For we must part, and die apart!

                LU LU.

    The shining cloud that broods above the hill,
    Casts down its shadows over all the lawns,
    The snowy swan is sailing out to sea,
    Leaving behind a ruffled surge of light!
    Lu Lu is like a cloud in memory,
    And shades the ancient brightness of my mind:
    A swan upon the ocean of my heart,
    Floating along a path of golden thought!

    The light of evening slants adown the sky,
    Poured from the inner folds of western cloud;
    But in the cast there is a spot of blue,
    And in that heavenly spot the evening star!
    The tresses of Lu Lu are like the light,
    Gushing from out her turban down her neck;
    And like that Eye of heaven, her mild blue eye,
    And in its deeps there hangs a starry tear!

     THOSE WHO LOVE LIKE ME.

    Those who love like me,
      When their meeting ends
    Friends can hardly be,
      But less or more than friends!

    With common words, and smiles,
      We cannot meet, and part,
    For something will prevent--
      Something in the heart!

    The thought of other days,
      The dream of other years;
    With other words, and smiles,
      And other sighs and tears!

    For all who love like me,
      When their parting ends,
    Friends must never be,
      But more or less than friends!

            TO THE WINDS

    Blow fair to-day, ye changing Winds!
      And smooth the story sea;
    For now ye waft a sacred bark,
      And bear a friend from me.
    From you he flies, ye Northern Winds,
      Your Southern mates to seek;
    So urge his keel until he feels
      Their kisses on his cheek:
    And when their tropic kisses warm,
      And tropic skies impart,
    Their floods of sunshine to his veins,
      Their gladness to his heart--
    Blow fair again, ye happy Winds!
      And smooth again the sea,
    For then ye'll waft the blessed bark,
      And bear my friend to me!

    "WIND OF SUMMER, MURMUR LOW."

    Wind of summer, murmur low,
    Where the charméd waters flow,
    While the songs of day are dying,
    And the bees are homeward flying,
    As the breezes come and go.
    Come and go, hum and blow,
    Winds of summer, sweet and low,
    Ere my lover sinks to rest,
    While he lies upon my breast,
    Kiss his forehead, pale and fair,
    Kiss the ringlets of his hair,
    Kiss his heavy-lidded eyes,
    Where the mist of slumber lies;
    Kiss his throat, his cheek, his brow,
    And his red, red lips, as I do now,
    While he sleeps so sound and slow,
    On the heart that loves him so,
    Dreaming of the sad, and olden,
    And the loving, and the golden
    Wind of summers long ago!

THE LATE ELIOT WARBURTON.

The melancholy fate of the author of _The Crescent and the Cross_,
_Canada_, _Darien_, &c., has been stated in these pages. In Great
Britain, where he was well known and highly esteemed by literary men,
there have been many feeling and apparently just tributes to his memory,
one of the most interesting of which is a memoir in the _Dublin
University Magazine_, from which we transcribe the following paragraphs:

     "It was during an extended tour in the Mediterranean about
     ten years ago, that Mr. Warburton sent some sheets of
     manuscript notes to Mr. Lever, at that time Editor of the
     _Dublin University Magazine_. These at once caught that
     gentleman's attention, and he gladly gave them publicity,
     under the title of "Episodes of Eastern Travel," in
     successive numbers of the magazine, where they were
     universally admired for the grace and liveliness of their
     style. Mr. Lever, however, soon saw that though for the
     purposes of his periodical these papers were extremely
     valuable, the author was not consulting his own best
     interests by continuing to give his travels to the world in
     that form; and, with generous disinterestedness, advised him
     to collect what he had already published, and the remainder
     of his notes, and make a book of the whole. Mr. Warburton
     followed his advice, entered into terms with Mr. Colburn,
     and published his travels under the title of 'The Crescent
     and the Cross.'

     "Of this book it is needless for us to speak. In spite of
     the formidable rivalry of an 'Eothen,' which appeared about
     the same time, it sprang at once into public favor, and is
     one of the very few books of modern travels of which the
     sale has continued uninterrupted through successive editions
     to the present time. Were we to pronounce upon the secret of
     its success, we should lay it to its perfect
     _right-mindedness_. A changeful truth, a versatile propriety
     of feeling initiates the author, as it were, into the heart
     of each successive subject; and we find him as profoundly
     impressed with the genius of the Holy Land, as he is
     steeped, in the proper place, in the slumberous influences
     of the dreamy Nile, upon whose bosom he rocks his readers
     into a trance, to be awakened only by the gladsome
     originality of these melodies which come mirthfully on their
     ears from either bank. And, we may observe in passing, it is
     precisely the _want_ of this, which prevents the
     indisputable power and grace of 'Eothen' from having their
     full effect with the public.

     "Passages of beauty, almost of sublimity, stand isolated
     from our sympathies by the interposed cynicism of a few
     caustic remarks; and scenes of the world's most ancient
     reverence and worship become needlessly disenchanted under
     the spell of some skeptical sneer.

     "But we must not turn aside to criticise. Since the
     publication of the 'Crescent and the Cross,' Mr. Warburton
     has written, or edited, a number of works, some historical,
     others of fiction, of which his last romance, 'Darien,' only
     appeared as he was on the eve of departing on the fatal
     voyage. It has been remarked as a singular circumstance,
     that in this tale has prefigured his own fate. A burning
     ship is described in terms which would have served as a
     picture of the frightful reality he was himself doomed to
     witness. The coincidence, casual as it is, has imparted a
     melancholy interest to that story, which will long be wept
     over as the parting and presaging legacy of a gifted spirit,
     prematurely snatched away.

     "These lighter effusions most probably grew out of the
     craving of the publishers for the _prestige_ of his name,
     already found to be valuable even on title-pages; and the
     ready market they commanded could not but prove an
     excitement to continue and multiply them. This might be
     considered in an ulterior sense unfortunate; for we are
     inclined to think that the true bent of Mr. Warburton's
     mind, if not of his talents, was towards graver and less
     imaginative studies; and we know that this propensity was
     growing upon him with maturer years and soberer reflections.

     "It is not exclusively from the bearing of his researches
     and the general drift of his correspondence that we infer
     this; though both set latterly in that direction. He had for
     some time been actually at work with definite objects in
     view. One subject which he took up warmly was a _British_
     History of Ireland; that is, a history intended to deal
     impartial justice between the Irish people on the one side,
     and the British empire on the other; reviewing the politics
     of successive periods, neither from the Irish nor the
     English side of the question, but with reference to the
     general interests of the whole.

     "The task, would have proved an arduous one, under any
     circumstances--perhaps an invidious one; but what was worse,
     even when accomplished, the book might have turned out a
     dull affair. So, with a view to lightening the reading, he
     had proposed to embody with it memoirs of the Viceroys, thus
     keeping the British connection prominent, while enlivening
     the pages with biographical touches.

     "Acting on these ideas, he had actually begun a 'History of
     the Viceroys' in conjunction with a literary friend, and was
     only deterred from prosecuting it by the apathy, or rather
     discouragement, of the London publishers, who felt no
     inclination to venture upon an Irish historical speculation.
     Unfortunately, neither he nor his friend could afford to
     pursue the task gratuitously, and it was accordingly
     abandoned.

     "Still later, he employed himself in collecting materials
     for a History of the Poor--a vast theme; perhaps too vast
     for a single intellect to grasp. To him, however, it was a
     labor of love; and he had succeeded in getting together a
     considerable mass of curious and valuable material _pour
     servir_. His last visit to his native country had researches
     of this nature for one of its objects; and we are sure many
     persons connected with the charitable institutions of
     Dublin, will recollect the persevering zeal with which he
     visited the haunts of poverty, as well as the asylums for
     its relief, noting down every thing which might prove
     afterwards serviceable on that suggestive topic.

     "With an upwelling of philanthropy so pure and perennial as
     this, the preliminary investigations could have been only a
     delight to him. Other men might be forced to them as a
     revolting duty; he chose the inquiry, with very dubious
     hopes of bettering himself by prosecuting it, because his
     heart was full of compassion, and he thought he might do
     good. We repeat, what we can state from personal knowledge,
     that the bent of Mr. Warburton's mind was latterly towards
     works of general utility; and it is with great satisfaction
     we learn, what we had not been aware of until the public
     papers announced it, that his projected visit to the New
     World was a mission, in which the interests of humanity were
     to have in him an advocate and champion.

     "Into his private life we feel that, under present
     circumstances, it would be indelicate, as well as out of
     place, to enter. Surrounded as he was with all the blessings
     which the domestic relations can bestow, beloved by his
     intimates, caressed by the gifted and the good, Eliot
     Warburton lived the centre of a radiating circle of
     happiness. His personal qualities were of no common order.
     His society was eagerly sought after. With a fastidious
     lassitude of air, and an apparent disinclination to
     exertion, he possessed remarkable force of thought and
     fluency of diction; and it was no uncommon thing to see him,
     when he had begun to relate passages from his experience in
     foreign countries, or adventures in his own, the centre of a
     gradually increasing audience, amidst which he sat,
     improvisating a sort of romantic recitation, until he was
     completely carried away on the current of his own eloquence,
     and lost every sense of where he was or what he was doing,
     in the enthusiasm he had fanned up and saw reflected around
     him. This power was a peculiar gift; and he loved to
     exercise it. In this form many of his happiest effusions
     have been given utterance to; and every body who has heard
     him at such inspired moments has felt regret that the
     brilliant bursts which so delighted him, should have been
     stamped upon no more retentive tablets than the ears of
     ordinary listeners.

     "Of this amiable, refined and gifted individual, we are
     afraid to speak as warmly as our heart would dictate. Before
     us lie the few hasty lines--but not too hurried to be the
     channel of a parting kindness--scrawled to us on the first
     day of this year--the last day the writer was ever to pass
     in England. They are, perhaps, amongst the latest words he
     ever wrote. 'I am off,' they run 'for the West Indies
     to-morrow. _But I have accomplished your affair._' Oh,
     vanity of human purpose! Man proposes--God disposes. We were
     next to hear of him, standing on the deck of the burning
     vessel in the Atlantic, alone with the captain, after every
     other soul had disappeared, surveying--we feel convinced,
     with a courage of a lion--the awful twofold death close
     before him, and which he had in probability deliberately
     preferred to an early relinquishment of his companions to
     their fate. It is a fine picture--one that shall every hang
     framed with his image in our memory; helping us to believe
     that

    "'-----Lycidas our sorrow is not dead.
    Sunk though he be beneath the watery flood,'--

     But that he hath mounted to a higher sphere--

    "'Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves.'"

AUTHOR OF "THE FOOL OF QUALITY."

Of the interesting papers in the February Dublin University Magazine, we
have read none with more satisfaction than the biographical sketch and
portrait of one of the most distinguished Irishmen of his own or any
age, the gifted and pure minded author of _Gustavus Vasa_ and _The Fool
of Quality_, HENRY BROOKE. Of his literary fate it might be said that
the most unfortunate thing he did was to assert the patriotism of Dean
Swift; and the most unfortunate thing was to be left out of Doctor
Johnson's "Lives of the Poets." Trials had he to undergo, although not
absolutely driven to the wall, like many children of "the fatal dowry,"
and those of Irish complexion, in particular; but he bravely bore up
against them. Those who deem that relatives may live more happily apart,
and that friendship is best preserved in full dress, may look at the
picture of Henry Brooke, the poet and politician, and Robert Brooke, the
painter, with their wives and children, not less than twenty, living
together in perfect peace and amity at Daisy Park, in the flattest part
of Kildare, where, in those dull seats and distant times, a family
breeze might now and then have been looked on in the Irish sense as a
"convenience and a comfort." "While Henry wrote," says the biographer,
"Robert painted, and sold his pictures; and thus these two loving
brothers, having lost their property, made a right and manful use of
their intellectual gifts, and supported their large families by the
sweat of their brows."

     "In his politics, Brooke was of the old whig school; and,
     had he lived in 1829, he would probably have been an
     emancipator. He was a right-minded, ardent Irishman in his
     love for fatherland; hated oppression; idolized liberty;
     wrote most keenly against Poyning's infamous laws; mourned
     over the misrule and misgovernment of his country, under the
     tyranny and rapacity of the Stuart dynasty; admired King
     William, and was an exulting Protestant; yet greatly loved
     his Roman Catholic neighbors, and would preserve to them
     their properties, though he disliked their principles, and
     deprecated their ascendency."

