminous is the sun, yet you can look straight on his face, almost with unwinking eyes, so mild, and mellow is his large hght as it overflows the day. All enclosures have disappeared, and you indis- tinctly ken the greater landmarks, such as a grove, a wood, a hall, a castle, a spire, a village, a town — the faint haze of a far ofi" and smokeless city. Most in- tense is the silence ; for all the streams are dumb, and the great river Hes hke a dead serpent in the strath. Not dead — for, lo ! yonder one of his folds glitters — and in the glitter you see him moving — while all the rest of his sullen length is palsied by frost, and looks livid and more hvid at every distant and more distant winding. What blackens on that tower of snow ? 292 friendship's gift. Crows roosting innumerous on a huge tree — but they caw not m their hunger. Neither sheep nor cattle are to be seen or heard — but they are cared for ; — the folds and the farm-j^ards are all full of life — and the ungathered stragglers are safe in their instincts. There has been a deep fall — but no storm — and the silence, though partly that of suffering, is not that of death. Therefore, to the imagination, unsaddened by the heart, the repose is beautiful. The almost un- broken uniformity of the scene — its simple and grand monotony — lulls all the thoughts and feelings into a calm, over which is breathed the gentle excitation of a novel charm, inspiring many fancies, all of a quiet character. Their range, perhaps, is not very exten- sive, but they all regard the homefelt and domestic charities of life. And the heart burns as here aud there some human dwelling discovers itself by a wreath of smoke up the air, or as the robin redbreast, a creature that is ever at hand, comes flitting before your path with an almost pert flutter of his feathers, bold from the acquaintanceship he has formed with you in severer weather at the threshold or window of the tenement, which for years may have been the winter sanctuary of the " bird whom man loves best," and who bears a Christian name in every clime he in- habits. Meanwhile the sun waxes brighter and warmer in heaven — some insects are in the air, as if that moment called to life — and the mosses that may yet be visible here and there along the ridge of a wall or on the stem of a tree, in variegated lustre, frost-bright- THE HOLY CHILD. 293 ened, seem to delight in the snow, and in no other season of the year to be so happy as in winter. Such gentle touches of pleasure animate one's whole being, and connect, by many a fine association, the emotions inspired by the objects of animate and of inanimate nature. Ponder on the idea — the emotion of purity — and how finely soul-blent is the delight imagination feels in a bright hush of new-fallen snow ! Some speck or stain — however slight — there always seems to be on the most perfect whiteness of any other substance — or "■ dim suffusion veils " it with some faint discolor — witness even the leaf of the lily or the rose. Heaven forbid that we should ever breathe aught but love and delight in the beauty of these consummate flowers I But feels not the heart, even Avhen the mid- summer mornino; sunshine is meltins; the dews on their fragrant bosoms, that their loveliness is "of the earth earthy " — faintly tinged or streaked, when at the very fairest, with a hue foreboding languishment and decay ? Not the less for its sake are those soulless flowers dear to us — thus owning kindred with them whose beauty is all soul enshrined for a short while on that perishable face. Do we not still regard the insensate flowers — so emblematical of what, in human life, we do most passionately love and profoundly pity — with a pensive emotion, often deapening into mel- ancholy that sometimes, ere the strong fit subsides, blackens into despair ! What pain doubtless was in 24* 294 friendship's gift. the heart of the Elegiac Poet of old, when he sighed over the transitory beauty of flowers — " Conquerimur natura brevis quam gratia Florum ! " But over a perfectly pure expanse of night-fallen snow, when unaffected by the gentle sun, the first fine frost has incrusted it with small sparkling diamonds, the prevalent emotion is joy. There is a charm in the sudden and total disappearance even of the grassy green. All the '' old familiar faces " of nature are for a while out of sight, and out of mind. That white silence shed by heaven over earth carries with it, far and wide, the pure peace of another region — almost another life. No image is there to tell of this restless and noisy world. The cheerfulness of reality kindles up our reverie ere it becomes a dream ; and we are glad to feel our whole being complexioned by the passionless repose. If we think at all of human life, it is only of the young, the fair, and the innocent. " Pure as snow," are words then felt to be most holy, as the image of some beautiful and beloved being comes and goes before our eyes — brought from a far distance in this our living world, or from a distance further still in a world beyond the grave — the image of a margin growing up sinlessly to womanhood among her parents' prayers, or of some spiritual creature who expired long ago, and carried with her, her native in- nocence unstained to heaven. THE HOLY CHILD. 