Chapter 7 No.7

On the 18th of April, having collected such information bearing on our purposes as it was possible to obtain, we left La Union, and fairly commenced the business of "Hunting a Pass." To reach the valley of the Goascoran, on the extent and character of which so much depended, it was necessary to go round the head of the Bay of La Union. For several miles our route coincided with that of the camino real to San Miguel, and we rode along it gayly, in high and hopeful spirits. The morning was clear and bright, the air cool and exhilarating, and the very sense of existence was itself a luxury.

At the end of four miles we struck off from the high road, at right angles, into a narrow path, which conducted us over low grounds, three miles farther, to the Rio Sirama, a small stream, scarcely twenty feet across, the name of which is often erroneously changed in the maps for that of Goascoran or Rio San Miguel. Beyond this stream the path runs over low hills, which, however, subside into plains near the bay, where the low grounds are covered with water at high tide. The natives avail themselves of this circumstance, as did the Indians before them, for the manufacture of salt. They inclose considerable areas with little dikes of mud, leaving openings for the entrance of the water, which are closed as the tide falls. The water thus retained is rapidly evaporated under a tropical sun, leaving the mud crusted over with salt. This is then scraped up, dissolved in water, and strained to separate the impurities, and the saturated brine reduced in earthen pots, set in long ranges of stone and clay. The pots are constantly replenished, until they are filled with a solid mass of salt; they are then removed bodily, packed in dry plantain-leaves, and sent to market on the backs of mules. Sometimes the pots are broken off, to lighten the load, and great piles of their fragments--miniature Monti testacci--are seen around the Salinas, as these works are called, where they will remain long after this rude system of salt-manufacture shall be supplanted by a better, as a puzzle for fledgling antiquaries.

Six miles beyond the Rio Sirama we came to another stream, called the Siramita or Little Sirama, for the reason, probably, as H. suggested, that it is four times as large as the Sirama. It flows through a bed twenty feet deep and upwards of two hundred feet wide, paved with water-worn stones, ragged with frayed fragments of trees, and affording abundant evidence that during the season of rains it is a rough and powerful torrent. Between this stream and the Goascoran there is a maze of barren hills, relieved by occasional level reaches, covered with acacias and deciduous trees. Through these the road winds in easy gradients, and there are numerous passes perfectly feasible for a railway, in case it should ever be deemed advisable to carry one around the head of the bay to La Union.

The traveller emerges suddenly from among these hills into the valley of the Goascoran, and finds the river a broad and gentle stream flowing at his feet. At the time of our passage, the water at the ford was nowhere more than two feet deep, with gravelly bottom and high and firm banks, without traces of overflow. We had now passed the threshold of the unknown region on which we were venturing, and although we had a moral conviction that the valley before us afforded the requisite facilities for the enterprise which we had in hand, yet it was not without a deep feeling of satisfaction, almost of exultation, that, on riding to the summit of a bare knoll close by, we traced the course of the river, in a graceful curve, along the foot of the green hills on our left, and saw that it soon resumed its general direction north and south, on the precise line most favorable for our purposes. In the distance, rising alone in the very centre of the valley, we discerned the castellated Rock of Goascoran, behind which, we were told, nestled the village of Goascoran, where we intended passing the night. We had taken its bearings from the top of Conchagua, and were glad to find that the intervening country was level and open, chiefly savanna, or covered with scattered trees. There was no need of instrumentation here, and so, ordering Dolores to bring up the baggage as rapidly as possible, we struck across the plain in a right line, in total disregard of roads or pathways, for the Rock of Goascoran. A smart gallop of two hours brought us to its foot, and in a few minutes after we entered the village, and rode straight to the Cabildo, or House of the Municipality, tied our mules to the columns of the corridor, pushed open the door, and made ourselves at home.

And here I may mention that the Cabildo, throughout Honduras, is the stranger's refuge. Its door is never locked, and every traveller, high or low, rich or poor, has a right to enter it unquestioned, and "make it his hotel" for the time being. Its accommodations, it is true, are seldom extensive and never sumptuous. They rarely consist of more than one or two hide-covered chairs, a rickety table, and two or three long benches placed against the wall, with a tinaja or jar for water in the corner, and possibly a clay oven or rude contrivance for cooking under the back corridor. In all the more important villages, which enjoy the luxury of a local court, the end of the Cabildo is usually fenced off with wooden bars, as a prison. Occasionally the traveller finds it occupied by some poor devil of a prisoner, with his feet confined in stocks, to prevent his digging a hole through the mud walls or kicking down his prison-bars, who exhibits his ribs to prove that he is "muy flaco," (very thin,) and solicits, in the name of the Virgin and all the Santos, "algo para comer" (something to eat).

In most of the cabildos there is suspended a rude drum, made by drawing a raw hide over the end of a section of a hollow tree, which is primarily used to call together the municipal wisdom of the place, whenever occasion requires, and secondarily by the traveller, who beats on it as a signal to the alguazils, whose duty it is to repair at once to the Cabildo and supply the stranger with what he requires, if obtainable in the town, at the rates there current. Not an unwise, nor yet an unnecessary regulation this, in a country where nobody thinks of producing more than is just necessary for his wants, and, having no need of money, one does not care to sell, lest his scanty store should run short, and he be compelled to go to work or purchase from his neighbors.

The people of Goascoran stared at us as we rode through their streets, but none came near us until after we had vigorously pounded the magical drum, when the alguazils made their appearance, followed by all the urchins of the place, and by a crowd of lean and hungry curs,--the latter evidently in watery- mouthed anticipation of obtaining from the strangers, what they seldom got at home, a stray crust or a marrow-bone. We informed our alguazils that we had mules coming, and wanted sacate for them. To which they responded,--

"No hay." (There is none.)

"Then let us have some maize."

"Tampoco."

"What! no maize? What do you make your tortillas of?"

"We have no tortillas."

"How, then, do you live?"

"We don't live."

"But we must have something for our animals; they can't be allowed to starve."

To which our alguazil made no reply, but looked at us vacantly.

"Do you hear? we must have some sacate or some maize for the animals."

Still no reply,--only the same vacuous look,--now more stolid, if possible, than before.

I had observed that the Teniente's wrath was rising, and that an explosion was imminent. But I must confess that I was not a little startled, when, drawing his bowie-knife from his belt, he strode slowly up to our impassible friend, and, firmly grasping his right ear, applied the cold edge of the steel close to his head. The supplementary alguazil and the rabble of children took to their heels in affright, followed by the dogs, who seemed to sympathize in their alarm. But, beyond a slight wincing downwards, and a partial contraction of his eyes and lips, the object of the Teniente's wrath made no movement, nor uttered a word of expostulation. He evidently expected to lose his ears, and probably was surprised at nothing except the pause in the operation. My own apprehensions were only for an instant; but, had they been more serious than they were, they must have given way before the extreme ludicrousness of the group. I burst into a roar of laughter, in which the Teniente could not resist joining, but which seemed to be incomprehensible to the alguazil, whose face assumed an expression which I can only describe as that of astonished inanity. I don't think he is quite certain, to this day, that the incident was not altogether an ugly dream. At any rate, he lost no time in obeying my order to go straight to the first alcalde of the village, and tell him that he was wanted at the Cabildo.

Reassured by seeing the alguazil come out alive, the muchachos returned, greatly reinforced, edging up to the open door timidly, ready to retreat on our slightest movement. We had not long to wait for the first alcalde, of whose approach we were warned by a sudden scramble of curs and children, who made a broad lane for his passage. Evidently, our alcalde was a man of might in Goascoran, and he established an immediate hold on our hearts by stopping on the corridor and clearing it of its promiscuous occupants by liberal applications of his official cane. He was a man of fifty, burly in person, and wore his shirt outside of his trousers, but, altogether, carried himself with an air of authority. He was prompt in speech, and, although evidently much surprised to find a party of foreigners in the Cabildo, rapidly followed up his salutation by putting himself and the town and all the people in it "at the disposition of our Worships."