Dr. Johnson's feelings respecting Brooke are accounted for, not
improbably, as follows:

     "It may be asked why did Dr. Johnson exclude Brooke from his
     'Lives of the Poets,' where so many names of little note are
     to be found? In 1739, Johnson had written in Brooke's praise
     in his 'Complete Vindication,' and twenty years afterwards,
     when the learned Dr. Campbell showed a spirited 'Prospectus
     of a History of Ireland' written by him, to the great
     moralist, he read it with much pleasure and praise, saying
     that 'every line breathed the true fire of genius.' It is
     recorded that, on this occasion, Johnson lamented that 'the
     vanity of Irishmen, even if their patriotism were extinct,
     did not enable Brooke to carry his design into execution.'
     In Johnson's letter to Charles O'Connor we have his mind on
     the subject. To Brooke he appears never to have written;
     there had been an ancient quarrel between them. They had
     argued and disagreed; and the traditionary story in Brooke's
     family bears _so_ heavily on the manner of the philosopher,
     and is _so_ flattering to the courtesy of the poet, that we
     should prefer not to write it down. Brooke was at all times
     strangely careless of fame; independent to a fault, and more
     proud than vain; and though much urged by his friends to
     humble himself, yet he could not be induced to 'bow down' to
     the cap of this literary Gesler, much as he regarded his
     learning and noble intellect. This dislike of the Doctor
     continued during his life; and Boswell narrates that on the
     occasion of a play being read to him (it was Brooke's
     _Gustavus Vasa_) and a circle of friends, on coming to the
     line--

    "Who rules o'er free men should himself be free!'

     the company applauded, but Johnson said it might as well be
     said--

    "'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat--'

     a stupid and inapt verbal sophism, and unworthy of his great
     and good mind; but such was often his way. In this fashion
     one might string endless parodies on the line, and equally
     inapplicable; for example:--

    "'Who keeps a madhouse should himself be mad!'

     "Mr. Brooke's elegant and honest mind probably had in view
     that word of Scripture which saith, 'he that ruleth his own
     spirit is better than he who taketh a city'--(Prov. xvi.
     32.)

"By this unhappy difference Brooke lost his Johnsonian niche in the
temple of biographical fame. Yet we must remember that a better fate was
his,--'his record is on high,'--and his spirit with that Saviour who
loved him and made him what he was. Faults and inconsistency were in
him, no doubt, but still we know not of any of whom it could be so well
and suitably said--

    "'His life was gentle, and the elements
    So mixed him, that Nature might stand up
    And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'"

BANCROFT'S AMERICAN REVOLUTION.[5]

From the Westminster Review.

Among the historians who have attained a high and deserved reputation in
the United States, within the last few years, we are inclined to yield
the first place to George Bancroft. His great work on the history of the
United States has been brought down from the commencement of American
colonization to the opening of the Revolutionary War, to which subject
it is understood that he intends devoting the three succeeding volumes.
His researches in the public offices of England, while he was Minister
of the United States at the Court of St. James, have brought to light a
great mass of documentary evidence on the antecedents and course of the
Revolution, which have not yet been made public. With his critical
sagacity in sifting evidence, his hound-like instinct in scenting every
particle of testimony that can lead him on the right-track, and his
plastic skill in moulding the most confused and discordant materials
into a compact, symmetrical, and truthful narrative, he cannot fail to
present the story of that great historical drama with a freshness,
accuracy, and artistic beauty, worthy of the immortal events which it
commemorates. Mr. Bancroft is now exclusively occupied in the
completion of this work. He pursues it with the drudging fidelity of a
mechanical laborer, combined with the enthusiasm of a poet and the
comprehensive wisdom of a statesman. With strong social tastes, he gives
little time to society. His favorite post is in his library, where he
labors the live-long day in the spirit of the ancient artist, _Nulla
dies sine linea_. His experience in political and diplomatic life, no
less than his rare and generous culture, and his singular union of the
highest mental faculties, enable us to predict with confidence that this
work will be reckoned among the genuine masterpieces of historical
genius. The volumes of the History of the United States already
published, are well known to intelligent readers both in Great Britain
and America. They are distinguished for their compact brevity of
statement, their terse and vigorous diction, their brilliant panoramic
views, and the boldness and grace of their sketches of personal
character. A still higher praise may be awarded to this history for the
tenacity with which it clings to the dominant and inspiring idea of
which it records the development. Whoever reads it without comprehending
the standpoint of the author, is liable to disappointment. For it must
be confessed that as a mere narrative of events, the preference may be
given to the productions of far inferior authors. But it is to be
regarded as an epic in prose of the triumph of freedom. This noble
principle is considered by Mr. Bancroft as an essential attribute of the
soul, necessarily asserting itself in proportion to the spiritual
supremacy which has been achieved. The history, then, is devoted to the
illustration of the progress of freedom, as an out-birth of the
spontaneous action of the soul. It is in this point of view that the
remarkable chapters on the Massachusetts Pilgrims, the Pennsylvania
Quakers, and the North American Indians, were written; and their full
purport, their profound significance, can only be appreciated by readers
whose minds possess at least the seeds of sympathy and cognateness with
this sublime philosophy. The chapter on the Quakers is a pregnant
psychological treatise. Sparkling all over with the electric lights of a
rich humanitary philosophy, it invests the theologic visions of Fox and
Barclay with a radiance and beauty which have been ill-preserved in the
formal and lifeless organic systems of their successors. The parallel
run by the historian between William Penn and John Locke is one of the
most characteristic productions of his peculiar genius. Original,
subtle, suggestive, crowded with matter and frugal of words, it brings
out the distinctive features of the spiritual and mechanical schools in
the persons of two of their 'representative men,' with a breadth and
reality which is seldom found in philosophical portraitures. Mr.
Bancroft was the son of an eminent Unitarian clergyman in Worcester,
Massachusetts. He was born about the beginning of the present century,
and is consequently a little more than fifty years of age. He graduated
at Harvard University, with distinguished honors, before he had
completed his fifteenth year. Soon after he sailed for Europe, and
continued his studies at the German Universities, returning to his own
country just before the attainment of his majority. Devoting himself for
several years to literary and educational pursuits, he acquired a
brilliant reputation as a poet, critic, and essayist; and at a
subsequent period, entering the career of politics, he has signalized
himself by his attachment to democratic ideas, and the eloquence and
force with which on all occasions he has sustained the principles with
the prevalence of which he identifies the progress of humanity.

From the Athenæum.

The further this work proceeds, the more do we feel that it must take
its place as an essentially satisfactory history of the United States.
Mr. Bancroft is thoroughly American in thought and in feeling, without
ceasing to have those larger views and nobler sympathies which result
from cosmopolitan rather than from local training. His style is original
and national. It breathes of the mountain and the prairie--of the great
lakes and wild savannahs of his native land. A strain of wild and
forest-like music swells up in almost every line. The story is told
richly and vividly. It has hitherto been thought by Americans
themselves, even more than by Europeans, that the story of the English
colonies presented but a dreary and lifeless succession of petty
squabbles between the settlers and the crown officers--of unintelligible
persecutions of each other on the ground of differences of opinion in
religion. Mr. Bancroft has shown how ill founded has been this
impression. In his hands American history is full of fine effects.
Steeped in the colors of his imagination, a thousand incidents hitherto
thought dull appear animated and pictorial. Between Hildreth and
Bancroft the difference is immense. In the treatment of the former,
dates, facts, events are duly stated--the criticism is keen, the
chronology indisputable,--but the figures do not live, the narrative
knows no march. The latter is all movement. His men glow with human
purposes,--his story sweeps on with the exulting life of a procession.

Yet because Mr. Bancroft contrives to bring out the more romantic
aspects of his theme, it is not to be supposed that he fails in that
strict regard to truth--truth of character as well as of incident--which
is the historian's first duty, and without which all other qualities are
useless. Of all American writers who have written on the history of
their own country, we would pronounce him to be the most conscientious.
His former volumes were remarkable for the amplitude and accuracy of
their references. The authorities cited were often recondite and
obscure,--yet it was evident that they had been sifted carefully and
critically. The same may be said of the volume before us.

Careful research had enabled Mr. Bancroft to throw new light on several
points connected with the settlement and early history of his country.
As his dates approach nearer to the present time, the sources of new
information open on him in abundance. The MS, additions to our knowledge
of the times treated of in these volumes are considerable; but they are
spread pretty fairly over the entire narrative--lending a new light to
the events and adding a new trait to the characters--rather than thrown
into masses. The effect produced is more that of greater roundness and
completion than of absolute change in old historical verdicts. We quote
one out of innumerable instances of these minute but characteristic
additions. The historian is speaking of the Duke of Newcastle,--whose
ignorant government of the colonies was one of the chief sources of
their discontent:--

     "For nearly four-and-twenty years he remained minister for
     British America; yet to the last, the statesman, who was
     deeply versed in the statistics of elections, knew little of
     the continent of which he was the guardian. He addressed
     letters, it used to be confidently said, to 'the island of
     New England,' and could not tell but that Jamaica was in the
     Mediterranean. Heaps of colonial memorials and letters
     remained unread in his office; and a paper was almost sure
     of neglect unless some agent remained with him to see it
     opened. His frivolous nature could never glow with
     affection, or grasp a great idea, or analyze complex
     relations. After long research, I cannot find that he ever
     once attended seriously to an American question, or had a
     clear conception of one American measure."

Walpole had told us that Newcastle did not know where Jamaica was:--the
amusing address "Island of New England" Mr. Bancroft finds referred to
in a manuscript letter of J. Q. Adams. It serves to suggest that what is
usually thought to be a joke of Walpole's was probably the literal
truth:--the man who is sufficiently innocent of geography to make New
England an island, would have no difficulty in confounding the East and
West Indies.

In this volume we first meet with the great character who is to be the
hero of the Revolution now looming before the reader. Mr. Bancroft
treats us to no full-length portrait of George Washington:--instead of a
picture he presents us with the man. Washington comes before us at
twenty-one,--in the chamber of Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia; from
whom he is accepting a perilous but most important mission--to cross the
forests, rivers, and mountains which separate Williamsburg and Lake
Erie, in the depths of a severe winter, and there endeavor to detach the
Delaware Indians from the French alliance. All the elements of
Washington's greatness--his courage, hardihood, military prescience, and
merciful disposition--are stamped indelibly on this the first act of his
public life:--

     "In the middle of November, with an interpreter and four
     attendants, and Christopher Gist as a guide, he left Will's
     Creek, and following the Indian trace through forest
     solitudes, gloomy with the fallen leaves, and solemn sadness
     of late autumn, across mountains, rocky ravines, and
     streams, through sleet and snows, he rode in nine days to
     the fork of the Ohio. How lonely was the spot, where, so
     long unheeded of men, the rapid Allegheny met nearly at
     right angles 'the deep and still' water of the Monongahela!
     At once Washington foresaw the destiny of the place. 'I
     spent some time,' said he, 'in viewing the rivers;' 'the
     land in the Fork has the absolute command of both.' 'The
     flat, well-timbered land all around the point lies very
     convenient for building.' After creating in imagination a
     fortress and a city, he and his party swam their horses
     across the Allegheny, and wrapt their blankets around them
     for the night, on its northwest bank. From the Fork the
     chief of the Delawares conducted Washington through rich
     alluvial fields to the pleasing valley at Logstown. There
     deserters from Louisiana discoursed of the route from New
     Orleans to Quebec, by way of the Wabash and the Maumee, and
     of a detachment from the lower province on its way to meet
     the French troops from Lake Erie, while Washington held
     close colloquy with the half-king; the one anxious to gain
     the west as a part of the territory of the ancient dominion,
     the other to preserve it for the Red Men. 'We are brothers,'
     said the half-king in council; 'we are one people; I will
     send back the French speech-belt, and will make the Shawnees
     and the Delawares do the same.' On the night of the
     twenty-ninth of November, the council-fire was kindled an
     aged orator was selected to address the French the speech
     which he was to deliver was debated and rehearsed; it was
     agreed that, unless the French would heed this third warning
     to quit the land, the Delawares also would be their enemies;
     and a very large string of black and white wampun was sent
     to the Six Nations as a prayer for aid. After these
     preparations, the party of Washington, attended by the
     half-king, and envoys of the Delawares, moved onwards to the
     post of the French at Venango. The officers there avowed the
     purpose of taking possession of the Ohio; and they mingled
     the praises of La Salle with boasts of their forts at Le
     Boeuf and Erie, at Niagara, Toronto, and Frontenac. 'The
     English,' said they, 'can raise two men to our one; but they
     are too dilatory to prevent any enterprise of ours.' The
     Delawares were intimidated or debauched; but the half-king
     clung to Washington like a brother, and delivered up his
     belt as he had promised. The rains of December had swollen
     the creeks. The messengers could pass them only by felling
     trees for bridges. Thus they proceeded, now killing a buck
     and now a bear, delayed by excessive rains and snows, by
     mire and swamps, while Washington's quick eye discerned all
     the richness of the meadows. At Waterford, the limit of his
     journey, he found Fort Le Boeuf defended by cannon. Around
     it stood the barracks of the soldiers, rude log-cabins,
     roofed with bark. Fifty birch-bark canoes, and one hundred
     seventy boats of pine, were already prepared for the descent
     of the river, and materials were collected for building
     more. The Commander, Gardeur de St. Pierre, an officer of
     integrity and experience, and, for his dauntless courage,
     both feared and beloved by the Red Men, refused to discuss
     questions of right. 'I am here,' said he, 'by the orders of
     my general, to which I shall conform with exactness and
     resolution.' And he avowed his purpose of seizing every
     Englishman within the Ohio Valley. France was resolved on
     possessing the great territory which her missionaries and
     travellers had revealed to the world. Breaking away from
     courtesies, Washington hastened homewards to Virginia. The
     rapid current of French Creek dashed his party against
     rocks; in shallow places they waded, the water congealing on
     their clothes; where the ice had lodged in the bend of the
     rivers, they carried their canoe across the neck. At
     Venango, they found their horses, but so weak, the
     travellers went still on foot, heedless of the storm. The
     cold increased very fast; the paths grew 'worse by a deep
     snow continually freezing.' Impatient to get back with his
     despatches, the young envoy, wrapping himself in an Indian
     dress, with gun in hand and pack on his back, the day after
     Christmas quitted the usual path, and, with Gist for his
     sole companion, by aid of the compass, steered the nearest
     way across the country for the Fork. An Indian, who had lain
     in wait for him, fired at him from not fifteen steps'
     distance, but, missing him, became his prisoner. 'I would
     have killed him,' wrote Gist, 'but Washington forbade.'
     Dismissing their captive at night, they walked about half a
     mile, then kindled a fire, fixed their course by the
     compass, and continued travelling all night, and all the
     next day, till quite dark. Not till then did the weary
     wanderers 'think themselves safe enough to sleep,' and they
     encamped, with no shelter but the leafless forest-tree. On
     reaching the Allegheny, with one poor hatchet and a whole
     day's work, a raft was constructed and launched. But before
     they were half over the river, they were caught in the
     running ice, expecting every moment to be crushed, unable to
     reach either shore. Putting out the setting-pole to stop the
     raft, Washington was jerked into the deep water, and saved
     himself only by grasping at the raft-logs. They were obliged
     to make for an island. There lay Washington, imprisoned by
     the elements; but the late December night was intensely
     cold, and in the morning he found the river frozen. Not till
     he reached Gist's settlement, in January, 1754, were his
     toils lightened."

