Chapter V: Part 5

One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very singular, isolated cloud, to the N. W. It was remarkable, as well for its color, as from its being the first we had seen since our departure from Batavia. I watched it attentively until sunset, when it spread all at once to the Eastward and Westward, girting in the horizon with a narrow strip of vapor, and looking like a long line of low beach. My notice was soon afterwards attracted by the dusky red appearance of the moon, and the peculiar character of the sea. The latter was undergoing a rapid change, and the water seemed more than usually transparent. Although I could distinctly see the bottom, yet, heaving the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms. The air now became intolerably hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar to those arising from heated iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away, and a more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However, as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled, and the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew, consisting principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon deck. I went below--not without a full presentiment of evil. Indeed every appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom. I told the captain my fears--but he paid no attention to what I said, and left me without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness however prevented me from sleeping, and about midnight I went upon deck. As I placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion ladder, I was startled with a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore and aft, swept the entire decks from stem to stern.

The extreme fury of the blast proved in a great measure the salvation of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as all her masts had gone by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from the sea, and, staggering awhile beneath the immense pressure of the tempest, finally righted.

By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is impossible to say. Stunned by the shock of the water, I found myself upon recovery, jammed in between the stern-post and rudder. With great difficulty I gained my feet, and looking dizzily around, was, at first, struck with the idea of our being among breakers, so terrific beyond the wildest imagination was the whirlpool of mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were engulfed. After a while, I heard the voice of an old Swede, who had shipped with us at the moment of our leaving port. I hallooed to him with all my strength, and presently he came reeling aft. We soon discovered that we were the sole survivors of the accident. All on deck, with the exception of ourselves, had been swept overboard, and the captain and mates must have perished as they slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Without assistance, we could expect to do little for the security of the ship, and our exertions were at first paralyzed by the momentary expectation of going down. Our cable had, of course, parted like pack-thread, at the first breath of the hurricane, or we should have been instantaneously overwhelmed. We scudded with frightful velocity before the sea, and the water made clear breaches over us. The frame-work of our stern was shattered excessively, and, in almost every respect, we had received considerable injury--but to our extreme joy we found the pumps unchoked, and that we had no great difficulty in keeping free. The main fury of the Simoom had already blown over, and we apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind--but we looked forward to its total cessation with dismay, well believing, that, in our shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendous swell which would ensue. But this very just apprehension seemed by no means likely to be soon verified. For five entire days and nights--during which our only subsistence was a small quantity of jaggeree, procured with great difficulty from the forecastle--the hulk flew at a rate defying computation, before rapidly succeeding flaws of wind, which, without equalling the first violence of the Simoom, were still more terrific than any tempest I had before encountered. Our course for the first four days was, with trifling variations, S. E. and by South; and we must have run down the coast of New Holland. On the fifth day the cold became extreme, although the wind had hauled round a point more to the Northward. The sun arose with a sickly yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees above the horizon--emitting no decisive light. There were no clouds whatever apparent, yet the wind was upon the increase, and blew with a fitful and unsteady fury. About noon, as nearly as we could guess, our attention was again arrested by the appearance of the sun. It gave out no light, properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow unaccompanied by any ray. Just before sinking within the turgid sea its central fires suddenly went out, as if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a dim, silver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean.

We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day--that day to me has not yet arrived--to him, never did arrive. Thenceforward we were enshrouded in pitchy darkness, so that we could not have seen an object at twenty paces from the ship. Eternal night continued to envelop us, all unrelieved by the phosphoric sea-brilliancy to which we had been accustomed in the tropics. We observed too, that, although the tempest continued to rage with unabated violence, there was no longer to be discovered the usual appearance of surf, or foam, which had hitherto attended us. All around was horror, and thick gloom, and a black sweltering desert of ebony. Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the spirit of the old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped up in silent wonder. We neglected all care of the ship, as worse than useless, and securing ourselves as well as possible to the stump of the mizen-mast, looked out bitterly into the world of ocean. We had no means of calculating time, nor could we form any guess of our situation. We were however well aware {35} of having made farther to the Southward than any previous navigators, and felt extreme amazement at not meeting with the usual impediments of ice. In the meantime every moment threatened to be our last--every mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell surpassed any thing I had imagined possible, and that we were not instantly buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of the lightness of our cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of our ship--but I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope itself, and prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing could defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made, the swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally appalling. At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the Albatross--at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into some watery Hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed the slumbers of the Kraken.

We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when a quick scream from my companion broke fearfully upon the night. 'See! see!'--cried he, shrieking in my ears,--'Almighty God! see! see!' As he spoke, I became aware of a dull, sullen glare of light which rolled, as it were, down the sides of the vast chasm where we lay, and threw a fitful brilliancy upon our deck. Casting my eyes upwards, I beheld a spectacle which froze the current of my blood. At a terrific height directly above us, and upon the very verge of the precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship of nearly four thousand tons. Although upreared upon the summit of a wave of more than a hundred times her own altitude, her apparent size still exceeded that of any ship of the line or East Indiaman in existence. Her huge hull was of a deep dingy black, unrelieved by any of the customary carvings of a ship. A single row of brass cannon protruded from her open ports, and dashed off from their polished surfaces the fires of innumerable battle-lanterns, which swung to and fro about her rigging. But what mainly inspired us with horror and astonishment, was that she bore up under a press of sail in the very teeth of that supernatural sea, and of that ungovernable hurricane. When we first discovered her, her stupendous bows were alone to be seen, as she rose up, like a demon of the deep, slowly from the dim and horrible gulf beyond her. For a moment of intense terror she paused upon the giddy pinnacle, as if in contemplation of her own sublimity, then trembled and tottered, and--came down.