I explained to him how it was that he had been sent for, placing due emphasis on the stupidity of the alguazil. He heard me without interruption, keeping, however, one eye on the alguazil, and handling his cane nervously. By the time I had finished, the cane fairly quivered; and the delinquent himself, who had scarcely flinched under the Teniente's knife, was now uneasily stealing away towards the door. Our alcalde saw the movement, and, with a hurried bow, and "Con permiso, Caballeros" (With your permission, gentlemen,) started after the fugitive, who was saluted with "Que bestia!" (What a beast!) and a staggering blow over his shoulders. He hurried his pace, but the alcalde's cane followed close, and with vigorous application, half-way across the plaza. And when the alcalde returned, out of breath, but full of apologies, he received a welcome such as could be inspired only by a profound faith in his ability and willingness to secure for us not merely sacate and maize, but everything else that we might desire. We told him that he was a model officer and a man after our own hearts, all of which he listened to with dignified modesty, wiping the perspiration from his face, meanwhile, with--well, with the tail of his shirt!

The alcalde was very hard on his constituency, and, from all that we could gather, he seemed to regard them collectively as "bestias," and "hombres sin vergüenza" (men without shame). We concurred with him, and regretted that he had not a wider and more elevated official sphere, and gave him, withal, a trago of brandy, which he seemed greatly to relish, and then again approached the subject of sacate for our mules. To our astonishment, the alcalde suddenly grew grave, and interrupted me with--

"Pero, no hay, Se?or." (But there is none, Sir.)

"Well, maize will answer."

"Tampoco."

"What! no maize? What do you make your tortillas of?"

"We have no tortillas."

"How, then, do you live?"

"We don't live."

A general shout of laughter greeted this last reply, in which, after a moment of puzzled hesitation, the alcalde himself joined.

"So, you don't live?"

"Absolutely, no!"

"But you eat?"

"Very little. We are very poor."

"Well, what do you eat?"

"Cheese, frijoles, and an egg now and then."

"But, no tortillas?"

"No. We planted the last kernel of maize two days ago." And so it was. The little stock of dried grass and maize-stalks stored up from the present rainy season had long ago been consumed, and the maize itself, which is here the real staff of life, had run short,--and that, too, in a country where three crops a year might easily be produced by a very moderate expenditure of labor in the way of tillage and irrigation.

Fortunately for our poor animals, Dolores had provided against contingencies like this, and taken in a supply of maize at La Union. As for ourselves, what with a few eggs and frijoles, furnished by the alcalde, in addition to the stock of edibles, pickled oysters and other luxuries, prepared for us by Do?a Maria, we contrived to fare right sumptuously in Goascoran. We afterwards found out, experimentally, what it was not to live, in the sense intended to be conveyed by the unfortunate alguazil and the impetuous alcalde, and which H. declared logically meant to be without tortillas--But we could never make out why the alcalde should call the alguazil "a beast," and beat him over his shoulders with a cane, withal.

Goascoran is a small town, of about four hundred inhabitants, and boasts a tolerably genteel church and a comfortable cabildo. It is situated on the left bank of the river to which it gives its name, and which here still maintains its character of a broad and beautiful stream. On the opposite side from the town rises a high, picturesque bluff, at the foot of which the river gathers its waters in deep, dark pools with mirror-like surfaces, disturbed only by the splash of fishes springing at their prey, or by the sudden dash of water- fowls settling from their arrowy flight in a little cloud of spray.

I have alluded to the castellated Rock of Goascoran, which, however, is only a type of the general features of the surrounding country. The prevailing rock is sandstone, and it is broken up in fantastic peaks, or great cubical blocks with flat tops and vertical walls, resembling the mesas of New Mexico. At night, their dark masses, rising on every hand, might be mistaken for frowning fortresses or massive strongholds of the Middle Ages. They seem to mark the line where the volcanic forces which raised the high islands in the Bay of Fonseca had their first conflict with the sedimentary and primitive rocks of the interior. The river is full of boulders of quartz and granite reddened by fire, resembling jasper, and alternating with worn blocks of lava,--further evidences of volcanic action. Altogether, the country, in its natural aspects, reminds the traveller of the district lying between Pompeii and Sorrento, in Italy, and probably owes its essential features to the same causes.

From Goascoran to Aramacina, a distance of twelve miles, the road traverses a slightly broken country, while the river pursues its course, as before, through a picturesque valley, narrowed in places by outlying mesas, but still regular, and throughout perfectly feasible for a railway. Aramacina itself is prettily situated, in a bend of one of the tributaries of the Goascoran, the Rio Aramacina, and numbers perhaps three hundred inhabitants. Immediately in front rises a broad sandstone table or mesa, at the foot of which there are some trickling springs of salt water, much frequented by cattle, and corresponding to the saltlicks of our Western States.

Behind the town is a high spur of the mountain range of Lepaterique, covered with pines, and veined with silver-bearing quartz. We visited the abandoned mines of Marqueliso and Potosí, but the shafts were filled with water, and only faint traces remained of the ancient establishments. Extravagant traditions are current of the wealth of these mines, and of the amounts of treasure which were taken from them in the days of the Viceroys. A few specimens of the refuse ore, which we picked up at the mouth of the principal shaft, proved, on analysis, to be exceedingly rich, and gave some color to the local traditions.

The cabildo of Aramacina was very much dilapidated, and promised us but poor protection against the rain, which now began to fall every night with the greatest regularity. We nevertheless selected the corner where the roof appeared soundest, and managed to pass the night without a serious wetting. The evening was enlivened by visits from all the leading inhabitants, whom we found to be far more communicative than their neighbors of Goascoran. Our most entertaining visitor, however, was a "countryman," as he styled himself, a negro by the name of John Robinson, born in New York, and now a magnate in Aramacina, where he had resided for upwards of sixteen years. Although he had fallen into the habits of the native population, and wore neither shirt nor shoes, he entertained for them a superlative contempt, which he expressed in a strange jumble of bad English and worse Spanish. He had been with Perry on Lake Erie, and afterwards on board various vessels of war, in some capacity which he did not explain with great clearness, but which he evidently intended should be understood as but little lower than that of commander. A glass of brandy made him eloquent, and he took a position in the middle of the cabildo, and gave us an oration on the people of Honduras, in a style singularly grotesque and demonstrative. In broken and scarcely intelligible English,--for he had nearly forgotten the language of his youth,--he denounced them as "thieves and liars," and then asked them, "Is it not true?" Imagining, doubtless, that he was declaiming their praises, the enthusiastic assemblage responded, "Sí! sí!" (Yes! yes!) Not a crime so gross, nor a trait of character so degraded, but he laid it to their charge, receiving always the same vehement response, "Sí! Sí!"

We got rid of our paisano with difficulty, and only under a promise to visit his chacra, somewhere in the vicinity, next morning. But we saw no more of him,--not much to our regret; for John Robinson, I fear, was sadly addicted to brandy, of which our supply was far too small to admit of honoring many such drafts as he had made the preceding evening.

One and a half miles to the southeast of Aramacina is a ledge of sandstone rock, with a smooth vertical face, which is covered over with figures, deeply cut in outline. This ledge forms one side of a rural amphitheatre overlooking the adjacent valley, and is by nature a spot likely to be selected as a "sacred place" by the Indians. It faces towards the west, and from all parts of the amphitheatre, which may have answered the purposes of a temple, the morning sun would appear to rise directly over the rock. The engravings in some places are much defaced or worn by time, so that they cannot be made out; but generally they are deep and distinct,--so deep, indeed, that I used those which run horizontally as steps whereby to climb up the face of the ledge. I should say that they were two and a half inches deep. A portion had been effaced by a rude quarry which the people of Aramacina had opened here to obtain stone for their church.

