Chapter I: Love Thee

’Tis sweet, when first the infant’s voice
Lisps to the parent of his joys,
Words like no other;
And says,--as a bright, radiant smile
Lights up his countenance the while--
“I love thee, mother.”

’Tis sweet, to watch that mother’s eye
Beam, like a star in yonder sky,
Radiant, though mild;
To hear her speak the glad reply,--
Her joyous bosom heaving high--
“I love thee, child.”

’Tis pleasant, when at midnight hour
Beneath some fragrant myrtle bower
With flow’rs inwove,
The happy swain, with trembling tone
Reveals his heart to _her_ alone--
“’Tis _thee_ I love:”

And then, to mark the rising sigh,
The blushing cheek, the laughing eye,
In _turn_ appear;
The swelling breast, the _throbbing_ there,
The playful struggle--_all_ declare,
“I love thee, dear.”

* * * * *

’Tis sweet, when man doth contrite bow
Before his God, his spirit low,
And seek His favor.
With deep submission as he kneels,
He speaks the joy his bosom feels,
“I love thee, Savior.”

But sweeter far, when _God_ hath said,
“The offering which _I_ have made,
Thine heart hath won.
Through _Him_ will I now hear thy cries,
Through that ‘_atoning sacrifice_,’
‘I love thee, _son_.’”

THE COFFEE CLUB.

No. II.

“I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up, catching the idea, even sometimes before it half-way reaches me.

----I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought, which Heaven intended for another man.”--_Tristram Shandy._

Reader;

Lest, from the fact that we have hitherto drawn our mottos from “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy,” the suspicion may be festering in your brain that poor Nescio Quod has confined his reading among the older English writers to this single work, it may not be amiss to adduce such evidence, as shall set at rest so unjust and injurious a surmise.

For instance--had he wished to be sarcastical upon himself, and thus, by a common artifice, predispose his critics to clemency, he might, in reference to the multitudinous array of _shadowy_ jests--flitting around the brightness of the reader’s fancy, like moths around a candle, to their own destruction--have cited this keen retort of Fuller--“It is good to make a jest, but not to make a trade of jesting.”

Or, in allusion to the somewhat pedantic display of information, varied, but worthless, he might have adopted from the same author a complaint at the frivolous attainments of the idle and riotous student--“Yet, _perchance_, he may get some _alms_ of learning, here a snap, there a piece of knowledge, but nothing to purpose.”

Or, in a mood of preeminent self-complacency, he might have imagined that the reader’s feelings towards him, maugre his faults and his prolixity, might be fitly expressed in the language of the Spectator (after Martial.)

“In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow,
Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.”

Or, in defense of his desultory style--half-way between the frisking pirouettes of Harlequin, and the staid pace of the moraliser, he might have borrowed a circumlocutory sentence from the bungling Locke--“I would have him try whether he can keep one unvaried, single idea in his mind without any other, for any considerable length of time.”

Or, having in his mind the stolidity of those, who condescended gravely to condemn so trifling a _jeu d’esprit_, he might have taken to his aid a sarcasm from Smollett--“Some formidable critics declared that the work was void of humor, character, and sentiment.”

Or, revolving in his thoughts the mystery attending the appearance of the first number, and the pining curiosity excited to unveil its paternity, with flattered pride, he might have quoted a splendid sentence from Count Fathom--“Over and above this important secret, under which he was begotten, other particularities attended his birth, and seemed to mark him out as uncommon among the sons of men.”--These “_ancient_ instances” will suffice, my reader, if you are in a yielding mood, to convince you that, if Tristram is called upon somewhat often, it is less a matter of necessity, than of choice. I am doubting whether it would not be a most Machiavelian stroke of diplomatic wisdom, to persuade you that I perceive all my failings. Surely your admiration at my frankness would outweigh your anger at the repetition of my sins. I am sometimes affected, and, now and then, I perpetrate a _verbicide_. I like to make new words--I feel for them the affection of a father. I am slightly tinctured with the sin mentioned by Boileau. (L’Art Poetique. Chant Troisieme.)

“Souvent, sans y penser, un écrivain qui s’aime,
Forme tous ses héros semblables à soi-meme.”

Which lines the _Il_-literati are to know mean, “A self-complacent writer often inadvertently draws his heroes like himself.” Thus I, forgetting the precise terms of the _conversators_, (there _ought_ to be such a word,) make them parley in a brogue very like my own. I am, moreover, somewhat vain, though less so than Ovid, or Horace, (Vide Metam. lib. 15. in fine. and Hor. 2.20 3.30.) or than that Etrurian Spurinna, whom Valerius Maximus cites as an instance of modesty, though he was rather an example of uncommon self-inflation; since he thought himself so _killing_, that he disfigured his face, lest he should unwittingly seduce his fair country-women!

I would that I could affirm with Falstaff in the play, “I am not only witty in myself, but I am likewise the cause that wit is in other men.” But the protasis will, I fear, be doubted by the judicious, and my own observation tells me that the apodosis is false. I am naturally neither contemptuous nor malicious, but when I look around me, and behold so many with but two ideas, “one for superfluity and one for use,” and reflect that I may myself rank among that soulless number, I become almost a misanthrope, and quite a scorner. “Les diseurs des bons mots,” says Pascal, “sont mauvais caractères.” “The perpetrators of witticisms are bad men.” Yet the same author observes, that silence is the severest punishment, and, since novelty is all that can gain one notoriety at the present day, I know not why I should not attempt to be new, at least, if not witty. I sometimes think I would rather give utterance to a brilliant error than a stupid truth, and, like Tully, espouse falsehood with a Plato, rather than be right with the rabble. “Had the nose of Cleopatra been shorter,” remarks an eminent writer, “the face of the world had been altered.” (_Her_ face would have been, at any rate.) Had I, too, been born at an earlier era, before the fingers of a million had compressed every square inch of this vast globe’s surface, till it is as dry and hopeless as the peel of an eviscerated orange, I, too, might have been at once original and wise. But all truths have of late become _truisms_, and to reiterate them would be like praising Shakspeare. Sufficient be it for me, (you will find the thought somewhere in Irving,) if, like a skillful physician, who gives you a pill enveloped in some palate-tickling sauce, I now and then, under the guise of folly, pop down your throat a sound moral, or a wholesome truth. My writings, if less grave in appearance, will be more healthful in effect than Bellamy’s learned computation of the earth’s inhabitants during the millennium, (whom he makes so numerous that they would be compelled to lie in _strata_,) or the labored inquiry of the ingenious Spaniard, whether it be more certain that a _cause_ will produce an _effect_, or that an _effect_ must spring from a _cause_. Pardon these patch-work prolegomena--remembering that it is my fashion to place my thoughts in _Mosaic_--and pass on to my compeers of the club.

