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THE

Knickerbocker,

OR

NEW-YORK MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

VOLUME XXIII.

NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY JOHN ALLEN, NASSAU-STREET.
1844.

INDEX.

A.

  Apostrophe to an Old Hat. By J. G. SAXE,                              69
  A Lady on the Rights of Women,                                        79
  A Second Ralph Ringwood,                                              81
  Ascent of Mount Ætna. By THOMAS COLE,                                103
  A Night on the Prairie. By a Buffalo Hunter,                         114
  A Winter Trip to Trenton Falls,                                      133
  A Veritable Sea-Story. By HARRY FRANCO,                              151
  A Few Hints on the Philosophy of Size,                               156
  American Manners and American Literature,                            180
  An Apostrophe to Health,                                             217
  Anacreontic. By 'G. H. H.',                                          275
  A Christmas Carol in Prose,                                          276
  American Ptyalism: 'Quid Rides?'                                     288
  A Pilgrimage to Penshurst. By C. ALEXANDER, Esq.,                    307
  A First Night of Racine. By FLANEUR,                                 345
  Apostrophe to Time. By Miss MARY GARDINER,                           353
  An Alligatorical Sketch,                                             361
  Address and Poem at Boston,                                          387
  A Brace of 'Pellets' from Julian,                                    391
  A Dream. By JOHN WATERS,                                             432
  A Piscatorial Eclogue,                                                46
  A Picture by Murillo,                                                503
  A Song. By JOHN WATERS,                                              516
  Autobiography of the Prairie Hermit,                                 557
  A Dream of Youth,                                                    561
  A New Spirit of the Age,                                             583
  A Day With the great SEATSFIELD,                                     584
  A Thrust with a Two-edged Weapon,                                    590
  Another 'Pellet' from JULIAN,                                        595

B.

  Benthamiana,                                                         282
  Belizarius: A Historical Sketch,                                     337
  Birth-Day Meditations,                                               527

C.

  Coronation of George the Fourth,                                     138
  Curiosities of Foreign and Domestic Literature,                      490
  CLARK'S Literary Remains,                                       495, 578

D.

  Descriptive Poetry,                                                    1
  Drawings and Tintings. By ALFRED B. STREET,                          387
  Disguised Derivative Words in English,                               570

E.

  EDITOR'S TABLE,                              78, 180, 283, 389, 499, 584
  Essay on a Passage in Macbeth. By JOHN WATERS,                       153
  Elementary Treatise on Human Physiology,                             178
  Early Spring at the Homestead,                                       438
  English State Trials under the Popish Plot,                          447
  Exhibition of the National Academy of Design,                        595

F.

  Freedom's Beacon at Bunker-Hill,                                     132
  Fragments from the Greek. By 'G. H. H.',                             361

G.

  Ganguernet: or a Capital Joke,                                        62
  GOSSIP with Readers and Correspondents,      83, 192, 289, 396, 505, 599

I.

  I Follow: from the French,                                           145
  Isabel: the Death of the Young,                                      218
  Idyll: in imitation of Theocritus,                                   323
  Inscription for a Sarcophagus,                                       367
  Italy and the Italians. By J. T. HEADLEY, Esq.,                      498
  Impudence of the French,                                             499

J.

  JOSEPH C. NEALE'S 'Charcoal Sketches,'                               184

K.

  KENDALL'S Narrative of the Santa Fe Expedition,                      382

L.

  Lines to a Fringed Gentian. By WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, Esq.,           28
  Lines to Death, the Great Conqueror,                                  44
  Letter to the Editor from Mr. JAMES JESSAMINE,                        58
  Love's Elysium: from the German,                                      61
  Lines to an Evening Cloud,                                            73
  LITERARY NOTICES,                            74, 170, 276, 382, 490, 578
  Lines to Time. By Mrs. J. WEBB,                                      113
  Life's Young Dream,                                                  119
  Life: a Sonnet,                                                      159
  Lines to J. T. of Ireland. By C. W. DAY, Esq.,                       169
  Life and Times of the late WILLIAM ABBOTT,                           187
  Lines sent with a Bouquet. By PARK BENJAMIN, Esq.,                   211
  Legend of Don Roderick. By WASHINGTON IRVING,              262, 324, 418
  Literary Record,                                                     305
  Lines with a 'Floral Messenger,'                                     534
  Lines written under a portrait of Jupiter and Danäe,                 430
  Lines to my Sister. By R. S. CHILTON,                                472
  Legend of the Subjugation of Spain. By WASHINGTON IRVING,            572
  Lines by Prof. Plutarch Shaw, of Tinnecum,                           577
  Life in the New World. By SEATSFIELD,                                581

M.

  Mexico as it was and is. By BRANTZ MAYER, Esq.,                       77
  Music, Musicians, Musical Critics, and Ole Bull,                      80
  Mr. CHEEVER'S Lectures on the Pilgrims,                              388
  MARY MAY: the Newfoundland Indian,                                   523
  Mental Hygiene. By WILLIAM SWEETSER, M. D.,                          581
  Magazine Writing,                                                    589

N.

  Night and Morning. By 'POLYGON',                                     257
  Night-Thoughts: to BLUMINE,                                          436
  North-American Review for the April quarter,                         492

O.

  Old reflections on the New Year,                                      78
  One Reading from Two Poets. By JOHN WATERS,                          218
  On Rivers and Other Things. By do.,                                  349

P.

  Poems of JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,                                       170
  Professor Shaw, of Tinnecum,                                         549
  Poetry and History of Wyoming. By WILLIAM L. STONE, Esq.,            382

R.

  Reminiscenses of a Dartmoor Prisoner,                      146, 356, 517
  Rêves et Souvenirs,                                                  343
  Religious Controversy. By 'FLACCUS,'                                 445

S.

  Song of the New Year. By Mrs. R. S. NICHOLS,                          25
  Stanzas suggested by GLIDDON'S Lectures,                              29
  Sketches of East Florida: St. Augustine,                              45
  Sonnet to the Old Year,                                               53
  Some Thoughts on the Country,                                         70
  Scenes and Scenery in the Sandwich Islands,                           77
  Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities. By THOMAS COLE,               103, 236
  Some Sentiments on Sonnets, with Sundry Specimens,                   283
  Stanzas to MARY. By Mrs. M. E. HEWITT,                               348
  Stanzas on the Burial of an Infant,                                  460
  Stanzas to Niagara. By CLAUDE HALCRO,                                489
  Stanzas to my Three Departed Sisters,                                556
  Stanzas Written in Indisposition. By the late WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK,  569

T.

  The Idleberg Papers: a Christmas Yarn,                                11
  Thoughts on Color. By JOHN WATERS,                                    26
  The Quod Correspondence,                     30, 120, 245, 368, 473, 529
  Thoughts from Bulwer. By Mrs. M. T. W. CHANDLER,                      52
  The Mail Robber,                                                      53
  The Æneid of Virgil: with Notes by CHAS. ANTHON,                      76
  The Sacrifice,                                                       127
  The Death-Bed. By the 'COUNTRY DOCTOR,'                              128
  The Ruins of Burnside. By JAMES LAWSON, Esq.,                        137
  The Smithy. By ALFRED B. STREET, Esq.,                               155
  Two Pictures: Love Celestial and Love Terrestrial,                   160
  The Hermit of the Prairie,                                           161
  Translation from CATULLUS. By Rev. Geo. W. BETHUNE,                  166
  The Painted Rock,                                                    167
  Thirty Years among the Players of England and America,               175
  The Study of Woman's Life,                                           179
  The American Review,                                                 179
  The North American Review, for January,                              183
  The Alms-House: a New-England Sketch,                                212
  The Tyranny of Affection,                                            222
  The Fratricide's Death,                                              232
  The Spectre Imp. By Mr. GEORGE HARVEY,                               338
  The Church Bell,                                                     368
  The Inner Life of Man. By Mr. CHARLES HOOVER,                   389, 599
  The Floral Resurrection,                                             417
  The Dog-Star Spirit: or, Tray's Reflections,                         431
  The Poet Halleck: Epistle to the Editor,                             437
  The Plague at Constantinople in 1837,                                511
  The Song of Death. By MISS MARY GARDINER,                            523
  The Householder. by JOHN WATERS,                                     528
  The Hearth of Home,                                                  548

V.

  Vicissitudes,                                                         10
  Voices of Affection,                                                 336

W.

  Winter Evening: an Extract. By J. G. PERCIVAL, Esq.,                  24
  What is Transcendentalism?                                           205
  Wanderings of a Journeyman Tailor,                                   281
  What is It? A Lover's Query,                                         489

        +-------------------------------------------------+
        |  Transcriber's Note: The page numbers in the    |
        |  index convert to issues in the following way:  |
        |                                                 |
        |            January, 1844    1-102               |
        |            February       103-204               |
        |            March          205-306               |
        |            April          307-408               |
        |            May            409-510               |
        |            June           511-608               |
        +-------------------------------------------------+

    T H E  K N I C K E R B O C K E R.

VOL. XXIII.      JANUARY, 1844.      NO. 1.

DESCRIPTIVE POETRY.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

Whatever the poets may say, it is incontrovertible that the great majority
of men look upon the beauties and glories of Nature that surround them
with almost entire indifference. We shall not inquire whether this is the
result of a natural incapacity to perceive and admire the beautiful and
sublime, or whether it is that their impressions are so deadened by
familiarity as to be passed by unnoticed. Probably the former is the case
with the greater number; although we cannot believe with some writers,
that all our ideas of beauty are but the results of association, or of our
perceptions of the proportion, or fitness, or utility of things. When we
say that some things are naturally agreeable, and others naturally
disagreeable, we have said all that we know about the matter; and this
amounts to nothing more than a confession of our ignorance. Yet, if we
admit in all men the existence of a natural sense of beauty, daily
observation shows us that the pleasure arising from it is in most cases
very feeble and evanescent. How many live in the midst of the most
magnificent natural scenery, and never perceive its beauties until they
are pointed out to them by some intelligent traveller! And often if
admiration be professed, it is of that vague, undistinguishing kind, which
indicates little knowledge of the causes why they admire. Even among men
of cultivated tastes, there is much more of affected than real enthusiasm.

If what we have said be true, it is a curious subject of inquiry why
descriptive poetry has been so popular. How happens it that so many who
have looked upon Nature herself with great indifference, have been so much
delighted with the reflection of her image in the pages of the poets? We
suspect, indeed, that a part of the popularity of this class of writers is
factitious. THOMSON, the most popular, is we suspect oftener
purchased than read; and his 'Seasons' are not unfrequently spoken of with
admiration by those who know little of them but the episodes. The chief
interest of the 'Task' is to be sought for in other sources than its
descriptions, notwithstanding the _curiosa felicitas_ of Cowper's diction.

The pleasure which we feel in reading descriptive poetry may perhaps in
all cases be traced to one of the three following sources: the conception
in our own minds of objects corresponding in a greater or less degree to
those which exist in the mind of the poet; the train of associations which
his language awakens; or the moral interest with which he invests what he
describes. In the case first mentioned, the emotions we feel are similar
to those which the sight of the objects themselves would produce; if
beautiful, of pleasure; if terrible, of awe. A painting, which is an
accurate representation of nature, regarded irrespective of the skill of
the artist, would affect us in the same way. But the effects resulting
from this cause are too inconsiderable to require particular mention. The
picture which words are able to present is so indistinct and vague as
rarely to produce any strong emotion. If the objects themselves are
generally looked upon with indifference, much less can a verbal
description of them afford us any great degree of pleasure.

The language which the poet uses often suggests to the mind of the reader
trains of thought and imagery which were never present to his own mind.
Hence many expressions which are in themselves eminently poetic, will
arouse associations, oftentimes, that entirely spoil the passage. On the
other hand, an expression low and vulgar may be ennobled by its
associations, and give dignity and force to the composition. We not
unfrequently meet phrases which have great beauty in the eyes of one man,
which seem flat and insipid in the eyes of another. Every writer who has
attempted dignified or pathetic composition, has felt how difficult it is
to avoid those words which will suggest ideas that are unworthy of the
subject. If, however, the poet is sometimes a loser, he is also sometimes
a gainer from this cause. The reader often finds in his own associations,
sources of pleasure independent of the poet. The light that illumines the
page is but the reflected radiance of his own thoughts, and is unseen by
all save himself.

But it is in the moral interest with which the poet invests the objects he
describes, that the chief source of our pleasure is to be found. The poet
paints Nature, not as she is, but as she seems. He adorns her with beauty
not her own, and presents her thus adorned to men, to admire and to love.
It is by interweaving human sympathies and feelings with the objects of
the material world, that they lose their character of 'mute insensate
things,' and acquire the power to charm and to soothe us, amidst all the
cares and anxieties of our life. The intellectual process which here takes
place is so interesting and important that we shall make no apology for
treating the subject at some length.

It is sufficiently obvious that an accurate description of nature, or a
beautiful work of art, is not poetical. On the other hand, in proportion
as the minuteness of the description is increased, the poetry vanishes.
The traveller who should give us the exact dimensions of the pyramids, the
precise height of the terraces, the width and height of the inner
passages, would give us much more definite ideas of those structures than
he who should paint to us the effects produced on his own mind by their
vastness, their antiquity, and the solitude that surrounds them. So in
descriptions of natural scenery, the geographer who gives us the
measurement of mountains, and rivers, and plains, is much more accurate
than he who describes them solely from the picture that exists in his
fancy. We wish to be rightly understood. We do not mean that vagueness and
generality are essential to poetical description. As on the one hand,
mathematical accuracy, by allowing no play to the imagination, produces a
feeble impression, so on the other the indistinctness arising from
indefinite expressions is equally unfavorable. But in neither is the
poetry of the description dependent on the greater or less degree of
minuteness with which particular objects are spoken of. When Whitbread
described the Phenix, according to Sheridan's version, 'like a poulterer;
it was green, and red, and yellow, and blue; he did not let us off for a
single feather,' he did not fail more egregiously than Thomson in the
following lines, in which, by the force of language, a flock of geese are
made highly poetical objects:

                'Hushed in short suspense
  The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
  To throw the lucid moisture trickling off,
  And wait the approaching sign to strike at once
  Into the general choir.'