Some of the figures are easily recognizable as those of men and animals, while others appear entirely arbitrary, or designed simply for ornament. Enough can be clearly made out to show the affiliation of the engravers with the ancient Mexican families of Nicaragua and San Salvador. The space covered by these inscriptions is about one hundred feet long, by twelve or fifteen in height. A quarter of a mile to the southward are other smaller rocks with figures, too much defaced, however, to be traced satisfactorily. Vases of curious workmanship, human bones in considerable quantities, and other relics and remains, it is said, may be discovered by digging in the earth anywhere within the natural amphitheatre to which I have referred. This is another circumstance going to favor the belief that this was anciently a place of great sanctity; for it is a universal custom among all nations to bury their dead in the neighborhood of shrines and temples.

Although the immediate district in which these aboriginal traces are found does not seem to have fallen within the region occupied by the Nahuatt or Mexican tribes of Central America at the time of the Conquest, but in what was called the country of the Chontals, yet it is not difficult to suppose, that, in the various hostile encounters which we know took place between the two nations, the Nahuatts may have penetrated as far as Aramacina, and left here some record of their visit,--if, indeed, they did not succeed in effecting a temporary lodgment. At any rate, there can be but little doubt that a portion of the engravings on the rocks above described, but particularly those which seem to record dates, were made by them.

From Aramacina to Caridad, the next town on our course, and four leagues distant, the road is laid out on Spanish principles, which are the very reverse of scientific. Instead of keeping along the river-valley, it passes directly over a high, rocky spur of the lateral mountains, through a pass called El Portillo, (The Portal,) elevated fifteen hundred feet above the sea. The view from its summit, whence we were enabled to trace our course up to this point, as if on a map, in some degree compensated us for the labor of the ascent. From here we could also look ahead, beyond the town of Caridad; and we saw, with some misgivings, that there the lateral ranges of mountains seemed to send down their spurs boldly to the river, leaving only what the Spaniards call a canon or narrow gorge, walled in with precipitous rocks, for its passage. A shadow came over every face, in view of the possible obstacles in our path; and although we tried to reassure ourselves by the reflection, that, where so large a stream could pass, there must certainly be room enough for a road, yet, it must be confessed, we wound down the hill of El Portillo to Caridad with spirits much depressed. Moreover, a drizzling rain set in before we reached the village, and clouds and vapor settled down gloomily on the surrounding hills and mountains, rendering us altogether more dismal than we had been since leaving New York. We rode up to the cabildo of Caridad in silence, and fortunately found it new, neat, and comfortable, with cover for our mules, ample facilities for cooking, and an abundance of dry wood for a fire, now rendered necessary to comfort by the damp, and the proximity of high mountains. Fortunately, also, we experienced no difficulty in getting fodder for our animals and food for ourselves,--a bright-eyed Se?ora, wife of the principal alcalde, volunteering to send us freshly baked and crisp tortillas, which were brought to us hot, in the folds of the whitest of napkins. After dinner and coffee, and under the genial influences of a fire of the pitch-pine, which gave us both light and heat, our spirits returned, and we did not refuse a hearty laugh, when H. read from a dingy paper, which he found sticking on the wall of the cabildo, the report of the day's transactions on the Caridad Exchange, "marked by a great and sudden decline in railway shares, caused by the timidity of holders, and by an equally sudden reaction, occasioned by two dozen of soft-boiled eggs and a peck of tortillas."

Caridad is a neat little town, of about three hundred inhabitants, situated on a level plateau nearly surrounded by high mountains,--the valley of the river, both above and below, being reduced to its narrowest limits. To the northeastward of the town, and on a shelf of the Lepaterique Mountains, which rise abruptly in that direction, and are covered with pine forests to their summits, is distinctly visible the Indian town of Lauterique,--its position indicating clearly that it had been selected with reference to defensive purposes. We had seen its white church from El Portillo, looking like a point of silver on the dark green slope of the mountain.

Rain fell heavily during the night; but the morning broke bright and clear. The increased roar of the river, however, made known to us that it was greatly swollen, and when we walked down to its brink we found it a rapid and angry torrent, with its volume of water more than double that of the previous day. This was not an encouraging circumstance; for we had learned, that, if we intended following up the stream, instead of making a grand détour over the mountains, it would be necessary to ford the river, about a mile above the town. All advised us against attempting the passage. "Ma?ana," (Tomorrow,) they said, would do as well, and we had better wait. Meanwhile the waters would subside. Nobody had ever attempted the passage after such a storm; and the river was "muy bravo" (very angry). I have said that all advised us against moving; but I should except the second alcalde, who had taken a great fancy to us, and wanted to enter our service. His dignity did not rebel at the position of arriero or muleteer; any place would suit him, so that we would agree to take him finally to "El Norte,"--for such is the universal designation of the United States among the people of Central America. He shared in none of the fears of his townsmen, and told them, that, fortunately, all the world was not as timid as themselves, and wound up by volunteering to accompany us and get us across. We gladly accepted his offer, and started out with the least possible delay. I need not say that we made rather an anxious party. The unpromising observations of the preceding day, and the possibilities of the mountains' closing down on the river so as to forbid a passage, were uppermost in every mind; but all sought to hide their real feelings under an affectation of cheerfulness, not to say of absolute gayety. As we advanced, and rounded the hills which shut in the little plateau of Caridad on the north, we saw that the high lateral mountains sent down their rocky spurs towards each other like huge buttresses, lapping by, and, so far as the eye could discern, forming a complete and insurmountable barrier. Over the brow of one of these, a zigzag streak of white marked the line of the mule-path. Our guide traced it out to us with his finger, and assured us that it traversed a bad portillo, over which the wind sometimes sweeps with such force as to take a loaded mule off his feet, and dash him down the steep sides of the mountain. Half a mile of level ground still intervened between us and the apparent limit of our advance, and we trotted over it in silence, pulling up on the abrupt bank of the deep trough of the river, which foamed and chafed among the great boulders in its bed, and against its rocky shores, nearly a hundred feet below us. A break-neck path wound down to a little sandpit; and on the opposite side of the stream another path wound up, in like manner, to a narrow plateau, on which stood a single hut, with its surroundings of plantain-trees and maize-fields. I looked anxiously up the stream, but a sudden bend, a few hundred yards above, shut off the view; and there the flinty buttresses of the mountain rose sheer and frowning, perpendicularly from the water's edge.

The eyes of the Lieutenant had followed mine, and we exchanged a glance which expressed as plainly as words, that, unless the mountain-spur which projected into the bend of the river should prove sufficiently narrow to be tunnelled, or should fall off so as to admit of a side-cutting in the rock, our project might be regarded as at an end. To determine that point was our next and most important step. Down the steep descent, scrambling amongst rocks and bushes, where it seemed a goat would hardly dare to venture,--down we plunged to the water's edge. Here the stream was not less than a hundred yards broad, flowing over a rocky bed full of rolling stones and boulders, with a velocity which it seemed impossible for man or beast to stem. But our alcalde was equal to the emergency.

Stripping himself naked, he took a long pole shod with iron, which seemed to be kept here for the purpose, and started out boldly into the stream, for the purpose of making a preliminary survey of the line of passage. Planting his pole firmly down the stream, so as to support himself against the current, he cautiously advanced, step by step, "prospecting" the bottom with his feet, so as to ascertain the shallowest ford, and that freest from rocks and stones. Sometimes he slipped into deep holes and disappeared beneath the surface, but be always recovered himself, and went on with his work with the greatest deliberation and composure. After crossing and recrossing the river in this manner three or four times, he succeeded in fixing on a serpentine line, where the water, except for a few yards near the opposite bank, was only up to his shoulders, and which he pronounced "muy factible" (very feasible).

"But, amigo" exclaimed H., in an excited tone, "you forget that you are six feet high, and that I am but five feet five!"