295 Such Spiritual Creature — too spiritual long to sojourn below the skies — wert thou — whose rising and whose setting — both most star-like — brightened at once all thy native vale, and at once left it in dai*k- ness. Thy name has long slept in our heart — and there let it sleep unbreathed — even as, when we are dreaming our way through some solitary place, without naming it, we bless the beauty of some sweet wild- flower, pensively smiling to us through the snow. The Sabbath returns on which, in the little kirk among the hills, we saw thee baptized. Then comes a wavering glimmer of five sweet years, that to Thee, in all their varieties, were but as one dehghtful season, one blessed life — and, finally, that other Sabbath, on which, at thy own dying request — between ser\ices thou wert buried . How mysterious are all thy ways and workings, gracious Nature ! Thou who art but a name given by us to the Being in whom all things are and have life. Ere three years old, she, whose image is now with us, all over the small silvan world that beheld the evanes- cent revelation of her pure existence, was called the "Holy Child!" The taint of sin — inherited from those who disobeyed in Paradise — seemed from her fair clay to have been washed out at the baptismal font, and by her first infantine tears. So pious people almost belived, looking on her so unlike all other cliil- dren, in the serenity of that habitual smile that clothed the creature's countenance with a wondrous beauty at 296 friendship's gift. an age when on other infants is but faintly seen the dawn of reason, and their eyes look happy just like the thoughtless flowers. So unlike all other chil- dren — but unlike only because sooner than they she seemed to have had given to her, even in the commun- ion of the cradle, an intimation of the being and the providence of God. Sooner, surely, than through any other clay that ever enshrouded immortal spirit, dawned the light of religion on the face of the " Holy Child." Her lisping language was sprinkled with words alien from common childhood's uncertain speech, that mur- murs only when indigent nature prompts ; and her own parents wondered whence they came, when first they looked upon her kneeling in an unbidden prayer. As one mild week of vernal sunshine covers the braes with primroses, so shone with fair and fragi^ant feeling — unfolded, ere they kne^j, before her parents' eyes — the divine nature of her who for a season was lent to them from the skies. She learned to read out of the Bible — almost without any teaching — they knew not how — just by looking gladly on the words, even as she looked on the pretty daisies on the green — till their meanings §tole insensibly into her soul, and the sweet syllables, succeeding each other on the blessed page, were all united by the memories her heart had been treasuring every hour that her father or her mother had read aloud in her hearing from the Book of Life. " Suffer little cliildren to come unto I THE HOLY CHILD. 2^ me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven " — how wept her parents, as these the most affecting of our Savior's words dropt silver-sweet from her hps, and continued in her upward ejes among the swimming tears ! Be not incredulous of this dawn of reason, wonder" ful as it ma J seem to you, so soon becoming morn — almost perfect daylight — with the " Holy Child." Many such miracles are set before us — but we re cog. nize them not, or pass them by with a word or a smile of short surprise. How leaps the baby in its mother's arms, when the mysterious charm of music thrills through its little brain ! And how learns it to modu- late its feeble voice, unable yet to articulate, to the melodies that bring forth all round its eyes a delighted smilp ! Who knows what then may be the thoughts and feeliDgs of the infant a^wakened to the sense of a new world, alive through all its being to sounds that haply glide past our ears unmeaning as the breath of the common air ! Thus have mere infants sometimes been seen inspired by music till, like small genii, they warbled spell-strains of their own, powerful to sadden and subdue our hearts. So, too, have infant eyes been so charmed by the rainbow irradiating the earth, that almost infant hands ^ have been taught, as if by inspiration, the power to paint in finest colors, and to imitate, with a wondrous art, the skies so beautiful to the quick-awakened spirit of delight. What knowledge have not some children acquired, and gone down 298 scholars to their small untimely graves ! Knowing that such things have been — are — and vrill be — why art thou incredulous of the divine expansion of soul, so soon understanding the things that are divine in the "Holy Child?" Thus grew she in the eye of God, day by day wax- ing wiser and w^iser in the knowledge that tends to- wards the skies ; and, as if some angel visitant were nightly with her in her dreams, awakening every mom with a new dream of thought, that brought with it a gift of more comprehensive speech. Yet merry she was at times with her companions among the woods and braes, though while they all were laughing, she only smiled; and the passing traveller, who might pause for a moment to bless the sweet creatures in their play, could not but single out one face among the many fair, so pensive in its paleness, a face to be remembered, coming from afar, like a mournful thought upon the hour of joy. Sister or brother of her own had she none — and often both her parents — wiio lived in a hut by itself up among the mossy stumps of the old decayed forest — had to leave her alone — sometimes even all the day long from morning till night. But she no more wearied in her solitariness than does the wren in the wood. All the flowers were her friends — all the birds. The linnet ceased not his song for her, though her footsteps wandered into the green glade among the yellow^ broom, almost within reach of the spray THE HOLY CHILD. 