_Apple._ “Well, Pulito, time flies, or,” (looking learnedly,) “_tempus fugit_, as the Latins would say. If Quod and you are coming to the point, I’ll e’en light my cigar, and listen with elongated and _patent_ ears.” (Here, after a series of wicked bantering, Apple was forced to explain that _patent_ meant _open_--he then continued pettishly,) “I really thought you could see through a joke sooner--but if you are not about to discuss, I’ll read to Tristo a few chapters of my Psychological Autobiography, in which I have shown by induction that _punning_ may become a second nature, and that in numerous consecutive instances--”

_Tristo._ “Enough, good Apple; I perceive the plan of your work, and doubt not that it is profoundly amusing, and amusingly profound. But why wish to read it to me, rather than to Nescio, or Pulito?”

_Apple._ “Because you are melancholy, and something light and trifling might--”

_Tristo._ “No, Apple, no! When I am sad, which is but too often, I find no relief from the ludicrous, or the gay. I should sooner look for an antidote to melancholy in the deep thought and earnest style of Coleridge, than in the levities of Swift, or the whimsicalities of Sterne. And an evening walk in the solemn starlight would quicker soothe me than a merry ramble among the green hills in the brightness of the morning. When the soul wanders through its airy chambers in solitary sadness, let it not flee for refuge to the comic page, to laughter, or the song. Let it dwell upon scenes and objects, more wretched than itself, till the sigh of sorrow burst into the tear of pity. The descriptions of Crabbe, so gloomy, so powerful, and so true, bear me away from sadness to solemnity, and the deep conceptions of Foster lift me from solemnity to a high and tender elevation.”

_Apple._ “Fool as I am, these bright spring mornings always make even me serious.”

_Tristo._ “Fools as we _all_ are, there are times when the cup of pleasure is as nauseous to the soul, as is wine to the sated palate of the morning reveler. Why is it, Apple, why is it that the first gay breath of spring is so saddening in its influence? Nature seems then to burst from her winter’s sleep, like a resurrection from the grave. The jocund earth puts on her brightest robes, as if soon to celebrate her nuptials with heaven. The pulse of existence beats high with new-born vigor, and the warm, bright blood runs riot through the renovated veins. Alike in the open fields, and the crowded city, throughout the glorious works of God, and the petty creations of man, there is a newness of life, which, it would seem, _must_ fill every heart with bounding ecstacy. And so it may be, for aught I know, with the busy and the riotous. But with the idle and the thoughtful, the approach of spring produces, I am persuaded, far different effects.”

_Apple._ “Physicians would tell us that the balmy breeze bears on its wings a subtle, penetrating fluid, which dampens the spirits and enfeebles the energies.”

_Tristo._ “No. While I allow that these early gales of spring, which breathe life and vigor into all the rest of animated nature, unbrace _our_ nerves, and through those media of sensation, lower the tone, and lessen the elasticity of the feelings, yet, for the main cause would I look deeper--even in the mind. There are certain periods, as we all know, when we are _forced to reflect_. Such periods are, every serious change in the world without--the recurrence of a birth-day, or the revisiting of home; and sometimes the sight of a long-neglected volume, through whose pages I have strayed in pleasant intercourse with an absent, or a buried friend, has brought paleness to my lip, and sadness to my heart. And such an occasion, preeminently, are the early days of spring; for spring (as the Germans say) is the cradle-time of the year.”

_Apple._ “The calendar, though, says otherwise. But go on.”

_Tristo._ “Then are we summoned to look forward to _another_ year, with hopes less wild and free than they were at the commencement of the last; and we look backward, also, with a longer and a sadder retrospect: and you know, Apple, that the memory of a student is but a shadowy maze, where the forms, which, in _prospect_, were gilded with glory, and girded with magnificence, to his _backward_ gaze, seem airy nothings, or shapes, palpable, indeed, but unsightly--fiends, mocking at the vanity of his hopes, and the folly of his grief. And thus the bland breath of the reviving year becomes, through the mysterious principle of association, an instrument of keenest anguish to the sensitive mind. This annual birth of nature is a mile-stone, that notches our progress from the cradle to the grave: the figures are surrounded by bloom and greenness, but they are graven by the finger of Death.”

_Apple._ “I think such brilliant days make us feel _too_ well.”

_Tristo._ “They do. They kindle sensations too delightful for continuance--our systems are too coarse, too frail--it seems as if an electric finger were laid invisibly upon each shrinking nerve--a balm circumfuses and permeates the heart, strange, ecstatic, overpowering. The change, too, is often so abrupt as to cause an unpleasant revulsion--the process (so far as regards the action of the mind) is not unlike that by which we pass from the stern winter of our existence here, to the bright and unending summer of the future life.”

_Apple._ “Well, Tristo, though I could not succeed in making you merry, you have well nigh rendered me as sad as yourself. And Quod and Pulito have stopped their wrangling to listen to your melancholy.”

_Pulito._ “Yes, Tristo, you are unwontedly depressed to-night, and Dumpling has scarcely made a _pun_ since we came together. However, the coffee is ready, that will revive you both.”

The first cup sufficed to set Apple on his _legs_, (speaking intellectually,) which he evinced by commencing a _running_ fire of puns and jests, too rapid for transcription; while Tristo, more slowly, but not less surely, owned the mild, exhilarating influence. In the mean time conversation lagged, and finally ceased, while they gave themselves up to the more _sensible_ pleasures of the palate. After a while, Pulito, who appeared to have been collecting all his energies for the onset, seized a moment, when Apple was poring over his Autobiography, Tristo with a pleased smile was dipping into Little’s poems, and Quod, as _magister morum_ for the evening, was resettling the coffee pot on its uneasy bed, and broke forth in a most oratorical tone with the following introduction to the debate.

_Pulito._ “On whatever principle you may compare the writings of the older novelists with the works of Bulwer and his school, whether as to their effect, in instructing the mind, or improving the heart, quickening the moral sense, or conveying useful information, or even for mere interest, or whiling away the time in rational amusement, (which last is but the lowest commendation of a good novel): in any of these points of comparison, I maintain that the older writers have a decided and manifest superiority. I might appeal, for the support of this position, to the concurrent testimony of literary men, to the fact that they have outlived contemporary criticism, and are still classics in this fastidious age, and furthermore”--

_Apple_, (looking up from his manuscript.) “What book is that you’re reading out of, Pulito?”