At this instant, I know not what sudden self-possession came over my spirit. Staggering as far aft as I could, I awaited fearlessly the ruin that was to overwhelm. Our own vessel was at length ceasing from her struggles, and sinking with her head to the sea. The shock of the descending mass struck her, consequently, in that portion of her frame which was already under water, and the inevitable result was to hurl me with irresistible violence upon the rigging of the stranger.

As I fell, the ship hove in stays, and went about, and to the confusion ensuing, I attributed my escape from the notice of the crew. With little difficulty I made my way unperceived to the main hatchway, which was partially open, and soon found an opportunity of secreting myself in the hold. Why I did so I can hardly tell. A nameless and indefinite sense of awe, which at first sight of the navigators of the ship had taken hold of my mind, was perhaps the principle of my concealment. I was unwilling to trust myself with a race of people who had offered, to the cursory glance I had taken, so many points of vague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I therefore thought proper to contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I did by removing a small portion of the shifting-boards in such a manner as to afford me a convenient retreat between the huge timbers of the ship.

I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in the hold forced me to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with a feeble and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had an opportunity of observing his general appearance. There was about it an evidence of great age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a load of years, and his entire frame quivered under the burthen. He muttered to himself in a low broken tone, some words of a language which I could not understand, and groped in a corner among a pile of singular-looking instruments, and decayed charts of navigation. His manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of second childhood, and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on deck, and I saw him no more.

* * * * *

A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul--a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons of by-gone time are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself will offer me no key. To a mind constituted like my own the latter consideration is an evil. I shall never,--I know that I shall never--be satisfied with regard to the nature of my conceptions. Yet it is not wonderful that these conceptions are indefinite, since they have their origin in sources so utterly novel. A new sense, a new entity is added to my soul.

It is long since I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, and the rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus. Incomprehensible men! Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which I cannot divine, they pass me by unnoticed. Concealment is utter folly on my part, for the people _will not_ see. It was but just now that I passed directly before the eyes of the mate,--it was no long while ago that I ventured into the captain's own private cabin, and took thence the materials with which I write, and have written. I shall from time to time continue this journal. It is true that I may not find an opportunity of transmitting it to the world, but I will not fail to make the endeavor. At the last moment I will enclose the MS. in a bottle, and cast it within the sea.

An incident has occurred which has given me new room for meditation. Are such things the operations of ungoverned Chance? I had ventured upon deck and thrown myself down, without attracting any notice, among a pile of ratlin-stuff and old sails in the bottom of the yawl. While musing upon the singularity of my fate, I unwittingly daubed with a tar-brush the edges of a neatly-folded studding-sail which lay near me on a barrel. The studding-sail is now bent upon the ship, and the thoughtless touches of the brush are spread out into the word DISCOVERY.

I have made many observations lately upon the structure of the vessel. Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Her rigging, build, and general equipment, all negative a supposition of this kind. {36} What she _is not_ I can easily perceive, what she _is_ I fear it is impossible to say. I know not how it is, but in scrutinizing her strange model and singular cast of spars, her huge size and overgrown suits of canvass, her severely simple bow and antiquated stern, there will occasionally flash across my mind a sensation of familiar things, and there is always mixed up with such shadows, as it were, of recollection, an unaccountable memory of old foreign chronicles and ages long ago.

I have been looking at the timbers of the ship. She is built of a material to which I am a stranger. There is a peculiar character about the wood which strikes me as rendering it unfit for the purpose to which it has been applied. I mean its extreme _porousness_, considered independently of the worm-eaten condition which is a consequence of navigation in these seas, and apart from the rottenness attendant upon age. It will appear perhaps an observation somewhat over-curious, but this wood has every characteristic of Spanish oak, _if Spanish oak were distended or swelled by any unnatural means_.

In reading the above sentence a curious apothegm of an old weather-beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. 'It is as sure,' he was wont to say, when any doubt was entertained of his veracity, 'as sure as there is a sea where the ship itself will grow in bulk like the living body of the seaman.'

About an hour ago I made bold to thrust myself among a group of the crew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I stood in the very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious of my presence. Like the one I had at first seen in the hold, they all bore about them the marks of a hoary old age. Their knees trembled with infirmity, their shoulders were bent double with decrepitude, their shrivelled skins rattled in the wind, their voices were low, tremulous, and broken, their eyes glistened with the rheum of years, and their gray hairs streamed terribly in the tempest. Around them on every part of the deck lay scattered mathematical instruments of the most quaint and obsolete construction.