"No hay cuidado!" (Have no care!) was the reassuring reply of the alcalde, as he slapped his broad chest with his open palm; "soy responsable!" (I am responsible!)

The mules were now unsaddled, and the trunks taken over, one by one, on the alcalde's head. Next, the animals were forced into the water, and, after vehement flounderings, now swimming, now stumbling over rolling stones, they were finally, bruised and bleeding and the forlornest of animals, got across in safety. Next came our turn, and I led the way, with a thong fastened around my body below the armpits, and attached, in like manner, to our stalwart alcalde. Long before we reached the middle of the stream, notwithstanding I carried a large stone under each arm by way of ballast, I was swept from my feet out to the length of my tether, and thus towed over by our guide. When all were snugly across, the laughter was loud and long over the ridiculous figure which everybody had cut in everybody's eyes, except his own. H. immortalized the transit in what the French call un croquis, but it would hardly bear reproduction in the pages of a narrative so staid as this.

Intent on determining, with the least possible delay, the important question, whether the mountains really opposed an insurmountable obstacle to our project, I left my companions and Dolores to resaddle and get under way at their leisure, and pushed ahead with the alcalde. Striking off from the mule-path, we climbed up, among loose rocks and dwarf-trees and bushes, to the top of the mountain. My excitement gave me unwonted vigor, and my sturdy guide, streaming with perspiration long before we reached the summit, prayed me, "in the name of all the saints," to moderate my rate of speed, and give him a trago of Cognac. My suspense was not of long duration; for, on reaching the crest of the eminence, I found that we were indeed on a narrow spur, easily tunnelled, or readily turned by galleries in the rock, and that, beyond, the country opened out again in a broad table-land sloping gently from the north, and traversed nearly in its centre by the gorge of the river. The break in the Cordilleras was now distinct, and I could look quite through it, and see the blue peaks of the mountains on the Atlantic slope of the continent. A single glance sufficed to disclose all this to my eager vision, and the next instant six rapid shots from my revolver conveyed the intelligence to my companions, who were toiling up the narrow mule-path, half a mile to my right. The Teniente dismounted, evidently with the intention of joining us, but soon got back again into his saddle,--having experienced, as H. explained, "a sudden recurrence of palpitation." Rejoining my companions, I dismissed our guide with a reward which surprised him, and we pursued our way to the Portillo. This name is given to the point where the path, after winding up the side of the mountain half-way to its summit, suddenly turns round its brow, and commences its descent. It is a narrow shelf, in some places scarcely more than a foot wide, rudely worked in the living rock, which falls off below in a steep and almost precipitous descent to the river; and although it did not quite realize the idea we had formed of it from the description of our guide, it was sufficiently pokerish to inspire the most daring mountaineer with caution. At any rate, most of our party dismounted, preferring to lead their mules around the point to having their heads turned in riding past it. Exposed to the full force of the winds, which are drawn through this river-valley as through a funnel, and with a foothold so narrow, it was easy to believe that neither man nor beast could pass here during the season of the northers, except at great risk of being dashed down the declivity.

A little beyond the Portillo, the road diverges from the valley proper of the river, and is carried over an undulating country to the village of San Antonio del Norte, finely situated on a grassy plain, of considerable extent, a dependency of the valley of the Goascoran. We had intended stopping here for the night; but the cabildo was already filled with a motley crowd of arrieros and others on their way to San Miguel. A tall mestizo, covered with ulcers, sat in the doorway, and two or three culprits extended their claw-like hands towards us through the bars of their cage and invoked alms in the name of the Virgin and all things sacred. We therefore contented ourselves with a lunch under the corridor of a neighboring house, and, notwithstanding it was late in the afternoon, pressed forward towards the little Indian town of San Juan, three leagues distant.

It was a long and rough and weary way, and as night fell without any sign of a village in front, we began to have a painful suspicion that we had lost our road,--if a narrow mule-path, often scarcely traceable, can be dignified by that name. So we stopped short, to allow a man on foot, whom we had observed following on our track for half an hour, to come up. He proved to be a bright- eyed, good-natured Indian, who addressed us as "Vuestras Mercedes," and who informed us not only that we were on the right road to San Juan, but also that he himself belonged there and was now on his way home.

"Good, amigo! --but how far is it?"

"Hay no mas" (There is no more,) was the consoling response.

"But where is the town?"

"Allá!" (There!)

And he threw his hand forward, and projected his lips in the direction he sought to indicate,--a mode of indication, I may add, almost universal in Central America, and explicable only on the assumption that it costs less effort than to raise the hand.

Our new friend was communicative, and told us that he had been all the way to Caridad to bring a priest to San Juan, "para hacer cosas de familia," (to attend to family affairs,) which he explained as meaning "to marry, baptize, and catechize." The people of San Juan, he added, were too poor to keep a priest of their own; they couldn't pay enough; and, moreover, their women were all old and ugly. And he indulged in a knowing wink and chuckle.

Meantime we had kept on our course, and it had become quite dark; still there was no sign of the village,--not even the flicker of lights or the barking of dogs.

"What did the fellow say about the distance?" inquired H., angrily.

"That there was no more distance."

"Ask him again; he couldn't have understood you."

"Amigo, where is your village? You said just now that it was close by."

"Hay no masita, Se?or!"

"What's that?"

"He says that the distance was nothing before, and is still less now!"

"Bah! he's a fool!" Half an hour later, which to H.'s indignant imagination seemed an age, we reached the top of a high ridge, and saw the first glimmer of the lights of the village, on the farther edge of a broad plain, a mile and a half distant.

"Estamos aquí!" (Here we are!) exclaimed our guide, triumphantly.

Our mules pricked forward their ears at the welcome sight, and we trotted briskly over the plain, and, as usual, straight to the cabildo,--a newly constructed edifice of canes plastered with mud, but, for a tropical country, suffering under the slight defect of having no windows or aperture for ventilation besides the door. The drum brought us the most attentive of alguazils, and we fared by no means badly in San Juan; that is to say, we had plenty of milk and eggs.

When supper was over, H. lighted a pine splinter, and put on record his "Observations on the Standard of Measurement in Honduras," which I am allowed to copy for the information of travellers.

"Distances here are computed by what may be called Long Measure. League is a vague term, and, like x in an algebraic equation, stands for an unknown quantity. It may mean ten miles, more or less,--any distance, in fact, over five miles. The unit of measure, as fixed by law, is estamos aquí, (here we are,) which is a mile and a half; hay no masita (a little less than nothing) is five miles; hay no mas (there is no more) is ten miles; and muy cerca (very near) is a hard day's journey. As regards spirituous liquors, a trago of brandy, or 'a drink,' is whatever may be in the bottle, be the same large or small, and the quantity more or less."

San Juan is insignificant in point of size, but its population seems to be well to do in the world, in the relative sense in which that term is to be interpreted in Central America. Here we found that the river forks,--the principal branch, however, which retains the name of Goascoran, still preserving its general course north and south. The smaller branch, called Rio de San Juan, descends from high mountains to the westward, having its rise, we were told, near the secluded Indian pueblos of Similaton and Opotoro. We found the elevation of San Juan to be nine hundred feet above the sea,--an altitude sufficiently great, combined with the proximity of the Cordilleras, to give it a generally cool and delightful climate. The change in temperature from that of the sea-coast, however, is less marked than the change in scenery and vegetation. It is true, we find the ever-graceful palm, the orange, plantain, and other tropical fruit-trees; but the country is no longer loaded down with forests. It spreads out before the traveller in a succession of swelling hills and level savannas, clothed with grass, and clumped over with pines, and miniature parks of deciduous trees, sufficiently open to permit cattle and horsemen to roam freely in every direction. During the dry season, however, this open region becomes dry and parched, and the traveller passing over it then would be apt to pronounce the whole country sterile and without cultivation. But in little lateral valleys and coves among the mountains, sheltered from the sun, and watered by springs or running streams, there are many plantations of sugar-cane, maize, rice, and other standard products of the tropics, of unsurpassed luxuriance. We sometimes came on these green places unexpectedly, far away from any habitation, and all the more gem-like and beautiful from their rough setting of sere savanna and rugged mountain.