“The book of my own intellect, as yet unpublished, Mr. Impertinence,” said Pulito, somewhat disconcerted.

_Apple._ “Indeed! As I was looking down, I thought from the rapid and mellifluous flow of words, the elegance and profoundness of the thought, that you were reading loud from some one of the British Essayists. No insinuations, however,” and he chuckled at the effect, while the others smiled at the harmlessness of his sarcasm.

_Nescio._ “Don’t suppose, Pulito, that because I prefer the modern to the ancient school among the English novelists, I therefore deny all merit to the latter. It would be strange, indeed, if men, who were admitted _unâ voce_ to be the wits and geniuses of their age, should not have displayed many, and great, and varied excellencies. But won’t you allow that the incongruous mass, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, has gained its greenest laurels from its outrageous oddity? Its eccentricity is so astounding, so far beyond anomaly itself, that criticism pauses aghast, as at ‘the quills of the fretful porcupine,’ unknowing where to strike. You might as soon trace ‘the path of a serpent on a rock,’ or reduce to rule the movements of the wild ass of the desert. It is a mere chaos--a “rudis indigestaque moles.”

_Pulito._ “But, my dear fellow, such the author intended to have it.”

_Nescio._ “Well, and what then? Suppose he had made it dull, (as in fact much of it _is_, at least, to me,) would it be the more pleasing, that the author had simply fulfilled his intentions? I like a good conceit in my heart, and the more I like it, the more do I hate to see it spoiled.”

_Pulito._ “Do you assert that Sterne has spoiled his plan? If you do, the world is against you.”

_Nescio._ “I beg your pardon. Those few are against me, who copy their sentiments from one another, and who, I’ll be sworn, never had the patience to read through what they so extravagantly admire. There are many good judges, who have the taste to perceive the unrivalled beauties of Sterne in particular passages, his fine strokes of humor, his felicitous touches of character, and, therefore, indiscriminately extol the whole.”

_Pulito._ “Well, and I think they are about right.”

_Nescio._ “So they are, except in Tristram Shandy. But _there_ I maintain, that while uncle Toby, and Yorick, and in fact all the actors, are among the most perfect pictures in the English language, the scenes are yet, many of them, _unbearably_ wearisome. I would rather undertake to thread the labyrinth of Minos.”

_Pulito._ “Now, in my view, this same rambling style constitutes his great charm.”

_Nescio._ “Not at all. This attraction consists in the exquisite fidelity of his characters, and the wit that gleams along his zigzag path. His roving, if properly restrained, would be pleasing. But, in the very nature of things, we cannot heartily like an author whom we cannot keep in sight. He seems to have thought that _any_ thing would _take_, provided only it were irrelevant. If, indeed, these _disjecta membra_ were all brilliant or weighty, it would repay the labor of putting them together. But when you have done this, and find much of it absolute nonsense, you must feel spent, disappointed, and angry.”

_Pulito._ “Say what you will, and there is some truth in your words, Sterne will always remain inimitable.”

_Nescio._ “I deny it not, and I hope he may. One such specimen, however beautiful, of utter lawlessness, is quite enough, and the fame of Sterne has already drawn many a weak-winged aspirant from sober truth into erratic nonsense. That style, which, in _him_, if affected, was, at least, original, in an _imitator_ would be stale and intolerable. By the way, have you ever read his Sermons and Letters?”

_Pulito._ “Yes, and they are beautiful, are they not?”

_Nescio._ “Surpassingly. But what say you to the older novelists, Fielding, Richardson and Smollett?”

_Pulito._ “Why, I say that their language is as much stronger and purer, as their thoughts are better, and their characters more natural, than those of Bulwer, and his tawdry tribe.”

_Nescio._ “Well, I must admire your modesty, to speak thus of a man, whom the spontaneous and infallible voice of a million has applauded, till praise itself grows weary.”

_Pulito._ “The infallible voice of the million! Phoebus! their words _are_ oracular! It has not been a fact, then, has it, since the stars first sang together, that whatever the _lions_ of the day have done, or written, these infallible judges have followed with their praise? They did not shout ‘_te deum_’ to Cowley, when that worshipper of the ‘dim obscure’ was the star of a voluptuous court, as vicious in taste as it was depraved in morals? Each spectacled ‘mother in Israel’ was not enraptured by Hervey’s magniloquent meditations among the tombs? The horrors of Walpole, and the mysteries of Radcliffe, the sorrows of Porter, with the bravery of her superhuman Wallace, and the streaming eyes of her immaculate Amanda, have not _all_ been worshipped in their day as lords of the ascendant--have not _all_ risen, and shone, and set, in the April sky of popular applause? Why, Quod, I am astonished that you should for a moment adduce the opinion of the rabble as authority.”

_Nescio._ “Out, aristocrat! where else _would_ you look for natural and unbiassed feeling? I tell you, that when the voice of a people bursts forth in simultaneous applause, a work _must_ be good.”

_Pulito._ “And I tell you, that if at this moment our meretricious press should bring forth the Letters of Junius, and the scribblings of Jack Downing, the people, if left to themselves, would choose the latter to reign over them, because the latter is most like themselves. Besides, upon one of these fashionable novels you do not get the free popular voice. Some giant critic, from prejudice, or false taste, sends forth his _imprimatur_, and the groundlings catch and repeat the cry,--as a mountain shakes the thunder from its cliffs, and the little bills reverberate its voice.”

_Apple._ “But the people have no interest to sway their opinion.”

_Pulito._ “Neither have they any judgment to guide it.”

_Apple._ “To what, then, shall we resort? For criticism has always shifted with the shifting taste of the age, and it may be shown that the learned, and the polished, have fluctuated in their sentiments as much as the ignorant and the coarse. Did not the voices of the educated prefer Cowley and Dryden to Milton, until Addison took Milton on his wing, and bore him far into the heaven of fame? The critics of every age have followed the prevailing style of the writers of their time; and, indeed, they have constituted a large portion of those writers. Every thirty years has a style peculiar to itself--soft or strong, plain or mystical, brief or diffuse, moralizing or descriptive, simple or turgid; and the critics have set up no barrier, and constituted no law.”

_Pulito._ “What you have said, _was_ true, but _is_ not. There are now so many perfect specimens from every literary mine, that dross or counterfeit is instantly detected. Criticism has become stable, or, if ever influenced by prejudice, or local feeling, you have only to take the average--cast them together into the alembic, and truth will come forth. And indeed the _general_ and _long-continued_ opinion of the multitude on a literary work, is always correct, partly because nature speaks within them, and partly because they have been told what to think by their superiors.”