299 from which he poured his melody — the quiet eyes of his mate feared her not when her garments almost touched the bush where she brooded on her young. Shyest of the winged silvans, the cushat clapped not her wings away on the soft approach of such harmless footsteps to the pine that concealed her slender nest. As if blown from heaven, descended round her path the showers of the painted butterflies, to feed, sleep, or die — undisturbed by her — upon the wild-flowers — with wings, when motionless, undistinguish able from the blossoms. And well she loved the brown, busy, blameless bees, come thither for the honey-dews from a hundred cots sprinkled all over the parish, and all high overhead sailing away at evening, laden and wearied, to their straw-roofed skeps in many a hamlet garden. The leaf of every tree, shrub, and plant, she knew familiarly and lovingly in its own character- istic beauty ; and she was loath to shake one dew- drop from the sweetbrier-rose. And well she knew that all nature loved her in return — that they were dear to each other in their innocence — and that the very sunshine, in motion or in rest, was ready to come at the bidding of her smiles. Skilful those small white hands of hers among the reeds and rushes and osiers — and many a pretty flower-basket grew be- neath their touch, her parents wondering on their return home to see the handiwork of one who was never idle in her happiness. Thus early — ere yet but five years old — did she earn her mite for the 300 FEIENPSHIP'S GIFT. sustenance of her c^vn beautiful life. The russet garb she wore she herself had Avon — and thus Poverty, at the door of that hut, became even like a Guardian Angel, "with the lineaments of heaven on her brow, and the quietude of heaven beneath her feet. But these were but her lonely pastimes, or gentle taskwork self-imposed among her pastimes, and itself the sweetest of them all, inspired by a sense of duty that still brings with it its own delight, aud hallowed by religion, that even in the most adverse lot changes slavery into freedom — till the heart, insensible to the bonds of necessity, sings aloud for joy. The life within the life of the " Holy Child," apart from even such innocent employments as these, and from such recreations as innocent, among the shadows and the sunshine of those silvan haunts, was passed — let us fear not to say the truth, wondrous as such worship was in one so very young — was passed in the worship of God ; and her parents — though sometimes even saddened to see such piety in a small creature Hke her, and afraid, in their exceeding love, that it betok- ened an early removal from this world of one too per- fectly pure ever to be touched by its sins and sorrows^ — forbore, in an awful pity, ever to remove the Bible from her knees, as she would sit with it there, not at morning and at evening only, or all the Sabbath long as soon as they returned from the kirk, but often through all the hours of the longest and sunniest week-days, when, had she chosen to do so, there was THE HOLY CHILD. 301 nothing to hinder her from going up the hill-side, or down to the little village, to play with the other chil- dren, always too happy when she appeared — nothint:: to hinder her but the voice she heard speaking in that Book, and the hallelujahs that, at the turning over of each blessed page, came upon the ear of the " Holy Child " from white-robed saints all kneehng before His throne in heaven. Her life seemed to be the same in sleep. Often at midnight, by the light of the moon shining in upon her little bed beside theirs, her parents leant over her face, diviner in dreams, and wept as she wept, her lips all the while murmuring, in broken sentences of prayer, the name of Him who died for us all. Bat plenteous as w^ere her penitential tears — penitential in the holy humbleness of her stainless spirit, over thoughts that had never left a dimming breath on its purity, yet that seemed in those strange visitings to be hauntins: her as the shadow^s of sins — soon were they all dried up in the lustre of her returning smiles. Waking, her voice in the kirk was the sweetest among many sweet, as all the young smgers, and she the youngest far, sat together by themselves, and within the congregational music of the psalm uplifted a sil- very strain that sounded like the very spirit of the whole, even like angelic harmony blent with a mortal song. But sleeping, still more sweetly sang the " Holy Child ; " and then, too, in some diviner inspiration than ever was granted to it while awake, her soul com- 25 3052 friendship's gift. posed its own hymns, and set the simple scriptural words to its own mysterious music — the tunes she loved best gliding into one another, without once ever marring the melody, with pathetic touches interposed never heard before, and never more to be renewed I For each dream had its own breathing, and many- visioned did then seem to be the sinless creature's sleep. The love that was borne for her all over the hill- region, and beyond its circling clouds, was almost such as mortal creatures