The poet indeed must give us a lively and definite image of the scene or
object which he undertakes to describe. But how shall this be done? Simply
by telling us how it appeared to him; introducing those circumstances
which had the greatest effect on his own imagination. He looks on nature
neither as a gardener, a geographer, an astronomer, nor a geologist, but
as a man, susceptible of strong impressions, and able to describe clearly
to others the objects which affected himself. This he will do in the style
which the emotion raised within him naturally dictates. His imagery, his
illustrations, his whole language, will take the hue of his own feelings.
It is in describing accurately the effect, not the cause, the emotion, not
the object which produced it, that the poet's fidelity to nature consists.
Let us illustrate our meaning by two or three examples. In Thomson we find
the following description of a thunder-storm:

                      'A boding silence reigns
  Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound
  That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
  Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
  And shakes the forest leaf without a breath.
  Prone to the lowest vale, the aërial tribes
  Descend: the tempest-loving raven scarce
  Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze
  The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens
  Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook,
  Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
  Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.
  'Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all,
  When to the startled eye the sudden glance
  Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud
  And following slower in explosion vast,
  The thunder raises his tremendous voice.
  At first heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven
  The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes
  And rolls its awful burthen on the wind,
  The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
  The noise astounds; till over head a sheet
  Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts
  And opens wider; shuts, and opens still
  Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
  Follows the loosened, aggravated roar,
  Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal
  Crushed horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.'

MR. IRVING describes a similar scene in the following terms: 'It
was the latter part of a calm sultry day, that they floated quietly with
the tide between these stern mountains. There was that perfect quiet which
prevails over nature in the languor of summer heat; the turning of a
plank, or the accidental falling of an oar on deck, was echoed from the
mountain side, and reverberated along the shores. To the left the
Dunderberg reared its woody precipices, height over height, forest over
forest, away into the deep summer sky. To the right strutted forth the
bold promontory of Antony's nose, with a solitary eagle wheeling about it;
while beyond, mountain succeeded to mountain, until they seemed to lock
their arms together, and confine this mighty river in their embraces. In
the midst of his admiration, Dolph remarked a pile of bright snowy clouds
peering above the western heights. It was succeeded by another and
another, each seemingly pushing onward its predecessor, and towering with
dazzling brilliancy in the deep blue atmosphere; and now muttering peals
of thunder were faintly heard rolling behind the mountains. The river,
hitherto still and glassy, reflecting pictures of the sky and land, now
showed a dark ripple at a distance, as the breeze came creeping up it. The
fish-hawks wheeled and screamed, and sought their nests on the high dry
trees; the crows flew clamorously to the crevices of the rocks, and all
nature seemed conscious of the approaching thunder gust. The clouds now
rolled in volumes over the mountain tops; their summits still bright and
snowy, but the lower parts of an inky blackness. The rain began to patter
down in broad and scattered drops; the winds freshened, and curled up the
waves; at length it seemed as if the bellying clouds were torn open by the
mountain tops, and complete torrents of rain came rattling down. The
lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and streamed quivering against the
rocks, splitting and rending the stoutest forest trees; the thunder burst
in tremendous explosions; the peals were echoed from mountain to mountain;
they clashed upon Dunderberg, and then rolled up the long defile of the
Highlands, each headland waking a new echo, until old Bull Hill seemed to
bellow back the storm.'

We think that no one who attentively reads the foregoing extracts can fail
to see the infinite superiority of the latter over the former, in every
thing that pertains to a faithful representation of nature. Irving has
given us the scene just as he saw it, unmixed with any hue or coloring
with which the mood of his own mind might have invested it. We see the
objects themselves, disconnected from the associations of the spectator.
Had there been a thousand persons looking on, each would have heard the
same sounds, and seen the same sights. There is nothing that is
extraneous. He has given us an exact copy of his original, and nothing
more. Thomson, on the contrary, has not described a thunderstorm as he saw
it, but according to the effect that it produced on his own mind. His
epithets are rarely descriptive of the qualities that exist in the objects
to which they are applied. They have reference rather to the emotions
which their presence produces in himself. Thus, in the first line,
'boding' is not a quality that can be predicated of silence. To the
feeling that the silence preceding a storm is wont to excite, the epithet
is properly enough applied. So with the expression 'dubious dusk.'

In connection with these extracts, we will look at one taken from
SCOTT'S description of the scenery around Loch Katrine:

  'Boon nature scattered free and wild,
  Each plant, or flower, the mountain's child;
  Here eglantine embalmed the air,
  Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;
  The primrose pale, and violet flower,
  Found in each cleft a narrow bower;
  Foxglove and night-shade, side by side
  Emblems of punishment and pride,
  Grouped their dark hues with every stain
  The weather-beaten crags retain;
  With boughs that quaked at every breath,
  Gray-birch and aspen wept beneath;
  Aloft the ash and warrior oak
  Cast anchor in the rifted rock;
  And higher yet the pine tree hung
  His scattered trunk, and frequent flung
  Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high
  His boughs athwart the narrowed sky.
  Highest of all, where white peaks glanced,
  Where glistening streamers waved and danced,
  The wanderer's eye could barely view
  The summer heaven's delicious blue.'

The same remarks which we applied to Irving are applicable with some
little restriction here. With one or two exceptions, the epithets mark
attributes that exist in the subjects. Every one can see at a glance the
appropriateness of such terms as _pale_ primrose, _gray_ birch, and
_narrow_ bower. They are not dependent for their effect upon any fanciful
train of associations which their names may excite.

If we compare the above extracts together, we arrive at certain results
which we shall briefly state. We will throw out of view for a moment any
pleasure which the rhythm may give us, as foreign to our present purpose.
Each of these writers is describing a scene from nature. Each of them has
the same object, to interest others by a representation of those sights
and sounds that interested themselves. Scott accomplishes his purpose by
presenting as exact a picture of nature as it is possible perhaps for
words to give. He does not tell us how he is affected by what he sees, and
looks upon neither directly nor indirectly. He does not search for any
resemblances that are not palpable, and founded in the nature of things.
All similes and metaphors which serve to express his own emotions are
carefully avoided. The whole is picturesque and life-like in the highest
degree, yet every circumstance is mentioned in the cool, unimpassioned way
in which we mention any common occurrence.

Thomson accomplishes his purpose by portraying his own feelings; not
indeed in so many words, but by the use of those expressions, and by those
transitions of thought, which mark a state of emotion. The epithet
'boding,' to which we have referred, is an example. It is an indirect
disclosure of the mood of his own mind. At another time it is not
improbable that an epithet of a directly opposite meaning would have been
selected. The reader is affected by it, because by a law of sympathy, we
are affected by whatever reveals the presence of passion in another. It
influences us precisely as the tones of the voice of a person in distress
influence us. Both are expressive of emotion, and we cannot remain
unaffected by them.

This is the main source of the pleasure we feel in reading Thomson's
description. It conveys to us but a very indistinct idea of the subject
matter. Different readers, according to their mental peculiarities, will
be differently affected by it. He does not paint to the bodily eye, but to
the eye of the mind; and he will feel most pleasure who puts himself in
the same position as the poet, and sees with his eyes and hears with his
ears. Unless he can do this, he will derive but little gratification from
the perusal.

Less minute than Irving, and more picturesque than Thomson, Scott will
probably to most readers give more pleasure than either of them. In
conveying lively impressions of natural objects he is unsurpassed, but he
is scarcely less successful in inspiring the mind of the reader with the
same emotions that fill his own breast. There is ever between the thought
and its expression a perfect harmony. It is only when agitated by passion
that he uses the _language_ of passion. Hence we never find that timid
phraseology which so often disgusts us in Thomson; _vox et præterea
nihil_. No one delights more in the use of figurative language, nor
employs metaphors that more appropriately convey the sentiment that
pervades his mind. In the passage we have quoted are the following lines:

  'Aloft the ash and warrior oak
  Cast anchor in the rifted rock.'

The poet looking up at the trees firmly rooted in the rifts of the rock,
defying the tempest and storm, felt an emotion of pleasure which the sight
of their lofty position, and the apparent danger of their being hurled
headlong at the first blast of wind, contrasted with the sense of their
real security, produced. To express this pleasurable emotion, he fastens
upon the resemblance between a root of the tree and an anchor; a
resemblance not between the things themselves, but between their uses.
Neglecting all the points of difference, and confining his attention to
this single point of similarity, he presents an image which all admit to
be highly forcible and poetical.

The great merit of all descriptive poetry consists in the unity of feeling
which pervades it. Unlike the epic, or the drama, it has none of the
interest which arises from a connected narrative, or the development of
individual character in reference to a certain end. The poet confines
himself to the expression of those feelings which are awakened by the
sight of the beauty and sublimity of nature. Passing, as he necessarily
must, from one object to another, each fitted to excite in his bosom
conflicting emotions, his attention is so much diverted, that none of them
produces upon him its legitimate effect. There is wanting some central
object of interest to which all others are subordinate. Hence is explained
the listlessness of which every one is conscious in the continuous perusal
of the Seasons. We find the greatest pleasure by reading a page here and a
page there, according to the state of our feelings.

It is never in short poems that the descriptive poets succeed best.
L'Allegro and Le Penseroso are gems; but all Milton's genius could not
have made the Paradise Lost readable, were it deprived of its unity as an
epic, and broken up into a series of detached pictures. The Deserted
Village of Goldsmith is the longest poem of this class that we now
remember, having all its parts so pervaded by a common spirit that a
succession of new objects does not impair the designed effect. Sweet
Auburn as it was in its palmy days, and as it is in its desolation,
presents two distinct pictures, yet so closely connected that each
heightens the effect of the other by the contrast. Nothing can exceed the
exquisite art with which Goldsmith has seized upon those circumstances
that tend to make the desired impression, and rejected all others. How
perfect are each of the following descriptions, and how much would their
beauty be marred by the transfer of a single circumstance from one to the
other:

  'How often have I paused on every charm,
  The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm;
  The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
  The decent church that topped the neighb'ring hill;
  The hawthorn-bush with seats beneath the shade,
  For talking age and whispering lovers made.

  'The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
  By holding out to tire each other down;
  The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
  While secret laughter tittered round the place;
  The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
  The matron's glance, that would those looks reprove.

  'No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
  But choked with sedges works its weedy way;
  Along thy glade, a solitary guest,
  The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
  Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
  And tires the echoes with unvaried cries;
  Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all,
  And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall.'

It is by the selection of such objects as have in themselves no common
bond of union, but which combine to raise a certain emotion, that the
essential distinction is to be found between the descriptions of the poet
and the prose-writer. The latter joins objects together as they are joined
in nature, following a principle of association which is simple and
obvious. His resemblances are usually such as are cognizable by the
senses; a likeness in the sensible qualities of things. The poet's
principle of association is in the effect produced on his imagination.
Things which have not in themselves a single point of similarity, are
connected together, because they produce the same emotions of pleasure, or
pain, or hope, or melancholy. A beautiful illustration of this is found in
the opening stanzas of Gray's Elegy:

  'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
  The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
  The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
  And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

  Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
  And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
  Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
  And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.'

A summer evening in the country is associated in most minds with images of
mirth and joy. Thus Goldsmith has described it:

  'Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close,
  Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
  There as I passed with careless steps, and slow,
  The mingling notes came softened from below;
  The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
  The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
  The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
  The playful children just let loose from school,
  The watch-dog's voice, that bayed the whisp'ring wind,
  And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.'

With what consummate skill, if indeed it be not rather the instinct of the
poet, has Gray avoided all mention of those objects which might awaken
associations discordant with the mood of his own mind! Each epithet is
full of a plaintive melancholy. There is not one that does not contribute
something to the effect; not one that can be omitted; not one that can be
altered for the better. Yet there is scarcely one that is descriptive of
any quality actually existing in its subject. The fitness of each is to be
felt rather than seen.

In the selection of those circumstances and objects which Gray has
enumerated, he was governed by the effect which each had upon his own
feelings. He looked upon nature in the reflected light of his own heart.
He was mournful in view of the destiny of man; and wandering amidst the
graves of the lowly and obscure, he saw all the external world colored
with the hue of his own sad thoughts. The melancholy spirit within him
transformed all things without into its own likeness. His imagination,
darting hither and thither, and governed in its flight by laws too subtle
and delicate to be analyzed, reposed itself for a moment amidst the gloom
of the historical associations that cluster around the curfew, hovered
over the lowing herd, and followed the ploughman as he homeward plods his
weary way. Goldsmith, recalling the scenes where he had spent many happy
hours, looks upon nature under a far different aspect. Every thing to him
is gay and joyous. He hears not the hollow tones of the curfew, nor the
drowsy tinklings that lull the distant folds. He sees not the wearied
ploughman, caring for nought but to forget his toils in the sweet oblivion
of sleep. He hears but the song of the milk-maid, and the soft response of
her rustic lover; the watchdog's voice, and the loud laugh of the happy
idlers. He sees but the children just escaped from school, running and
leaping, and romping in their innocent glee. Happy himself, he fastens
upon whatever in nature around him seems to sympathise with him, and
dwelling fondly upon it, casts away from his thoughts every thing that can
obstruct the full, free flow of his joyous emotions.