_Nescio._ “Don’t suppose I prefer the flimsy modern copyists, to the eloquent Old English prose writers--the thinkers of the seventeenth century. But what says your Criticism to the novelists of the present age, as compared with those of eighty years since?”

_Pulito._ “I speak not of Scott; for I admit, as must all, that to the rest of story tellers, he is the sun in heaven. I likewise except Edgeworth, and Marryatt, and, perhaps, James and Cooper. But the Bulwerian is the prevailing style; and of him enlightened criticism says, that, with much brilliancy, and some philosophy, there is a great deal that is vicious in style, and false in sentiment, shallow in reasoning, and depraving in tendency. It says that his aphorisms are merely antitheses, striking, but untrue. His characters are too strong contrasts to be natural; they are foils to one another.”

_Nescio._ “And where will you find a more glaring instance of this, than in Scott’s Quentin Durward, where he introduces tragedy and comedy--the executioners to Lewis, that subtle king?”

_Pulito._ “I allow it, and always considered the picture overcharged: it is broad farce, and not real life.”

_Nescio._ “Well, I will tell you what _I_ think of Smollett. When he is himself, he is coarse; and when he rises to the tender, he speaks in language, which true lover and true poet never employed. His sentimentality is to me disgusting, and his sketches, though laughable, are many of them caricatures. He had a strong sense of the ludicrous, but no taste for the refined. His sea-characters are admirable; but when, in the History of England, were oaths and exclamations, which I repeat not, so common in the mouths of _refined ladies_ even, as he would represent? When I close a volume of Smollett, I rise with a sense of weariness--there is a something, which I sought, and found not--his characters appear before me in bold prominence, and they are consistent with themselves, but I doubt me whether all of them are consistent with human nature.”

_Pulito._ “There is something in what you say. Smollett fails in some points: but his mind was powerful, and his language is strong, and idiomatically pure. But in regard to poetry, and to love-scenes, the taste of the age was wrong: yet he simply accorded with that taste, and you cannot blame him for drifting with a race that thought Johnson a poet! As for Fielding, though too diffuse in style of remark, he is still immeasurably above Bulwer and his countless spawn. And so is Richardson, maugre his epistolary prolixity; and Goldsmith, with his quiet beauty and truth to nature, transcends them all. But Bulwer, instead of the apotheosis his admirers would bestow, deserves to do penance in purgatory for his literary sins. As obscure as Coleridge, without his deep philosophy, as glittering as Voltaire, without his sparkling wit, as seductive as Byron, without his amazing strength, his wisdom is founded in a few heartless maxims, and his poetry is comprized in a Rhyming Dictionary.”

_Tristo._ “No! Pulito, you are wrong there. I have heard your discussion with interest, and allow me to draw the line, which, in cooler moments, you would both approve. Bulwer is a scholar, and a genius, and essentially a poet. That he is a scholar, and a ripe one, no one that has read his Ambitious Student, and, above all, his Last Days of Pompeii, can doubt for an instant. When I look at the fact that he has founded a new school in romance; that he has written eight or ten novels, all different, all original, all _creative_ in their kind; that we follow his characters from their entrance to their exit, with feverish and untiring interest; that in his own path no one approaches him, and that for eight years he has supported his reputation, I see not how he can be denied many of the attributes of genius. And that he is, _in heart_, a poet, despite his Siamese Twins, is equally evident to me. He is certainly fertile in invention, rich in expression, and powerful in pathos. I know not where to find any thing more poetic, more moving, than the character of Lucy Brandon, and her twilight interview with Clifford at the lattice, the beautifully simple portraiture of Mydia, and, above all, the crossed love, and shattered hopes of the Ambitious Student. I say that he _does_ possess wit and humor, and poetry, and talent, and that in large abundance. Yet his power is more in the _manner_ than the _matter_; for he is often superficial, and his pictures of the world, though faithful and clear in parts, are false and confused as a whole. Their coloring is too high. He strains for effect. His views in politics, in ethics, and religion, are all shifting. If a brilliant thought occurs, he pauses little upon its truth or consistency with his previous sentiments. Because red and blue are _both_ beautiful, he lays them on together. You view his pictures as in a glass, and depart, ‘straitway forgetting what manner of man he is.’ He makes all his heroes think and act splendidly for the moment; but their thoughts and actions are incongruous as a whole--they war among themselves. A man cannot at once be patient and resentful, thoughtful and careless, or learned and an idler. Again--his style is as bad as it is brilliant--it is affected--sometimes tawdry. His novels are bad, _very_ bad, in their tendency. He marries vice and virtue; he joins nobleness to sin; he makes man the puppet of fate or circumstance; around the desperate offender he weaves a spell of enchantment; we follow his heroes with wonder and pity and love, through all their paths of crime and glory, and we close the book with a sigh that ourselves were not born with natures so high, and destinies so splendid, even at the price of all their wretchedness, and all their guilt. Bulwer may talk, and talk of virtue and religion, till his hair is gray--but his principles are poison. And if he be dangerous, his imitators are contemptible. Without a tithe of his power, they are more corrupt. Their works are prolific as the rod of Aaron, and lean as the kine of Pharaoh. In regard to talent, making allowance for the greater freshness of his novels, and that sympathy which we feel for every thing of our own day, and remembering that he had all _their_ excellencies to build upon, and imitate, I should place him far below both Fielding and Smollett in mental power. Those older writers, though freer in language, are far less corrupt and enervate in thought, than these modern profligates. In _those_, there is a style simple, vigorous, and clear, and reflection solid, rational, and just--in _these_ there is a continual reaching forth after singularity and power. _Those_ draw faithful figures, though larger, perhaps, than life--but _these_ present distortions--wicked daubs--gross flatteries, or else vile libels upon human nature. _There_ is thought--_here_, sentiment--_there_, rough gold--_here_, spangled tinsel. _Those_ are chalybeate streams, which come tumbling from mountains of iron, with waves dark, but salubrious: while _these_ are rivulets from mercurial mines, that dance swiftly along their shining bed, with waters bright, but destructive.”

Ego.

AMBITION--A FRAGMENT.

--“I charge thee, fling away Ambition;
Love thyself last.”