Washington reported the state of affairs on the Lakes,--and active
measures were consequently adopted. Of the rapid and brilliant
development of his military genius, we are not now to trace the
progress; but it is scarcely possible to read without a shudder of "the
hair-breadth 'scapes" of the young man whose life was of such
inestimable consequence to his country. Thus, in the battle fought by
Braddock--to whom Washington acted as aide-de-camp--against the French
and Indians in 1755, he appeared to others as well as to himself to bear
a charmed life. In this action, says Mr. Bancroft,--

     "Of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed--among them,
     Sir Peter Halket,--and thirty-seven were wounded, including
     Gage and other field officers. Of the men, one half were
     killed or wounded. Braddock braved every danger. His
     secretary was shot dead; both his English aids were disabled
     early in the engagement, leaving the American alone to
     distribute his orders. 'I expected every moment,' said one
     whose eye was on Washington, 'to see him fall.' Nothing but
     the superintending care of Providence could have saved him.
     An Indian chief--I suppose a Shawnee--singled him out with
     his rifle, and bade others of his warriors do the same. Two
     horses were killed under him; four balls penetrated his
     coat. 'Some potent Manitou guards his life,' exclaimed the
     savage. 'Death,' wrote Washington, 'was levelling my
     companions on every side of me, but, by the all-powerful
     dispensations of Providence, I have been protected.' 'To the
     public,' said Davis, a learned divine, in the following
     month, 'I point out that heroic youth, Colonel Washington,
     whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal
     a manner for some important service to his country.' 'Who is
     Mr. Washington?' asked Lord Halifax, a few months later. 'I
     know nothing of him,' he added, 'but that they say he
     behaved in Braddock's action as bravely as if he really
     loved the whistling of bullets.'"

Thus opened that career of glory, moderation, and success--thus, at the
period of nascent manhood were exhibited the marking traits of that
serene and devoted character--which have placed the name of Washington
on the noblest and loftiest pedestal in the Temple of Fame.

Leaving for a while the only figure in that scene of miserable and
savage warfare on which the mind can dwell with any degree of trust and
satisfaction, we will move to the north-east of the English settlements,
and follow the story of the unhappy people of Acadia. Mr. Bancroft has
drawn a touching picture of the homely virtues and obscure happiness of
this rural population before the interference of the British officers
changed their joy into wailing, and endowed their simple annals with a
dark and tragic interest:--

     "After repeated conquests and restorations, the treaty of
     Utrecht conceded Acadia, or Nova Scotia, to Great Britain.
     Yet the name of Annapolis, the presence of a feeble English
     garrison, and the emigration of hardly five or six English
     families, were nearly all that marked the supremacy of
     England. The old inhabitants remained on the soil which they
     had subdued, hardly conscious that they had changed their
     sovereign. They still loved the language and the usages of
     their forefathers, and their religion was graven upon their
     souls. They promised submission to England; but such was the
     love with which France had inspired them, they would not
     fight against its standard or renounce its name. Though
     conquered they were French neutrals. For nearly forty years
     from the peace of Utrecht they had been forgotten or
     neglected, and had prospered in their seclusion. No
     tax-gatherer counted their folds, no magistrate dwelt in
     their hamlets. The parish priests made their records and
     regulated their successions. Their little disputes were
     settled among themselves, with scarcely an instance of an
     appeal to English authority at Annapolis. The pastures were
     covered with their herds and flocks; and dikes, raised by
     extraordinary efforts of social industry, shut out the
     rivers and the tide from alluvial marshes of exuberant
     fertility. The meadows, thus reclaimed, were covered by
     richest grasses, or fields of wheat, that yielded fifty and
     thirty fold at the harvest. Their houses were built in
     clusters, neatly constructed and comfortably furnished, and
     around them all kinds of domestic fowls abounded. With the
     spinning-wheel and the loom, their women made, of flax from
     their own fields, of fleeces from their own flock, coarse,
     but sufficient clothing. The few foreign luxuries that were
     coveted could be obtained from Annapolis or Louisburgh, in
     return for furs, or wheat, or cattle. Thus were the Acadians
     happy in their neutrality and in the abundance which they
     drew from their native land. They formed, as it were, one
     great family. Their morals were of unaffected purity. Love
     was sanctified and calmed by the universal custom of early
     marriages. The neighbors of the community would assist the
     new couple to raise their cottage, while the wilderness
     offered land. Their numbers increased, and the colony, which
     had begun only as the trading station of a company, with a
     monopoly of the fur trade, counted, perhaps, sixteen or
     seventeen thousand inhabitants."

The transfer of this colony from French to English rule could not fail
to be productive of some untoward results. The native priests feared the
introduction among them of heretical opinions:--the British officers
treated the people with insolent contempt. "Their papers and records"
says our historian, "were taken from them" by their new masters:--

     "Was their property demanded for the public service? 'they
     were not to be bargained with for the payment.' The order
     may still be read on the Council records at Halifax. They
     must comply, it was written, without making any terms,
     'immediately,' or 'the next courier would bring an order for
     military execution upon the delinquents.' And when they
     delayed in fetching firewood for their oppressors, it was
     told them from the governor, 'If they do not do it in proper
     time, the soldiers shall absolutely take their houses for
     fuel.' The unoffending sufferers submitted meekly to the
     tyranny. Under pretence of fearing that they might rise in
     behalf of France, or seek shelter in Canada, or convey
     provisions to the French garrisons, they were ordered to
     surrender their boats and their firearms; and, conscious of
     innocence, they gave up their barges and their muskets,
     leaving themselves without the means of flight, and
     defenceless. Further orders were afterwards given to the
     English officers, if the Acadians behaved amiss to punish
     them at discretion; if the troops were annoyed, to inflict
     vengeance on the nearest, whether the guilty one or
     not,--'taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"

There is no reason to believe that these atrocious orders were not
executed in the spirit in which they had been conceived. But worse
remained to come:--

     "The Acadians cowered before their masters, hoping
     forbearance; willing to take an oath of fealty to England;
     in their single-mindedness and sincerity, refusing to pledge
     themselves to bear arms against France. The English were
     masters of the sea, were undisputed lords of the country,
     and could exercise clemency without apprehension. Not a
     whisper gave a warning of their purpose till it was ripe for
     execution. But it had been 'determined upon' after the
     ancient device of Oriental despotism, that the French
     inhabitants of Acadia should be carried away into captivity
     to other parts of the British dominions. * * France
     remembered the descendants of her sons in the hour of their
     affliction, and asked that they might have time to remove
     from the peninsula with their effects, leaving their lands
     to the English; but the answer of the British Minister
     claimed them as useful subjects, and refused them the
     liberty of transmigration. The inhabitants of Minas and the
     adjacent country pleaded with the British officers for the
     restitution of their boats and their guns, promising
     fidelity, if they could but retain their liberties, and
     declaring that not the want of arms, but their conscience,
     should engage them not to revolt. 'The memorial,' said
     Lawrence in Council, 'is highly arrogant, insidious and
     insulting.' The memorialists, at his summons, came
     submissively to Halifax. 'You want your canoes for carrying
     provisions to the enemy,' said he to them, though he knew no
     enemy was left in their vicinity. 'Guns are no part of your
     goods,' he continued, 'as by the laws of England all Roman
     Catholics are restrained from having arms, and are subject
     to penalties if arms are found in their houses. It is not
     the language of British subjects to talk of terms with the
     Crown, or capitulate about their fidelity and allegiance.
     What excuse can you make for your presumption in treating
     this government with such indignity as to expound to them
     the nature of fidelity? Manifest your obedience by
     immediately taking the oaths of allegiance in the common
     form before the Council.' The deputies replied that they
     would do as the generality of the inhabitants should
     determine; and they merely entreated leave to return home
     and consult the body of their people. The next day, the
     unhappy men, foreseeing the sorrows that menaced them,
     offered to swear allegiance unconditionally."

But it was now too late. The savage purpose had been formed. That the
cruelty might have no excuse, it happened that while the scheme was
under discussion letters arrived leaving no doubt that all the shores of
the Bay of Fundy were in the possession of the British. It only remained
to be fixed how the exportation should be effected:--

     "To hunt them into the net was impracticable; artifice was
     therefore resorted to. By a general proclamation, on one and
     the same day, the scarcely conscious victims, 'both old men
     and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age,'
     were peremptorily ordered to assemble at their respective
     posts. On the appointed 5th of September, they obeyed. At
     Grand Pré, for example, 418 unarmed men came together. They
     were marched into the church, and its avenues were closed,
     when Winslow, the American commander, placed himself in
     their centre, and spoke:--'You are convened together to
     manifest to you His Majesty's final resolution to the
     French inhabitants of this his province. Your lands, and
     tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts,
     are forfeited to the crown, and you yourselves are to be
     removed from this his province. I am, through his Majesty's
     goodness, directed to allow you liberty to carry off your
     money and household goods, as many as you can, without
     discommoding the vessels you go in.' And he then declared
     them the King's prisoners. Their wives and families shared
     their lot; their sons, 527 in number, their daughters, 576;
     in the whole, women and babes and old men and children all
     included, 1,923 souls. The blow was sudden; they had left
     home but for the morning, and they never were to return.
     Their cattle were to stay unfed in the stalls, their fires
     to die out on their hearths. They had for that first day
     even no food for themselves or their children, and were
     compelled to beg for bread. The 10th of September was the
     day for the embarkation of a part of the exiles. They were
     drawn up six deep, and the young men, 161 in number, were
     ordered to march first on board the vessel. They could leave
     their farms and cottages, the shady rocks on which they had
     reclined, their herds and their garners; but nature yearned
     within them, and they would not be separated from their
     parents. Yet of what avail was the frenzied despair of the
     unarmed youth? They had not one weapon; the bayonet drove
     them to obey; and they marched slowly and heavily from the
     chapel to the shore, between women and children, who
     kneeling, prayed for blessings on their heads, they
     themselves weeping, and praying, and singing hymns. The
     seniors went next; the wives and children must wait till
     other transport vessels arrived. The delay had its horrors.
     The wretched people left behind were kept together near the
     sea, without proper food or raiment, or shelter, till other
     ships came to take them away; and December with its
     appalling cold had struck the shivering, half-clad,
     broken-hearted sufferers before the last of them were
     removed. 'The embarkation of the inhabitants goes on but
     slowly,' wrote Monckton, from Fort Cumberland, near which he
     had burned three hamlets, 'the most part of the wives of the
     men we have prisoners are gone off with their children, in
     hopes I would not send off their husbands without them.'
     Their hope was vain. Near Annapolis, a hundred heads of
     families fled to the woods, and a party was detached on the
     hunt to bring them in. 'Our soldiers hate them,' wrote an
     officer on this occasion, 'and if they can but find a
     pretext to kill them, they will.' Did a prisoner seek to
     escape, he was shot down by the sentinel. Yet some fled to
     Quebec; more than 3,000 had withdrawn to Miramichi and the
     region south of the Ristigouche; some found rest on the
     banks of the St. John's and its branches; some found a lair
     in their native forests; some were charitably sheltered from
     the English in the wigwams of the savages. But 7,000 of
     these banished people were driven on board ships, and
     scattered among the English colonies, from New Hampshire to
     Georgia alone; 1,020 to South Carolina alone. They were cast
     ashore without resources; hating the poor-house as a shelter
     for their offspring, and abhorring the thought of selling
     themselves as laborers. Households, too, were separated; the
     colonial newspapers contained advertisements of members of
     families seeking their companions, of sons anxious to reach
     and relieve their parents, of mothers mourning for their
     children. The wanderers sighed for their native country; but
     to prevent their return, their villages, from Annapolis to
     the isthmus, were laid waste. Their old homes were but
     ruins. In the district of Minas, for instance, 250 of their
     houses, and more than as many barns, were consumed. The live
     stock which belonged to them, consisting of great numbers of
     horned cattle, hogs, sheep, and horses, were seized as
     spoils and disposed of by the English officials. A beautiful
     and fertile tract of country was reduced to a solitude.
     There was none left round the ashes of the cottages of the
     Acadians but the faithful watch-dog, vainly seeking the
     hands that fed him. Thickets of forest-trees choked their
     orchards; the ocean broke over their neglected dikes, and
     desolated their meadows."