might be thought to feel for some existence that had visibly come from heaven. Yet all who looked on her, saw that she, like themselves, was mortal, and many an eye w^as wet, the heart wist not why, to hear such wisdom falling from such lips ; for dimly did it prognosticate, that as short as bright would be her walk from the cradle to the grave. And thus for the '' Holy Child " was their love elevated by awe, and saddened by pity — and as by herself she passed pensively by their dwellings, the same eyes that smiled on her presence, on her disappearance wept. Not in vain for others — and for herself, oh ! what great gain ! — for those few years on earth did that pure spirit ponder on the word of God ! Other chil- dren became pious from their delight in her piety — for she was simple as the simplest among them all, and walked with them hand in hand, nor declined compan- ionship with any one that was good. But all grew THE HOLY CHILD. 303 good by being with her — and parents had but to whisper her name, and in a moment the passionate sob was hushed — the lowering brow Ughted — and the household in peace. Older hearts owned the power of the piety so far surpassing their thoughts ; and time- hardened sinners, it is said, when looking and listening to the " Holy Child," knew the error of their ways, and returned to the right path as at a voice from heaven. Bright was her seventh summer — the brightest, so the aged said, that had ever, in man's memory, shone over Scotland. One long, still, sunny, blue day fol- lowed another, and in the rainless weather, though the dews kept green the hills, the song of the streams was low. But paler and paler, in sunhght and moonlight, became the sweet face that had been always pale ; and the voice that had been always something mournful, breathed lower and sadder still from the too perfect whiteness of her breast. No need — no fear — to tell her that she was about to die. Sweet whispers had sung it to her in her sleep — and waking she knew it in the look of the piteous skies. But she spoke not to her parents of death more than she had often done — and never of her own. Only she seemed to love them with a more exceeding love — and was readier, even sometimes when no one was speaking, with a few drops of tears. Sometimes she disappeared — nor, when sought for, was found in the woods about the hut. And one day that mystery was cleared ; for a 304 friendship's gift. shepherd saw her sitting by herself on a grassy mound in a nook of the small sohtary kirkyard, a long mile off among the hills, so lost m reading the Bible, that shadow or sound of his feet awoke her not ; and, igno-^ rant of his presence, she knelt down and prayed — for a while weeping bitterly — but soon comforted by a heavenly calm — that her sms might be forgiven her ! One Sabbath evening, soon after, as she was sitting beside her parents at the door of their hut, looking first for a long while on their faces, and then for along while on the sky, though it was not yet the stated hour of worship, she suddenly knelt down, and leaning on their knees, with hands clasped more fervently than her wont, she broke forth into tremulous singing of that hymn which from her lips they never heard mth- out unendurable tears : " The hour of my departure's come, I hear the voice that calls me home; At last, O Lord, let trouble cease. And let thy servant die in peace ! " They carried her fainting to her little bed, and uttered not a word to one another till she revived. The shock was sudden, but not unexpected, and they knew now that the hand of death was upon her, although her eyes soon became brighter and brighter, they thought, than they had ever been before. But forehead, cheeks, lips, neck, and breast, were all as white, and, to the THE HOLY CHILD. 905 quivering hands that touched them, almost as cold as snow. Ineffable was the bliss in those radiant eyes ; but the breath of words was frozen, and that hymn was almost her last farewell. Some few words she spake — and named the hour and day she wished to be buried. Her lips could then just faintly return the kiss, and no more — a film came over the now dim blue of her eyes — the father listened for her breath — and then the mother took his place, and leaned her ear to the unbreathing mouth, long deluding herself with its lifelike smile ; but a sudden darkness in the room, and a sudden stillness, most dreadful both, con- vinced their unbelieving hearts at last, that it was death. All the parish, it might be said, attended her funeral — for none stayed away from the kirk that Sabbath — though many a voice was unable to join in the Psalm. The little grave was soon filled up — and you hardly knew that the turf had been disturbed beneath which she lay. The afternoon service consisted but of a prayer — for he who ministered, had loved her with love unspeakable — and, though an old gray-haired man, all the time he prayed he wept. In the sobbing kirk her parents were sitting, but no one looked at them — and when the congregation rose to go, there they remained sitting — and an hour afterwards came out again into the open air, and parting with their pas- tor at the gate, walked away to their hut, ovei-shadowed with the blessings of a thousand prayers. 