I mentioned some time ago the bending of a studding-sail. From that period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has held her terrific course due South, with every rag of canvass packed upon her from her trucks to her lower-studding-sail booms, and rolling every moment her top-gallant yard-arms into the most appalling hell of water, which it can enter into the mind of man to imagine. I have just left the deck, where I find it impossible to maintain a footing, although the crew seem to experience little inconvenience. It appears to me a miracle of miracles that our enormous bulk is not buried up at once and forever. We are surely doomed to hover continually upon the brink of Eternity, without taking a final plunge into the abyss. From billows a thousand times more stupendous than any I have ever seen, we glide away with the facility of the arrowy sea-gull, and the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the deep, but like demons confined to simple threats and forbidden to destroy. I am led to attribute these frequent escapes to the only natural cause which can account for such effect. I must suppose the ship to be within the influence of some strong current, or impetuous under-tow.

I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own cabin--but, as I expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearance there is, to a casual observer, nothing which might bespeak him more or less than man--still a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awe mingled with the sensation of wonder with which I regarded him. In stature he is nearly my own height, that is, about five feet eight inches. He is of a well-knit and compact frame of body, neither robust nor remarkably otherwise. But it is the singularity of the expression which reigns upon the face, it is the intense, the wonderful, the thrilling evidence of old age so utter, so extreme, which strikes upon my soul with the shock of a Galvanic battery. His forehead, although little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the stamp of a myriad of years. His gray hairs are records of the past, and his grayer eyes are Sybils of the future. The cabin floor was thickly strewn with strange, iron-clasped folios, and mouldering instruments of science, and obsolete, long-forgotten charts. His head was bowed down upon his hands, and he pored with a fiery unquiet eye over a paper which I took to be a commission, and which, at all events, bore the signature of a monarch. He muttered to himself, as did the first seaman whom I saw in the hold, some low, peevish syllables of a foreign tongue, and although the speaker was close at my elbow, yet his voice seemed to reach my ears from the distance of a mile.

The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of Eld. The crew glide to and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries, their eyes have an eager and uneasy meaning, and when their figures fall athwart my path in the wild glare of the battle-lanterns, I feel as I have never felt before, although I have been all my life a dealer in antiquities, and have imbibed the shadows of fallen columns at Balbec, and Tadmor, and Persepolis, until my very soul has become a ruin.

When I look around me I feel ashamed of my former apprehensions. If I trembled at the blast which has hitherto attended us, shall I not stand aghast at a warring of wind and ocean, to convey any idea of which the words tornado and Simoom are trivial and ineffective! All in the immediate vicinity of the ship is the blackness of eternal night, and a chaos of foamless water; but, about a league on either side of us, may be seen, indistinctly and at intervals, stupendous ramparts of ice, towering away into the desolate sky, and looking like the walls of the Universe.

As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current, if that appellation can properly be given to a tide which, howling and shrieking by the white ice, thunders on to the Southward with a velocity like the headlong dashing of a cataract.

To conceive the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterly impossible--yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful regions predominates even over my despair, and will reconcile me to the most hideous aspect of death. It is evident that we are hurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge--some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction. Perhaps this current leads us to the Southern Pole itself--it must be confessed that a supposition apparently so wild has every probability in its favor.

The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous step, but there is upon their countenances an expression more of the eagerness of hope than of the apathy of despair.

{37} In the meantime the wind is still in our poop, and as we carry a crowd of canvass, the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the sea--Oh, horror upon horror! the ice opens suddenly to the right, and to the left, and we are whirling dizzily in immense concentric circles, round and round the borders of a gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is lost in the darkness and the distance. But little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny--the circles rapidly grow small--we are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool--and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and shrieking of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering, oh God! and--going down.

A SKETCH.

BY ALEX. LACEY BEARD, M.D.

The shades of night are fleeing fast away
Before the blushing of the morning light;
The diamond stars that gleamed in bright array
Through the lone watches of the silent night,
Are fading dimly, as an orb more bright,
The glorious sun, from the deep coral caves,
Comes leaping forth in swift and tireless flight,
And as the sea his burning bosom laves,
More brightly throws his glance across the bounding waves.

The cheerful songsters of the verdant grove,
Are trilling forth their merry morning lays--
Their matin songs of warm impassioned love,
Which sweetly strike the ear of him who strays
Through the green paths and shady woodland ways,
Drinking deep pleasure from old Nature's wells,
Where the wild cat'ract in the sunlight plays,
Or seated lone, mid dark and mossy dells--
Or on some rocky mount yields to her magic spells.

The red-breast, mounted on some tow'ring tree,
Is chanting loud his merry, mirthful strain;
And the sweet lark's melodious notes of glee,
Are softly floating o'er the dewy plain.
From the broad fields which wave with golden grain,
Echoes the whistle of the timid quail;
And the loud laughter of the reaper train
Sweeps wildly by, borne on the passing gale
O'er woodland hill afar, and flowery-vested vale.

I hear the tuneful sound of humming bees,
And gently blows the soothing summer wind
With murmuring sound among the wavy trees,
And where gay flowers, in wild luxuriance twined,
Shed fragrance on its wings. How dull, how blind
To nature and her charms is he who sleeps
Through the glad morn, nor feels the fragrant wind
That o'er the hills and verdant valleys sweeps,
'Till with wild joy the heart of Nature's lover leaps!