Nor were the woes of this ill-treated people ended:

     "Relentless misfortune pursued the exiles whereever they
     fled. Those sent to Georgia, drawn by a love for the spot
     where they were born as strong as that of the captive Jews,
     who wept by the side of the rivers of Babylon for their own
     temple and land, escaped to sea in boats, and went coasting
     from harbor to harbor; but when they had reached New
     England, just as they would have set sail for their native
     fields, they were stopped by orders from Nova Scotia. Those
     who dwelt on the St. John's were torn once more from their
     new homes. When Canada surrendered, hatred with its worst
     venom pursued the 1,500 who remained south of the
     Ristigouche. Once more those who dwelt in Pennsylvania
     presented a humble petition to the Earl of Loudoun, then the
     British Commander in-Chief in America; and the cold-hearted
     peer, offended that the prayer was made in French, seized
     their five principal men, who in their own land had been
     persons of dignity and substance, and shipped them to
     England, with the request that they might be kept from ever
     again becoming troublesome by being consigned to service as
     common sailors on board ships of war."

And so it was throughout:--"We have been true," said they in one of
their petitions, "to our religion, and true to ourselves; yet nature
appears to consider us only as the objects of public vengeance."--"I
know not," writes Mr. Bancroft, "if the annals of the human race keep
the records of wounds so wantonly inflicted, so bitter and so perennial
as fell upon the French inhabitants of Acadia."

American history has at least one element of peculiar character. The
voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers--the settlement of the Virginia
cavaliers--the foundation of Pennsylvania,--though all events of
profound moral interest, as well as productive of fine pictorial
effects, are not without parallels more or less close in the varied tale
of ancient and modern colonization. But that which is distinctive and
peculiar in the story of American civilization is, its struggle against
the Red Men. Settlers, it is true, have often found themselves in
strange company. In Africa the Greek colonizer elbowed the swarthy
Ethiop. In South America the Spaniard stood beside the Peruvian and the
Carib. Dutchmen have encountered the Malay and the Dyak. For two
centuries English settlers have had to deal with the uncivilized races
of the East and West--from the Bushmen of the Cape to the savages of New
Zealand. But none of these races present the same attractive features as
the brethren of the Iroquois and the Mohicans. About these latter there
are points of romantic and chivalric interest. Though not free from the
vices of the savage, they often exhibit virtues which might shame the
European. There is something of dignity in their aspect and bearing.
They are seldom without a natural and original poetic sense,--and their
language has a wild Ossianic music. They are bold in metaphor and apt in
natural illustration. A group of actors on the scene having
characteristics so peculiar and so attractive as the Red Skin is
invaluable to a historian whose tendency is to see events and note
character under their most pictorial aspects.

The part taken by the Indians in that war between the French and English
in America which ended in the conquest of Quebec and the expulsion of
the Lilies from Canada is narrated at great length by Mr. Bancroft,--and
the atrocious nature of the conflict is well brought out. At the
commencement of the war, we are allowed a glimpse at a curious
war-council:

     "'Brothers,' said the Delawares to the Miamis, 'we desire
     the English and the Six Nations to put their hands upon your
     heads, and keep the French from hurting you. Stand fast in
     the chain of friendship with the Government of Virginia.'
     'Brothers,' said the Miamis to the English, 'your country is
     smooth; your hearts are good; the dwellings of your
     governors are like the spring in its bloom.' 'Brothers,'
     they added to the Six Nations, holding aloft a calumet
     ornamented with feathers, 'the French and their Indians have
     struck us, yet we kept this pipe unhurt;' and they gave it
     to the Six Nations, in token of friendship with them and
     with their allies. A shell and a string of black wampum were
     given to signify the unity of heart; and that, though it was
     darkness to the westward, yet towards the sun-rising it was
     bright and clear. Another string of black wampum announced
     that the war-chiefs and braves of the Miamis held the
     hatchet in their hand, ready to strike the French. The
     widowed Queen of the Piankeshaws sent a belt of black shells
     intermixed with white. 'Brothers,' such were her words, 'I
     am left a poor, lonely woman, with one son, whom I commend
     to the English, the Six Nations, the Shawnees, and the
     Delawares, and pray them to take care of him.' The Weas
     produced a calumet. 'We have had this feathered pipe,' said
     they, 'from the beginning of the world; so that when it
     becomes cloudy, we can sweep the clouds away. It is dark in
     the west, yet we sweep all clouds away towards the
     sun-rising, and leave a clear and serene sky.' Thus, on the
     alluvial lands of Western Ohio, began the contest that was
     to scatter death broadcast through the world. All the
     speeches were delivered again to the Deputies of the
     Nations, represented at Logstown, that they might be
     correctly repeated to the head Council at Onondaga. An
     express messenger from the Miamis hurried across the
     mountains, bearing to the shrewd and able Dinwiddie, the
     Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, a belt of wampum, the scalp
     of a French Indian, and a feathered pipe, with letters from
     the dwellers on the Maumee and on the Wabash. 'Our good
     brothers of Virginia,' said the former, 'we must look upon
     ourselves as lost, if our brothers, the English, do not
     stand by us and give us arms.' 'Eldest brother,' pleaded the
     Picts and Windaws, 'this string of wampum assures you, that
     the French King's servants have spilled our blood, and eaten
     the flesh of three of our men. Look upon us and pity us, for
     we are in great distress. Our chiefs have taken up the
     hatchet of war. We have killed and eaten ten of the French
     and two of their negroes. We are your brothers; and do not
     think this is from our mouth only; it is from our very
     hearts.' Thus they solicited protection and revenge."

The Duke of Newcastle was unequal to the task of driving the soldiers of
France from Canada or from the valley of the Mississippi. The North and
South were both in the hands of France. The route of the Ohio and the
Mississippi had been discovered by adventurers and missionaries of that
nation; and a few years of quiet possession of the territory would have
allowed French statesmen to consolidate their power in those regions,
and to draw a strong cordon around the entire group of English colonies
on the Atlantic sea-board. But Pitt's genius was brought to bear at a
critical moment on the arrangement of this great question--and he
conceived the project of breaking the Mississippi line and attacking the
enemy in their strongholds on the St. Lawrence. Three expeditions were
fitted out. Amherst and Wolfe were ordered to join the fleet under
Boscawen, destined to act against Louisburgh--Forbes was sent to the
Ohio Valley--Abercrombie was intrusted with the command against Crown
Point and Ticonderoga, though Lord Howe was sent out with the last named
as the real soul of the enterprise. Mr. Bancroft writes:

     "None of the officers won favor like Lord Howe and Wolfe.
     Both were still young. To high rank and great connections
     Howe added manliness, humanity, capacity to discern merit,
     and judgment to employ it. As he reached America, he entered
     on the simple austerity of forest warfare. James Wolfe, but
     thirty-one years old, had already been eighteen years in the
     army; was at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and had won laurels at
     Laffeldt. Merit made him at two-and-twenty a
     lieutenant-colonel, and his active genius improved the
     discipline of his battalion. He was at once authoritative
     and humane, severe, yet indefatigably kind; modest, but
     aspiring and secretly conscious of ability. The brave
     soldier dutifully loved and obeyed his widowed mother, and
     his gentle nature saw visions of happiness in scenes of
     domestic love, even while he kindled at the prospect of
     glory, as 'gunpowder at fire.'"

On the 28th of May the expedition reached Halifax.--

     "For six days after the British forces on their way from
     Halifax to Louisburgh, had entered Chapeau Rouge Bay, the
     surf, under a high wind, made the rugged shore inaccessible,
     and gave the French time to strengthen and extend their
     lines. The sun still dashed heavily, when, before daybreak,
     on the 8th of June, the troops, under cover of a random fire
     from the frigates, attempted disembarking. Wolfe, the third
     brigadier, who led the first division, would not allow a gun
     to be fired, cheered on the rowers, and, on coming to shoal
     water, jumped into the sea; and, in spite of the surf, which
     broke several boats and upset more, in spite of the
     well-directed fire of the French, in spite of their
     breastwork and rampart of felled trees, whose interwoven
     branches made one continued wall of green, the English
     landed, took the batteries, drove in the French, and on the
     same day invested Louisburgh. At that landing, none was more
     gallant than young Richard Montgomery; just one-and-twenty;
     Irish by birth; an humble officer in Wolfe's brigade; but
     also a servant of humanity, enlisted in its corps of
     immortals. The sagacity of Wolfe honored him with
     well-deserved praise, and promotion to a lieutenancy. On the
     morning of the 12th, an hour before dawn, Wolfe, with light
     infantry and Highlanders, took by surprise the light-house
     battery on the north-east side of the entrance to the
     harbor; the smaller works were successively carried. On the
     23d, the English battery began to play on that of the French
     on the island near the centre of the mouth of the harbor.
     Science, sufficient force, union among the officers,
     heroism, pervading mariners and soldiers, carried forward
     the siege, during which Barre by his conduct secured the
     approbation of Amherst and the confirmed friendship of
     Wolfe. Of the French ships in the port, three were burned on
     the 21st of July; in the night following the 25th, the boats
     of the squadron, with small loss, set fire to the Prudent, a
     seventy-four, and carried off the Bienfaisant. Boscawen was
     prepared to send six English ships into the harbor. But the
     town of Louisburgh was already a heap of ruins; for eight
     days, the French officers and men had had no safe place for
     rest; of fifty-two cannon opposed to the English batteries
     forty were disabled. The French had but five ships of the
     line and four frigates. It was time for the Chevalier de
     Drucour to capitulate. The garrison became prisoners of war,
     and, with the sailors and marines, in all 5,637, were sent
     to England. On the 27th of July, the English took possession
     of Louisburgh, and, as a consequence, of Cape Breton and
     Prince Edward's Island. Thus fell the power of France on our
     eastern coast. Halifax being the English naval station,
     Louisburgh was deserted. The harbor still offers shelter
     from storms; the coast repels the surge: but a few hovels
     only mark the spot which so much treasure was lavished to
     fortify, so much heroism to conquer. Wolfe, whose heart was
     in England, returned home with the love and esteem of the
     army. His country was full of exultation; the trophies were
     deposited with pomp in the cathedral of St. Paul's; the
     churches gave thanks; Boscawen, himself a member of
     parliament, was honored by a unanimous tribute from the
     House of Commons. New England, too, triumphed; for the
     praises awarded to Amherst and Wolfe recalled the heroism of
     her own sons."

This success inspired Pitt to still greater efforts. He resolved to
annex the "boundless north," as it was then called, to the British
empire in America; and early in the spring Wolfe again went out,--this
time, to conquer Quebec and find a soldier's grave. Many of his
companions in arms were then and afterwards famous men:--Jervis,
afterwards the renowned Earl St. Vincent, James Cook, the navigator,
George Townshend, Barre, and Colonel Howe.