25* 306 friendship's gift. And did her parents, soon after she was buried, die of broken hearts, or pine awaj disconsolately to their graves ? Think not that they, who were Christians indeed, could be guilty of such ingratitude. " The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away — blessed be the name of the Lord ! " were the first words they had spoken by that bedside ; during many, many long years of weal or woe, duly every morning and night, these same blessed words did they utter when on then' knees together in prayer — and many a thousand times besides, when they were apart, she in her silent hut, and he on the hill — neither of them unhappy in their solitude, though never again, perhaps, was his counte- nance so cheerful as of yore — and though often sud- denly amidst mirth or sunshine their eyes were seen to overflow. Happy had they been — as we mortal be- ings ever can be happy — during many pleasant years of wedded life before she had been bom. And happy were they — on the verge of old age — long after she had here ceased to be. Their Bible had indeed been an idle book — the Bible that belonged to " the Holy Child," — and idle all their kirk-goings with " the Holy Child," through the Sabbath-calm — had those inter- mediate years not left a power of bliss behind them triumphant over death and the grave. THE CLOUD. By SHELLEY. I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flovveriS, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shades for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rock'd to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain. And laugh as I pass in thunder. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white. While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my [)ilot sits. In a cavern under is fetter'd the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits ; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion This pilot js guiding me 308 Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea ; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains. Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The Spirit he loves remains ; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack. When the morning-star shines dead. As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthcjuake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above. With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove. That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon. Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnigiit breezes strewn ; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear. May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roofj The stars peep behind her and peer ; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees. When I widen the rent in my wind-built lent, THE CLOUD. 309 Till the calm rivers lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these. I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim. When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl, From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow. When the powers of the air are chain'd to my chair. Is the million-color'd bow ; The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, While the moist earth was laughing below. 1 am the daughter of earth and water. And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare. And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams. Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph. And out of the caverns of rain. Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. THE FUGITIVES. BY SHELLEY. I. The waters are flashing, The white hail is dashing, The lightnings are glancing, The hoar-spray is dancing — Away ! The whirlwind is rolling. The thunder is tolling, The forest is swinging. The minster-bells ringing — Come away ! The Earth is like Ocean, Wreck-strewn and in motion Bird, beast, man and worm Have crept out of the storm — Come away ! II. " Our boat has one sail, And the helmsman is pale ; — THE FUGITIVES. A bold pilot I trow, Who should follow us now," — Shouted He — And she cried : " Ply the oar ! Put off gaily from shore !" As she spoke, bolts of death Mix'd with hail speck'd their patli O'er the sea. And from isle, tower and rock, The blue beacon cloud broke. And though dumb in the blast, The red cannon flash'd fast From the lee. III. " And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou ? And see'st thou, and hear'st thou ? And drive we not free O'er the terrible sea, land thou?" One boat-cloak did cover The loved and the lover — Their blood beats one measure, They murmur proud pleasure Soft and low ; — While around the lash'd Ocean, Like mountains in motion. Is withdrawn and uplifted. Sunk, shatter'd and shifted, To and fro. 311 tilil FRIENDSHIP S GIFT. IV. In the court of the fortress, Beside the pale portress, Like a blood-hound well beaten, The bridegroom stands, eaten « By shame ; On the topmost watch-turref, As a death-boding spirit, Stands the gray tyrant father. To his voice the mad weather Seems tame ; And with curses as wild As ere clung to child, He devotes to the blast The best, loveliest, and last Of his name! (: J RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO ^^ 1 98 Main Stacks LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS. Renewls and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by caillng 642-3405. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW UC' • ' ■-:: FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY CA 94720-6000 [vi64479 Fife THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY % ^sAr atrnrisix^m,. ^M