We may remark in passing, what has probably been before remarked by the
attentive reader, that both Gray and Goldsmith, excited as they are by
different passions, refer to the 'lowing herd' as raising on the one hand
a cheerful, and on the other a melancholy feeling. To our thought, the
associations connected with the return of the herds from the fields at
sunset are best fitted to awaken that quiet, reflective state of mind
which is most congenial to the mood of the elegiac poet. To another, these
associations may be of such a character as to produce a directly opposite
effect.

The writer of prose who should describe scenes like these, would aim to
give us a distinct and accurate picture by presenting all their prominent
features, omitting nothing, and grouping them as Nature herself had
grouped them. Such descriptions we daily see in all books of voyages and
travels. Or if the descriptions be of scenes wholly imaginary, their
essential character is not changed. Although they cease to be real, they
do not become poetical. The extract which we have made from Irving is not
poetical. Accurate, vivid, life-like, it is. We cannot read it without a
feeling of pleasure. We admire the genius of the writer; we wonder at the
magnificence of the spectacle which, by a few masterly touches, he has
raised up before us. But there is no more poetry in it than in his
description of Herr Van Tassel's supper table, covered with all the
luxuries of Dutch housewifery. It is true, there may be more of beauty and
sublimity in the scenery of the Hudson, in the gathering clouds and
muttering thunder, than in the sight of dough-nuts and crullers,
sweet-cakes and short-cakes, peach pies and pumpkin pies, slices of ham
and slices of smoked beef; yet the spirit of poetry exists no more in the
one than in the other. Poetry has its abode in the _heart_ of man; not in
the winds, in the clouds, in the mountains, or in the vales. It does not
derive its power from the outward world, but breathes into it its own
breath of life, investing the earth with a beauty which has no existence
but in the human soul, and filling the air with sweet harmonies, which are
unheard save by the inspired ear of the poet.

We have now, we think, sufficiently answered the question, why so many who
read descriptive poetry with pleasure, look with indifference upon what is
beautiful or sublime in nature. The poet is to them like one who gives
sight to the blind. The landscape which formerly lay before their eyes
unregarded, almost unseen, is now 'beautiful exceedingly.' Nature has not
changed; they themselves have not changed; yet there _is_ a change. There
is a glory unseen before, cast over the earth. It is, as it were,
transfigured before them, and made radiant with celestial light. This is
the poet's work. With a keener perception of the beautiful and sublime
than other men; with a greater facility of association, and with the power
to give to language the hue and intensity of his own feelings, he clothes
lifeless nature with the attributes of humanity, making it instinct with
human sentiment and passion. Like Burns, he pours forth his lament over
the mountain-daisy cut down in its bloom, in a few simple words that find
a response in the hearts of all men; and henceforth it is embalmed in our
memories, and shall be as immortal as the star that shines in the far
depths of the heavens. Like Wordsworth, he wanders upon the banks of his
native lakes, and mingles his song with the noise of their waters, until
the faintest whisper of the rippling waves seems but the echo of his
voice. Wherever he goes fruits, flowers, and herbage spring up in his
footsteps. A divine Presence goes with him; Nature speaks to him with her
thousand voices, and he hears, and answers, making sweet music in the joy
of his heart. Nothing is so inconsiderable as to be without the pale of
his sympathy; nothing too humble to stir the fountains of love in his
breast. The solitary flower that blossoms by the way-side, the rivulet far
away amid the hills, is but the starting point of that wondrous chain of
thick-coming fancies, that fill his eyes with light, and his ear with
harmony; as if multitudes of angels were hovering around, and he heard on
every side the rustling of their wings.

Such are the gifts of the poet. They are God's gifts, and are indeed
'wonderful in our eyes.'

VICISSITUDES.

  Hast thou not been where wild winds, freshly blowing,
    Brought odorous gladness on each passing gale;
  Hast thou not been where the pure streamlet flowing,
    In each soft murmur told a gentle tale:

  As the bright flashing of its gushing water,
    Glad as the tones of merriment and glee
  That joyous burst from children in their laughter,
    Swift dashes onward to the boundless sea?

  Hast thou not been where the enamelled mead
    Its beauty gave to the enraptured sense,
  And the crushed lily, from the elastic tread,
    Yielded its life in breath of sweets intense?

  Hast thou not been in spring-time's early hours,
    Where the lone bird its short sweet carol gave
  To the young bursting leaves and budding flowers,
    Beside some wildly-rushing mountain wave?

  Not such the lay it sings in summer hours,
    When love beats high within its little breast,
  And its exulting song it joyous pours,
    Where thick embowering leaves conceal its nest.

  Hast thou not marked, when autumn's gorgeous glory
    Fled in the rushing of the hurrying blast,
  The deep'ning pathos of the moral story
    Sighed in each cadence, as it onward passed.

  Hast thou not heard the ancient forests, bending
    To the far sweeping of the mighty wind,
  Send forth a solemn sound, as though responding
    To voices deep that secret powers unbind?

  Hast thou not stood where ocean madly raging,
    Rolled onward as with overmastering shock:
  'Till hushed the storm, the chaféd surge assuaging,
    It gently laved the firm-opposing rock?

  Hast thou not gleaned a lesson to thy reason
    From winter's fostering power and spring's awakening reign;
  Summer's brief heat, autumn's maturing season,
    And learned vicissitudes are not in vain?

  But from the varied page outspread before thee,
    Garner'd of wisdom for thy fleeting days,
  Whether the sunshine or the storm be o'er thee,
    Forward to look with hope, and trust, and praise?

_Newport, Rhode-Island, Dec., 1843._                       E. R. G. H.

THE IDLEBERG PAPERS.

A CHRISTMAS YARN.

At Christmas every body is or should be happy. The genial influence of the
season lightens alike the lofty hall and the lowly cottage. It is the same
at home or abroad, on the land or the billow, in royal purple or in ragged
poverty; here and every where, to one and to all, it is always 'merrie
Christmas.' At such a time there is an obligation due from every man to
society, to be happy, and the more cheerfully it is paid, the better. The
man who would be found scowling and glowering like a thunder-cloud,
cherishing his private griefs or animosities at a time when every other
countenance is glowing with light, and hope, and sunshine, should be
denied all the charities of humanity, and exiled to Kamschatka, or some
other inhospitable clime, to growl and fret with the wild beasts, or the
wilder elements.

How dear is the light of home when glowing with the fires of Christmas!
What though the elements be wild without, or Jack Frost blow his whistling
pipe at the door, or fierce winds rumble down the chimney, and tell of
sweeping gusts and howling storms abroad, if within and around that
charmed circle is breathed the spirit of kindness and affection! Should
the titled stranger or the ragged beggar knock, throw wide open the doors
of thy hospitality; and while prattling infants recount the joys of the
season, and school-boy striplings pursue their holiday sports, and
gray-haired men who have traversed the wide world over, tell how in all
their wanderings they have never passed a Christmas from home; he will
turn his thoughts with a melancholy pleasure to the distant fireside
beyond the sea, and to the friends who are gathered there, and wonder
where the wanderer is spending his Christmas.

With all respect for the ancient and honorable class of 'old bachelors,'
whose sympathy and good fellowship we most earnestly desire, be it said,
that if to any it is allowed to be miserable at Christmas, it surely is to
them. We would not for the world say aught to heighten the sad picture of
their social desolation, by dwelling on the thousand tender endearments of
home, the ten thousand cords of love, of which they know nothing. Certain
it is, that to many of them 'merrie Christmas' brings only pangs of
remorse; and we have known more than one crusty member of the fraternity,
who on such occasions would rush incontinently from the scene and the
sound of merriment, and shut themselves under lock and key, until the
storm was passed, and people have recovered their lost senses.

Such an one, however, we are proud to say, was _not_ TOM HARDESTY, though
bachelor he was, in the superlative degree. Every body wondered how he
managed to preserve his good-humor and vivacity under the frosts of
three-score winters. At the period of this authentic history, Tom was the
village grocer; a station he had filled to his own profit and the town's
convenience until he had become a piece of village furniture, necessary to
its existence as a corporation. His little store, with its great variety
of commodities, adapted to every human want, was in itself a perfect
'curiosity-shop.' Odd-looking boxes, kegs, chests, casks, barrels and
hogsheads, contained his groceries, drugs and dye-stuffs. A few remnants
of domestic prints and muslins, together with stray fragments of
broadcloth, constituted his stock of dry-goods. Then there was a modicum
of hardware and cutlery; a few spelling-books and new testaments for a
book store; and sundry jars and bottles filled with fancy-colored powders
and liquids, for an apothecary shop. His remaining list of commodities was
made up of hats, caps and bonnets, boots and shoes, tin-pans and
looking-glasses, slate-pencils and sifters; and as his standing
advertisement in the village newspaper duly notified the public, 'other
articles too numerous to mention--call and see for yourselves.' If any
body desired an article nobody ever heard of before, he could find a large
lot thereof at Tom Hardesty's; and if any lucky or ingenious wight had
found or made any thing that nobody else would have as a gracious gift,
let him call on Mr. Hardesty, and it was the very thing he wanted. In a
word, his shop was a grand dépôt for every article the ingenuity of man
could devise, or his necessities require.

What a blessed convenience was Tom Hardesty! How could we have gotten
along without him? How honest and affable! What long ells and heavy pounds
he gave! And then his tea! how it inspired the village gossip on long
winter nights in a chimney corner! All the matrons of the village were
quite in love with Tom, or his tea; and many an old crone, as she sat
inhaling cup after cup of the divine beverage, has been known to pause in
the midst of her inspirations, and exclaim with uplifted hands, 'God bless
Tom Hardesty!'

And yet Tom Hardesty was a bachelor, and kept 'bachelor's hall.' The only
members of his mess were an orphan boy of his adoption, who waited in the
store, and a brindle cat which the master had honored with his own name.
This point, however, is still wrapt in obscurity, for Tom and 'Tom' were
both so venerable that nobody could swear whether the cat had been named
after the master, or the master after the cat. It had been rumored by
those who should know, that Mr. Hardesty should not be held strictly
accountable for this sin of celibacy, since he had offered his hand, his
heart, and a partnership in his worldly goods, to more than one village
beauty, each of whom had found it impossible to 'love for antiquity's
sake,' and rejected his matrimonial offers accordingly. Still Tom never
repined. His daily experience behind the counter had taught him the useful
lesson, that each applicant does not necessarily always drive a trade, and
the commodity which one rejects may be eagerly sought by another; and
acting on the faith of this philosophy, he lived cheerfully on, cherishing
the hope that even yet some fond heart would beat responsive to his own,
and promise before the competent authority, to 'love, honor and obey' him,
Tom Hardesty.

On a memorable Christmas-eve we enter his little counting-room. A cheerful
fire blazes on the hearth; and at the moment grimalkin is purring on the
rug. Master John, the adopted, is poring over a picture-book, probably an
early edition of Peter Parley's Travels, and Mr. Hardesty is standing
before a broken fragment of looking-glass, diligently brushing his scanty
locks.

'John!' said Mr. Hardesty, turning from the mirror, and looking full at
the boy, 'do I look very old to-night?'

The boy turned up his innocent face, gazed steadily on his master from top
to toe, and answered, 'Sir!'

'Do I look very _old_ to-night, John?'

John scratched his head. 'Not much older than you did this time last
night, Sir.'

'Humph!' said Mr. Hardesty, appealing to the glass, and renewing his
efforts with the brush, while John resumed his reading.

'But, John,' resumed Mr. Hardesty, seating himself beside the boy, 'do you
really think that a middle-aged lady, of right comfortable property, would
have, _could_ have, any rational objection to be called Mrs. Hardesty?'

'I think not, Sir,' replied John, taking up the cat; 'I'm sure you have
been very kind to me and old Tom here, and I know you would be so to her.'

'Very true, John,' said Mr. Hardesty, whose feelings were touched by this
expression of the boy's gratitude; 'but I wish to extend the sphere of my
usefulness; and I may venture to hope--but don't mention it--that in the
course of three or four years, or may-be a little longer, there'll be a
little boy at our house for you to play with; and if it's a girl, John,
you shall marry her when you get old enough. Eh, John! how would you like
_that_?' And the old gentleman chuckled himself into a fit of coughing
that seemed to threaten his longevity, and prevented John's reply to a
suggestion that had never occurred to him as being within the bounds of
the most remote possibility.

Having amused himself sufficiently with these flights of his fancy, Mr.
Hardesty rose from his seat, gave John eighteen-pence for Christmas-money,
stroked his namesake's back, put on his cloak and cap, and after bidding
John be a good boy, and not to mention it, and to take care of the fire
till he came back, left the house on his errand of love.

Christmas eve! Surely the village streets were never so gay before! You
may know there is a moon, for though the sky is darkened with clouds, and
the snow is falling as it never fell before, there is a glow of light
above and around, that would burst on the eye like dim revealings of
fairy-land, but for the mist that floats through the dim upper air, and
seems striving to bind the earth as with a mantle.

What a merry, merry Christmas! Gust after gust comes whirling on,
full-freighted with the virgin snow. There are shouts of revelry that rise
and fall with the sound of the blast. There are hurried footsteps that
glide over the crackling snow. There are merry hearts within those
bounding sleighs, and hands that clasp the hands they love, though wrapped
in countless furs and muffs. Gay steeds dash on with steaming nostrils, as
if their toil were sport; and their bells, as they ring cheerily out in
the sombre night, give promise of marriage-bells to come.