     "On the 26th of June, the whole armament arrived, without
     the least accident, off the Isle of Orleans, on which, the
     next day, they disembarked. A little south of west the cliff
     of Quebec was seen distinctly, seemingly impregnable, rising
     precipitously in the midst of one of the grandest scenes in
     nature. To protect this guardian citadel of New France,
     Montcalm had of regular troops no more than six wasted
     battalions; of Indian warriors few appeared, the wary
     savages preferring the security of neutrals; the Canadian
     militia gave him the superiority in numbers; but he put his
     chief confidence in the natural strength of the country.
     Above Quebec, the high promontory on which the upper town is
     built expands into an elevated plain, having towards the
     river the steepest acclivities. For nine miles or more above
     the city, as far as Cape Rouge, every landing-place was
     intrenched and protected. The river St. Charles, after
     meandering through a fertile valley, sweeps the rocky base
     of the town, which it covers by expanding into sedgy
     marshes. Nine miles below Quebec, the impetuous Montmorenci,
     after fretting itself a whirlpool route, and leaping for
     miles down the steps of a rocky bed, rushes with velocity
     towards the ledge, over which, falling two hundred and fifty
     feet, it pours its fleecy cataract into the chasm. As Wolfe
     disembarked on the Isle of Orleans, what scene could be more
     imposing? On his left lay at anchor the fleet with the
     numerous transports; the tents of his army stretched across
     the island; the intrenched troops of France, having their
     centre at the village of Beanport, extended from the
     Montmorenci to the St. Charles; the city of Quebec,
     garrisoned by five battalions, bounded the horizon. At
     midnight on the 28th, the short darkness was lighted up by a
     fleet of fire-ships, that, after a furious storm of wind,
     came down with the tide in the proper direction. But the
     British sailors grappled with them and towed them free of
     the shipping. The river was Wolfe's; the men-of-war made it
     so; and, being master of the deep water, he also had the
     superiority on the south-shore of the St. Lawrence. In the
     night of the 29th, Monckton, with four battalions, having
     crossed the south channel, occupied Point Levi; and where
     the mighty current, which below the town expands as a bay,
     narrows to a deep stream of but a mile in width, batteries
     of mortars and cannon were constructed. The citizens of
     Quebec, foreseeing the ruin of their houses, volunteered to
     pass over the river and destroy the works; but, at the
     trial, their courage failed them, and they retreated. The
     English, by the discharge of red-hot balls and shells, set
     on fire fifty houses in a night, demolished the lower town,
     and injured the upper. But the citadel was beyond their
     reach, and every avenue from the river to the cliff was too
     strongly intrenched for an assault."

The summer was going rapidly, and as yet no real progress had been made.
Wolfe was eager for action,--and he pursued his researches into the
nature of the formidable position with extraordinary eagerness:--

     "He saw that the eastern bank of the Montmorenci was higher
     than the ground occupied by Montcalm, and, on the 9th of
     July, he crossed the north channel and encamped there; but
     the armies and their chiefs were still divided by the river
     precipitating itself down its rocky way in impassable eddies
     and rapids. Three miles in the interior, a ford was found;
     but the opposite bank was steep, woody, and well intrenched.
     Not a spot on the line of the Montmorenci for miles into the
     interior, nor on the St. Lawrence to Quebec, was left
     unprotected by the vigilance of the inaccessible Montcalm.
     The General proceeded to reconnoitre the shore above the
     town. In concert with Saunders, on the 18th of July, he
     sailed along the well-defended bank from Montmorenci to the
     St. Charles: he passed the deep and spacious harbor, which,
     at four hundred miles from the sea, can shelter a hundred
     ships of the line; he neared the high cliff of Cape Diamond,
     towering like a bastion over the waters, and surmounted by
     the banner of the Bourbons; he coasted along the craggy wall
     of rock that extends beyond the citadel; he marked the
     outline of the precipitous hill that forms the north bank of
     the river,--and every where he beheld a natural fastness,
     vigilantly defended, intrenchments, cannon, boats, and
     floating batteries guarding every access. Had a detachment
     landed between the city and Cape Rouge, it would have
     encountered the danger of being cut off before it could
     receive support. He would have risked a landing at St.
     Michael's Cove, three miles above the city, but the enemy
     prevented him by planting artillery and a mortar to play
     upon the shipping. Meantime, at midnight, on the 28th of
     July, the French sent down a raft of five-stages, consisting
     of nearly a hundred pieces; but these, like the fire-ships a
     month before, did but light up the river, without injuring
     the British fleet. Scarcely a day passed but there were
     skirmishes of the English with the Indians and Canadians,
     who were sure to tread stealthily in the footsteps of every
     exploring party. Wolfe returned to Montmorenci. July was
     almost gone, and he had made no effective advances. He
     resolved on an engagement. The Montmorenci, after falling
     over a perpendicular rock, flows for three hundred yards,
     amidst clouds of spray and rainbow glories, in a gentle
     stream to the St. Lawrence. Near the junction, the river
     may, for a few hours of the tide, be passed on foot. It was
     planned that two brigades should ford the Montmorenci at the
     proper time of the tide, while Monckton's regiments should
     cross the St. Lawrence in boats from Point Levi. The signal
     was made, but some of the boats grounded on a ledge of rocks
     that runs out into the river. While the seamen were getting
     them off, and the enemy were firing a vast number of shot
     and shells, Wolfe, with some of the navy officers as
     companions, selected a landing-place; and his desperate
     courage thought it not yet too late to begin the attack.
     Thirteen companies of grenadiers, and two hundred of the
     second battalion of the Royal Americans, who got first on
     shore, not waiting for support, ran hastily towards the
     intrenchments, and were repulsed in such disorder that they
     could not again come into line; though Monckton's regiment
     had arrived, and had formed with the coolness of invincible
     valor. But hours hurried by; night was near; the clouds of
     midsummer gathered heavily, as if for a storm; the tide
     rose; and Wolfe, wiser than Frederic at Colin, ordered a
     timely retreat."

In this unsuccessful attempt Wolfe lost 400 men. On the tortures of a
body wasted by fever and a mind preyed on by its own restless energy, we
will not dwell. Wolfe reckoned on assistance from the corps of
Amherst,--but this did not arrive. At last he perceived that his fate
rested in his own hands alone,--and he conceived the daring plan of
attack which has given to his name the soldier's immortality. We extract
Mr. Bancroft's account of the brilliant attack which cost our young hero
his life and the French their dominions in Northern America:--

     "Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o'clock
     in the morning of the 13th September, Wolfe, with Monckton
     and Murray, and about half the forces, set off in boats, and
     without sail or oars, glided down with the tide. In
     three-quarters of an hour the ships followed, and, though
     the night had become dark, aided by the rapid current, they
     reached the cove just in time to cover the landing. Wolfe
     and the troops with him leaped on shore; the light infantry,
     who found themselves borne by the current a little below the
     intrenched path, clambered up the steep hill, staying
     themselves by the roots and boughs of the maple and spruce
     and ash trees that covered the precipitous declivity, and,
     after a little firing, dispersed the picket which guarded
     the height. The rest ascended safely by the pathway. A
     battery of four guns on the left was abandoned to Colonel
     Howe. When Townshend's division disembarked, the English had
     already gained one of the roads to Quebec, and, advancing in
     front of the forest, Wolfe stood at daybreak with big
     invincible battalions on the plains of Abraham, the
     battle-field of empire. 'It can be but a small party come to
     burn a few houses and retire,' said Montcalm, in amazement,
     as the news reached him in his intrenchments the other side
     of the St. Charles; but, obtaining better
     information,--'Then,' he cried, 'they have at last got to
     the weak side of this miserable garrison; we must give
     battle and crush them before mid-day.' And before ten, the
     two armies, equal in numbers, each being composed of less
     than five thousand men, were ranged in presence of one
     another for battle. The English, not easily accessible from
     intervening shallow ravines, and rail fences, were all
     regulars, perfect in discipline, terrible in their fearless
     enthusiasm, thrilling with pride at their morning's success,
     commanded by a man whom they obeyed with confidence and
     love. The doomed and devoted Montcalm had what Wolfe had
     called but 'five weak French battalions,' of less than two
     thousand men, 'mingled with disorderly peasantry,' formed on
     ground which commanded the position of the English. The
     French had three little pieces of artillery, the English one
     or two. The two armies cannonaded each other for nearly an
     hour; when Montcalm, having summoned Bougainville to his
     aid, and despatched messenger after messenger for De
     Vaudreuil, who had fifteen hundred men at the camp, to come
     up, before he should be driven from the ground, endeavored
     to flank the British and crowd them down the high bank of
     the river. Wolfe counteracted the movement by detaching
     Townshend with Amherst's regiment, and afterwards a part of
     the Royal Americans, who formed on the left with a double
     front. Waiting no longer for more troops, Montcalm led the
     French army impetuously to the attack. The ill-disciplined
     companies broke by their precipitation and the unevenness of
     the ground; and fired by platoons, without unity. The
     English, especially the forty-third and forty-seventh, where
     Monckton stood, received the shock with calmness; and after
     having, at Wolfe's command, reserved their fire till their
     enemy was within forty yards, their line began a regular,
     rapid, and exact discharge of musketry. Montcalm was present
     every where, braving danger, wounded, but cheering by his
     example. The second in command, De Sennezergues, an
     associate in glory at Ticonderoga, was killed. The brave but
     untried Canadians, flinching from a hot fire in the open
     field, began to waver; and, so soon as Wolfe, placing
     himself at the head of the twenty-eighth and the Louisburgh
     grenadiers, charged with bayonets, they every where gave
     way. Of the English officers, Carleton was wounded; Barre,
     who fought near Wolfe, received in the head a ball which
     destroyed the power of vision of one eye, and ultimately
     made him blind. Wolfe, also, as he led the charge, was
     wounded in the wrist, but still pressing forward, he
     received a second ball; and, having decided the day, was
     struck a third time, and mortally, in the breast. 'Support
     me,' he cried to an officer near him: 'let not my brave
     fellows see me drop.' He was carried to the rear, and they
     brought him water to quench his thirst. 'They run, they
     run,' spoke the officer on whom he leaned. 'Who run?' asked
     Wolfe, as his life was fast ebbing. 'The French,' replied
     the officer, 'give way every where.' 'What,' cried the
     expiring hero, 'do they run already? Go, one of you, to
     Colonel Burton; bid him march Webb's regiment with all speed
     to Charles River to cut off the fugitives.' Four days
     before, he had looked forward to early death with dismay.
     'Now, God be praised, I die happy.' These were his words as
     his spirit escaped in the blaze of his glory. Night,
     silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the sure
     inspiration of genius had been his allies; his battle-field,
     high over the ocean-river, was the grandest theatre on earth
     for illustrious deeds; his victory, one of the most
     momentous in the annals of mankind, gave to the English
     tongue and the institutions of the Germanic race the
     unexplored and seemingly infinite West and North. He crowded
     into a few hours actions that would have given lustre to
     length of life; and filling his day with greatness,
     completed it before its noon."

In that terrible action fell also "the hope of New France." In
attempting to rally a body of fugitive Canadians in a copse near St.
John's Gate, Montcalm was mortally wounded.

We have quoted enough from this volume to show how varied and stirring
are the subjects with which Mr. Bancroft here deals.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] _History of the American Revolution._ By George Bancroft. Vol. I.
Boston, Little & Brown, 1852.

From the London Literary Gazette

LIFE IN CANADA.

BY MRS. MOODIE.[6]

If there be one of life's affairs in which woman has a peculiar right to
have her wishes considered and her veto respected, it is that of
emigration. For, in the arduous task of establishing a new home in a
half-settled country, let man do what he will to alleviate, on her fall
the burthen and heat of the day. Hers are the menial toils, the frequent
anxieties, the lingering home-sickness, the craving after dear friends'
faces and a beloved native land. Hers, too, the self-imposed duty and
unselfish effort to hide regret under cheerful smiles, when the weary
brother or husband returns at evening from toil in field and forest.
Blessed and beautiful are the smiles of the sad-hearted, worn to wile
away another's cares!

Love in a cottage has long been jeered at, and depicted as flying out of
the window. It seems miraculous to behold the capricious little deity
steadfastly braving, for many a long year, the chilly atmosphere of a
log-hut in an American forest. In the year 1832, Mrs. Moodie (here
better remembered as Miss Susanna Strickland, sister of the well-known
historian of the English and Scottish Queens) accompanied her husband, a
half-pay subaltern, to the backwoods of Canada. Many were her
misgivings, and they did not prove unfounded. Long and cruel was the
probation she underwent, before finding comparative comfort and
prosperity in the rugged land where at first she found so much to
embitter her existence. Nobly did she bear up under countless
difficulties and sufferings, supported by an energy rare in woman, and
by her devoted attachment to the husband of her choice. For some years
her troubles were not occasional, but continual and increasing. Her
first installation in a forest home could hardly have been more
discouraging and melancholy than it was:

     "The place we first occupied was purchased of Mr. C----, a
     merchant, who took it in payment of sundry large debts,
     which the owner, a New England loyalist, had been unable to
     settle. Old Joe H--, the present occupant, had promised to
     quit it with his family at the commencement of sleighing;
     and as the bargain was concluded in the month of September,
     and we were anxious to plough for fall wheat, it was
     necessary to be upon the spot. No house was to be found in
     the immediate neighborhood save a small dilapidated log
     tenement, on an adjoining farm (which was scarcely reclaimed
     from the bush), that had been some months without an owner.
     The merchant assured us that this could be made very
     comfortable until such time as it suited H--to remove."