O'er hill and valley far away I've strayed,
And gathered roses wet with morning dew,
To deck the grave where sleeps a gentle maid
Whose tender heart no change nor coldness knew,
But throbbed with love, which warmer, holier grew
As waxed more dim life's faint and flickering light,
And to the close remained unchanged and true--
A holy flame that burned, amid the blight,
Of fell disease and anguish, more divinely bright.

The sun climbs higher in the azure sky--
More fiercely on the earth descend his beams--
The tender flowers hang low their heads and die,
And wearied cattle seek the cooling streams.
Faint grow the ploughmen and their toil-worn teams;
The reapers too have ceased their strains of mirth;
No more the air with sounds of pleasure teems;
And now the shadows traced upon the earth,
And the fierce heat, proclaim the sultry noon-day's birth.

O'er the wide fields the herds have ceased to rove,
The tuneful birds have hushed their morning song,
Silent and lone is the deserted grove
Which late re-echoed to the warbling throng.
Hark! hark! I hear, sounding the vales along,
The mellow horn--the pleasant sound which calls
From the hot fields, the wearied harvest throng
To seek, where the old oak tree's shadow falls,
Their noon-day meal hard by the flowery cottage walls.

Within a green and trellised bower I lie,
Securely sheltered from the solar rays,
And on the bright and glowing summer sky
In contemplation rapt, I fix my gaze,
And scan each fleecy cloud which slowly strays
Like some pure spirit o'er the azure dome,
Making amid its wild and trackless ways,
Its boundless depths, a bright ethereal home
Where lone and airy forms in silent grandeur roam.

And here at noon-day hour I often dream
Of the fair hopes which light life's gloomy waste--
A desart plain o'er which a laughing stream,
Has found a way, its banks with wild flowers graced.
But ah! alas! when the fair stream is traced,
Amid lone sands we find its darksome goal.
O dreary life! in death's cold grasp embraced--
A withered thing, a dark and blotted scroll,
O'er which oblivion's deep and sluggish waters roll.

In early youth upon the sea of life,
We spread our sails, nor dream of pain nor care,
Nor the fierce tempest, nor the raging strife
Which gathers round our bark where'er we steer,
But on we rush, heedless and without fear,
Till, shipwrecked all our hopes, we helpless lie
And feel the bitter pangs of black despair--
Or from the demon strive in vain to fly,
Or rush into the arms of Death and madly die.

The sun is sinking down the western skies--
A holy calm is reigning o'er the earth--
From the green valleys cheerful sounds arise--
The tinkling sheep-bell, and the merry mirth
Of happy children--laughing at the birth
Of some new pleasure. Now the setting sun,
More brightly gleaming o'er the virent earth,
Casts a rich glow of golden light upon
The fleecy clouds, which line the western horizon.

Along yon valley where (a silent grove!)
Those dark green pines in loneliness arise;
With a sad heart in solitude I'll rove,
And darkly muse upon the broken ties {38}
Of happier days--the bright and smiling eyes,
Whose gentle light gave life a summer bloom,
And made this earth seem like a Paradise--
Now cold and rayless in the starless gloom,
Which darkly hovers o'er and shrouds the loathsome tomb.

The twilight shades are gathering o'er the land--
Shrouding the valleys in the gloom of night,
While I beside a murmuring streamlet stand,
And see depart the last faint rays of light
Which linger round yon mountain's topmost height.
'Tis the lone night--another day has gone,
And Time who speeds with never tiring flight,
Beheld a thousand laughing eyes this morn,
That now are sleeping where no day shall ever dawn.

GREEK SONG.

The exploit of Harmodius and Aristogiton, in slaying Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens, on the festal day of Minerva--hiding their poniards in myrtle wreaths, which they pretended to carry in honor of the Goddess, was celebrated in an Ode, the unsurpassed strength and beauty of which, it has utterly baffled the skill of all English versifiers to transfuse into our language. The learned are not agreed as to the author of this noble specimen of classic minstrelsy; though by most, it is ascribed to Callistratus. Some have set it down to Alcæus; misled, perhaps, by the tyrant-hating spirit it breathes,--so fully in unison with the deep, trumpet tones of his "golden lyre." Unhappily for the paternity of this ode, he died _eighty years_ before the event it celebrates. Of no other relic of antiquity, probably, have so many translations been attempted. I have seen seven or eight. If the following be added to so many woful failures, the author will not be greatly troubled. It never was in print before--I believe.

HYMN,

IN HONOR OF HARMODIUS AND ARISTOGITON.

[En myrtou kladi to Chiphos phorêsô
Ôsper Armodios k' Aristogeitôn, &c.]

TRANSLATION.

Wreath'd in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal,
Like those champions, devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.

Belov'd heroes! your deathless souls roam,
In the joy-breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home--
Where Achilles and Diomed rest.

In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made, at the tutelar shrine,
A libation of Tyranny's blood.

Ye deliverers of Athens from shame--
Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs.