Through all this busy scene Tom Hardesty pressed on, turning neither to
the right nor left, except when he turned a corner. As the wind dashed the
driving snow in his face, he drew his cloak more closely around him, and,
shivering, passed on with cheerful thoughts of love and matrimony.
Sometimes the boys pelted him with their snowy artillery, or old
acquaintances inquired after his health, but he glided on like a dim
shadow, heedless alike of all. By degrees the holiday din of the village
waxed faint in his ears, and as he approached the suburbs, his heart beat
fast while his steps were slow with indecision, for he was approaching the
end of his pilgrimage--the dwelling of Miss Peggy Sidebottom.

While Mr. Hardesty is pausing at the door, stamping the snow from his
feet, and making the accustomed use of his pocket-handkerchief, we will
take advantage of his delay to state, briefly, that Miss Sidebottom,
beside being sole proprietress of the cottage-like mansion aforesaid,
claimed also among her chattels sundry shares in bank, and certain notes
of hand, yielding her sufficient income, without calculating the value of
her personal charms, to make her hand and heart two very desirable items
of furniture in a bachelor's apartments. Her household consisted of
herself, and a nephew and niece, christened Dick and Belinda, orphan
children of a deceased brother. Dick was a wild, rattling scape-grace, as
ever robbed hen-roost or melon-patch; Belinda was nothing, particularly,
except a little, quiet, blue-eyed girl, the pride of her aunt, and a
pattern of propriety to all little girls. That Miss Sidebottom was kind
and motherly to the two orphans, there is no question; but it was rumored
that in consideration thereof she enjoyed a comfortable legacy. It is only
necessary to premise, farther, that Miss Sidebottom had been younger by
some two-score years than she was that night; that she was one of Mr.
Hardesty's best customers; and that after long worshipping her across the
counter, he had suddenly determined to declare his passion with all the
eloquence he possessed; which was not inconsiderable, as many can bear
witness.

Mr. Hardesty knocks and is admitted to the hall. Another door is opened,
and there, in the snuggest corner, and by the snuggest fire conceivable,
sits Miss Sidebottom. The opposite end of the hearth is decorated by
Belinda, while a cat is sleeping on the rug between them. It was a picture
of quiet happiness that touched Mr. Hardesty's heart; and advancing into
the room, he bows with all the elegance of a Beau Brummel.

Miss Sidebottom turned her eyes upon the new-comer, and as they fell on
the familiar and smiling countenance of the grocer, she sprang to her
feet, and exclaimed: 'Why, Mr. Hardesty! I am so glad to see you! Let me
have your cloak and cap, Sir. Come, be seated; draw near the fire.'

Mr. Hardesty kept bowing all this time with as much nobility as was
displayed by the famous stick that was too crooked to lie still; and after
grasping Belinda's hand very affectionately, he seated himself, and drew
near the fire.

'Dear me! what a night!' said Miss Sidebottom; 'ain't it cold out, Mr.
Hardesty?'

Mr. Hardesty replied by shivering palpably, and said he had seen colder,
and he had seen warmer, but it would do. Having said thus much, he
produced his snuff-box, which he extended to the ladies, and then helped
himself.

'I am truly glad, Miss Peggy,' continued Tom. 'to see you situated so
comfortably--I am.' And he smiled tenderly and shifted his chair; but in
doing so, he infringed on the cat's tail, and the animal, as cats are wont
to do, squalled vehemently. Mr. Hardesty bounded from his seat.

'Dear me!' exclaimed Miss Sidebotton, 'don't do that!'

'Positively, Madam,' said Tom, 'I am very sorry, indeed--I am!'

'Poor thing!' said Belinda, taking the injured quadruped in her arms;
'poor thing!--did he hurt its tail?'

''Deed, Madam,' said Mr. Hardesty, stroking the animal's back, 'I wouldn't
have done that for forty ordinary cats. I may say, Madam, speaking
metaphorically, that your cat is of the short-horn Durham stock, and
wasn't made to be trod on.'

'Lor', Sir,' replied Miss Sidebottom, adjusting her cap, 'cats is cats,
and cattle is cattle--that's my sentiments; but as I was going to say, Mr.
Hardesty, I was telling Mrs. Jenkins to-night, not an hour ago, that I
felt a kind of nervous kind of feeling that somebody was coming; and sure
enough, here comes you. You see, Mrs. Jenkins was here to take tea with me
to-night, and beside the baby, why her little Jack and Sally and Bill and
Susan _would_ come, because, they said, pap wasn't at home, and they would
starve if they staid there. And here, sure enough, come they did, before
Mrs. Jenkins had fairly pulled off her bonnet; and stay they would, though
she boxed 'em well; but they didn't mind that, and I told her Christmas
come but once a year, and as it turned out, the poor things _were_ hungry,
in yearnest. And you never see children eat so; I do believe they hadn't
had a good meal for a fortnight. Well, we hadn't got fairly seated after
supper, when rap! rap! at the door, and there was Jake Crow had come for
Mrs. Jenkins; for Jenkins had got into a drunken row, and had his head cut
with a stick. And you never hearn sich a fuss; and Mrs. Jenkins and the
little brats went home crying all the way; and here me and Belinda have
been by ourselves ever since. But poor Mrs. Jenkins! I wonder men will get
drunk and leave their wives and children to starve. _You_ never get drunk,
Mr. Hardesty, do you?'

'Drunk! Madam, drunk!' said Mr. Hardesty, placing his hand over his heart,
and shaking his head emphatically. 'No, Madam; I only get what you may
call intoxicated, and not with liquor neither; and I feel it coming on me
now--I do indeed!'

'Well, well!' replies Mrs. Sidebottom, holding up her hands in utter
astonishment, 'I never heard tell of the like of that before. P'raps its
the cold, Mr. Hardesty.'

'No, Madam,' persisted the old gentleman; 'it's the heat.'

'Dear me! Mr. Hardesty; then I'll open the door.' And Miss Peggy started
to her feet.

'No, my dear Madam, don't, if you please. It ain't this here fire in the
hearth, but,' striking his breast passionately, 'it's _here_, Madam.'

'That's just where Mrs. Jenkins is affected sometimes, and she says
Madeira's the best thing for it; and she has drank nearly all that last
quart I got of you, Mr. Hardesty, and I don't see as she gets any better.'

'Madeira, indeed!' said old Tom, scornfully. 'Madeira, madam, instead of
squenching, would only add fuel to the flame that is consuming me. There
_are_ men as takes to the bottle for it when they despair; but bless your
soul!' he continued, dropping his voice to a whisper, 'I haven't
despaired.'

At this eloquent appeal, Mrs. Sidebottom looked at the fire and said
nothing, until an audible snore from Belinda, who had fallen asleep in her
chair, aroused her.

'Bless me!' exclaimed Miss Peggy, bouncing to her feet; 'look at the child
there! Belinda dear, wake up. Poor dear thing! you had better go up stairs
to bed.' And rubbing her eyes, the child took up a lighted candle, bowed
politely to Mr. Hardesty, and disappeared behind the stair-door.

Miss Sidebottom resumed her seat and looked again at the fire, and Mr.
Hardesty looked at Miss Sidebottom. Presently, that amiable lady turned
her gaze, lighted as it was by an equivocal smile, full upon Tom. In the
space of about fifteen seconds, after trying in vain to interpret that
smile to his own satisfaction, Mr. Hardesty quailed, while his heart
commenced vibrating against his ribs, as though it would burst their
feeble barrier, and take refuge in his waistcoat-pocket. Miss Sidebottom,
however, showed no such symptoms of alarm, and her courage rose as Tom's
fell. By the way, composure in such delicate epochs is like see-sawing;
one ascends as the other descends, until perchance the weaker party fails
to recover his equilibrium, and tumbles off the fence. Diffident young
courtiers should remember this.

Mr. Hardesty was bewildered beyond endurance. How could a man speak more
plainly? And yet he would try once more.

'Let me tell you, my dear Miss Sidebottom, once for all, I'm----'

There was a noise of some one opening the front door, and as Mr. Hardesty
turned his head, Dick entered the room.

'Why, Dicky, where have you been this cold night?' asked his aunt.

Dicky replied that he had been snow-balling, of which there were
sufficient marks on his person. His countenance was flushed and heated,
and he proceeded to say that he was tired, and wanted to go to bed.

At this Mr. Hardesty rose deliberately from his seat, saying it was time
to go.

'But, Mr. Hardesty,' urged Miss Peggy, 'it's cold and snowing; stay all
night there with Dicky,' pointing to a comfortable bed in one corner. 'I
know you are delicate, and it's snowing hard. I'll go and see. Here
Dicky,' and she left the room followed by Dick. Mr. Hardesty looked around
at the comfortable quarters offered him, and determined to remain.
Scarcely had he come to this decision, when the affectionate aunt and
nephew returned, the former telling him not to think of going out on such
a night, and the latter assuring him it was snowing 'like sixty.'

'I'll stay, Madam, and thank'ee too,' said Mr. Hardesty, re-seating
himself. Miss Peggy bade her guest a very good night, and, threatening to
catch him for a Christmas gift next morning, disappeared up the stairs and
locked the door after her. Tom watched her retreating figure until she
disappeared, and then addressed himself to the boy.

'Been snow-balling to-night, eh, Dicky? Fine sport, Dicky; fine sport.'

'I should say it was, Sir, when your side toes the mark and don't run,'
said Dick, placing his damp shoes on the hearth. 'Them shoes'll never run
away with _my_ feet in 'em, certain.'

'Well, Dicky,' continued Mr. Hardesty, stirring the fire, 'you're a brave
boy.'

'Yes, Sir,' said Dick, 'braver than you think for. Catch me napping when
there's work to do, and I am to get a pie for it in the bargain, will
you?' The bare suggestion amused Dick, and as he divested himself of his
damp clothes, he laughed heartily.

'That's just what I was saying, Dicky, and was going on to add, that
snow-balling and such like ain't for me now, but the time was when none
was better at them than I.'

'P'raps not,' said Dick, 'but as I'm rather tired, and don't mind the
cold, I'll get in and warm the bed, and you can come along when you like;'
and the light-hearted boy sprang into his nest, and in less than five
minutes was snoring audibly.

Mr. Hardesty stirred the fire, and as the myriad sparks flew up the
chimney, he wished he had just so many dollars; he would give them all if
_she_ would but love him. Growing weary of this delusive sport, he looked
at his watch, compared it with Miss Sidebottom's yankee clock, and finding
his own time-piece was just five minutes the faster, concluded that both
were wrong just two minutes and a half, and he would split the difference.
He might be mistaken, but if he was he would consult the town clock
to-morrow.

Mr. Hardesty resumed the poker and stirred the fire until its bright blaze
threw a broad glare over the chamber; and out of the glowing coals he
built strange towers and castles, and saw them change by turns into ashes,
and grow dim like his own recent dreams of love. This being a melancholy
contemplation, he lent his ear to a solitary cricket that was cheerily
singing its household song, though the winds were wild without. Presently
the cricket ceased its chirrup, and Mr. Hardesty growing tired of sitting,
yawned, stretched himself, and walked to the window.

Outside, the ground was covered with a wild waste of snow, and the heavy
flakes were still falling. Suddenly it occurred to him that somebody might
accidentally pass that way and recognize him; so he let fall the curtain
and walked across the room. Here, lifting his eyes from the floor, a
looking-glass stared him in the face, and he started back. He turned again
and walked to the bed-side where Dick was sleeping. The boy, he thought,
might one day be his nephew, and he revolved in his mind a thousand
schemes for advancing him in the world and making him a clever fellow.

Mr. Hardesty left the bed-side and looked up at the ceiling. Beyond that,
he thought, was the adored Miss Sidebottom. What a narrow space sundered
them! He walked to the fire-place and looked on the mantel for a book. He
selected an old copy of Burns, and opened at the pathetic ballad of 'John
Anderson.' Mr. Hardesty sat down and read it once aloud. Then he read it
to himself over and over again, until he had gotten it by heart. And then
by degrees the room swam dizzily before him, the fire glowed like a pale
meteor, his eyes closed heavily, the open book fell from his hand, and Mr.
Hardesty was asleep.

He slept and dreamed. Smiles like those of sleeping infancy stole over his
venerable features. In one short moment he was the happiest man alive; his
love had been crowned with success; and putting forth his hand to grasp
the dear shadow, he lost his balance and fell from his chair.

Mr. Hardesty looked around him, wondering. He resumed his seat and rubbed
his eyes. The fire had almost gone out. The wick was long and dim. He
looked at the clock; it wanted just twenty minutes of midnight.

Mr. Hardesty snuffed the candle and commenced divesting himself of his
apparel; placed his boots beside Dicky's shoes on the hearth; threw his
upper garments on the back of a chair, and his nether ditto on the seat
thereof. But his extremities were cold, he thought, and placing a chair
bottom upward on the floor, he put his feet to the fire.

For some minutes Mr. Hardesty stared steadily at the ceiling, beyond which
Miss Sidebottom was sleeping in virgin security; and whether from the
magnetic effect of his constant gaze, or the slumbrous air that pervaded
the room, his eyelids soon closed, and he was again soundly asleep. The
candle burned dimly on; coal after coal was turned to ashes; at last both
went out, and still Mr. Hardesty slept.