With singular want of caution, Mr. and Mrs. Moodie neglected to visit
this "log tenement" before signing an agreement to rent it. On a rainy
September day they proceed to take possession:

     "The carriage turned into a narrow, steep path, overhung
     with lofty woods, and after laboring up it with considerable
     difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our necks, it
     brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially
     covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on
     all sides by the dark forest. 'I guess,' quoth our Yankee
     driver, 'that at the bottom of this 'ere swell, you'll find
     yourself _to hum_;' and plunging into a short path cut
     through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the
     bottom of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed,
     'It's a smart location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy
     it.' I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had
     never seen such a shed called a house before. 'You must be
     mistaken; that is not a house, but a cattle-shed, or
     pig-sty.' The man turned his knowing keen eye upon me, and
     smiled, half humorously, half maliciously, as he said, 'You
     were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to
     learn, and more perhaps than you'll like to know, before the
     winter is over.'"

The prophet of evil spoke truly. It was a winter of painful instruction
for the inexperienced young woman, and her not very prudent husband. We
might fill columns with a bare list of their vexations and disasters.
Amongst the former, not the least arose from the borrowing propensities
of their neighbors. They had 'located' in a bad neighborhood, in the
vicinity of a number of low Yankee squatters, "ignorant as savages,
without their courtesy and kindness." These people walked
unceremoniously at all hours into their wretched dwelling, to criticise
their proceedings, make impertinent remarks, and to borrow--or rather to
beg or steal, for what they borrowed they rarely returned. The most
extraordinary loans were daily solicited or demanded; and Mrs. Moodie,
strange and timid in her new home, and amongst, these
semi-barbarians--her husband, too, being much away at the farm--for some
time dared not refuse to acquiesce in their impudent extortions. Here is
a specimen of the style of these miscalled 'borrowings.' On the first
day of their arrival, whilst they were yet toiling to exclude wind and
rain from the crazy hovel, which their baggage and goods filled nearly
to the roof, a young Yankee 'lady' squeezed herself into the crowded
room:

     "Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with
     sharp, knowing-looking features, a forward impudent carnage,
     and a pert flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks,
     and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent
     manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty, purple
     stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton
     handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks
     falling over her thin, inquisitive face in a state of
     perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and in her
     coarse, dirty, red hands she swung to and fro an empty glass
     decanter."

The mission of this squalid nymph was not to borrow but to lend. She
"guessed the strangers were fixin' there," and that they'd want a glass
decanter to hold their whisky, so she had brought one over. "But
mind--don't break it," said she; "'tis the only one we have to hum, and
father says it's so mean to drink out of green glass"--a sentiment
worthy of a colonel of hussars. Although quite pleased by such
disinterested kindness and attention, Mrs. Moodie declined the decanter,
on the double ground of having some of her own, and of not drinking
whisky. The refusal was unavailing. The lady in ragged purple set down
the bottle on a trunk, as firmly as if she meant to plant it there, and
took herself off. The next morning cleared up the mystery of her
perseverance. "Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across
yesterday?" said the 'cute damsel, presenting herself before Mrs. Moodie
with her bare red knees peeping through her ragged petticoats, and with
face and hands innocent of soap. The English lady returned the bottle,
with the remark that she had never needed it.

     "'I guess you won't return it empty,' quoth the obliging
     neighbor; 'that would be mean, father says. He wants it
     filled with whisky.'"

The hearty laugh which this solution of the riddle provoked from the
inmates of the log-house offended the female Yankee, who tossed the
decanter from hand to hand and glared savagely about her. But the
ridicule was insufficient to deter her from the whisky hunt. When
assured there was none in the place, she demanded rum, and pointed to a
keg, in which she said she smelt it. Her keen olfactories had not
deceived her. The rum, she was told, was for the workmen:

     "'I calculate,' was the reply, 'when you've been here a few
     months, you'll be too knowing to give rum to helps. But
     old-country folks are all fools, and that's the reason they
     get so easily sucked in, and be so soon wound up. Cum, fill
     the bottle, and don't be stingy. In this country we all live
     by borrowing. If you want any thing, why, just send and
     borrow from us.'"

When the decanter was filled and delivered to this saucy mendicant, Mrs.
Moodie ventured to petition for a little milk for her infant, but
Impudence in purple laughed in her face, and named an exorbitant price
at which she would _sell_ it her, for cash on delivery. It seems
incredible that, after this ingratitude, Mrs. Moodie continued her
'lendings' to the family of which her new acquaintance was a
distinguished ornament.

     "The very day our new plough came home, the father of this
     bright damsel, who went by the familiar name of _Old Satan_,
     came over to borrow it (though we afterwards found out that
     he had a good one of his own). The land had never been
     broken up, and was full of rocks and stumps, and he was
     anxious to save his own from injury; the consequence was,
     that the borrowed implement came home unfit for use, just at
     the very time we wanted to plough for fall wheat. The same
     happened to a spade and trowel, bought in order to plaster
     the house. Satan asked the loan of them for _one_ hour, for
     the same purpose, and we never saw them again."

The other neighbors were no better. One Yankee dame used to send over
her son, a hopeful youth, Philander by name, almost every morning, to
borrow the bake-kettle, in which hot cakes were cooked for breakfast.
One day, when Mrs. Moodie was later than usual in rising, she heard from
her bedroom the kitchen latch lifted. It was Philander, come for the
kettle.

     "_I (through the partition):_ 'You can't have it this
     morning. We cannot get our breakfast without it,'
     _Philander:_ 'No more can the old woman to hum,' and,
     snatching up the kettle, which had been left to warm on the
     hearth, he rushed out of the house, singing at the top of
     his voice, 'Hurrah for the Yankee boys!' When James (the
     servant) came home for his breakfast, I sent him across to
     demand the kettle, and the dame very coolly told him, that
     when she had done with it I might have it; but she defied
     him to take it out of her house with her bread in it."

Since the request of the drover who begged his comrade to lend him a
bark of his dog, we have not heard of queerer loans than some of those
solicited of Mrs. Moodie:--

     "Another American squatter was always sending over to borrow
     a small-tooth comb, which she called a _vermin destroyer_;
     and once the same person asked the loan of a towel, as a
     friend had come from the States to visit her, and the only
     one she had, had been made into a best 'pinny' for the
     child: she likewise begged a sight in the looking-glass, as
     she wanted to try on a new cap, to see if it were fixed to
     her mind. This woman must have been a mirror of neatness
     when compared with her dirty neighbors. One night I was
     roused up from my bed for the loan of a pair of
     'steelyards.' For what purpose, think you, gentle reader? To
     weigh a new-born infant. The process was performed by tying
     the poor squalling thing up in a small shawl, and suspending
     it to one of the hooks. The child was a fine boy, and
     weighed ten pounds, greatly to the delight of the Yankee
     father. One of the drollest instances of borrowing I have
     ever heard of was told me by a friend. A maid-servant asked
     her mistress to go out on a particular afternoon, as she was
     going to have a party of her friends, and _wanted the loan
     of the drawing-room_."

Traits such as these exhibit, more vividly than volumes of description,
the sort of savages amongst whom poor Mrs. Moodie's lot was cast. They
had all the worst qualities of Yankee and Indian--the good ones of
neither. They had neither manners, heart, nor honesty. The basest
selfishness, cunning, and malignity were their prominent
characteristics. A less patient and good-tempered person than Mrs.
Moodie would, however, have had little difficulty in getting rid of the
troublesome and intrusive borrowers. They could not bear a sharp rebuke,
and, more than once, a happy and pointed retort rid her, for weeks, or
even for ever, of the pestilent presence of one or other of them. An
English farmer, settled near at hand, to whom she mentioned her
annoyances, laughed--as well he might--at her easy-going toleration.
"Ask them sharply what they want," he said, "and, failing a satisfactory
answer, bid them leave the house. Or--a better way still--buy some small
article of them, and bid them bring the change." Mrs. Moodie tried the
latter plan, and with no slight success.

     "That very afternoon, Miss Satan brought me a plate of
     butter for sale. The price was three and nine pence; twice
     the sum, by-the-bye, that it was worth. 'I have no
     change,'--giving her a dollar--'but you can bring it to me
     to-morrow.' Oh! blessed experiment! for the value of one
     quarter dollar I got rid of this dishonest girl for ever.
     Rather than pay me, she never entered the house again."

The strange names of some of the farmers and squatters in Mrs. Moodie's
neighborhood exceed belief. Amongst the substantial yeomen thereabouts
were Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle. Ammon and Ichabod
were two hopeful Canadian youths, the former of whom--a child of tender
years--was in the habit of hideously swearing at his father, and then
scampering across the meadow, and defying the pursuit of his pursy
progenitor. This is another family of which Mrs. Moodie gives amusing
glimpses, in a style sufficiently masculine, but therefore all the
better adapted to the subject:--

     "The conversation was interrupted by a queer-looking urchin
     of five years old, dressed in a long-tailed coat and
     trowsers, popping his black shock head in at the door and
     calling out, 'Uncle Joe! You're wanted to hum.' 'Is that
     your nephew?' 'No! I guess it's my woman's eldest son,' said
     uncle Joe, rising; 'but they call me Uncle Joe. 'Tis a spry
     chap that--as cunning as a fox. I tell you what it is--he
     will make a smart man. Go home, Ammon, and tell your ma that
     I am coming.' 'I won't,' said the boy; 'you may go hum and
     tell her yourself. She has wanted wood cut this hour, and
     you'll catch it!' Away ran the dutiful son, but not before
     he had applied his forefinger significantly to the side of
     his nose, and, with a knowing wink, pointed in the direction
     of hum. Uncle Joe obeyed the signal, drily remarking that he
     could not leave the barn door without the old hen clucking
     him back. At this period we were still living in Old Satan's
     log house, and anxiously looking out for the first snow to
     put us in possession of the good substantial log dwelling
     occupied by Uncle Joe and his family, which consisted of a
     brown brood of seven girls and this highly-prized boy."

The names of the squatter ladies were of a far superior description to
those to which their brothers answered. Looking down upon the Old
Testament, their godfathers had resorted for suggestions to the Italian
Opera, the heathen mythology, and the Minerva press. She of the purple
garment was called Emily. This was quiet enough. But her associates were
Cinderellas, Minervas, and Almerias; and Amanda was the baptismal
appellation of one of Ammon's sisters.

Old Joe, it will be remembered, had agreed to quit, when winter set in,
the house belonging to the farm which Mr. Moodie had purchased. But even
in civilized and lawyer-ridden England possession is held to be nine
points of the law, and in Canada the other tenth is thrown in. Old Joe's
mother, an abominable Yankee Hecate, grinned like a whole bag-full of
monkeys when informed that her son was expected to dis-locate as soon as
sleighing began.

     "'Joe,' she guessed, 'would take his own time. The house was
     not built which was to receive him; and he was not the man
     to turn his back upon a warm hearth to camp in the
     wilderness. It was neither the first snow nor the last frost
     that would turn Joe out of his comfortable home.'"

Mrs. Hecate spoke a true word. Frost came, sledges ran, thaw began--not
an inch budged Joe. The sun gained power, a soft south wind fanned the
frozen earth, the snow disappeared--still the reckless, dishonest scamp
made no sign of removing, and replied with abuse to the remonstrances of
those to whom his dwelling belonged. In the States, and with a brother
Yankee, his obstinacy might have led to revolver and rifle work. The
English emigrants patiently waited, to their own great inconvenience.
Joe reckoned he shouldn't move till his 'missus' was confined--an
interesting event which was expected to come off in May. About the
middle of that month the Joe family was increased by a sturdy boy,
whereupon its chief declared his intention of turning out in a
fortnight, if all went well. Mrs. Moodie did not believe him--he had
lied so often before; but he was determined to take her in at last, as
he had done at first, for this time he was as good as his word. On the
last day of May they went, bag and baggage, and Mrs. Moodie sent over
her Scotch maid-servant and Irish serving-man to clear out the dwelling,
which she justly expected would be in bad enough condition. But her
expectations were far exceeded by the reality. The malignity of these
people, who from her had received nothing but kindness and good offices,
was degrading to human nature. Presently the Irishman returned, panting
with indignation:

     "'The house,' he said, 'was more filthy than a pig-sty.' But
     that was not the worst of it; Uncle Joe, before he went, had
     undermined the brick chimney, and let all the water into the
     house. 'Oh! but if he comes here agin,' he continued,
     grinding his teeth and doubling his fist, 'I'll thrash him
     for it. And thin, Ma'arm, he has girdled round all the best
     graft apple-trees, the murtherin' owld villain, as if it
     would spile his digestion our ating them.'

     "John and Bell scrubbed at the house all day, and in the
     evening they carried over the furniture, and I went to
     inspect our new dwelling. It looked beautifully clean and
     neat. Bell had whitewashed all the black, smoky walls, and
     boarded ceilings, and scrubbed the dirty window-frames, and
     polished the fly-spotted panes of glass, until they actually
     admitted a glimpse of the clear air and the blue sky.
     Snow-white-fringed curtains, and a bed with furniture to
     correspond, a carpeted floor, and a large pot of green
     boughs on the hearthstone, gave an air of comfort and
     cleanliness to a room which, only a few hours before, had
     been a loathsome den of filth and impurity. This change
     would have been very gratifying, had not a strong,
     disagreeable odor almost deprived me of my breath as I
     entered the room. It was unlike any thing I had ever smelt
     before, and turned me so sick and faint, that I had to cling
     to the door-post for support.