Amongst other translations of this exquisite ode, is one by _Charles Abraham Elton_, a translator of Hesiod, and of several other Grecian poems; all of which are in a London edition of two elegant 8vo. volumes. The first stanza of his version is as follows:

"In myrtle veiled will I my falchion wear;
For thus the patriot sword
Harmodius and Aristogeiton bare,
When they the tyrant's bosom gored,
And bade the men of Athens be
Regenerate in equality."

It is a proof of the fairness with which Mr. Elton has aimed at a literal rendering of his author, that he has made even the name of ARISTOGEITON retain its place; as inharmonious a one, perhaps, as ever "filled the trump of future fame." In the Edinburgh Review for January, 1833, we find a translation of considerable merit, in the stanza of "Bruce's Address:" less literal than Mr. Elton's, yet more brief and simple, and partaking more of the thrilling energy of the original. In its arrangement, the edition of Ilgen is followed. It is due to the author of the foregoing translation to say, that it was written long before the year in which this one was published; and before he had seen the seven or eight others above mentioned.

"Wreathed with myrtles be my glaive,[1]
Like the falchion of the brave,
Death to Athens' lord that gave,
Death to Tyranny!

Yes! let myrtle wreaths be round,
Such as then the falchion bound,
When with deeds the feast was crown'd,
Done for Liberty!

Voiced by Fame eternally,
Noble pair! your names shall be,
For the stroke that made us free,
When the tyrant fell!

Death, Harmodius! came not near thee,
Isles of bliss and brightness cheer thee,
There heroic breasts revere thee,
There the mighty dwell!"

[Footnote 1: Sword.]

P.

SONNET.

O fairest flow'r; no sooner blown than blasted,
Soft silken primrose faded timelessly.--_Milton_.

It was an infant dying! and I stood
Watching beside its couch, to mark how Death,
His hour being come, would steal away the breath
Of one so young, so innocent, so good.
Friends also waited near--and now the blood
'Gan leave the tender cheek, and the dark eye
To lose its wonted lustre. Suddenly
Slight tremblings o'er him came; anon, subdued
To utter passiveness, the sufferer lay,
Far, far more beautiful in his decay
Than e'er methought before! I held his hand
Fast lock'd in mine, and felt more feebly flow
The pulse already faint and fluttering. Lo!
It ceased; I turn'd, and bow'd to God's command.[1]

[Footnote 1: Samuel II. Chap. xii.--22, 23.]

* * *

{39}

SPECIMENS OF LOVELETTERS

IN THE REIGN OF EDWARD IV.

From the second volume of a Collection of Original Letters written during the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III. By John Fenn, Esq., M.A. and F. R. S.

I.

Right reverend and worshipful, and my right well beloved Valentine, I recommend me unto you, full heartilie desiring to hear of your welfare, which I beseech Almighty God long for to preserve unto his pleasure, and your heart's desire.

And if it please you to hear of my welfare, I am not in good heele (_health_) of bodie, nor of heart, nor shall be till I hear from you

For there wottes (_knows_) no creature that pain I endure
And for to be dead (_for my life_), I dare it not discur
(_discover_)

And my lady my mother hath labored the matter to my father full diligently, but she can no more get than ye know of, for the which God knoweth I am full sorry. But if that ye love me, as I trust verily that ye do, ye will not leave me therefore; for if that ye had not half the livelihood that ye have, for to do the greatest labour that any woman alive might, I would not forsake you.

And if ye command me to keep me true wherever I go,
I wis I will do all my might you to love, and never no mo,
And if my friends say, that I do amiss
They shall not me let (_hinder_) so for to do,
Mine heart me bids ever more to love you--
Truly over all earthlie thing
And if they be never so wrath
I trust it shall be better in time coming

No more to you at this time, but the Holy Trinity have you in keeping; and I beseech you that this bill be not seen of none earthlie creature save only yourself.

And this letter was endited at Topcroft, with full heavy heart &c.

By your own
MARGERY BREWS.

II.

Right worshipful and well beloved Valentine, in my most humble wise, I recommend me unto you &c.

And heartilie I thank you for the letter, which that ye send me by John Beckerton, whereby I understand and know that ye be purposed to come to Topcroft in short time, and without any errand or matter, but only to have a conclusion of the matter betwixt my father and you; I would be the most glad of any creature alive, so that the matter might grow to effect. And thereas (_whereas_) ye say, an (_if_) ye come and find the matter no more towards you than ye did aforetime, ye would no more put my father and my lady my mother to no cost nor business for that cause a good while after, which causeth my heart to be full heavie; and if that ye come, and the matter take to none effect, then should I be much more sorry, and full of heaviness.

And as for myself I have done, and understand in the matter that I can or may, as God knoweth; and I let you plainly understand, that my father will no more money part withal in that behalf, but an 100_l_. and 50 marks (33_l_. 6_s_. 8_d_.) which is right far from the accomplishment of your desire.

Wherefore, if that ye could be content with that good, and my poor person, I would be the merriest maiden on ground; and if ye think not yourself so satisfyed, or that ye might have much more good, as I have understood by you afore; good, true, and loving Valentine, that ye take no such labor upon you, as to come more for that matter, but let what is, pass and never more be spoken of, as I may be your true lover and beadwoman during my life.