Presently there was a stir in the bed occupied by Dick. The boy rose on
his pillow and looked cautiously around him. He called Mr. Hardesty, but
there was no answer. At this Dick put one leg out of bed, and then the
other, and stood firmly on the floor. Gliding cautiously over the carpet,
he stooped over the sleeper, whose deep breathing assured him that all was
safe. Then stepping softly to the chair on which Mr. Hardesty's clothes
were lying, he selected that gentleman's nether garment, then went to the
hearth and lifted the boots, and slipping on his own shoes, glided
cautiously out of the room with his booty. Returning in a few minutes he
again stooped over the sleeper, and then stole to bed, where, after
laughing immoderately yet quietly, he was soon as fast asleep as Mr.
Hardesty himself.

When Mr. Hardesty awoke he found himself still reclining on the back of
the chair. Not a little vexed with himself for lying there all night, he
rose to his feet, and looking around, found that Dick had risen before
him, and the bed was empty. 'Why didn't he wake me, I wonder?' said Mr.
Hardesty.

Mr. Hardesty walked to the window, lifted the curtain, and looked out. The
mists and clouds had cleared away, and left the sky all bright and blue.
The sun had just risen, and was shedding his early splendor on the myriad
snow-drops as brightly as if to atone for the darkness and gloom of
yesterday. It was a cheerful and beautiful view; but Mr. Hardesty heard
the sound of shuffling footsteps overhead; so he turned shivering from the
window to dress himself for the day. 'It'll never do to be caught in this
fix,' said Mr. Hardesty.

His first search was for his boots, but these had been taken out, as he
supposed, to be polished. He would put on his breeches and wait for his
boots. He cast his eye on the pile of clothes, but the breeches were not
there. Then he looked on the floor, and in all the corners of the room,
and then on the bed and under the bed--but in vain. 'What the d----l has
become of my breeches!' said Mr. Hardesty.

It occurred to him at length that by some mysterious power of locomotion
the garment had gotten into the drawer of a bureau that stood in one
corner. He pulled at this drawer most lustily, but it was locked, and Miss
Sidebottom had the key. To add to his discomfiture, he again heard the
sound of footsteps overhead. He had but a moment to spare, and looking
around for a place of retreat, his eye fell on a closet-door that opened
beneath the stairs. Putting on hastily the remnant of his apparel, he
presented altogether an appearance the like of which the writer has never
seen, and will not attempt to describe, and managed to effect his retreat
into the closet just as Miss Sidebottom and Belinda entered the room from
above.

Mr. Hardesty applied his eye to the key-hole, but saw nothing save the
form of either lady as it flitted from time to time across the limited
range of his vision. Presently a conversation began between the two, of
which, however, he could hear nothing except a confused murmur, and
occasionally a most uproarious fit of laughter. Before long the merry
tones of the elder lady were changed to those of anger. Miss Sidebottom
was evidently scolding one of the servants, and then came reiterated
sounds of castigation, interspersed with tongue-lashings, by far the most
terrible of the two. Mr. Hardesty resigned himself to his fate, and was
willing to endure a confinement that revealed to him the evil spirit that
reigned within a form of so much loveliness.

After a while came the indescribable sounds of breakfast; the rattling of
knives and forks, and cups and saucers, suggestive to Mr. Hardesty's mind
of coffee, hot biscuits, and butter. Presently the table was cleared away,
and he caught a glimpse through his key-hole of the two ladies, dressed in
their cloaks and bonnets. In a moment they departed, leaving Mr. Hardesty
sole proprietor.

Each moment of this time was one of intense agony to Mr. Hardesty. Exposed
to hunger and thirst, and cold and insult, what had he done to deserve
such misfortunes? And that was Christmas, too; what a merry day to all the
world without; and in what a contemptible plight was he! What would little
Master John think of his absence; and how much would be sold at his little
store before night? These reflections only enhanced the agony of his
imprisonment; so wrapping himself tightly in the folds of his cloak, he
crouched down in a corner of the closet, and soon fell fast asleep.

Mr. Hardesty slept on until night-fall. So soon as he realized his
situation, he determined to be a prisoner no longer, but to emerge from
his confinement, whatever might be the danger of an exposure. Fortunately
for him, the room was deserted. The ladies had not yet returned from their
visit. Mr. Hardesty approached the window and found it quite dark without.
He had little time left for deliberation, for he heard the sound of a key
turning in the street-door lock, and recognized the well-known voice of
Miss Sidebottom; so hoisting the window, he crawled rapidly through it,
and leaped on the ground.

Mr. Hardesty breathed once more like a freeman; and muttering deep
anathemas against the inhospitable house and all its inmates, he stole
quietly along, with his bootless feet buried at each step in the snow.
Leaving the more frequented streets, and worming his way through bypaths
and dark alleys; now turning a corner, under the direful apprehension of
meeting some acquaintance, and now darting this way or that to avoid a
random snow-ball, he pursued his painful way until he reached home, where
he knocked and was admitted by Master John.

The grocer bolted in, rushed into his counting-room, and throwing off his
cloak, stared wildly at the bewildered boy. 'What do you think of that,
John?' pointing to his denuded extremities. 'How does that become your old
master, Sir?'

Master John, frightened partly at the anomalous appearance of the grocer,
and partly at the sternness of his voice and manner, started back to the
remotest corner of the room, but said nothing.

'What's the matter now, you little fool?' said his master. 'Are you afraid
of old Tom Hardesty? If you are, you needn't be; nobody need be afraid of
such an old coward as I am--darned if they need!' And feeling that he was
growing melancholy, he determined to subdue the propensity, and to that
end commenced cutting the complicated figure entitled a pigeon-wing. This
exhilarating sport soon restored the grocer's good humor, and he laughed
heartily and made such a racket altogether, that the boy gradually
approached him to inquire what it all meant, how he had spent his
Christmas, what had become of his breeches, and all about it.

'Here, John,' said Mr. Hardesty, seating himself by the fire, 'sit here
and I'll tell you all about it. But what an old fool I am! Here's
twenty-four blessed hours gone, and the d----l a bit or a drop have I had
since last night at supper. Is this my house or not, John? for I've forgot
every thing except one, and wouldn't swear I ain't dreaming, and haven't
been all day.'

The boy gave him every assurance that he was at home.

'Well, John,' pursued the master, 'I think the last time I was here--it
may be a year, or it may be more--I'll be hanged if I know--but I rather
think there was a lot of prime cheese, and a few barrels of crackers. You
haven't sold 'em all, John?'

John smiled, and answered negatively.

'I rather think, too, there were several casks of best three-year-old
whiskey, prime lot; any of _that_ left, John?'

John pointed, in reply, to a row of casks in one corner that answered the
description.

'No! stop, Sir!' said Mr. Hardesty, soliloquizing; 'I think she said
Madeira was good for it. Yes, John, I'll take a little of the Madeira, if
you've any on hand.'

John opened a cupboard door, and producing a black quart-bottle, assured
Mr. Hardesty it was nearly full.

'That'll do, Sir,' said the grocer. 'Set the table; never mind the cloth.
Crackers and cheese and old Madeira, and 'away with melancholy.''

In a few minutes the table was spread according to directions, after which
Mr. Hardesty seated himself near it and did ample justice to the simple
fare.

'You see, John,' said the old gentleman, when his appetite was somewhat
assuaged, 'it's all on account of that old, ugly, and infernal Peggy
Sidebottom. Here's hoping she may--may never drown her sorrows in the
flowing bowl!'

The grocer drank this toast with infinite gusto and replenished his glass.

'Well, Sir, as I was about saying, I went there last night to spend an
hour in a little sociable chat, and was about taking leave----' At this
point the speaker was interrupted by several violent raps at the door.

'Who's that?' inquired Mr. Hardesty, draining his glass.

'It's me,' said a voice from without.

'What do you want?' said Mr. Hardesty.

'Nothin'; what do _you_ want?'

'Who the d----l are you?' said the grocer, in a voice of thunder.

'Dick!' replied the voice.

'Dick what?'

'Dick Sidebottom!'

'What do you want here?' said the grocer, rising and pacing the floor.
'John, where's my cow-hide? Clear yourself, you little rascal, or
I'll----'

'But I've got your breeches and your boots, Sir,' said Dick.

'Oh! you _have_, have you?'--and Mr. Hardesty threw aside the cow-hide,
and opened the door. Dick marched boldly in, deposited his plunder on a
chair, and then looked Mr. Hardesty full in the face with a glance of
perfect innocence. The owner of the recovered booty picked them up,
examined them closely to satisfy himself of their identity, and without
saying a word, put them on in their appropriate places. This done, he
surveyed himself with a smile of approbation, and felt that he was indeed
Mr. Hardesty once more. After helping Dick to a highly sweetened draught
from the contents of the black bottle, he begged of him a detailed account
of the affair of the lost boots and breeches. This Dick proceeded to give;
by telling, in his peculiar and highly figurative manner, how his aunt had
first suggested the feat to him; how he had risen while Mr. Hardesty was
asleep, secured the booty, and hid it in an adjoining hay-loft; how his
aunt had promised him a Christmas pie, and though often requested thereto,
had failed to comply; how she had inflicted personal chastisement on him
for some trivial offence; and how, on reflecting what a kind-hearted old
gentleman Mr. Hardesty was, and what a crabbed old thing Aunt Peggy was,
he had repented of his theft, and determined to make restitution at the
earliest opportunity; 'and there they are on you,' said Dick, in
conclusion, 'and that's all about it.'

Mr. Hardesty listened with due attention to this detail, and then sat for
some time in silence.

'And you can swear to all this in a court of justice, can you?'

'Certainly, Sir.'

'And you'll do it when called on?'

Dick bowed his head in assent.

'Good!' said Mr. Hardesty, grasping the boy's hand. 'Take a little more of
this,' he continued, filling Dick's glass. 'Your aunt shall suffer for
this yet, if there's any law or justice in the land.'

'Ain't there no law,' inquired Dick, pausing in his draught, 'for suing an
old lady for 'sault and batterhim?'

'No, Dicky, I fear not in your case; but if I get any damages, I'll give
you half.'

Dick drained the contents of his glass, and shaking hands most cordially
with Mr. Hardesty and Master John, bade them good night. It is scarcely
necessary to add, that the last surviving male heir of the Sidebottoms was
gloriously drunk in less than an hour, and made such a demonstration of
that fact to his sober and discreet aunt, that she caused his head to be
soused repeatedly in cold water, and then flogged him into sobriety.

It is not to be supposed that the disappearance of the village grocer from
his usual post for a whole day together, and particularly on Christmas,
that busiest of all days, failed to excite a degree of general curiosity
and inquisitiveness as to the cause of his absence; but to the many
inquiries of his friends touching that subject, he only replied by shaking
his head and saying that time would show. Enough had leaked out, however,
to satisfy the public that the affair was shrouded in a mystery that was
worth the trouble of penetrating; so that when on the morning of the first
of January immediately succeeding the year that had just closed, Mr.
Thomas Hardesty and Miss Margaret Sidebottom were summoned each by three
lusty cheers from the town-crier to appear before his worship the police
judge of Idleberg, the populace rushed to the scene of judicial conflict,
until the humble and contracted audience-chamber was crowded to
overflowing.

The witnesses summoned in the case were Mrs. Jenkins, Jake Crow, and
Master Dick Sidebottom. In due time the defendant came into court, leaning
on the arm of her next friend and privy counsellor, Mrs. Jenkins, who as
usual was attended by a bevy of young Jenkinses. Before embarking in this
trying embassy, the ladies, by the way, had gone to the Madeira bottle;
the one complaining of a pain in the breast, and the other of general
nervousness. Mr. Hardesty was unattended, and so were his remaining
witnesses.

The warrant gravely charged the defendant with stealing or causing to be
stolen from the plaintiff, on the night of the twenty-fourth of December
last past, a pair of boots and a pair of breeches, whose respective values
were duly set forth. The reading of this document created quite a
sensation throughout the court-room. Mrs. Jenkins was called and sworn.
She deposed that on the night specified in the warrant, she had taken tea
at the defendant's house; that she was suddenly called home, missing
thereby a great deal of anticipated pleasure; that the defendant passed
the next day, being Christmas-day, at her (witness's) house; and witness
did not at any time see defendant steal or cause to be stolen from
plaintiff the said boots and breeches, nor did she believe Miss Sidebottom
to be capable of such an act; 'and particular,' she said in conclusion,
'from such a pitiful old scamp as Tom Hardesty;' and glancing around
triumphantly at the audience, and scornfully at the plaintiff, she waited
for the court's cross-questions.

'Is that all you know about the case, Madam?' inquired his worship,
smiling.

That was all.

'You can retire. Call Jake Crow.'

Mr. Crow stood in no need of being called, as he marched up to the judge
immediately, and deposed that on the last Christmas-eve night, he had
called at defendant's house for Mrs. Jenkins, as old Jenkins had been
knocked on the head and carried home drunk. (At this Mrs. Jenkins looked
like a carnation pink, and commenced fanning herself violently with her
pocket-handkerchief.) Witness, however, did not enter the house, and knew
nothing whatever of the matter in dispute.'

'You can retire, Mr. Crow. Call Richard Sidebottom.'

Dick had managed, with his usual restlessness, to retire some time before
this from the crowded room, and was breathing the pure air and playing his
boyish pranks in a distant part of the town. The officer who was
despatched for the young gentlemen returned presently, lugging him by the
coat-collar. After being introduced to the court by the usual solemnities,
Dick proceeded to give in detail the events of the memorable night, as
already known to the reader. He also gave an interesting account of the
defendant's oft-repeated cruelties to himself personally; how on Christmas
night he had restored the stolen articles to plaintiff, and how the
rightful proprietor was wearing the same in court.

A general hurrah and stamping of feet succeeded the delivery of this
testimony; at which the judge frowned, and the constable cried 'Order!'
with all his lungs.