     "'Where does this dreadful smell come from?'

     "'The guidness knows, ma'am; John and I have searched the
     house from the loft to the cellar, but we canna find out the
     cause of the stink.'

     "'It must be in the room, Bell, and it is impossible to
     remain here, or to live in the house, until it is removed.'

     "Glancing my eyes all round the place, I spied what seemed
     to me a little cupboard, over the mantel-shelf, and I told
     John to see if I was right. The lad mounted upon a chair,
     and pulled open a small door, but almost fell to the ground
     with the dreadful stench which seemed to rush from the
     closet.

     "'What is it, John?' I cried from the open door.

     "'A skunk! ma'arm, a skunk! Sure, I thought the devil had
     scorched his tail, and left the grizzled hair behind him.
     What a strong perfume it has!' he continued, holding up the
     beautiful but odious little creature by the tail.

     "'By dad! I know all about it now. I saw Ned Layton, only
     two days ago, crossing the field with Uncle Joe, with his
     gun on his shoulder, and this wee bit baste in his hand.
     They were both laughing like sixty. 'Well, if this does not
     stink the Scotchman out of the house,' said Joe, 'I'll be
     content to be tarred and feathered;' and thin they both
     laughed until they stopped to draw breath.'

     "I could hardly help laughing myself; but I begged Monaghan
     to convey the horrid creature away, and putting some salt
     and sulphur into a tin plate, and setting fire to it, I
     placed it on the floor in the middle of the room, and closed
     all the doors for an hour, which greatly assisted in
     purifying the house from the skunkification. Bell then
     washed out the closet with strong ley, and in a short time
     no vestige remained of the malicious trick Uncle Joe had
     played off upon us."

The smell of skunk and Yankee eradicated, there still was much to be
done before the house could be deemed habitable. It swarmed with mice,
which all the night long performed fantastical dances over the faces and
pillows of the new comers. The old logs which composed the walls of the
dwelling were alive with bugs and large black ants, and the fleas upon
the floor were as thick as sand-grains in the desert. With the warm
weather, then just setting in, came legions of mosquitoes, that rose in
clouds from the numerous little streams intersecting the valley. But in
spite of all these discomforts, summer was felt to be a blessing, and
"roughing it" in the woods was far less painful than in the season of
snow, and frost, and storm.

     "The banks of the little streams abounded with wild
     strawberries, which, although small, were of a delicious
     flavor. Thither Bell and I, and the baby, daily repaired to
     gather the bright red berries of nature's own providing.
     Katie, young as she was, was very expert at helping herself,
     and we used to seat her in the middle of a fine bed, whilst
     we gathered farther on. Hearing her talking very lovingly to
     something in the grass, which she tried to clutch between
     her white hands, calling it 'pitty, pitty,' I ran to the
     spot and found it was a large garter-snake that she was so
     affectionately courting to her embrace. Not then aware that
     this formidable looking reptile was perfectly harmless, I
     snatched the child up in my arms, and ran with her home,
     never stopping until I reached the house and saw her safely
     seated in her cradle."

Sixteen years elapsed after the departure of Joe and his brood from her
neighborhood before Mrs. Moodie heard any thing of their fate. A winter
or two ago, tidings of them reached her through one who had lived near
them. Hecate, almost a centenarian, occupied a corner of her son's barn.
She could not dwell in harmony under the same roof with her
daughter-in-law. The lady in purple and her sisters were married and
scattered abroad. Joe himself, who could neither read nor write, had
turned itinerant preacher. No account was given of the hopeful Ammon.

Mrs. Moodie's work, unaffectedly and naturally written, though a little
coarse, will delight ladies, please men, and even amuse children. On our
readers' account we regret our inability to make further extracts from
its amusing pages. The book is one of great originality and interest.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] _Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada._ 2 vols. Bentley.

From the London Literary Gazette.

MR. SQUIER ON NICARAGUA.[7]

Many causes are combining to give great importance to the States of
Central America. Their own fertility and natural advantages, the
commerce of the Pacific, and the gold of California, unite to attract
the earnest attention of enterprising men and politicians towards them.
At the present moment, the appearance of this full and able account of
Nicaragua is peculiarly well-timed. The writer of it describes himself
as "late _chargé d'affaires_ of the United States to the Republics of
Central America." His official position has evidently enabled him to get
at much information that would otherwise have been inaccessible. His
name is well and favorably known to ethnologists and antiquarians by his
researches into the history of the aboriginal monuments of the United
States, and by his very curious, though somewhat fanciful, essay on "The
Serpent Symbol, and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature
in America." The bias and extent of his studies make him a very
competent person to investigate the antiquities of Nicaragua. The
chapters devoted to this subject in the work before us are full of
interest, and highly to be valued for the abundance of fresh
observations they contain. Like many American archæologists and
historians, Mr. Squier is inclined to over-estimate the peculiarities
and antiquity of the aborigines of the New World. If we understand
rightly, he claims for them an independent origin. His ethnology is of
the romantic school, and rather loose. His imagination gets the better
of his reasoning, and his "organ of wonder," to speak in the manner of
phrenologists, is over-developed. His habits of mind and training do not
seem to be such as to qualify him for strict scientific research. He is
more of the _littérateur_ than the philosopher. His writings are, in
consequence, very amusing, but require to be dealt with cautiously. The
facts must be winnowed from the fancies with which they are mingled, if
we wish to use them for scientific purposes.

Imaginative men are usually warm lovers and fierce haters. Our American
envoy's appreciation of female charms is so intense, that he cannot pass
a pretty woman without inscribing a memorandum respecting her in his
note-book, afterwards to be printed more at length with additional
expressions of admiration. A pair of black eyes cannot sparkle behind a
lattice without being duly recorded. His affection for the ladies is
only equalled by his dislike of the "Britishers." The handsomest girl
and the ugliest idol could scarcely distract his thought from the vices
and crimes of England and the English. If he is to be trusted, the whole
population of Central America regards every Englishman as a bitter
enemy. He paints us in the blackest hues, and prophesies the fall of
England with undisguised delight. Bluster about Britain is the prominent
fault of the book, and one for which the writer will, when he knows more
about us, be ashamed of himself. Every day it is becoming more and more
the interest of Englishmen and Americans to pull together. Consanguinity
and the love of constitutional liberty are strong ties. They may be
forgotten for a time, but in the end must work uppermost. Recent events
have done much to remind us of our near relationship with our
transatlantic cousins, and them of the Anglo-Saxon blood to which they
owe their pre-eminence among the nations of the New World. The grasping
and interfering qualities that bring down upon us the unmitigated
censures of Mr. Squier are quite as prominently manifested in the doings
of his countrymen; and whilst in one chapter he censures our meddlings
with, and claims upon, the Mosquito shore, in another he anticipates
something very like the annexation of all Central America to the United
States.

The Mosquito country, about which we have seen of late so many very
unsatisfactory paragraphs in our newspapers, is a thinly populated and
most unhealthy tract on the Atlantic sea-board of Central America. It is
inhabited by a mixed breed of Indians and Negroes, supposed to be ruled
by a semi-civilized individual, who rejoices in the entomological title
of King of the Mosquitoes, one by no means inappropriate, considering
the amount of small annoyance we have endured through disputes about his
territory. He is supposed to be under British protection; it is
difficult to understand exactly why. The main purpose we have in view
seems to be the securing a proper supply of the peculiar hard woods of
this region. Britons at home generally make peace over their mahogany;
abroad they seem to pick quarrels over it.

Central America includes an era of 150,000 square miles. Under Spanish
dominion it was divided into the provinces of Guatemala, Honduras, San
Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. These became independent states in
1821, and subsequently united to form the "Republic of Central America."
They separated again, in 1839, into so many distinct republics.
Nicaragua, Honduras, and San Salvador have recently confederated. The
entire region of Central America presents very marked and important
physical features. These are the great plain, six thousand feet above
the sea, upon which stands the city of Guatemala; the high plain forming
the centre of Honduras and part of Nicaragua; and the elevated country
of Costa Rica. Between the two latter lies the basin of the Nicaraguan
Lakes, with broad and undulating verdant slopes broken by steep volcanic
cones, and a few ranges of hills along the shores of the Pacific,
intermingled with undulating plains. Of the two great lakes, the lesser,
Managua, is one hundred and fifty-six feet, and the larger, Nicaragua,
one hundred and twenty-eight feet above the Pacific ocean. The former is
fifty or sixty miles in length by thirty-five wide, the latter above a
hundred miles long by fifty wide. On or near their western borders are
the chief cities of the country. Enormous isolated volcanic cones rise
to the height of from 4000 to 7000 feet in their neighborhood or on the
islands that stud them. Numerous remains of antiquity, ruins of temples,
and deserted monolithic idols, give interest to their precincts, whilst
the scenery is described as being surpassingly grand and beautiful. The
sole outlet is the river San Juan, a magnificent stream flowing from the
southeastern extremity of Lake Nicaragua, for a length of about ninety
miles, into the Atlantic. The climate is generally healthy, more
especially towards the Pacific side. Nicaragua is inhabited by a
population of about 260,000, one-half of which, or more, is composed of
mixed breeds, Indians, in great part civilized, coming next in number,
then whites, of whom there are about 25,000, and, lastly, some 15,000
Negroes. They live chiefly in towns, and cultivate the soil, which is
very productive, and capable of supporting a much larger population. The
natural resources of Nicaragua appear to be very great. Sugar, cotton,
coffee, indigo, tobacco, rice, and maize, are the chief productions.
There is, besides, great mineral wealth. In ancient times the aborigines
appear to have occupied considerable cities, and to have attained a
civilization comparable with that of the Mexicans. Indeed, Mr. Squier
has proved, by philological and other evidence, that a Mexican colony
did exist in Nicaragua at the period of the discovery of the country in
the fifteenth century. This had been surmised before, but not clearly
made out.

Much interest attaches to the population of Nicaragua, on account of the
large proportion of families of Indian blood, pure and mixed, of whom it
is made up. The qualities which enabled the ancient Indian people of
Mexico, Central America, and Peru, to become civilized nations after a
peculiar fashion, are not extinct, and seem to be retained and
re-developed in proportion to the prevalence of Indian over Spanish
blood. The Indians of Nicaragua are remarkable for industry and
docility; they are unobtrusive, hospitable, and brave, although,
fortunately for themselves, not warlike. They make good soldiers, yet
have no morbid taste for the military profession. The men are
agriculturists; the women occupy themselves with the weaving of cotton,
and make fabrics of good quality and tasteful design. It is interesting
to find the Tyrian dye still employed in their manufactures. They
procure it from a species of _Murex_ inhabiting the shores of the
Pacific. They take the cotton thread to the sea-side, where, having
gathered together a sufficient quantity of shell-fish, they patiently
squeeze over the cotton the coloring fluid, at first pellucid and
colorless, from the animals, one by one. At first the thread is pale
blue, but on exposure to the atmosphere becomes of the desired purple.
This color is so prized that purple thread dyed by cheaper and speedier
methods, imported from Europe, cannot supplant the native product. With
mingled humanity and thrift they replace the whelks in their native
element, after these shell-fish have yielded up the precious liquor for
which they were originally gathered. The Indian population also
exclusively manufacture variegated mats and hammocks from the Pita, a
species of Agave, and are as skilful as their ancient ancestors in the
making of pottery. They do not use the potter's wheel. Politically they
enjoy equal privileges with the whites, and all positions in church and
state are open to them. Among them are men of decided talent. Physically
they are a smaller and paler race than the Indians of the United States,
but are well developed and muscular. Their women are not unfrequently
pretty, and when young are often very finely formed.

Happily in Nicaragua no distinctions of caste are recognized, or, at any
rate, they have no influence. Such of the people as claim to be of pure
Spanish blood are, in most instances, evidently partly of Indian
descent. The Sambos, or offspring of Indian and Negro parents, are a
fine race of people, taller and stronger than the Indians.