_Henry VIII._

What! check the spirit in its earliest flight?
The new-fledged eaglet dash to earth again?
Wrap the just-rising sun in blackest night?
Hurl yon bright star from its empyrean?
Curs’d be the mind whence such a thought e’er sprung,
Yea, doubly curs’d the vile and slavish tongue
Which spake so mean a thought!
No, let that spirit rise,
Until the heaven of heavens before it lies,
Stretched out in clear perspective; and its home,
Ere it was fettered in this earthly form,
Be seen and recognized by thought innate;--
There let it brood, and “over all debate,”
Grasping earth, heaven, the Maker and the made,
Man and his fate, and fearlessly invade
The darkness which begirts Him round--the cloud
In which He hides His majesty.
The shroud,
Corruption, Reproduction, the stern war
Of Life and Death--the whence and what they are--
All it shall know--at least _attempt_ to know,
Uninfluenced by the world it scorns below.
Yes, let that eaglet rise on tireless wing;
Far, far beyond the clouds’ dominion spring,
And dwell where all is one eternal hush--
No dash of billowy rack, no whirlwind’s rush;
But yon bright sun blazes an universe
Of pure, essential fire, whose gleams disperse
All shade, and ‘permeate the unsensuous space’--
Its atmosphere--the spirit of the place.

Ambition, Oh Ambition! fire of hell,
Burning and burning, why in me dost dwell,
A frail, ungifted one, who soon must die,
“Unwept, unhonored,” who with longing eye
Beholds thy heaven-high dome, but whose poor might
Sinks, struck and palsied, ere it scale that height?
Go, light his eye who loves the storms of life,
Go, burn his heart whose pulse unvarying beats,
Go, circle him in whom there is no strife
Of Soul and Sense,--of cold, and feverish heats.
But no, I would not drive thee from my soul,
Black “effluence of bright essence, uncreate.”
What trumps the conqueror’s fame from pole to pole?
What weaves the poet’s name in the web of fate?--
Man! Time and Power--these on thee wait.

W. F.

THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL FEELING ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.

No. II.

The influence of moral feeling tends to heighten the pleasure which we derive from the contemplation of great actions.

Turn over the pages of history and philosophy--study the record of human events, and the laws of the mind, and we gather as their united testimony, the truth, that in all ages of the world, whatever has carried with it the impress of intellect, has commanded the homage of men. Even among rude and barbarous nations, he who distinguishes himself by some act of superior sagacity or valor, gains the ascendancy over his rivals, and is worshiped as Chief. The meed of honor in this case, is the result of a blind, but still a controlling admiration for the effect, unattended by a recognition of the cause. In more civilized communities, it is an enlightened and intelligent tribute to the offspring of mind.

To the man of imagination there is a powerful charm in the spectacle of a great mind throwing off the grave clothes of inactivity, and arousing itself for some mighty effort. There is almost a fearful grandeur in its movements, as it calls up one after another its slumbering energies, and girds itself for the struggle. And when it goes forth in its power to achieve the purposes which it has formed, it treads with a sternness and majesty which fling around it an irresistible spell. It is not simply the exhibition of vast strength which it presents, like the exertion of mere brute force, or the plunge of a falling avalanche, that awakens in the beholder these emotions of interest and delight. There is, it is true, in all such exhibitions, much to inspire sublimity of feeling. But the appeal which we speak of now, owes its effect to other associations of thought. It is the soul, the living, moving principle within, directing and controlling the whole, bending the will and purposes of others into subservience to its own ‘ruling passion,’ like the earth born giant of old, rising with fresh strength from every grapple with opposition, and pressing right onward to the goal of its wishes, with a progress that resembles the sure march of destiny--it is this which gives to the sublimity of intellect its distinguishing characteristics. With such a mind, the man of imagination cherishes a fellow feeling, entering into its aspirations with kindred ardor, watching with intense interest its struggles against difficulties, sharing its gloom in the hour of trial, and its exultation at success. This thrill of sympathy is with him the vibration of the chord which binds him to the universe, and to his fellow man. Shut him out from such a kindred with his race; seal up the fountain of ever-flowing sensibility within his bosom, bid him gaze upon the sublime achievements of intellect, with a stoic’s indifference, and you have cut off from him a source of happiness of the purest and most exalted character, and left him a blank on creation’s page.

In our contemplation of great actions, perhaps no exercise affords the imagination more pleasure, than to observe the progress of some mighty revolution. At first, all is apparently calm and peaceful on the surface of society, and the beholder finds nothing in the cloudless sky above, the whispering breeze, or the unruffled serenity beneath, to forebode the fury of the coming tempest. He does not dream that the waves of discord and strife are so soon to dash their foam along the mirror-like tranquillity before him. Yet the principles may be already at work, whose influence is to arouse these slumbering elements to a fearful energy. Some youthful mind, destined to be the master spirit of its age, may be, even at the moment, preparing within the still retreat of its lonely musings, by patient and toilsome research, the great problem whose solution is to shake the existing system of things to its foundations. At length the fullness of the time is come, and “the little cloud like a man’s hand,” rears its shadowy outline far in the distant horizon. The voice of the tempest is heard moaning in suppressed accents, as though wailing a dirge over the wreck it must make. Darker and still darker above, the sky spreads out its drapery of mantling clouds. The spirits of the storm awake, and ride forth on the howling blast, amid the wild roar of the elements, celebrating the festival of their freedom. The tempest at length has spent its rage, the pall of blackness is withdrawn, and the bow of promise gives goodly token of the returning calm. This may seem perhaps a fanciful description of a revolution. But to the cultivated imagination, the reality calls up all the intenseness of interest and excitement which belong to scenes like these. The storm of human passions, when stirred up and left to range uncontrolled through a community, gathering in its ranks the ruthless votaries of ambition, avarice and revenge, urged, as it sweeps onward, by a thousand new impulses from selfish and opposing interests, may well be likened to the strife of the angry elements. There is in the majestic energies of human nature, when aroused and carried forward with a momentum generated by the heart, an exhibition of more terrific sublimity than all the varied convulsions in the physical world can possibly present. But we have said enough on this point, to show, that the source of pleasure to the imagination, which we are at present considering, is one of no ordinary character, both in respect to the nature and degree of the gratification which it induces. And it is now high time that we return to our main object, which is to notice the influence of moral feeling in enhancing our susceptibility to this kind of intellectual enjoyment.