'Mr. Hardesty,' said the judge, when order was restored, 'do you feel
disposed to prosecute this suit? I fear I must dismiss the warrant, on the
ground that the court can furnish no relief in the case. What say you?'

Mr. Hardesty arose. 'May it please your worship, the time was, and I care
not who knows it, when I entertained for the defendant in this cause
feelings of the most profound respect and admiration. And I had been led
to hope that my passion was not altogether disregarded; that Miss
Sidebottom would one day become Mrs. Hardesty. And this, Sir, as detailed
to you by the last witness, her own nephew, is the treatment I have
received!' The speaker paused and applied his pocket handkerchief to his
eyes. The audience was touched. 'It ain't the temporary loss of my
breeches; it ain't the long weary hours I spent shivering in that closet;
it ain't the wading home bare-footed in the snow; it ain't the finger of
scorn some gentlemen may p'int at me now, that wounds my heart; but it's
feeling and knowing that the woman I loved better than my own life; the
woman I would have lived for, or died for, to make her happy; that that
very woman----' He could say no more; his feelings overpowered him, and he
sat down.

Miss Sidebottom's sympathies were evidently touched throughout this
harangue. Until now, she had been rocking to and fro in her seat, and when
Mr. Hardesty concluded, she rushed through the crowd, threw herself on his
neck, and kissed him passionately.

'Clear the room!' bawled his worship, starting to his feet. 'Clerk,' he
continued, addressing that official personage, who was standing near,
'write me a license to unite Thomas Hardesty and Margaret Sidebottom in
the holy bands of matrimony. I know they are of age, and don't need any
guardeens.'

The judge sat down, convulsed by his own wit, while the clerk proceeded to
his task. The loving pair looked up and smiled through their tears. 'I
loved you, Tom, all the time; I did indeed. It was all in fun, dear
man--indeed it was!' Tom Hardesty threw his arms around her neck, and
pressed her head to his bosom.

'Come!' said his worship, after reading the license, 'none of your
hysterics here, but stand up and be married.' And married they were; and
the bride, in consideration of her cruelty, paid the costs of the suit and
the marriage fees; and off they marched homeward, amid the deafening
huzzas of the multitude that was gathered in the street.

Happy New-Year! that sealed Tom Hardesty's happiness! Many a changing
season has come and gone since then, and nobody knows but they are the
happiest couple in Idleberg. Mr. Hardesty's first domestic advice to his
bride was to decline Mrs. Jenkins's farther acquaintance, which she did
most readily. The old gentleman has long since despaired of having an heir
direct, but has promised John, who is prospering behind his old master's
counter, that he and Belinda shall marry before long. Mr. Richard
Sidebottom is one of the 'reformed drunkards,' and eschews Madeira
especially. He is now an attorney, _in embryo_, and gives ample promise of
carrying into his profession all the acuteness and cunning which
distinguished his exploits on the memorable night that opened this chapter
in the biography of Mr. Tom Hardesty.

WINTER EVENING.

  The fire is burning cheerly bright, the room is snug and warm,
  We keep afar the wintry night, and drive away the storm;
  And when without the wanderer pines, and all is dark and chill,
  We sit securely by the fire, and sparkling glasses fill.

  And ever as the hollow wind howls through the moaning trees,
  Strange feelings on the boding heart with sudden chillness seize:
  But brightly blazes then the hearth, and freely flows the wine;
  And laugh of glee, and song of mirth, then wreathe their merry twine.

  We think not how the dashing sleet beats on the crusted pane,
  We care not though the drifting snow whirls o'er the heath amain;
  But haply, while our hearts are bright, far struggling through the
            waste,
  Some traveller seeks our window's light, with long and fruitless haste.

  Hark his halloo! we leave the fire, and hurry forth to save:
  A short half hour, and he had found beneath the snow a grave.
  Pile on the wood!--feed high the flame!--bring out our choicest store!
  The traveller's heart grows warm again; his spirit droops no more.

                                                              J. G. P.

SONG OF THE NEW YEAR.

BY MRS. R. S. NICHOLS.

  I have come, I have come from a shadowy clime,
  An heir of the monarch Earth's children call TIME;
  With years yet unborn, I have stood in the hall
  That was reared by our sire, awaiting his call:
  Last eve, as I lay on his bosom at rest,
  I saw slowly rise a white cloud in the west;
  Now through the blue ether, through regions of space,
  It floated up softly, with fairy-like grace,
  And paused 'neath the light of the white-shining stars,
  Whose rays pierced its centre, like clear silver bars;
  The winds revelled round it, unchecked in their mirth,
  As it hung, like a banner, 'mid heaven and earth.

  The soft fleecy folds of the clouds swept aside,
  The winds ceased their revels, and mournfully sighed;
  A car slowly rolled down the pathway of Time,
  A bell slowly tolled a funereal chime:
  A sound in the air, and a wail on the breeze,
  Swift as wave follows wave on tempest-tossed seas;
  Thin shadows swept by in that funeral train,
  As glide o'er old battle-grounds ghosts of the slain.
  I saw the dim spectres of long-buried years--
  The Seasons close followed, in mourning and tears.

  Arrayed in his armor, death-darts in his hand,
  The grim King of Terrors strode on with the band,
  While cold, stark and ghastly, there lay on his bier
  The death-stricken form of the hoary OLD YEAR!
  How bent was his figure, how furrowed his brow,
  How weary he looked from his pilgrimage now!
  The phantoms of Passion, of Hope and Despair,
  With dark, waving plumage, encircled him there;
  The Months stood around, and the bright dancing Hours
  On spirit-wings floated, like birds among flowers.

  A voice sweet as music now smote on my ear:
  'Go forth in thy beauty, thou unspotted Year!
  The old Year hath died 'mid rejoicings and mirth,
  That rocked the stern heart of the rugged old Earth!
  The midnight is passing; away to thy car!
  Thou'lt sail by the lustre of morning's bright star;
  Away!' And I rose from the bosom of Time,
  And fled through the gates of that shadowy clime;
  My car sped along on the wings of the wind,
  While Winter, old man! tottered slowly behind.

  The sky's eastern portals impeded my flight,
  When Morning rose up from the arms of the Night;
  The dawn faintly glowed, and I saw the old Earth,
  And sailed in my kingdom, a monarch at birth!
  'Then give me wild music, the dance and the song,
  For ever!' I shouted, while whirling along:
  'I have come, I have come from a shadowy clime,
  A breath of the monarch Earth's children call TIME!'

_Cincinnati, December, 1843._

ON COLOUR.

      Full angel-like the birdis sang their hours[1]
      Within their curtains green, within their bowers
          Apparelled with white and red, with bloomys sweet.
      Enamell'd was the field with all coloùrs:
      The pearlit drops shook as in silver showers,
          While all in balm did branche and leavis fleit.[2]
          Depart fra' Phoebus did Aurora greit;
      Her chrystal tears I saw hing on the flowers
          Which he, for love, all drank up with his heat.

                                                               DUNBAR.

        [1] Heures, prayers.
        [2] Float.

    1. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

    2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me
       beside the still waters; He restoreth my soul.

                                                     A PSALM OF DAVID.

As I walk over the surface of this fair Earth, an erring and a wayward
being, at times dejected by the trials of a solitary and an almost
abortive life, or sustained or elevated by its prosperous incidents; I
sometimes think that no one other blessing of existence hath ever
comforted my heart and restored my soul so much, as the pleasures and
delights of COLOUR. It is my wealth, my joy, my faculty, my fountain!

The recreative pleasure that others find in Music, although this is not
denied is less to me than to them, a restorative and a balm. Music excites,
arouses me; melts me into weakness, or animates me into passionate
exertion; but it is in the green pasture and beside the still waters, in
bowers apparelled with white and red; it is in the tints with which autumn
is bedecked, and Day expires; that I feel I shall not want, and that GOD
restoreth my soul! And it is among huge and solitary mountain masses of
grey castellated rock, in the crevices of which the stinted pine, and the
cedar with its brown and tattered trunk, struggle out a hard and scanty
existence and are yet covered with never-fading verdure--mountains to
which the Saviour of mankind might have retired to meditate and pray--that
I feel that the Lord is my Shepherd, and shall bring me to the green
pastures, and lead me beside the still waters; my Rock! my fortress! and
my high tower!

Sometimes my heart takes a fancy altogether for _brown_ hues; and as you
cannot at all times command these in the country, I seat myself down
quietly in front of a precious Cuyp with which GOD hath endowed me, and
that (except the sky and water) is composed entirely of them in every
gradation and shade; and when I rise up from the contemplation of it, I
feel that it is in brown hues that GOD restoreth my soul.

Sometimes I dwell upon the silvery trunk of the birch-tree, or upon the
darker hue of the beech. Sometimes my soul drinks the full beauties of the
umbrageous chestnut; or revels in the golden berries, and the graceful
branches that seem overladen with them, of the mountain-ash. As I grow old
I wave often in the grey pendulous mosses of the South, or stand in
thought under the gigantick branches of the live oak, with all its leaves
of laurel, and its heroick gesture. GOOD GOD! I say, when I think that we
might all have been born, ate, drank, smoked, grown up, built, propagated,
and died, as thoroughly and effectually as we now do, and all these
precious objects of our sight and joy been made for us--out of the one
desolate colour of an old pipe!

And WATER--that element of Life, that upon the plaintain-leaf looks so
like a molten mass of diamond that you can hardly persuade yourself it is
aught else, might as well have been created of a mere drab quaker-colour;
or not even as bright as a bit of Quartz Rock! and yet have satisfied our
thirst as well as if it had gushed forth from the limpid sources of the
Croton; or been drawn from the transparent body of Lake George; or from
those mountain streams of sparkling chrystal that, in alternate shade and
gleams of light of tropical brilliancy, bound and gush and dance their way
downward from rock to rock to the sound of their own musick, and make
themselves into rivers of joy as they descend along the _Grand Etang_ of
the Island of Grenada!

And WINE, that GOD hath sent to make glad the heart of man, and
hath blessed it in the cup; and which might perhaps have had the same
hilarious effect, though it were of the dingy colour of the ashes of the
grate by which I sit; but which, for our more perfect happiness, He hath
made to outvie the Topaz and the Ruby, in its lustre and its varied hue!

There are many of us who have this one quality, the love of colour, in
common with the magnificent DAVID, whose precious inspiration I have
quoted at the head of my Essay, and who in a thousand passages interweaves
it like a golden thread amid his works; but as in the minds of many
others, it may be a blessing only half appreciated, I have thought that a
few words upon this subject might fall not unfruitfully upon the heart,
perchance of some one young Reader of this article, just opening to the
knowledge of this peculiar work of the great Master of mankind, COLOUR.

Even Music, although itself an occupation revealed to us as of the Angels
of Light, is, except perhaps as they enjoy it--with whom poetry and
modulated sound adapted to the thought are inseparably one--even music is
less refined, less gentle, perfect, unobtrusive. For the enjoyment of
Colour involves no possible interruption of another's tastes; no outbreak
upon the quiet stillness of the day; no intrusion on 'the ear of night;'
nor yet any expression, that by pouring abroad the sensations, might
diminish the deep earnestness of the soul; which, all sight, all ear,
becomes the Recipient. The enjoyment of colour is the Spirit within us
listening to the language of GOD! to the mute expression of His
unspeakable Love! COLOUR--the conception He hath chosen for His bow of
promise in the Heavens! by which He decorates the Earth, and tells of
Himself in the ocean, and in the sky, and by which He restoreth the Soul
of man!

And in that state of celestial existence which attends the redeemed Soul
disenthralled from 'the body of this death,' is it to be doubted, that
among the joys that 'the eye hath never seen, nor the heart conceived,'
there exist colours beautiful beyond all earthly wealth of imagination;
beyond the poet's fancy and the painter's dream? There where the pure gold
of which the city is constructed, is transparent as glass, and each gate
is one pearl, and the very foundations of the walls are of jasper, and
chalcedony, sapphire, emerald, ruby, amethyst and topaz; and the glory of
GOD is the light that lightens it!

But it is not to another world that the joys of colour are postponed, nor
even to another climate that we need look for the precious satisfaction
that they impart. We have not the carpets of flowers of rainbow tints,
that spread themselves over whole prairies of Texas and Mexico, but what a
gem upon the bosom of Earth when it is unexpectedly found among us is the
blue campanula! And the small white lily of the valley, sheltered and
concealed in its green leaves like a hidden tear of Joy, and almost as
rare! And the bright and graceful lobelia cardinalis that loves the
neighbourhood of the still waters. And the fringed gentian of a tint so
cerulean that our true poet derives it from the firmament; as his own
spirit, if left to approach its kindred element, might claim affinity with
the overshadowing expanse of celestial life![3]

    [3] THIS allusion is to BYRANT'S lines 'To the Fringed
        Gentian,' a poem so replete with truth and beauty, that we
        cannot resist the inclination to quote it here.

                                                ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

          Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
          And coloured with the heaven's own blue.
          That openest, when the quiet light
          Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

          Thou comest not when violets lean
          O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
          Or columbines, in purple dressed,
          Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

          Thou waitest late, and com'st alone,
          When woods are bare and birds are flown,
          And frosts and shortening days portend
          The aged year is near his end.

          Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
          Look through its fringes to the sky,
          Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall
          A flower from its cerulean wall.

          I would that thus, when I shall see
          The hour of death draw near to me,
          Hope, blossoming within my heart,
          May look to heaven as I depart.