We left San Juan early in the morning, crossing to the left bank of the river, still a noble stream, a hundred and fifty feet broad, and pure as crystal. A government tambo, or rancho, opposite the town, on the bank, indicated that even here the river was sometimes unfordable. Hence the construction of this public shelter for travellers obliged to wait for the subsidence of the waters. These government ranchos are common on all the roads, in the less populous parts of the country, or where the towns are widely separated, and are the refuge of the wayfarer benighted or overtaken by a storm in his journey. They seldom consist of more than four forked posts planted in the ground, supporting a roof of paja or thatch. Occasionally one or two sides are wattled up with canes, or closed with poles placed closely together. They are usually built where some spring or stream furnishes a supply of water, and where there is an open patch of pasturage; and although they afford nothing beyond shelter, they are always welcome retreats to the weary or belated traveller. For one, I generally preferred stopping in them to passing the night in the little villages, where the cabildos are often dirty and infested with fleas, and where a horrible concert is kept up by the lean and mangy curs which throughout Central America disgrace the respectable name of dog. In fact, a large part of the romance and many of the pleasantest recollections of our adventures in Honduras are connected with these rude shelters, and with the long nights which we passed in them, far away in dark valleys, or on mountain-crests, but always amongst Nature's deepest solitudes.

After crossing the river, our path, with the perversity of all Spanish roads, instead of following up the valley of the stream, diverged widely to the right through a cluster or knot of hills, in which we were involved until we reached a rapid stream called Rio Guanupalapa, flowing through a narrow gorge, over a wild mass of stones and boulders. Here we breakfasted, picturesquely enough, and, resuming our course, soon emerged from the hilly labyrinth on a series of terraces, falling off like steps to the river on our left. They had been burned over, and the young grass was sprouting up, under the freshening influence of the early rain, in a carpet of translucent green. At a distance of four leagues from San Juan, after descending from terrace to terrace, we again reached the river, now flowing through a valley three hundred yards broad, and about fifty feet below the general level of the adjacent plateau. Here we found another fork in the stream: the principal body of water descending, as before, from the right, and called Rio Rancho Grande; the smaller stream, on the left, bearing the name of Rio Chaguiton; and the two forming the Rio Goascoran. Half a mile beyond the ford is a collection of three or four huts, called Rancho Grande. Here we stopped to determine our position. We were now at the foot of the "divide," and close to the pass, if such existed, of which we were in search. Immediately in front rose a high peak, destitute of trees, which the people called El Volcan. It had deep breaks or valleys on either side, evidently those of the streams to which I have alluded. Outside of these, the mountains, six or eight thousand feet in height, swept round in a majestic curve. Were there, then, two passes through the Cordilleras, separated by the conical peak of El Volcan? or did the great valley of the Goascoran divide here, only to waste itself away in narrow gorges, leaving a summit too high to be traversed except by mountain mules?

Strange to say, the occupants of the huts at Rancho Grande could give us no information on these points, but to all our inquiries only answered, "Quien sabe?" (Who knows?)--and pointed out to us the line of the mule-path, winding over the intervening hills and along the flank of El Volcan. Up to this time we had had comparatively small experience, and did not quite understand, what we afterwards came to know too well, that a Spanish road is perfect only when it runs over the highest and roughest ground that by any possibility may be selected between two given points.

We did not waste much time with the people of Rancho Grande, but urged on our mules as rapidly as possible. Turning abruptly to the right and leaving the plateau behind us, we advanced straight up the high ridge intervening between the two valleys, and thence in a zigzag course to the foot of El Volcan, a mass of igneous rock, protruded through the horizontal sandstone strata,--the gradual recession of which gives to the country the terraced character to which I have so often alluded. Leaving our mules here, H. and myself clambered up amongst rough and angular rocks, strewn in wildest disorder, to the bare and rugged summit of El Volcan. From this commanding position the view was unobstructed all the way back to the Pacific. The whole valley of the river, and line of our reconnaissance, the Portillo of Caridad, the Rock of Goascoran, the Volcano of Conchagua, and the high islands of the Bay of Fonseca, were all included in the view. Rancho Grande and the fork of the river appeared at our feet; and on the right hand and the left, extending upwards in nearly parallel directions, were the deep valleys of the rivers Rancho Grande and Chaguiton,--that of the former clothed with pines, while that of the latter presented only a succession of savannas, with here and there a group of forest- trees. Our view to the northward, however, was obstructed by hills and forests, and our ascent of El Volcan failed to give us a view of the Pass, which we knew must now be near at hand. We descended, therefore, and resumed our course,-- anxiously, it is true, but with few of the serious misgivings which had beset us at Caridad.

The path wound around the base of El Volcan, on the level terrace or shelf from which it springs. As we advanced, we could distinctly perceive that the valley to our right rose gradually, with a gentle, but constant grade. At a distance of three miles it had nearly reached the level of the terrace along which we rode, and at the end of our fourth mile the terrace and the valley merged into each other, and the mule-path dipping into the waters of the stream, now reduced to a sparkling brook, resumed its direction on the opposite bank. We stopped here, in a natural park of tall pines, and lunched beneath their shade, drinking only the cool, clear water which murmured among the mossy stones at our feet. We needed no artificial stimulus; our spirits were high and buoyant; we had almost traced the Goascoran to its source; half an hour more must bring us to its fountain-head,--and then? We knew not exactly what then; but one thing was certain, that nothing in the form of a hill or mountain obstructed our advance, for the light, reflected from a clear sky, streamed horizontally between the tree-trunks in front, while on either hand the vistas were dark, and the outlines of gigantic mountains could be discerned towering to mid- heaven.

Half a mile farther on, crossing in the interval a number of little tributary streams, we came where the pines were more scattered; they soon disappeared, and we emerged upon an open glade or natural meadow. A high mountain, dark with forests, rose on our right; on the left was a long range of grassy hills; but in front all was clear! A government rancho, built under the shade of a couple of tall fruit-trees, stood in the middle of the savanna, and on its farther edge were the cane buildings of a cattle-hacienda, just visible through the wealth of plantain-trees by which they were surrounded, while the cattle themselves were dotted over the intervening space, cropping the young grass, which here looked brighter and fresher than in the valley below. Impulsively my mule pricked her ears forward, and broke into a rapid trot. Soon she stepped across the stream, which we had followed to its birthplace, now reduced to a trickling rivulet stealing out from a spring, "an eye of water," (ojo de agua,) coyly hidden away under a clump of trees draped with evergreen vines at the foot of the neighboring hills. I knew that we were at the "summit"; the faint swell of the savanna, scarcely perceptible to the eye, which supported the government rancho, it was clear, was the highest point between the two great oceans, and the cool breeze which fanned our foreheads was the expiring breath of the trade-winds coming all the way from the Bay of Honduras! My mule halted at the rancho; I threw the bridle over her neck, and went forward on foot; but I had not proceeded a hundred paces before my attention was arrested by the cheerful murmur of another little stream, also descending from the foot of the mountain at our right,--but this time, after traversing half the width of the savanna, it turned away suddenly to the north, and with a merry dash and sparkling leap started off on its journey to the Atlantic! In that direction, however, a forest of tall pines still shut off the view, and it was not until I reached the summit of one of the lateral hills that I could look over and beyond them. Then, for the first time, I saw the great plain of Comayagua, at a level some hundreds of feet below us, spreading away for a distance of forty miles, in a rich succession of savannas and cultivated grounds, dotted with villages, and intersected by dark waving lines of forest, marking the courses of the various streams that traverse it like the veins on an out-spread hand. At its northeastern extremity, its white walls now gleaming like silver in the sunlight, and anon subdued and distant under the shadow of a passing cloud, was the city of Comayagua, unmistakable, from its size, but especially from the imposing mass of its cathedral, as the principal town of the plain, and the capital of the Republic. Circling around this great plain, and, with the exception of only a narrow opening at its northern extremity, literally shutting it in like an amphitheatre, is a cincture of mountains, rising to the height of from three to six thousand feet,--a fitting frame-work for so grand a picture.