No more unto you at this time, but Almighty Jesu preserve you both bodie and soul &c.

By your Valentine
MARGERY BREWS.

Topcroft 1476.7.

MARCELIA.

Then she is drown'd?
--------Drown'd--Drown'd.
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia!
And therefore I forbid my tears.--_Hamlet_.

It was a solitary spot!--
The shallow brook that ran throughout the forest,
(Aye chattering as it went,) there took a turn
And widened;--all its music died away,
And in the place, a silent eddy told
That there the stream grew deeper. There dark trees
Funereal (cypress, yew, and shadowy pine,
And spicy cedar,) cluster'd; and at night
Shook from their melancholy branches sounds
And sighs like death!--'Twas strange, for thro' the day
They stood quite motionless, and looked, methought,
Like monumental things, which the sad earth
From its green bosom had cast out in pity,
To mark a young girl's grave. The very leaves
Disown'd their natural green, and took a black
And mournful hue: and the rough brier had stretch'd
His straggling arms across the water, and
Lay like an armed sentinel there, catching
With his tenacious leaf, straws, wither'd boughs,
Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which
Swam with the current--and with these it hid
The poor Marcelia's death-bed!
Never may net
Of vent'rous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts, as he ruffles with his shorten'd breath
The brook, and, panting, flies th' unholy place--
And the wild heifer lows and passes on;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet _I_ love
To loiter there; and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated through the evening mists,
And chequer'd as the heavy branches sway
To and fro with the wind, I listen, and
Can fancy to myself that voices there
Plain, and low prayers come moaning thro' the leaves
For some misdeed!
The story goes, that a
Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world
Frown'd upon,) once strayed thither, and 'twas thought
Did cast her in the stream. You may have heard
Of one Marcelia, poor Molini's daughter, who
Fell ill, and came to want in youth? No?--Oh!
She loved a man who marked her not. He wed,
And then the girl grew sick, and pin'd away,
And drown'd herself for love!--Some day or other
I'll tell you all the story.

* * *

{40}

TO MIRA.

BY L. A. WILMER.

Far from the gaudy scenes my earliest youth
Loved to inhabit, which Hope's rising sun
Lent every grace and charm--save that of Truth,
And made me happy but to be undone,
(My joys expectant blasted ere begun,)
Far from those pleasing scenes 'tis mine to roam.
Friendless, forlorn, my idle course I run,
While Disappointment, a malignant gnome,
Still tortures, and the grave appears my happiest home.

Ere yet I bid a long, a last farewell
To the sweet Muse, reluctant to forego
The sacred solace and enchanting spell
Which charm'd my solitude, and sooth'd my woe--
Ere I renounce my harp, and cease to know
The poet's rapture, when his eye surveys
The heavenly visions fancy doth bestow,
On which her favored sons alone may gaze,
Once more I lift my voice to sing in Mira's praise.

While sickly flattery heaps the unhallowed shrine
Of pomp and pride with praise that palls the sense,
Let spotless candor, Heaven-born truth be mine:
Base are the praises sold at truth's expense:
Mira! thy name all falsehood drives from hence!
Accept this tribute due to worth like thine--
Accept this offering of a heart from whence
No guile shall rise to taint this verse of mine,
But friendship's holy signet sanctify each line.

O might I deem my verse could live beyond
The petty confines of the dreary tomb--
Might I believe my wishes not too fond,
That point to fame beyond the eternal gloom--
When this frail form shall in the grave consume,
That future ages shall my works behold--
Then, Mira, on this page thy name's perfume
Should breathe a fragrance, when the hand is cold
And crumbled into dust which here that name enrolled.

As long as years revolved, and seasons came,
Tho' other flowers should fade away and die,
An ever-blooming flower should be thy name,
Dipped in the radiance of the evening sky:
When marble monuments in ruins lie,
And sculptured pillars from their bases fall,
Could I but place fair Mira's name on high
In Fame's eternal, adamantine hall,
Then would my lot be blessed, my hopes accomplished all.

Tho' placed by Fate in this ungenial clime,
Where scarce the sacred Muse hath deigned to tread--
These Western lands, where Song appears a crime,
And Genius rears a sad and sickly head--
And tho' malignant stars their influence shed--
Yet might I boast thy friendship, I would bend
No more when black misfortunes round me spread;
But my last breath in thankfulness would send,
And tell to future times thou wast my only friend.

I have seen womankind in all their charms--
Yea! all that beauty, wealth, and wit bestow--
With all that strikes the eye, or fancy warms,
In festal halls, where gold and diamonds glow,
And gay costumes that mock the painted bow
Of Iris hanging on Heaven's battlements:
Yet not all these could bid my bosom know
Such admiration, or such joys dispense,
As when the maiden smiled in heavenly innocence.

Then, Mira, not to pride my harp is strung--
Not to the measures of the giddy dance--
The boasted beauty shall remain unsung,
For I, unmoved, can meet her fatal glance.
Not in the fairy regions of romance
My footsteps stray--but _Truth_ directs my song:
To _Truth's_ eternal portals I advance,
Deserted by the rhyming crew so long,
And Virtue, Worth, and Thou shall still employ my tongue.