We look back with admiration upon the exploits of an Alexander; we are struck by the power of his genius, by the grandeur of his designs, the perseverance and energy of his execution. But the truth--the sober truth, with its disenchanting wand, breaks the charm which these throw around his memory, and compel our minds, divested of all enthusiasm, to sink their admiration of the hero in their aversion to the unprincipled robber of nations. But on the other hand, with how much of unmingled delight does the imagination contemplate the high moral dignity so conspicuous in the character of Washington. Both are splendid instances of the triumphs of genius; but with what different sentiments are they regarded! Over the memory of the latter, the purity of his motives and the disinterestedness of his ambition, have thrown a hallowed and unclouded atmosphere. Thus, it is only when great talents are ennobled by their subservience to virtue, that they receive the meed of unqualified admiration. As another illustration of this truth, notice the reformation in Germany--one of the most eventful dramas ever acted upon the theatre of the world. Perhaps there is no succession of events recorded on the page of history, which inspires the imagination with more thrilling interest--no prouder monument of the achievements of a single mind.

For a period of not less than a thousand years, the darkness of midnight had brooded over the nations of the east, relieved occasionally by some meteor star, whose solitary and transient gleam seemed only to deepen by contrast the surrounding gloom that succeeded. The curse of Papacy, with its ignorance, depravity, and superstition, lay like the frosts of winter upon the intellect and the heart of man; and the progress of true principles seemed to have been arrested forever. At this period of mental and moral gloom, nearly coeval with the dawn of reviving knowledge, arose the man who was to usher in the commencement of a new and glorious era. He had stood amid the worship of the temple at Rome, and been an eye witness to the luxury and licentiousness that defiled the consecrated courts. The name of the Holy City--the residence of the Vicar of Christ, had been treasured up in his mind from boyhood, with sacred associations. Alas, how changed from the image that his fond anticipations had pictured out! That moment gave birth in his soul to a mighty thought. He stood undazzled and unallured, though Rome’s pomp, and gaiety and beauty were spread out like a sea of enchantment before him. From that hour, Martin Luther was a champion of the truth--of the simple, unperverted truth. Year after year, with an ardor unchecked by difficulties, undaunted by the threats of power, he continued to pour the light of his own illumination over the nations of Europe, until the temple of Papacy shook to its foundations, and every Catholic king trembled on his throne. In contemplating this wonderful revolution, it is difficult to decide, whether our admiration should be most excited by the magnitude of the event, or the apparent total inadequacy of the means. A humble and unknown individual, with the Bible in his hand as his only weapon of warfare, enters the field against a Pontifical hierarchy, that had swayed for ages the sceptre of an absolute dominion--and PREVAILS. The sublimity and grandeur of the achievement itself would be deservedly a theme for the highest flight of the poet’s muse, and the most glowing strains of the historian. But it is only when we consider the nature of this triumph, that its full power, as a source of pleasure to the imagination, can be appreciated. It was a triumph of knowledge over ignorance. The light of science, which had so long glimmered but faintly, and at intervals, from the cell of the cloister, now burst forth in full orbed glory--‘rejoicing like a giant to run his race.’ It was a triumph of literature and refinement over brutality and barbarism. From the frozen waters of the north, to the pillars of Hercules, the intellect of Europe shook off the weight of its darkness, and awoke to life and activity. It was a triumph of the pure simplicity of the Christian faith over idolatry, hypocrisy and superstition. The degraded slave of popish tyranny and imposition cast away the shackles of his bondage, and arose to assert the dignity of his nature. On every thing that had been enveloped in the universal chaos, the almighty mandate was written, “Let there be light.” Thus, in contemplating this great revolution, it is in the power of its appeal to our moral sensibilities, that its true sublimity is seen and felt.

C.

THE SEMINOLE.

Where the oak and the pine in grandeur vie,
Where the orange and lemon their fragrance blend,
Where its rushing stream the rivulet pours,
There stood a warrior Chief. His eagle eye
Shot a searching look on all around. His form
Was symmetry; and proudly eminent
In all the majesty of pride and strength,
That Indian stood. One look at Heaven,
One glance at earth he cast, and then he yelled
A whoop so terrible, so fiercely wild,
All nature seemed to start. As, when
On Afric’s sands a wounded lion roars,
The desert quakes, so now the sunbeams
Trembled upon each quiv’ring leaf. But see!
He starts--he bounds into the forest depths,
And all is still again.

Two moons
Their circling revolutions had fulfilled.
Twas when the evening breezes softly breathed,
Wafting sweet odors from the balmy groves,
And from each songster of the wood there rose
A vesper hymn, and over all the scene
Twilight a soft and rosy tint had spread--
Upon a grassy knoll was seen to sit
That warrior Indian. His head was still
Proudly erect. But his glassy eye
On vacancy was fixed, and from his side
There flowed a crimson stream that spake of death.
Alas! how changed the noble warrior!
His snowy plume--the captured eagle’s gift--
Is pure no more, but sprinkled o’er with blood;--
Yet see! he rises slowly--but anon,
He reels--he falls--a deathless stillness comes
O’er all the scene. In mortal agony his hand
Still tighter grasps his knife, and ’twixt
His lips compressed, in faint and broken voice,
He murmurs thus--“Great Spirit of my fathers!
In the pleasant hunting grounds receive me!”--
His spirit’s flown--the noble warrior’s dead;
His life-blood ebbed upon his native soil.
Free had he lived--free did the Seminole die.

H. H. B.

THE OUTLAW AND HIS DAUGHTER.

At the termination of one of those revolutions which have convulsed the Mexican States from their earliest formation, Herraras, who had been an active partizan, finding his own side in the minority, sought in retirement a refuge from the turmoils of political life, and protection for the innocence, with facilities for the education of his motherless daughter. This he realized, until it began to be rumored, and not without foundation, that he was secretly leagued with the piratical smugglers. He who intended to reap the chief advantage from a public prosecution, was young Velasque, a favorite of the Administration, whose sole motive was a vehement passion for the daughter of Herraras, which as yet the jealous fondness of the father for his own child, and the aversion of the adolescent Almirena herself, had with vexatious firmness resisted.

‘Surrender your daughter to my solicitations, and my influence with the Government shall secure your acquittal; otherwise, you must die, and--_I will be avenged_’--sternly uttered the wily amorado.

‘Leave me till morning, and you shall have my answer,’ replied the perplexed and indignant father.

That morning discovered him with his child many leagues from the Mexican coast, in a vessel bound to the United States, whose sudden departure he had procured by bribes, after having, under cover of the night, with the aid of a faithful servant, taken on board of it, a rich amount of his ill-gotten treasure.