I returned slowly to the rancho, where my companions were preparing our encampment, and communicated to them the result of my observations. Singularly enough, there was no excitement; even H. forgot to inquire "what was the price of stock." But we took our dinner in calm satisfaction,--if four tortillas, three eggs, six onions, and a water-melon, the total results of Dolores's foraging expedition to the cattle-hacienda, equally divided between eight hungry men, can be called a dinner. We spent the evening, a good part of the night, and the next day until afternoon, in determining our position and altitude, and in various explorations in both directions from the summit. We found that we were distant seventy-eight miles in a right line from La Union, and (barometrically) 2958 feet above mean-tide in the Pacific. We afterwards ascertained that the hut in which we passed the night is called Rancho Chiquito, and that name was accordingly given to this summit, and to the Pass, as distinguished from another break through the mountains, to the westward, which we subsequently discovered and designated as the Pass of Guajoca.

After Rancho Chiquito, the first town which is reached in the plain of Comayagua, entering it from this direction, is Lamani,--a small village, it is true, but delightfully situated in an open meadow, relieved only by fruit-trees and the stems of the nopal or palmated cactus, which here grows to a gigantic size, frequently reaching the height of twenty or thirty feet. The cabildo was in a state of extreme dilapidation, and we called on the first alcalde for better accommodations. He took us to the house of the padre, who was away from home, and installed us there. It was the best house in the place, whitewashed, and painted with figures of trees, men, animals, and birds, all in red ochre, and in a style of art truly archaic. The padre's two servants, an old woman and her boy, were the sole occupants of the establishment, and did not appear at all delighted to see us. According to their account, there was nothing in the house to eat; they had no tortillas, no eggs, no chickens, "absolutamente nada" (absolutely nothing). All this was affirmed with the greatest gravity, while a dozen fat fowls were distinctly visible through the open doorway, perched, for the night, among the bare limbs of the jocote trees in the court-yard. I pointed them out to the old woman, and, producing a handful of silver, told her that we were willing to pay for such as we required.

"Pero no puedo venderles." (But I can't sell them.)

"Why?"

"No puedo"

Dolores meantime took a stick, knocked three of the finest from their perches, and quietly wrung their necks. I expected to see the old dame swoon away, or at least go off in a paroxysm of tears; but, instead of committing any such civilized folly, she silently took up her slaughtered innocents, dressed and cooked them, and thanked me profoundly for the medio each, which I handed her next morning. The lesson was not lost on us, in our subsequent travels; for we found it almost universal, that the lower classes are utterly indisposed to sell their domestic commodities. Their services may be purchased; but their chickens are above price. When, however, you have helped yourself, you are astonished to find how ridiculously small a sum will heal the wound you have made and atone for the loss you have inflicted.

From Lamani to Comayagua the road is direct, over a slightly undulating plain, subsiding gently to the north, and traversed nearly in its centre by the Rio Hanuya, fed by numerous tributaries falling from the mountains on either hand. We forded it at a distance of ten miles from Lamani, and were surprised to find it already a large and deep stream, frequently impassable for days and weeks together, during the season of rains. Half a mile beyond the ford we came to the Villa de San Antonio, a considerable place, and, next to the capital itself and the town of Las Piedras, the largest in the plain. Here we stopped at the house of the first alcalde, who gave us a cordial reception, and an ample dinner, in a civilized fashion,--that is to say, we had veritable plates, and knives and forks withal.

In Central America, curiosity is unchecked by our conventional laws, and the traveller soon ceases to be surprised at any of its manifestations, however extraordinary. When, therefore, a couple of dozen spectators, of all ages and both sexes, invaded the house of our host, and huddled around us while eating, we were in no degree astonished, but continued our meal as if unconscious of their presence. One yellow dame, however, was determined not to be ignored, and insisted on speaking English, of which she had a vocabulary of four or five words, picked up in her intercourse with American sailors at the port of Truxillo. We were hungry, and did not much heed her; whereupon she disappeared, as if piqued, but soon returned with what she evidently regarded as an irresistible appeal to our interest, in the shape of a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired child, perhaps three years old, perfectly naked, but which she placed triumphantly on the table before us.

"Mira estos caballeros! son paisanos tuyos, ni?ito!" (See these gentlemen, child! they are your countrymen!)

"Yes!" ejaculated the brat, to the infinite entertainment of the spectators, none of whom appeared to discover the slightest impropriety in the proceeding.

Of course, we had not come all the way to the Villa de San Antonio to set up our standard of what is moral or amusing; so we laughed also, and asked the mother to give us the history of the phenomenon. It was given without circumlocution; and we learned, in most direct phrase, that Captain ---- of ---- , who traded to Truxillo, was responsible for this early effort towards what H. called "the enlightenment of the country." So far from feeling ashamed of her escapade with the Captain, the mother gloried in it, and rather affected a social superiority over her less fortunate neighbors, in consequence. It is, however, but right to say, that the freedom with which matters of this sort are talked about in Central America does not necessarily imply that the people at large are less virtuous than in other countries. Honi soit qui mal y pense is a motto universally acted on; legs are called legs; and even the most delicate relations and complaints are spoken of and discussed without the slightest attempt at concealment or periphrasis. It is no doubt true, that marriage is far from general among the middle and lower classes; and a woman may live with a man in open concubinage without serious detriment to her character or position, so long as she remains faithful to him.* It is only when she becomes "light o' love" and indiscriminate in her conduct, that she is avoided and despised. And although the remark may sound strangely to American ears, I have no question that this left-hand compact, on the whole, is here quite as well kept as the vows which have secured the formal sanction of the law and the Church.

* But few statistics relating to this subject are in existence; but those few quite bear out these observations. According to the official returns of the District of Amatitlan in Guatemala, the whole number of births in that Department for the year 1858 was 1394, of which 581 were illegitimate!

[To be continued.]

* * *

THE "CATTLE" TO THE "POET."*

How do you know what the cow may know,

As under the tasselled bough she lies,

When earth is a-beat with the life below,

When the orient mornings redden and glow,

When the silent butterflies come and go,--

The dreamy cow with the Juno eyes?

How do you know that she may not know

That the meadow all over is lettered, "Love,"

Or hear the mystic syllable low

In the grasses' growth and the waters' flow?

How do you know that she may not know

What the robin sings on the twig above?

*See "The Poet's Friends," Atlantic Monthly, vol. v., p. 185.

* * *

MORE WORDS ABOUT SHELLEY

There is a moral or a lesson to be found in the life of almost every man, the chief duty of a biographer being to set forth and illustrate this; and a history of the commonest individual, if written truly, could not fail to be interesting to his fellows; for the feelings and aspirations of men are pretty much alike all the world over, and the elements of genius not very unequally distributed through the mass of mankind,--the thing itself being a development due to circumstances, very probably, as much as to anything singular in the man. But there are few good biographies extant; the writers, for the most part, contenting themselves with superficial facts, refusing or unable to follow the mind and motive powers of the subject,--or following these imperfectly. For this reason, they who would read the truest kind of biographies must turn to those written by men of themselves,--that is, the autobiographies; and these are, in fact, found to be among the most attractive specimens of literature in our language, or any other.