Mr. Squier's admiration for the gentler (in Nicaragua we can scarcely
say the _fair_) sex, has led him to picture very vividly the charms and
appearance of the ladies he encountered during his travels. The
following is a precise and tempting description:

     "The women of pure Spanish stock are very fair, and have the
     _embonpoint_ which characterizes the sex under the tropics.
     Their dress, except in a few instances where the stiff
     costume of our own country had been adopted, was exceedingly
     loose and flowing, leaving the neck and arms exposed. The
     entire dress was often pure white, but generally the skirt,
     or _nagua_, was of some flowered stuff, in which case the
     _guipil_ (_anglicè_, vandyke) was white, heavily trimmed
     with lace. Satin slippers, a red or purple sash wound
     loosely round the waist, and a rosary sustaining a little
     golden cross, with a narrow golden band or a string of
     pearls extending around the forehead and binding the hair,
     which often fell in luxuriant waves upon their shoulders,
     completed a costume as novel as it was graceful and
     picturesque. To all this, add the superior attractions of an
     oval face, regular features, large and lustrous black eyes,
     small mouth, pearly white teeth, and tiny hands and feet,
     and withal a low but clear voice, and the reader has a
     picture of a Central American lady of pure stock. Very many
     of the women have, however, an infusion of other families
     and races, from the Saracen to the Indian and the Negro, in
     every degree of intermixture. And as tastes differ, so many
     opinions as to whether the tinge of brown, through which the
     blood glows with a peach-like bloom, in the complexion of
     the girl who may trace her lineage to the caziques upon one
     side, and the haughty grandees of Andalusia and Seville on
     the other, superadded, as it usually is, to a greater
     lightness of figure and animation of face,--whether this is
     not a more real beauty than that of the fair and more
     languid señora, whose white and almost transparent skin
     bespeaks a purer ancestry. Nor is the Indian girl, with her
     full, little figure, long, glossy hair, quick and
     mischievous eyes, who walks erect as a grenadier beneath her
     heavy water-jar, and salutes you in a musical, impudent
     voice as you pass--nor is the Indian girl to be overlooked
     in the novel contrasts which the 'bello sexo' affords in
     this glorious land of the sun."

The Nicaraguan ladies occupy themselves with smoking and displaying
little feet in satin slippers when daily they go to church and back. In
the early evening they occasionally pay visits, and if a number of both
sexes happen to assemble at the same house a dance is improvised, though
regular parties or balls are rare and ceremonial.

At festival seasons the Nicaraguans have some curious customs,
apparently derived from their ancient heathen worship.

In some of the Nicaraguan towns, especially in Leon, the pernicious
practice of burying the dead within the walls of city churches is
persisted in, even as in London, and, just as with us, against the
opposition of all sensible persons, including the government itself.
Fees to the church and attendant officials are at the root of the evil,
and give it a vitality that defies all attempts at eradication. The
priests of Leon have evaded all edicts about this nuisance, and have
improved upon the practice of our metropolitan parishes; for, not
content with the revenues they derive from funerals, they charge
according to the length of time (from ten to twenty-five years) the dead
are to be permitted by them to rest in their graves. When the purchased
time is up, the bones and the earth derived from the decomposed corpses
are removed and sold to the manufacturers of nitre! The least warlike of
citizens may thus in the end become a defender of his country, when
converted into a constituent of gunpowder. The most quiet and
unambitious of mortals may complete his career by making a noise in the
world, when fired off from a mortar. Assuredly this is a very novel and
original method of shooting churchyard rubbish, and we recommend a fair
consideration of it to our vested parochial authorities.

Mr. Squier claims to be the first person who has described the ancient
monuments of Nicaragua, or, indeed, to have indicated their existence.
Excellent and numerous plates and cuts of these very interesting though
rather frightful relics are given in his work. Hitherto the antiquities
of the northern portion of Central America only have been explored, and
are familiar to us through the researches of Stephens and of Catherwood.
The Indians still reverence the shrines and statues of their ancient
gods, and are apt to conceal their knowledge about their localities and
existence. Those described by our traveller have mostly suffered
dilapidation through the religious zeal of the conquerors. They appear
to differ among themselves somewhat in degree of antiquity, but there is
no good reason--this is the conclusion to which Mr. Squier comes--for
supposing that they were not made by the nations found in possession of
the country. The structures in or about which, they were originally
placed were probably of wood, and great mounds and earthworks, like the
teocallis of Mexico, were associated with them.

A section of Mr. Squier's work is devoted to an elaborate dissertation
on the proposed interoceanic canal, illustrated by an excellent map. We
recommend these chapters to the consideration of all who are interested
upon this important subject. Like most parts of his book it is defaced
by not a few sneers at, and misstatements about, the English. About the
bad taste of these outbursts we shall not say more. That they should
come from a man who is professionally a diplomatist, is evidence of his
indiscretion and unfitness for his political calling. As an amusing
traveller and diligent antiquarian, however, we can do Mr. Squier full
honor, and were glad to see the just compliment lately paid to him in
London, when our Antiquarian Society elected him an honorary member.

[This interesting and important work of our countryman is reviewed in a
flattering manner in most of the great organs of critical opinion in
England, and its sale there, as well as in this country, has been very
large for one so costly.]

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Nicaragua; its People, Scenery, Monuments, and the Proposed
Inter-oceanic Canal. By E. G. Squier. New-York: Appletons.

From the Dublin University Magazine.

THE HEIRS OF RANDOLPH ABBEY.[8]

IV. THE MIDNIGHT VOICE AND ITS ANSWERED CALL.

Lady Randolph took leave of Lilias at the door of her room, and she
having, with infinite trepidation, declined the services of the lady's
maid, who seemed to her rather more awful and stately than the lady
herself, soon remained alone in the magnificent apartment which had been
assigned to her. She looked all around it with a glance of some
disquietude, for the vastness of the room, and the dark oak furniture,
made it look very gloomy. She contemplated the huge bed, which bore an
unpleasant resemblance to a hearse, with the utmost awe; it seemed to
her that there was room for a dozen concealed robbers within the massive
folds of the sombre curtains, and the reflection of her own figure in
the tall mirrors, looked strangely like a white ghost wandering
stealthily to and fro; the only gleam of comfort that shone in upon her,
was from the glimpse of the midnight sky that could be seen through the
chinks of the window-shutters. As the night was not cold she went and
threw the window open, feeling that the companionship of the stars would
destroy all these fantastic fancies; and very soon her sense of
loneliness and oppression passed away, for there came a soft wind that
lifted the curls of her long fair hair, and kissed her cheek
caressingly, and she could not help believing it was a breeze from the
Irish hills that bore to her the blessing of her kind old grandfather;
gayly as ever she closed the window and went to sit down, wondering if
ever she should feel inclined to sleep again after the excitement of the
last two days. She had unbound her hair and let it fall around her like
a golden veil, when, suddenly, a sound came floating towards her, on the
still night air, which irresistibly attracted her attention.

It was a sound of music, deep solemn music, rising with a power and
richness of melody she had never heard before; whence it came, or how it
was produced, she could not conceive, for it seemed to her unpractised
ear not to proceed from one instrument, but from many, and yet there was
through it all a unity of harmony which could result from the influence
of a single mind alone: now, it swelled out into soft thunders that
vibrated through the long passages up to the very roof of her vaulted
room, and deep into her beating heart, then it died away to a whisper
faint as the sigh of a child, only to rise again more glorious than
before; and, over all, heard distinct as the lark in heaven at morning's
dawn, there thrilled a voice of such unearthly sweetness that she could
not believe it belonged to an inhabitant of this world.

Lilias had one of those sensitive passionate souls over whom music has
an uncontrollable power; but as yet she had heard no other instrument
than an antique harpsichord of her grandmother's, and such singing as
the village girls regaled her with when they stood at work in the
fields. No wonder, then, that this wonderful strain had an effect upon
her like that of enchantment; it seemed to take possession of her whole
soul, and absorb every faculty. She became, as she listened, utterly
unconscious of all things, save that this entrancing melody drew her
towards it with an irresistible attraction; the sound was so distant,
yet so clear, she could not tell if even it were within the house at
all; but she did not ponder on its position, or on the nature of it;
only, like one who walks in sleep, she rose mechanically on her feet to
go to it. If her mind, steeped in that marvellous melody, could reflect
at all, it was to conclude that she had fallen asleep and was dreaming,
so that she had no thought but the longing not to awake from a dream so
beautiful. Slowly drawn by the sweet sounds, as by invisible chains, she
moved towards the door and opened it; then, sweeter, louder than before,
floating into her very soul, came that angel voice, with the full
swelling chords that seemed, as it were, to clothe it, filling her with
a sense of enjoyment so intense, that she would have felt constrained to
follow after it, even had she known it would lure her to some murderous
precipice, like the dangerous sirens in the haunted woods of Germany.

Truly there was a strange fascination in this soft and sublime music,
filling the quiet night as with a soul, whose breathing was melody. And
Lilias yielded without a thought, or effort, to the entrancing power,
which, like a mesmeric influence, drew her imperiously towards it,
panting and breathless, as though she feared the sounds would die before
she reached them--every faculty concentrated in the sense of hearing.
She hastened rapidly along the passages down the wide staircase, and,
guided by the deepening, volume of the strain, reached the door of the
great hall, which stood open. She passed within it, and at once
discerned, that from this room proceeded the wonderful harmony, which
had so allured her, the instrument whose solemn tones formed the
accompaniment was evidently the magnificent organ, which stood at the
further end of the hall; and, as she had never heard one before, it is
not to be wondered at that now, when a hand endowed with extraordinary
skill drew forth its full power, she should have been enraptured; but it
was not so much the majesty of sound, swelling from the noblest
instrument in the world, that had so won the very soul within her as the
voice, sounding almost celestial to her ears, which still was thrilling
with unutterable sweetness through the echoing hall. However glorious
those deep low chords, it was yet only the metal which gave them forth;
but there was a spirit in that voice which touched her own spirit, and
never again could her young soul be free and independent as it had been
before that mysterious contact.

A little while only does the new-created child of dust stand lonely upon
earth, as Adam stood in Eden before he woke from his deep sleep to meet
the living glance of Eve--a little while in the passionless ignorance of
youth, and then is the mortal being free--free from thought, from
affection, from desire; but soon, through all the wild tumult and
turmoil of the world, he hears the voice calling to him, which demands
the surrender of his whole being in one deep human love, and no sooner
is that whisper heard echoing in the depths of his heart than,
straightway, he yields up the sweet empire of his life's affections; and
henceforward, whether he is blest in close companionship, or divided by
some gulf impassable, over which, most vain and mournfully, he stretches
out the longing arms that only grasp the vacant air, still never more is
he alone, or free, for he must live in another's life, and, even in
death, desire another's grave.

And was it to be thus with Lilias! the gentle, single-hearted child?

As she stood at the door of the hall, the words which that angel voice
was breathing into music came with a strange, deep meaning on her ears.
There was no light save that of the moon, which streamed in long, soft
rays from the one large window, and reached even the gilded fluting of
the organ, yet, through the dim shadows, she could perceive that a
musician sat before it. The face only was visible to her in that half
light; the upturned face, with the dark hair falling round it, and the
deep gray eyes made luminous by the living soul that was shining through
them. Never had she looked on him who sat there before, nor could she
tell if in truth that countenance had any beauty; only there was upon it
now a spiritual loveliness emanating from the solemn thoughts that moved
him, which entered into her heart and there abode, to fade only when
itself should moulder beneath the coffin lid.

And now, still drawn onwards by the voice, her noiseless feet went down
the hall, till, by the side of the unconscious musician, she knelt down
meekly, for it seemed to her as though adoring reverence were the
needful homage of one who could create such harmony; and there, in
breathless rapture, with parted lips, and folded hands, she remained all
motionless, till the soft music died away, as if those sounds had been
withdrawn again into the heaven to which they belonged.

Then he turned, and his eyes fell upon the kneeling figure by his side;
he started violently, and remained mute with surprise, his heart well
nigh stopping in its beating with astonishment; almost it seemed to him
as if his music had drawn down an angel from the regions of perpetual
melody; so fair and spotless did she seem, the moonlight falling on her
soft white robes, and weaving her floating hair into a golden tissue
with the mingling of its own bright rays. Speechless he remained gazing
with the earnest wish that this pure vision might not pass away into a
dream. But meantime the cessation of music had unbound the chains that
held her young soul captive, and when the sweet face turned towards him
the childlike features, solemn with intensity of feeling, he saw that
they were human eyes which met his own, eyes that could weep for sorrow,
and grow beautiful with tenderness, for now a timid glance stole into
them, and a faint smile to the parted lips. Unconsciously, he let his
hands fall softly on her head and said:

"Where have you come from? who are you?"

"Lilias," she answered, simply, as a child that tells its name when
asked.

"Lily, indeed," he said, "most fair and lovely as the snow-white lilies
are; but no such gentle vision ever came to me before in these dark
hours, though I have been here lonely, night by night. I thought at
first it was a spirit kneeling there; and it is scarce less marvellous
to me that a human being should visit me in my solitude, than that some
merciful angel should come to cheer me. How is it, then, that you are
here?"

"The music seemed to call me and I came," she said; "it was so very
beautiful it drew my whole soul after it; but I know I should not have
ventured here at such an hour, and now I will go back, only----"

She hesitated, and looked up pleadingly into the eyes that were turned
with such admiring wonder on her----

"You live in this house?" she asked.

"I do," he replied, and then bowed his head as though the answer were
one of shame.

"Then will you promise me," she said, "that I shall hear these glorious
sounds once more? I feel as though I could have no rest till I may
listen to them yet again, and to the voice that was as a soul within
them. May I come here to-morrow, and will you bestow on me the greatest
pleasure I have ever known, for, indeed, I never felt such deep
enjoyment as in hearing that solemn strain?"

"Most gladly would I--most gladly see you again, sweet Lily; since that
is your sweet name; but do you know who I am?"