On the borders of one of those lakes whose silvery surfaces may be frequently seen imbosomed among the wild highlands of New England, near the margin of a forest that encircled its waters with a drapery of dark green foliage, and luxuriant vines, and stretched far away over the circumjacent mountains, the outlaw had chosen his retreat. A few roods of ground were cleared around his lodge, which was secured from view in the direction of the lake, by a narrow file of trees and underwood, and on all other sides, by the unbroken forest. Here the refugee lived, sequestered from the world, his only companion his child; with a single attendant, an African, the menial of the lodge, and only visiter of the village that lay over the mountains, and was the nearest within many miles of circuit, where the servant went for the supplies of the family. The outlaw suffered no stranger to enter his precincts, partly because he feared lest justice should find an avenue to his guilt, and partly because he dreaded an interruption to the communion of affection between him and his daughter. He loved his child as few fathers love their offspring. He had always cherished her as the “apple of his eye.” But since his recent misfortunes, all other feelings had become extinct, or submerged in this one passion. He loved her because she was the image of her mother, who had been the young idol of his soul. He loved her because she was a part of himself, and his own dark eye flashed beneath her brow. She was all the world had left him which he could call his own. To make her father happy, and witness his cloudy features clear away in smiles, was the dearest delight of the affectionate daughter. He could not bear her a moment from his presence, which she, at the least sound of danger as instinctively sought, as the timid lamb bounds away to its dam. Music was to both father and child an exhilaration of pleasure, and relieved of its weariness many a lonely hour. He had instructed her to play the guitar, whose strings responding to the skilful touch of her fingers, trilled in his ear the sweet airs of his youth; while her zephyr-like voice poured forth, in rich harmony with his deep bass, those lays that awakened fostered memories in his bosom. She read to him from his favorite Spanish authors, a few of which he had brought to be companions of his exile. A daily and indulged employment for the Mexican was sailing upon the lake, and angling for fish that were numerous in its waters. He had constructed for his daughter a light canoe with which she accompanied her father. While he fished, she sported with her little bark, which she learned to scull with such art, that like the shell of the Nautilus, it seemed of itself to glide through the waters. When the wind was high, so lightly and fearless did she skim over the curling tops of the waves, and so shrill and clear she sounded her notes on the air, that her father called her his Bird of the Lake. When the summer’s sun was shining hot, she would oar her boat along the shore, under the archway of the trees; here she twanged her guitar, or decked her hair with flowers from the banks, or filled her basket from the grape vines that twined among the low hanging limbs.

One day she sailed farther up the shore, and had unconsciously steered her boat into a sheltered cove. She was seated platting a chaplet of leaves; and as she adjusted it to her head, she looked into the water, so darkly shaded by the surrounding trees that it reflected her image clear as a mirror, and bright as her beautiful self. Not like Narcissus was she in love with her own image; but her father had told her that her hair and forehead were like her mother’s--that mother whom she had never seen--that she wore wreaths in her hair; and the fond orphan smiled at the resemblance, and seemed, as she gazed, to be enamored of the beauty whose early blight her father so bitterly mourned.

But the real beauty of this illusion was not without its charms. A young man, in the guise of a sportsman, attracted by the murmuring echoes of the music this Nereid warbled, had silently approached the waters, and screened behind a tuft of laurel shrubbery was looking, in breathless wonder, and deeply fascinated, upon this seemingly unearthly visitant of his mountain lake.

That a gloomy browed foreigner with his child, had come to reside near the lake was known in the village. Many suspicions were afloat as to his character. Few had seen the renegade. Even young Clermont, whose hunting excursions were fearlessly and widely extended, had not ventured near the dwelling of the recluse; nor had he dreamed what a flower was blooming in the dark woods of his native hills.

Almirena raised herself in her boat and attempted to pluck a rose that grew wild from a projecting rock. A tropical sun had imbrowned her skin; but polished the jet of her eyes to a higher brilliance; and her raven tresses floated more luxuriantly over her unbared neck. Attired in the costume of her country, her light vest open in front, with its flowing collar, and gathered loosely about her waist, revealed a form of classic mould; while her silken skirt, with its rich embroidery, excited still more the surprise of Clermont, who had seen in that retired district, only the simple dresses of rural life.

Perceiving that she could not easily reach the flower, Clermont, who had been fixed in his concealment by the enchantment of the vision, advanced to her view and offered his assistance. She was startled at the sudden apparition, and seized her oar. She did not know his language, but his gentle tones and supplicating gestures, tempted her to come nearer the bank and take the rose he offered, and then like the timid bird that picks one kernel from your hand, not staying for more flowers, which he would have gathered, she flew away over the waters.

Elfred Clermont, the son of the wealthy merchant of the village to which we have before alluded, was advanced in his professional studies, and at the time we are narrating, passing a vacation at home. With romance and enthusiasm commixed in his nature, refined in his feelings, he met with little congeniality of spirit among the rustic yeomanry of his native town; while amid the rugged scenery of the mountains, and deep gloom of the forests, he found his soul’s fondest sympathy. Taking his gun, and sometimes a musical instrument, he often pursued his solitary rambles; in the last of which he so unexpectedly encountered the outlaw’s daughter.

That night the sleep of Almirena was feverish. Her dreams were of the fair browed youth and his kind attentions. She awoke wishing he were her brother. Aware of her father’s inveterate aversion to any intercourse with the inhabitants of the vicinity, she said nothing to him of her adventure. But the next day, while he fished below, the hare-hearted girl, now emboldened by a feeling which to her was new, and which she did not probably analyze, again slowly propelled her canoe near the cove. The sound of music struck her ear. She dropped her oar, and taking her guitar, touched its chords. Its notes blended symphoniously in the sylvan recess with the sweet sounds of the young stranger’s flute; while their hearts were awakened to thrill in more exquisite melody. The ravished Clermont ran down to the water’s edge, and with a rich bouquet of flowers, which he held up to her view, prevailed upon her to approach the shore. He kissed the deep blushes from her cheek, as he assisted her to debark; and the stranger lovers sat down together upon the moss covered bank.

They did not understand each other’s language. But Nature has a dialect which she teaches all her children. The heart finds utterance not in artificial characters, but in burning expression. Music too speaks in glowing tones to the very ear of feeling.

They often met; he of the blue eyed Saxon race, she of the darker Roman origin--both impassioned; he from the gushing enthusiasm of his being, she from the ardent temperament of her southern skies. His love was pure as if she had been his sister. Hers as confiding as if he were her brother. Elfred soon acquired her native tongue, and instructed a ready learner in his own.