The life of any man is more or less of a mystery to other men, and one who would write it effectively must have been intimate with him from his youth onward. When the biography is that of a man of genius, the difficulty is greatly increased, even to the writer who has been his life-long familiar; for genius, by the necessity of its being, implies a departure in a variety of ways from the thoughts and rules of that regulated existence which is most favorable to the progress and welfare of men in the mass,--at least, as these are generally understood. But if the life-long intimacy be wanting in this instance, the task of the writer is the most difficult of all, and almost always a failure,--save in some rare case, where the writer and his subject have been men of a similar stamp.

Few biographies are written by the life-intimates of the dead. In most instances they are composed as tasks or duties by comparative strangers; or if now and then by the friends or associates of the subject, these are very likely the observers of only a part of his life, the seri studiorum of his latter or middle career, and unacquainted with that period when the strong lines of character are formed and the mental tendencies fixed. Boswell's "Life of Johnson" is considered one of the best performances of its kind in our language; but it is, after all, only half a biography, as it were. We have the pensioned and petted life of the rough and contemptuous man of genius,--whose great renown in English literature, by-the-by, is owing far more to that garrulous admirer of his than to his own works,--but we have little or nothing about those days of study or struggle when he taught and flogged little boys, or felt all the contumely excited by his shabby habiliments, or knocked down his publisher, or slept at night with a hungry stomach on a bulkhead in the company of the poor poet Savage. All the racier and stronger part of the man's history is slurred over. No doubt he would not encourage any prying into it, and neither cared to remember it himself nor wished others to do so. He had a sensitive horror of having his life written by an ignorant or unfriendly biographer, and even spoke of the justice of taking such a person's life by anticipation, as they tell us. Others, feeling a similar horror, and some of them conscious of the enmities they should leave behind them, have themselves written the obscurer portions of their own lives, like Hume, Gibbon, Gifford, Scott, Moore, Southey. These men must have felt, that, even at best, and with the fairest intentions, the task of the biographer is full of difficulties, and open to mistakes, uncertainties, and false conclusions without number.

The autobiographies are the best biographies. No doubt, self-love and some cowardly sensitiveness will operate on a man in speaking of his own doings; but all such drawbacks will still leave his narrative far more trustworthy, as regards the truth of character, than that of any other man: and this is more emphatically the case in proportion to the genius of the writer; for genius is naturally bold and true, the antipodes of anything like hypocrisy, and prone to speak out,--if it were but in defiance of hatred or misrepresentation, even though the better and more philosophic spirit were wanting. We should have better and more instructive autobiographies, if distinguished men were not deterred by the self-denying ordinance so generally accepted, that it is not becoming in any one to speak frankly of himself or his own convictions. We have no longer any of the strong, wayward egotists,--the St. Augustines, the Montaignes, the Rousseaus, the Mirabeaus, the Byrons; even the Cobbetts have died out. But the Carlyles and the Emersons preserve amongst us still the evidences of a stronger time.

There are two sorts of biographies, which may be described, in a rough way, as biographies of thought and biographies of action. It may not be a very difficult thing, perhaps, to write the life of a politician or a general, or even of a statesman or a great soldier. At any rate, the history of such a one is an easy matter, compared with that of a mere man of thought, of a man of genius. In the former case, we have the marked events, which are, as it were, the stepping-stones of biography,--events belonging to the narrative of the time,--and the individual receives a reflected light from many men and things. Dates and facts make the task of statement or commentary more easy to the writer, and his work more interesting to the general reader. But the case of the mere thinker, the man of inaction, whose sphere of achievement is for the most part a little room, and who produces his effects in a great measure in silence or solitude, is a very different one. The names of his publications, the dates of them, the number of them, the publisher's price for them, the critic's opinion of them, are meagre facts for the biographer; and if the man of genius be a man of quiet, sequestered life, the record of it will be only the more uninteresting to the reader. It is only when something painful has been suffered, something eccentric done and misunderstood and denounced or derided, that the biography rouses the languid interest of the public. Indeed, so imperfect and false are the plan and style of the literary biographies, that such opprobria are, as it were, necessary to them,--necessary stimulants of attention, and necessary shades of what would otherwise be a monotonous and ineffective picture; and thus the unlucky men of letters suffer posthumously for the stupidity of others as well as their faults or divergencies. When biographers have not facts, they are not unwilling to make use of fallacies: they set down "elephants for want of towns." Dean Swift is a case in point. Society has avenged itself by calumniating the man who spat upon its hypocrisies and rascalities; and to appease the wounded feelings of the world, he is attractively set down as a savage and a tyrant. Mr. Thackeray and others find such a verdict artistically suitable to their criticisms or their narratives, (a French author has written a romantic book about the Dean and Stella,) and so the man is still depicted and explained as the slayer of two poor innocent women, a sort of clerical Bluebeard, and the horrid ogre who proposed to kill and eat the fat Irish babies. Thackeray's plan of dissertation, indeed, was inconsistent with any displacing or disturbing of the preconceived notions; the success of it was, on the contrary, to be built upon the customary old impressions of the subject. Everybody is pleased to find his own idea in Thackeray, liking it all the better for the graphic way in which it is set forth and illustrated; and the result shows the shrewd artistic judgment of the critic, who apparently (especially in the Dean's case) understands his readers rather better than his theme. As for Swift,--though a fair knowledge of the man may be gleaned from the several biographies of him that we have, his life has not yet been fairly written and interpreted; and we believe the same may be said of most literary men of genius.

It must certainly be said of Shelley,--and this brings us to the beginning of our remarks. Not one man in ten thousand would be capable of writing the life of that poet as it should be written,--even supposing the biographer were one of his intimate friends. Shelley went entirely away from the ranks of society,-- farther away than Byron, and was a man harder to be understood by the generality of men. An autobiography of such a man was more needed than that of any other; but we could not expect an autobiography from Shelley. He felt nothing but pain and sorrow in the retrospect of his life, and, like Byron, shrank from the task of explaining the mixture of self-will, injustice, falsehood, and impetuous defiance that made up the greater part of his history; and when he died, he left everything at sixes and sevens, as regarded his place and acts in the world. Accordingly, until lately, no one ventured forward with a biography of the departed poet, who has been for more than a generation looked on, as it were, through the medium of two lights: one, that of his poetry, which represents him as the loftiest and gentlest of minds; and the other, the imperfect notices of his life, which show him forth a cruel, headstrong, and reckless outlaw,--hooted at, anathematized, (and by his own father first,) driven out, like a leper in the Middle Ages, and deprived of the care of his children. In his case, however, the tendency to dwell upon and bring out the darker traits of biography does not exhibit itself in any remarkable way; and, on the whole, Shelley's character wears a mild and retiring rather than a defiant or fiendish aspect. The world is inclined to make allowances for him, on account of his beautiful poetry; and this is something of the justice which, on other grounds also, is probably due to him. Still, nobody has come forward to write his biography as it should be written; and we are yet to seek for the illustrated moral of a sensitive, unaccommodating, and impulsive being, rebelling against the rules of life and the general philosophy of his fellow-creatures, and shrinking with a shy, uncomprehended pride from the companionship of society. Shelley's disposition was a marked and rare one, but there is nothing of the riddle in it; for thousands, of his temperament, may always be found going strangely through the world, here and there, and the interpretation of such a character could be made extremely interesting, and even instructive, by any one capable of comprehending it.