I speak not to thee of the gorgeous sunsets and of those piles of massy
clouds of living and ever-varying colours on which the Day pillows himself
to rest in a luxurious repose; but open thine heart upon the Eastern bank
of the Hudson at the grey of morning, and look with the Sun upon the
opposite shore; and as the mists arise and are dispelled from before thee,
there shall come change after change of colour neutral and calm and slowly
warming into beauty, until a violet haze shall rest upon the hill-tops and
the cliffs that might outvie the golden haze of Italy, and that shall
raise thy thoughts in silent thankfulness, and educate thee to enjoy the
untold treasuries of colour that glow in upper Heaven; and hope shall
spring forth renewed within thee; and sorrow shall fade from thy widowed,
or thy childless heart; the peace which passeth understanding shall come
over thee; and GOD even thine own GOD shall bless thee; and to thine eyes,
now opened to the wonders of His goodness, all the ends of the Earth shall
_shew forth_ His praise!

                                                          JOHN WATERS.

STANZAS

SUGGESTED BY GLIDDON'S LECTURES ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF EGYPT.

MISS H. J. WOODMAN

  Sublime hath been thy conquest o'er the past,
    Stemming Oblivion's torrent by thy might,
  Reading symbolic records long o'ercast
    By the deep shadows of unbroken night;
  Tracing with reverent finger names of kings
  That long had slumbered with forgotten things.

  The mists that deeply veiled historic rays,
    Thou art dispelling with resistless hand;
  And dynasties that flourished ere the days
    When ABRAHAM forsook the promised land,
  No longer noteless, nameless, boldly claim
  Their lofty tablet in the arch of fame.

  Thy curious finger with a magic key
    Unlocked the store of ages, and the light,
  Flooding the pass of time, sublime and free,
    Decks ruined temples in its vesture bright:
  These are the relics of _thy_ grandeur flown,
  Land of the Pharaohs and their prostrate throne.

  Ere the white stranger's land had trodden been
    By foot of pilgrim, Egypt sat supreme,
  Queen of the nations, and her realm within
    Wealth, learning, power convened--a full, deep stream!
  The bulwarks of her throne were safely reared
  In hearts by which her greatness was revered.

  And now, with Science for his trusty guide,
    The stranger comes to read her mystic lore,
  Tread her deserted cities, stand beside
    Her sculptured temples, eloquent once more;
  Not with man's voice, but with the nobler speech
  Of days beyond our spirit's utmost reach.

  And those proud monuments of youthful time,
    The pyramids, whose lofty sides have borne
  The storms of centuries in that fierce clime,
    And seeming still to smile in speechless scorn,
  When bow the everlasting hills with age,
  Then shall they vanish from the world's bright page.

  A mournful ruin to thy utmost bound,
    A type of glory long since passed away,
  The statue voiceless whence the thrilling sound
    Of gushing music hailed the rising day;
  Thus art thou now, oh Egypt! but the flame
  Of new-born Science gilds thine ancient name.

  And from the dust shalt thou arise once more,
    Not by thine own degenerate sons upreared,
  But strangers who have sought thy verdant shore
    Shall hail thy fallen greatness, still revered;
  Until among the kingdoms of the earth
  Thou shalt appear renewed--a second birth!

THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.

HARRY HARSON.

CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

Notwithstanding his having made what most persons would have considered a
hearty meal at Harry Harson's, Mr. Kornicker had nevertheless such perfect
reliance on his own peculiar gastronomic abilities, that he did not in the
least shrink from again testing them. Leaving Michael Rust's presence with
an alacrity which bordered upon haste, he descended into the refectory
with somewhat of a jaunty air, humming a tune, and keeping time to it by
an occasional flourish of the fingers. Having seated himself, his first
act was to shut his eyes, thrust his feet at full length under the table;
plunge both hands to the very bottom of his breeches-pockets, where they
grasped spasmodically two cents and a small key, and laugh silently for
more than a minute, occasionally breaking in upon his merriment to gossip
to himself in the most profound and mysterious manner.

'A queer dog! a very queer dog! d----d queer, old Michael is! Well, that's
_his_ business, not mine.'

As soon as this idea had fully impressed itself upon him, he sat up,
became grave, and looked about in search of the waiter. In doing so, he
encountered the eyes of a short fat man at a table near him, who at the
first glance seemed to be reading a newspaper, but at the second, seemed
to be reconnoitering him over it. Mr. Kornicker observing this, not only
returned his glance, but added a wink to it by way of interest. The man
thereupon laid down his paper, and nodded.

Mr. Kornicker nodded in reply; and said he hoped he was well, and that his
wife and small children were equally fortunate.

The face of the stranger was a round, jolly face, with two little eyes
that twinkled and glistened between their fat lids, as if they were very
devils for fun; and his whole appearance was cozy and comfortable. His
chin was double; his stomach round and plump, with an air of
respectability; and he occasionally passed his hand over it, as if to say:
'Ah ha! beat that who can!' But notwithstanding his merry look, at this
last remark his face grew long; and with a melancholy shake of his head,
he pointed to his hat which hung on a peg above him, and was swathed in a
broad band of crape, terminating in two stiff skirts projecting from it
like a rudder, and giving it the appearance of a corpulent butterfly in
mourning, at roost on the wall.

'Ah!' said Mr. Kornicker, looking at the hat, 'that's it?'

'Yes,' replied the stranger, with a deep sigh, 'that's it.'

'Father?' inquired Mr. Kornicker, nodding significantly toward the hat.

'No--wife,' replied the other.

'Dead?' inquired Mr. Kornicker.

'Dead as a hammer.'

'Was it long or short? consumption or fits?' asked Mr. Kornicker, drawing
up his feet and turning so as to face the stranger, by way of evincing the
interest which he felt in his melancholy situation.

The man shook his head, and was so affected that he was troubled with a
temporary cold in his head; which, having alleviated by the aid of his
handkerchief, he said: 'Poor woman! She undertook to present me with a
fine boy, last week, and it proved too much for her. It exhausted her
animal natur', and she decamped on a sudden. She was a very fine woman--a
very fine woman. I always _said_ she was.'

'And the child?' inquired Kornicker; 'I hope it's well.'

'Quite well, I thank you. It went along with her. They are both better
off; saints in heaven, both of 'em; out of this wale of tears.'

Mr. Kornicker told him to cheer up. He said that every man had a crook in
his lot. Some men had big crooks, and some men had little crooks; and
although this crook made rather a bad elbow in his lot, that perhaps all
the rest was square and straight, and he could build on it to advantage,
especially if it was twenty-five feet by a hundred, which was the ordinary
width and length of 'lots in general.'

Having delivered himself of this rather confused allegory, Mr. Kornicker,
by way of farther consolation, drew out his snuff-box, and stretching out
as far as was possible without falling from his chair, tendered it to the
stranger, who in return leaning so far forward as slightly to raise his
person from the chair, gently inserted his fingers in the box, and helped
himself to a pinch, at the same time remarking, that it 'was a great
comfort, in his trying situation, to find friends who sympathized with his
misfortunes. That he _had_ found it so; and that Mr. Kornicker was a man
whose feelings did credit to human natur'.'

Kornicker disclaimed being any thing above the ordinary run of men, or
that his feelings were more than every other man possessed, or ought to
possess. But the stranger was vehement in his assertions to the contrary;
so much so, that he rose from his seat, and drawing a chair to the
opposite side of Kornicker's table, proposed that they should breakfast
together.

Kornicker shook his head:

'It's against the agreement,' said he; 'it can't be done.'

'But it _can_, Sir--it _shall_, Sir! A man of your sympathies is not to be
met with every day, and must be breakfasted with, whether he will or
not--agreement or no agreement. Don't agreement me!' said the stranger,
lifting up his chair and setting it down opposite Kornicker, with great
emphasis. 'What's the natur' of this agreement?'

Mr. Kornicker assumed a very grave and legal expression of countenance,
and without replying, asked:

'What's your name?'

'Ezra Scrake.'

'I, Edward Kornicker, forbid you, Ezra Scrake, from breakfasting with me,
telling you that it is contrary to a certain agreement, referred to but
not set forth; and I now repeat the request, that you forthwith retire to
another table, and that I be permitted to take my meal by myself.' He
threw himself back in his chair, and looked Mr. Scrake full in the face.

'And I, Ezra Scrake, say that I _won't_ leave this table, and that I
_will_ breakfast with a fellow whose benevolence might warm the witals of
a tiger.'

'Very well, Sir,' said Kornicker, relaxing from his former severe
expression; 'I've done my duty. Old Rust can't blame me. The breach of
contract is not on my part. I'm acting under compulsion. Just recollect
that I desired you to leave me, in case it gets me into hot water, and
that you refused; that's all. Now old fellow, what'll you take? Only
recollect, that each man rides his own pony.'

The stranger nodded, and said that of course he would 'foot his own bill.'

These preliminaries being settled, the boy, who had been standing at their
elbow in a state of ecstatic delight at the proceedings of Mr. Kornicker,
with whom he had become familiar, and whom he regarded as a gentleman of
great legal acumen, and in all other respects as rather a 'tall boy,' was
desired by the stranger to hand him the bill of fare, and not to keep him
waiting all day. Having been gratified in this respect, Mr. Scrake
commenced at the top and deliberately whispered his way to the bottom of
the list.

'Beef-steak; shall I say for two?' asked he, looking up at Kornicker.

'Yes, but always under protest, as to our breakfasting together,' said Mr.
Kornicker, winking at him. 'Don't forget that.'

'Of course. Now, my son, what trimmings have you got?' said he to the boy.

''Taters.'

'Are they kidneys, blue-noses, or fox?--and will they bu'st open white and
mealy?'

'They'm prime,' replied the boy.

'Bring one for me; or, stop--are they extra?'

'We throws them in with the steak, gratis.'

'Then bring a dishful, with coffee, bread, and whatever else adds to the
breakfast, without adding to the bill.'

The boy, having no other interest in the establishment than that of
securing his own wages and meals, was highly delighted at this considerate
order of Mr. Scrake, and forthwith disappeared to obey it.

In the meanwhile Mr. Scrake, after having deliberately re-perused the bill
of fare, and not observing any thing else which could be got for nothing,
laid it down, and looking at Mr. Kornicker, who was gazing abstractedly at
the table-cloth, said that he hoped he (Mr. Scrake) was not going to be
impertinent; and as Mr. Kornicker made no other reply than that of looking
at him, as if he considered it a matter of some doubt whether he was or
was not, he elucidated the meaning of his remark, by inquiring who Michael
Rust was.

'The old gentlemen that caters for me,' replied Kornicker, carelessly.

'And does he make you eat alone?'

'If I dine double, he'll stop the prog, that's all.'

'A sing'lar bargain--quite sing'lar; very sing'lar, in fact. Does he keep
a tight eye over you?'

Mr. Kornicker did not exactly know what kind of an eye a tight eye was,
but he replied: 'Sometimes he does, sometimes he don't. He's nigh enough
to do it. His office is overhead.'

'Lawyer, I suppose?--_must_ be,' said Mr. Scrake, drumming carelessly on
the table.

'You're out, old fellow. I'm with him, and should know something of him;
and he isn't.'

'Ah!' said the stranger, leaning back and yawning, and then sharpening his
knife on the fork. 'What is he then?'

Mr. Kornicker raised his finger gently to his nose, winked so violently at
Mr. Scrake that he caused that gentleman to stop short in his performance
to look at him; after which he shut both eyes, and gave vent to a violent
inward convulsion of laughter.

'What _is_ he?' repeated Kornicker, in a tone of high surprise; then
sinking his voice, and leaning over the table, he whispered confidentially
in Mr. Scrake's ear: 'He's hell.'

'No! he isn't though, is he?' said Mr. Scrake, dropping his knife and
fork, and sinking back in his chair.

'Yes he is,' repeated Mr. Kornicker; 'and if you was a certain gentleman
that I know, you'd find it out. _He_ will some day, I rather think.'

'Are _you_ that individual?' inquired Mr. Scrake, with an air of deep
interest.

'No, I ain't, but I suspect some one else is. But come,' said he, 'there's
the breakfast, so let's be at it, and drop all other discussion.'

This remark found an answering echo in the stomach of Mr. Scrake, who
resumed the sharpening of his knife, as the breakfast entered the room,
and did not desist until the steak was on the table, when he immediately
assaulted it.

'Shall I help you? What part will you take?'

'Any part,' replied Kornicker, carelessly.

'Well, it's sing'lar; I never could carve. I'll help you as I would help
myself,' said Mr. Scrake, in his ignorance depositing on Mr. Kornicker's
plate an exceedingly tough piece of dry meat, and upon his own a cut which
was remarkably tender and juicy.

'Do you always help yourself as you have helped me?' said Mr. Kornicker,
snuffing with great deliberation, and eyeing his portion with no very
contented eye.

'Always, always.'

'Then you do yourself d----d great injustice.'

'Ha! ha! good--very good; sheer ignorance on my part, upon my soul. But
you were telling me about this man, this Rust,' said Mr. Scrake, mashing
his potatoes, and entombing a lump of butter in the heart of a small
pyramid of them. 'You said he was hell, or the devil, or something of that
sort. What then? Eh?'

Kornicker, though not at all pleased with the ignorance of his companion,
in the particular branch in which it had just displayed itself, was not of
a sulky disposition, and was easily won into a communicative mood,
particularly as Mr. Scrake begged him, with tears in his eyes, to tell him
which was the best part of a beef-steak, so that he might avoid in future
the mortification of being guilty of a similar error.