Herraras had marked the change in his daughter, and forbade her interviews with the young American. She implored; but he was inflexible. He loved his child, but with a love that could not be severed from its object. ‘What music is that?’ as a familiar air came quivering through the latticed window of his cottage, inquired the outlaw, with an emotion that was never kindled except at the voice of his child, or the sound of her guitar. ‘Has a minstrel of our own country wandered hither?’

‘Shall I call the player, father?’ eagerly asked the child.

‘I would see him.’

She ran for her lover.--Her artifice succeeded. Elfred was admitted to the lodge. The music of his flute, his frequent conversations with the Mexican in his own language, tended somewhat to revive humanity in the seared breast of the outlaw. But the doting father could not be induced to yield up his daughter to the solicitations of Clermont, who was at length obliged, quite in despair, to cease pressing his suit with the old man, though he still visited at the lodge. Almirena’s filial piety was too closely interwoven with her father’s happiness to allow her to thwart his wishes, yet at the same time she twined about Elfred in all the artlessness and strength of her love.

The exiles were seated one afternoon in the front apartment of the cottage, when the door was darkened by a strange form. The features of Velasque broke upon them like a fiend’s, hellish with revenge, blood-shot with lust. The outlaw stirred not, only hoarsely uttered ‘devil!’

‘I have come for my revenge,’ alternated the intruder, in a tone of cool, malignant triumph.

Almirena shrieked out as the tiger-like eyes of Velasque gleamed upon her.

The young Mexican immediately assumed a more familiar manner, and declared to the imperturbed outlaw, that he had been convicted of piracy in his own country, and that himself was accompanied by a party of United States officers, who were furnished with a warrant for his arrest from their Government. While they delayed in the woods, he had advanced professedly to reconnoitre, but really to parley.

‘You may escape if’----

‘If!’ thundered out the infuriated father. He checked his words. For a moment the storm of feeling raged within his breast. ‘I die,’ at length he said. ‘But we will pray before we go. Yonder is the image of our Mother.’ He led his daughter into a back room. ‘Now pray for protection.’ He whispered in agony, ‘fly--fly to your boat--you will be safe. I suffer for my guilt.’ The terrified child, the affectionate daughter, would have stayed by her father. But he sternly urged her forward. She sped her way to the lake. Velasque, suspecting an artifice, advanced; and missing his victim, dashed impetuously by Herraras, hurling the old man to the floor as he impotently endeavored to oppose him, and ran down the wood-skirted path to the waters. The resolute girl had pushed her canoe from the shore, and standing erect was vigorously plying her oar. Her pursuer seized her father’s boat; but the wind was up, and the waves mocked his strong-nerved efforts. She seemingly leaped from crest to crest. He called after her. The wind returned upon him his voice; and her flowing locks streamed in wilder witchery to his view. Nearing the shore, she sprang from her boat, and bounded away like a young fawn through the forest, leaving her vexed pursuer far behind.

The outlaw, recovering from his violent fall, hurried for the water. Velasque was far on the lake. The old man hastened along the shore to meet his daughter on the upper extremity of the lake. He found her in a branch-vaulted glen, concealed under an arbor that Clermont had constructed for their stolen interviews; scarcely did he begin to tranquillize his child, now fluttering with fear, and exhausted by her efforts, when Velasque leaped down the side of the glen. They stood face to face--the outlaw and the exasperated lover. ‘Obstinate old man,’ said the latter, ‘thou shalt die, and thy defenseless daughter shall be subdued to my wishes, if thou wilt not now acknowledge her mine.’ The old man replied not. Almirena, deadly pale, staggered forward to her father, and extending up to him her clasped hands, groaned out, ‘Oh my father, let me be honorably his.’ Nature failed her--she fell lifeless at his feet. Velasque stooped forward to raise her. But the maddened old man, with unnatural nerve, ran upon him, and precipitated him down a chasm in the rocks. The officers, who had been on the alert in the woods, now came up.

They bore the unconscious form of Almirena to the lodge, and consigned it to the care of her tender hearted slave. The wounded Velasque was carried away on a litter. The outlaw was manacled. He was supposed to be a bloody-handed, ferocious pirate. And as the girl was thought to be an accomplice in her father’s guilt, the officers had little pity for either. They did not permit the old man to go to his house and take a last look of his child; but conveying him by a nearer way through the valley of the lake, on the next morning they reached the sea-port, and lodged the outlaw in prison, where he was to be confined until Velasque should be sufficiently recovered to take charge of him to Mexico. Herraras was not sorry that his daughter had died. He knew that his own fate was sealed, and that she should live, exposed to the violence of Velasque, would have been worse than death on the rack to himself. He settled down in a calm, sullen submission to his destiny.

But Almirena lived. She had fainted; but awoke in a delirium. Clermont did not come to the lodge till the following morning. She wildly addressed him as he entered, ‘Farewell, Elfred, farewell. I have given myself to Velasque, and he spares my father’s life. You would see me before I go. Farewell. One kiss, one more;’ and she threw her arms about his neck, as he leaned over her, and sobbed like a child. For weeks did her lover watch in patient agony by her side. At length she slowly recovered.

Velasque did die. Foiled in his chief design, his spirits sunk, and he had not sufficient energy to counteract the effects of his wounds, which soon terminated his existence. Velasque being the only witness against the outlaw, and no one appearing to prosecute the case farther, he might have been discharged; but a new suit was instituted by those who had accompanied Velasque, charging him with the murder of the Mexican. He possessed no evidence to countervail the accusation. A stranger in a strange land, a condemned pirate immured in a prison, he had not heard that his daughter was yet alive. The popular feeling was against him. Clermont, who, being busy and remote, and also too fearful of the guilt of Herraras in respect to piracy, had not interested himself to learn what was transpiring, did not arrive at the court, till the evidence on the part of the state had been received. He was admitted to manage the defense. He called only one witness, the lovely daughter of the prisoner. As the hard-visaged outlaw met his child, the living from the dead, and held her in his embrace, his iron soul seemed to melt, and flow out at his eyes; a sight that turned the sympathies of the spectators in his favor. Almirena’s story was simple, and touching, in manifestation of the villainy of Velasque. Clermont conducted the case, to him, and all, now most intensely interesting, by an ingenious and manly argument in point of the prisoner’s having acted in defense of himself, and of the honor of his daughter. The outlaw was acquitted.

Herraras cheerfully yielded his daughter to his noble deliverer, her devoted lover; stipulating only that he might love her yet, for the sake of her mother. In tranquillity, and penitence for early misdeeds, the outlaw passed his days. Clermont, under another name, has arisen to distinction; but yearly does he revisit with his still beautiful Mexican wife, the lake of their romantic loves.