With thee, sweet Modesty and Truth reside--
Sincerity from courts and crowds exiled--
Virtue, that shuns the haughty brow of Pride--
And Charity, Heaven's first-born, favorite child,--
As if the skies upon thy birth had smiled,
And given thee all to make a woman dear.
Yes! thou couldst humanize the savage wild,
Make tigers pause thy soothing voice to hear,
Melt marble hearts, and smooth the brow of cankering care.

When the last echoes of my harp expire,
In mournful breathings on Patapsco's shore--
When the unpractised hand that struck the wire,
Shall wake those wild and artless notes no more--
When the green meadow and the torrent's roar--
The woody walk, so long my dear delight,
With all that charmed my fancy most before--
When Death shall veil these objects from my sight,
O say, wilt thou my name in thy remembrance write?

Then let the world its malice all combine--
Its hate I reck not, and its wrongs despise:
A bliss they dream not of shall still be mine--
A bliss untold, yet worthy of the skies,
Which all their curs'd malevolence defies.
Even in the anguish of the mortal hour,
My soul superior to the gloom shall rise,
And smile on Death when all his terrors lower,
And the grim tyrant stalks full panoplied in power.

STANZAS.

Oh! never, never, until now,
Seem'd happiness so near me--
Hope never wore a brighter brow
To flatter or to cheer me:
Yet while I listen to her voice,
Sad memory is chiding--
And I must tremble to rejoice,
And weep while I'm confiding.

I thought my spirit had grown old,
While counting years by sorrow,
And that the future could unfold
For me no happier morrow;
But ah! I find myself a child
Of newly waken'd feeling,
As full of dreams, as bright and wild,
As fancy's first revealing.

LEILA.

{41}

_Critical Notices_.

THE HEROINE.

_The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina. By Eaton Stannard Barrett, Esq. New Edition. Richmond: Published by P. D. Bernard._

Cherubina! Who has not heard of Cherubina? Who has not heard of that most spiritual, that most ill-treated, that most accomplished of women--of that most consummate, most sublimated, most fantastic, most unappreciated, and most inappreciable of heroines? Exquisite and delicate creation of a mind overflowing with fun, frolic, farce, wit, humor, song, sentiment, and sense, what mortal is there so dead to every thing graceful and glorious as not to have devoured thy adventures? Who is there so unfortunate as not to have taken thee by the hand?--who so lost as not to have cultivated thy acquaintance?--who so stupid, as not to have enjoyed thy companionship?--who so much of a log, as not to have laughed until he has wept for very laughter in the perusal of thine incomparable, inimitable, and inestimable eccentricities? But we are becoming pathetic to no purpose, and supererogatively oratorical. _Every body_ has read Cherubina. There is no one so superlatively unhappy as not to have done this thing. But if such there be--if by any possibility such person should exist, we have only a few words to say to him. Go, silly man, and purchase forthwith "_The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina_."

The Heroine was first published many years ago, (we believe shortly after the appearance of Childe Harold;) but although it has run through editions innumerable, and has been universally read and admired by all possessing talent or taste, it has never, in our opinion, attracted half that notice on the part of the critical press, which is undoubtedly its due. There are few books written with more tact, spirit, _näïveté_, or grace, few which take hold more irresistibly upon the attention of the reader, and none more fairly entitled to rank among the classics of English literature than the Heroine of Eaton Stannard Barrett. When we say all this of a book possessing not even the remotest claim to originality, either in conception or execution, it may reasonably be supposed, that we have discovered in its matter, or manner, some rare qualities, inducing us to hazard an assertion of so bold a nature. This is actually the case. Never was any thing so charmingly written: the mere style is positively inimitable. Imagination, too, of the most etherial kind, sparkles and blazes, now sportively like the Will O' the Wisp, now dazzlingly like the Aurora Borealis, over every page--over every sentence in the book. It is absolutely radiant with fancy, and that of a nature the most captivating, although, at the same time, the most airy, the most capricious, and the most intangible. Yet the Heroine must be considered a mere burlesque; and, being a copy from Don Quixotte, is to that immortal work of Cervantes what _The School for Scandal_ is to _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. The Plot is briefly as follows.

Gregory Wilkinson, an English farmer worth 50,000 pounds, has a pretty daughter called Cherry, whose head is somewhat disordered from romance reading. Her governess is but little more rational than herself, and is one day turned out of the house for allowing certain undue liberties on the part of the butler. In revenge she commences a correspondence with Miss Cherry, in which she persuades that young lady that Wilkinson is not her real father--that she is a child of mystery, &c.--in short that she is actually and _bonâ fide_ a heroine. In the meantime, Miss Cherry, in rummaging among her father's papers, comes across an antique parchment--a lease of lives--on which the following words are alone legible.

This Indenture
For and in consideration of
Doth grant, bargain, release
Possession, and to his heirs and assigns
Lands of Sylvan Lodge, in the
Trees, stones, quarries, &c.
Reasonable amends and satisfaction
This demise
Molestation of him the said Gregory Wilkinson.
The natural life of
Cherry Wilkinson only daughter of
De Willoughby eldest son of Thomas
Lady Gwyn of Gwyn Castle.