As the coffee went down, and the beef-steak followed, Mr. Scrake seemed to
relax, and to forget that his hat hung over his head, commemorative of the
recent retirement of Mrs. Scrake from this 'wale of tears,' and became
quite jocular on the subject of the fair sex, congratulating Kornicker
upon his looks; calling him a lucky dog, and telling him that if _he_ were
him, he'd 'make up to some charming young woman with a fortune, and be off
with her.' He then went into a detail of his own juvenile indiscretions,
relating many incidents of his life; some of which were amusing, some
ridiculous, some tragic, some pathetic, and not a few quite indecent. It
was wonderful what a devil that fat-cheeked, little-eyed, round-stomached
fellow had been. Who could resist the influence of such a man? Not poor
Kornicker; it gradually had its effect upon him, for he in turn grew
communicative; talked freely of Rust, and of every man, woman and child of
his acquaintance. He grew merry over the rare doings which had taken place
in Rust's den. He then descanted upon the peculiarities of the old man;
his fierce fits of passion, his cold, shrewd, caustic manners, his coming
in, and his going out; how long he was absent; how profoundly secret he
kept himself, his doings, his whereabouts, and his mode of life. 'And,'
said he, in conclusion, 'I know nothing of him. He's a queer dog, a
wonderfully queer one. It would take a long time to fathom him, I can tell
you. I've been with him for a long time; and am his confidential adviser,
his lawyer, and all that sort of thing; and yet I've never done but two
things for him.'

'You don't say so!' exclaimed Mr. Scrake, laying down his knife and fork;
and looking at him with his mouth open; 'and pray what _were_ those
things?'

'I sued one man,' (being a lawyer you know,) said he, nodding in an
explanatory way at Mr. Scrake, 'and carried a letter to another.'

'Ah! and who were those fortunate individuals?'

'Poh! I suppose there's no secret about it. The man sued, was one Enoch
Grosket. The other was one Henry Harson; a jolly old boy he _was_ too. I
breakfasted with him; a prime fellow; keeps a d----d ugly cur, though.'

'Enoch Grosket, Henry Harson!' said the stranger, musing; 'I've heard of
them, I think. Who are they?'

'It is more than I can tell,' replied Kornicker. 'That's the mystery of my
situation. I know nothing about any thing I'm doing, or of him, or his
acquaintances.'

'Why, you must know what you sued the man for,' said Mr. Scrake,
earnestly; 'you must know _that_, surely.'

'Yes, but it's a height of knowledge which don't carry much information
with it,' replied Mr. Kornicker. 'I sued him on a promissory note. What he
made it for, or how Rust got it, or any thing more about him, or it, or
Harson, or Rust, I know as little as you.'

The stranger drew himself up, and looking at him gravely, said in a
serious and even stern tone: 'Do you mean to say that you are entirely
ignorant of every thing respecting this Rust; his family, his business,
his acquaintances, his associates, his habits, his plans and
operations?'--in short, that you know nothing more than you have mentioned
to me?'

The other nodded.

'Waiter, my bill,' said he in a peremptory tone.

The boy brought him a slip of paper, on which was written the amount.

He paid it without a word; walked across the room, took down his hat, put
it on his head, and turning to Kornicker, said in a tone of solemn
earnestness: 'Young man, you're in a bad way, a _very_ bad way. Had I
known with what people you were in the habit of associating before I sat
down at that table, Ezra Scrake's legs and yours would never have been
under the same mahogany. A man in the employ of another and know nothing
of him! It's enormous! He might be a murderer, a thief; a man-slaughterer;
a Burker, an arsoner, or any thing that is bad. Young man, in spite of the
injury you've done me, I pity you; nay, I forgive you.'

Mr. Kornicker, was merely waiting for an opportunity to suggest to him
that his company had not only been unsought, but actually forced upon him,
and even under his solemn protest. But before he could do so, Mr. Scrake
was in the street; whereupon, on ascertaining that he was out of the
hearing of Mr. Kornicker, he muttered to himself: 'It was no go. Waited
for him two hours; then spent an hour in pumping a dry well. Enoch
Grosket, has sent me on a fool's errand. Michael Rust knows too much to
trust that addle-headed fool.'

Having given vent to these observations, he deliberately buttoned up his
coat, and walked off.

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

In a dark room into which even in the day-time the light struggled in such
scanty streams that a kind of twilight was the nearest approach that it
ever made to broad day, but which was now only lighted by a single candle,
that flared and dripped in the currents of air, as they eddied and whirled
about, seeking an escape, sat Tim Craig, and his comrade Bill Jones, the
men with Rust's interview with whom the reader is already acquainted. They
were sitting cheek by jowl on two wooden benches in front of a fire, which
they from time to time nourished with sticks from a heap of wood on the
hearth. The fire however would not burn, but kept smouldering and smoking,
now and then springing up into a fitful blaze, which threw a spectral air
over the room, peopling its dim recesses with all sorts of fantastic
forms, and then expired, leaving it more gloomy than ever. The appearance
of the men, their subdued, whispering voices and startled looks, showed
that at that particular time they were not altogether in a frame of mind
to resist the gloomy influence of the place. The dark, lonely room, with
its large shadowy corners and gaping seams, through which the wind sighed
and wailed, and the pattering of the rain as it swept heavily against the
side of the house and on the roof, all tended to add to the melancholy and
sombre tone of their feelings. Bill drew his bench to the fire, looked
suspiciously about him, and then, as if half ashamed of having done so,
said:

'It's a h-ll of a night! I don't know how it is, but I'm not in trim
to-night. Blow me, if the sight of that old fellow don't make one's blood
cold. I can't get warm; and this bloody fire keeps sputtering and smoking,
as if to spite one.'

Tim Craig, to whom this remark was addressed, turned and looked him
steadily in the face, without speaking; and then his eyes wandered about
the room, as if he were fearful of being watched or overheard, in what he
was going to say.

'Bill,' said he in a low voice, his thin lips quivering; but whether from
anger or any other emotion, was a matter of much doubt; 'd----d if I know
which way to leap! Enoch pulls one way and Rust another. Either of them
could send us to kingdom come. Ugh! how cold it is! Something comes over
me to-night--I can't tell what. I don't half like the job. Bill,'
continued he after a pause, drawing nearer his comrade and lowering his
voice, 'I'm haunted to-night. You know that fellow, the man up town, the
cartman----' He hesitated, and leaned his mouth close to the ear of the
other, while in the dim light his face seemed ghastly; 'the--the man, last
year----'

Jones looked at him significantly; and then drew his finger across his
throat. 'Do you mean that fellow?'

'Yes,' replied Craig in a husky tone, and scarcely able to articulate, for
the choking in his throat. 'He's been _here_ to-night. Three times I've
caught him looking over my shoulder! GOD! There he is again! Light! light!
light!' shouted he, springing up; 'make the fire burn, I say--make it
burn! Heap on wood! heap it on! Do _anything_--but keep HIM off!'

'Why, Tim, you seem to be took bad,' exclaimed his companion, at the same
time getting on his knees, and setting assiduously to work to blow the
fire. 'Come, this is worse than ever. We've got to work to-night; and it
wont do to go into your fantastics.'

He paused in his remarks to apply his breath to the fire, and with such
success, that in a few minutes a bright blaze was dancing up the chimney,
lighting the whole room, and dispelling at once that shadowy appearance
which its great size and dilapidated state had tended to give it.

'There now, that's as comfortable a fire as you can want; and arter all,
what you was just talking of was all fancy,' said he, resuming his seat.
'Dead men stay where you put 'em.'

Craig had been pacing furiously up and down the room, as if to out-walk
some demon that _would_ keep at his side; but he stopped short, and going
up to his comrade, placed his hand on his shoulder and said: 'Bill Jones,
that's a lie! Whoever says so, lies! Dead men _don't_ stay where you put
'em. I've had that man walking with me for hours together. I've had him at
the same table with me, when I ate; I've had him in bed with me--ay, all
night long; and to-night he's been here with his face almost touching
mine. Blast him! if I could but get him by the throat, I'd throttle him!'

'Come, come, Tom, none of this,' said Jones, with more gentleness than his
appearance indicated. 'I'm sorry for you; you must feel bad enough, or you
wouldn't go on so. I've know'd you since we were boys together; and I know
it's not a little matter that works you up, like you are now. Come, sit
down.' He led him to a seat, and kneeling at his feet, took his hand in
both of his. 'Don't give in so, my old feller. Don't you know, when we
were boys, how we all looked up to you; and although I could have doubled
you up, with my big limbs, yet you always had the mastery over me. Ha! ha!
Tim, don't you remember the old schoolmaster, too? Hallo! what now?'

Craig leaned his head upon Jones' shoulder and sobbed aloud. Don't talk of
those days, Bill; it'll drive me mad. Oh! if I was a boy again! But no,
no; I'm a fool,' exclaimed he, springing up, apparently swallowing his
emotion at one fierce gulp, and in an instant becoming as hardened as
ever. 'Am I crazy, to-night, or _what_ ails me, that I've become as
white-livered as a girl? Where's the grog? Give us a sup; and we'll see
what's to be done.'

'There, now you talk right,' said Jones, putting his hand in his
coat-pocket and drawing out a small bottle, cased in leather; 'that'll
wake you up; and now to business. You hav'n't told me what's to be did,
and who you'll go with, Grosket, or Rust.'

'Rust,' said Craig, abruptly; 'he's our man. He can bleed; Enoch can't.
_He_ never fails in what he wants to do; Enoch _does_; but they are both
devils incarnate. I'd rather fight against ten other men than either of
them; but rather against Enoch than Mike Rust.'

'Well, what is it? He told you all about it. I couldn't hear what he
said.'

'He's been on the prowl for two days: God knows what he's arter; but he
wants us to break in a house and steal a girl.'

'The profligate willain!' exclaimed Mr. Jones, with an air of great
horror; 'I'll tell his father of him!'

'It's only a child.'

'Oh! that alters the case,' said Mr. Jones, 'Then I'll tell his wife.
Well?'

'We are to go to the house, get the girl at all hazards, rob the house if
we choose, and bring _her_ here. What he wants of her, who she is, is more
than I know. 'You are to get her, and ask no questions,' that's what he
said.'

'Who's in the house?'

'Only an old man and a woman.'

'The man?--is he used up, or what?'

'He's a bull-dog,' was the laconic reply.

'We'll want _them_ then,' said Jones, pointing to a closet which was
partly open, showing several pairs of pistols on a shelf.

'I suppose so. Bring 'em out, and look at the locks; not the
flintlocks--it's a wet night; get the others. We must have no trifling.'

Jones made no other reply than to take out a pair of pistols, which he
carried to the light, and examined their locks.

'Are they loaded?' inquired Craig.

Jones nodded: 'Two bullets in each! Suppose they twig us?--are we to fight
or run?'

''You had better die than fail.' He said that,' replied Craig, in a low
tone; 'and when I saw his look I thought so too. D--n him! I'm afraid of
him. It'll be no baby-work if they discover us.'

The other robber made no reply, but continued to examine the pistols,
carefully rubbing the barrels, to remove any trace of rust, and working
the hammers backward and forward; after which he put two fresh caps on the
cones. 'All right! I'm ready as soon as it's time. When do you go?'

'Not till an hour after midnight. That's the time when folks sleep
soundest. You could cut a man's throat then without waking him. Don't let
the fire get down,' said he, turning an apprehensive eye toward the
fire-place. 'It's cold, and we've three hours to be here yet.'

Jones, with the same good-natured alacrity which he had before displayed,
threw several sticks on the fire, and then turning to his comrade, said:

'Suppose we rattle the dice till midnight?'

Craig shook his head.

'What say you to the paste-board?'

'No cards for me,' replied the other, seating himself and leaning his
cheeks between his hands, with his elbows on his knees, and his eyes
fastened on the fire. 'I want to be on the move. God! How I wish it was
time! This cursed room is enough to suffocate one. Curse me, but it smells
of coffins and dead men, and is as cold as a church-vault. It goes to a
fellow's very bones.'

There was something so unusual in the mood of his comrade, that Jones at
last started up and said:

'Blast me, Tim, but you must stop this. You're making me as wild and
frightened as yourself. Talk of your beaks, and courts, and prisons, and
bullets, and pistols, as much as you like; but d--n it, leave your dead
men, and coffins, and vaults, and all them 'ere to themselves, will you!
Curse me, if you ain't enough to make a sneak of any man. So just stop,
will you? If you can't talk of something better, don't talk at all.'

Craig took him at his word; and drawing his bench closer to the fire,
maintained his position, without moving or speaking for more than an hour.

Jones, in the mean while, for want of employment, again examined the
pistols; drew out the loads, and reloaded them; then going to the closet,
he brought out two very dangerous-looking knives, and after trying the
points on his finger, proceeded to oil them. This over, he betook himself
to whistling, at the same time, keeping time to his music by drumming his
heel heavily on the floor. This, however, could not last forever; and
finally, wrapping a heavy coat around his shoulders, he stretched himself
at full length in front of the fire, and was soon sound asleep.

Not so his companion. In silence, without stirring, and scarcely
breathing, yet wide awake, with ears alive to every sound, and distorting
every sigh of the wind into the voice of a human being, he sat with white
lips and a shaking hand until the faint chime of a clock, which reached
him even above the noise of the storm, told him that the hour was come.

'Wake up!' said he, touching Jones with his foot. 'It's time to be off.'

Jones, with instinctive quickness, obeyed the call by springing to his
feet, apparently as wide awake as if he had not closed his eyes during the
night.

'All right!' said he, looking hastily about the room. 'Hey! but what's all
this noise?'

'It's a horrible night; all hell seems abroad,' said Craig. 'But come; get
ready, and let's be off.'