This "excruciating MS." brings matters to a crisis--for Miss Cherry has no difficulty in filling up the blanks.

"It is a written covenant," says this interesting young lady in a letter to her Governess, "between this Gregory Wilkinson, and the miscreant (whom my being an heiress had prevented from enjoying the title and estate that would devolve to him at my death) stipulating to give Wilkinson 'Sylvan Lodge,' together with 'trees, stones, &c.' as 'reasonable amends and satisfaction' for being the instrument of my 'demise,' and declaring that there shall be 'no molestation of him the said Gregory Wilkinson' for taking away the 'natural life of Cherry Wilkinson, only daughter of' ---- somebody 'De Willoughby eldest son of Thomas.' Then follows 'Lady Gwyn of Gwyn Castle.' So that it is evident I am a De Willoughby, and related to Lady Gwyn! What perfectly confirms me in the latter supposition, is an old portrait which I found soon after, among Wilkinson's papers, representing a young and beautiful female superbly dressed; and underneath, in large letters, the name of 'Nell Gwyn.'"

Fired with this idea, Miss Cherry gets up a scene, rushes with hair dishevelled into the presence of the good man Wilkinson, and accuses him to his teeth of plotting against her life, and of sundry other mal-practices and misdemeanors. The worthy old gentleman is astonished, as well he may be; but is somewhat consoled upon receiving a letter from his nephew, Robert Stuart, announcing his intention of paying the family a visit immediately. Wilkinson is in hopes that a lover may change the current of his daughter's ideas; but in that he is mistaken. Stuart has the misfortune of being merely a rich man, a handsome man, an honest man, and a fashionable man--he is no hero. This is not to be borne: and Miss Cherry, having assumed the name of the Lady Cherubina De Willoughby, makes a precipitate retreat from the house, and commences a journey on foot to London. Her adventures here properly begin, and are laughable in the extreme. But we must not be too minute. They are modelled very much after those of Don Quixotte, and are related in a series of letters from the young lady herself to her governess. The principal characters who figure in the Memoirs are Betterton, an old _debauché_ who endeavors to entangle the Lady Cherubina in his {42} toils--Jerry Sullivan, an Irish simpleton, who is ready to lose his life at any moment for her ladyship, whose story he implicitly believes, without exactly comprehending it--Higginson, a grown baby, and a mad poet--Lady Gwyn, whom Cherubina believes to be her mortal enemy, and the usurper of her rights, and who encourages the delusion for the purpose of entertaining her guests--Mary and William, two peasants betrothed, but whom Cherry sets by the ears for the sake of an interesting episode--Abraham Grundy, a tenth rate performer at Covent Garden, who having been mistaken by Cherry for an earl, supports the character _à merveille_ with the hope of eventually marrying her, and thus securing 10,000 pounds, a sum which it appears the lady possesses in her own right. He calls himself the Lord Altamont Mortimer Montmorenci. Stuart, her cousin, whom we have mentioned before, finally rescues her from the toils of Betterton and Grundy, and restores her to reason, and to her friends. Of course he is rewarded with her hand.

We repeat that Cherubina is a book which should be upon the shelves of every well-appointed library. No one can read it without entertaining a high opinion of the varied and brilliant talents of its author. No one can read it without laughter. Its wit, especially, and its humor, are indisputable--not frittered and refined away into that insipid compound which we occasionally meet with, half giggle and half sentiment--but racy, dashing, and palpable. Some of the songs with which the work is interspersed have attained a most extensive popularity, while many persons, to whom they are as familiar as household things, are not aware of the very existence of the Heroine. All our readers must remember the following.

Dear Sensibility, O la!
I heard a little lamb cry ba!
Says I, so you have lost mamma!
Ah!

The little lamb as I said so,
Frisking about the fields did go,
And frisking trod upon my toe.
Oh!

And this also.

TO DOROTHY PULVERTAFT.

If Black-sea, White-sea, Red-sea ran
One tide of ink to Ispahan;
If all the geese in Lincoln fens
Produced spontaneous well-made pens;
If Holland old or Holland new,
One wondrous sheet of paper grew;
Could I, by stenographic power,
Write twenty libraries an hour;
And should I sing but half the grace
Of half a freckle on thy face;
Each syllable I wrote should reach
From Inverness to Bognor's beach;
Each hair-stroke be a river Rhine,
Each verse an equinoctial line.

We have already exceeded our limits, but cannot refrain from extracting Chapter XXV. It will convey some idea of the character of the Heroine. She is now at the mansion of Lady Gwyn, who, for the purpose of amusing her friends, has dressed up her nephew to represent the supposed mother of the Lady Cherubina.

CHAPTER XXV.

This morning I awoke almost well, and towards evening was able to appear below. Lady Gwyn had invited several of her friends; so that I passed a delightful afternoon; the charm, admiration, and astonishment of all.

When I retired to rest, I found this note on my toilette.

_To the Lady Cherubina_.

_Your mother lives!_ and is confined in a subterranean vault of the villa. At midnight two men will tap at your door, and conduct you to her. Be silent, courageous, and circumspect.