After a considerable interval, some notices of Shelley have appeared, without, however, throwing much additional light on the wayward heart and pilgrimage of the poet. Mr. C.S. Middleton has published a book upon Shelley and his writings; Mr. T.J. Hogg has given a sketch of his life; and E.J. Trelawny some recollections of him, as well as of Byron. None of these pretends to explain that eccentric nature, or harmonize in any way his acts and his feelings; though a few things may be gathered that tend to make the biography somewhat more distinct than before, in some particulars. On the subject of his first unfortunate marriage, we are made aware that his wife was a self-willed, ill-taught young woman, who set her own father at defiance, and threw herself on the protection of such a wandering oddity as Percy Shelley. She was strong- minded, and brought with her into her husband's house her elder sister, also strong-minded, a ridiculous and insufferable duenna, whom Shelley hated with all his heart and soul, and wished dead and buried out of his sight,--finding, no doubt, his unsteady disposition controlled and thwarted by the voice and authority of his sister-in-law, who, knowing that her father furnished the young couple with their chief means of livelihood, would be all the more resolute in advising them or domineering over the migratory household. At last, these women grew tired of the moping and ineffectual youth who still remained poor and unsettled, with a father desperately healthy and inexorable, and all hope of the baronetcy very far off indeed; they grew tired of him and went away,--the wife, like Lady Byron, refusing to go back to such an aimless, rhapsodizing vagabond. With her natural decision of mind, aided and encouraged, very likely, by her astute relatives, she thought she saw good reasons for breaking and setting aside the contract which had united them; and no doubt the poor woman must have felt the hardship of living with such a melancholy outlaw. Having nothing in common with the devoted Emma, drawn in the ballad of "The Nut-brown Maid," she must have hated that wandering about from, place to place, living in lonely country-houses, under perpetual terror of robbers in the night, and subsisting for the most part on potatoes and Platonism; and she must have especially hated the Latin Grammar. She naturally thought, that, when she was married, she should have nothing more to say to exercises and lessons; but she found a pedagogue in Shelley, and the honeymoon saw her "attacking Latin" for the purpose of construing the poet Horace. How she must have hated all poets! She had other ideas,--ideas of ease, respectability, baronetcy; and her disappointment was greater than she could bear. Mr. Hogg says, she had a propensity to strong courses, and would talk of suicide in a speculative way. It is not difficult to discover the truth of that unfortunate union and disunion. Shelley, betrayed by the impulses of his enthusiast nature and the ignorant and deplorable credulity of a bookworm, allowed himself to be imposed upon by a designing boarding-school girl and her relatives, and everything followed as a matter of course. The unhappy wife recklessly broke the bond which she had as recklessly formed, and which the poet would have honorably and truly respected all his life; and then her passionate regret reacted fatally on herself,--and on him also, by a Nemesis not so very strange or unnatural, as the world goes.*

*Since this article was written, Mr. Peacock, an early friend of Shelley, has published a very different estimate of the character of Harriet Shelley. See Fraser's Magazine for March, 1860.

The subject of Shelley's character is a delicate and a difficult one, and Mr. Hogg and Mr. Trelawny, especially, show their inability to understand it, by the way in which they put forward and dwell upon the poet's peculiarities. Trelawny, a hard-minded, thorough-paced man of the world, publishing garrulously in his old age what he was silent about in his better period, talks of the poet's oddity, awkwardness, and want of punctuality,--as if Percy were some clerkly man on 'Change; and Hogg, hilariously clever, says Shelley was so erratic, fragmentary, and unequal, that his character cannot be shown in any way but as the figures of a magic-lantern are shown on a wall,--Mr. Hogg's own style of description being the wall,--"O wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall!" He also tells us, to instance the poet's familiarity with the sex, a story of Shelley sitting with one of his lady friends and being plied with cups of tea by that fair sympathizer,--the poet talking and letting his saucer fall, and the lady wiping his perspiring face with a pocket-handkerchief. Such scraps of silly gossip are not biography; they may do for tea-table chit-chat, but show very feebly in the place where one looks for something like a philosophical criticism on the mind of so extraordinary a man as Shelley.

Genius alone can do justice to genius; and kindred genius alone will do it. There have been, no doubt, a great many writers of biography who had no objection to compensate their feelings for bygone slights or discourtesies, suffered from some wayward or inattentive superiority, some stroke of ridicule or malice. Literary antipathies do not die with the dead. The posthumous impression of Margaret Fuller Ossoli has been colored by some who sneer at her ways and pretensions, because there was probably something in her manner which displeased them in a personal way. She had certainly a very awkward fashion of blinking her eyes, and also "a mountainous me." It is very probable poor Edgar Poe has had his faults exaggerated by those who suffered from the critical superiority of his intellect; since some of those notices of him which tend most to fix his character as a reprobate, and appear in a laggard way in the English periodicals, were probably written by some of his own countrymen. It was a painful consciousness of this literary revenge that made H.W. Herbert, in his last agony, call on his brother-penmen for mercy on his remains, and that induces many of our public men to bring out their own memoirs or encourage others to do so. It looks like vainglory, but it is not such. The memoirs show a mortal dread of calumny or misrepresentation. Mr. Barnum, for instance, was more just to himself than anybody else would be. He showed that his doings were only of a piece with those of thousands around him in society; and this not unreasonable extenuation is one that few of his critics are apt to make use of in commenting on him and his dexterities of living. As for Shelley, he might have shunned or slighted or overlooked Mr. Trelawny in some painful or preoccupied moment, or offended the robust man of the world by the mere delicate shyness of his look; he might also have puzzled and bewildered Mr. Hogg, being, perhaps, puzzled and bewildered himself, by some subtile mental speculation,-- unconscious that for these things he was yet to be brought to judgment and turned into ridicule, for the coming generation, by these familiar men,--these drilled and pipe-clayed familiar men. He might have tossed up a paradox or two to keep the muscles of his mind in exercise on a cold day, and his rapid intellect may have run away from his hearer, trampling on the conventions and platitudes in its course; but Mr. Hogg does not think he had fixed notions concerning anything. The poet did not nail his colors with a cheer to the mast of any of the great questions of the day, ethical or social, and therefore suffered the disparagements of those intelligent friends of his who have been taught to consider a well-defined rigidity of conviction and maintenance, in the midst of all these phenomena of our universe, telluric and uranological, as the test of everything valuable in human character and morals. And thus it has come about, that genius, with its native instincts of reason, truth, and common sense, is doomed to pay the penalty of its pre?minence and its divergencies, and suffer at the hands of friends and enemies alike, from the show of those false appearances, insincerities, equivocations, which are its natural and proper antipathies.

Since the foregoing observations were written, the writer has seen a certain corroboration of them in the interesting "Memorials of Shelley," recently edited by Lady Shelley, and published by Ticknor and Fields. For, in the preface of this book, she takes occasion to speak of the misstatements of all those who have hitherto written on the subject of the poet, instancing the fallacies of Captain Medwin's book, and also, in an especial manner, though vaguely enough, the incorrectness, amounting to caricature, put forth by a later biographer, one of Shelley's oldest friends,--by which she evidently means to indicate Mr. Hogg. At the same time, the nature of her Ladyship's book is, involuntarily, an additional evidence of the difficulty that seems fated to attend all attempts to set forth or set right the character of Shelley. Indeed, she appears to be in some degree conscious of this; for she says, apologetically, that she has published the "Memorials" for the special purpose of neutralizing the misstatements and spirit of Mr. Hogg's work, and also lets us know that the time is not yet come for the publication of other and more important matter calculated to do justice to the character of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

It is only natural to think that Lady Shelley is not the person to write the biography of the poet, whose relationship to her is such a close one. She would far more willingly leave the events of his troubled life forever unremembered. Indeed, when we find, that, in her long widowhood of thirty years, Mrs. Shelley shrank from the task of writing the life of her husband, we can the more easily understand why any member of his family, especially a lady, should be the most unfit to undertake the task. Nobody could expect Lady Shelley to enter into those painful explanations necessary to it. Accordingly, in the work before us, we do not find any light thrown on those places where a person would be most anxious to see it. Lady Shelley slurs over the undutiful boyhood of the poet and the terrible sternness of his Mirabeau-father. She merely glances across the first foolish marriage and the catastrophe that closed it, as a bird flies over an abyss. On such subjects she cannot set about contradicting anybody.

But it is an ungrateful task to go on speaking of short-comings in a case like this, where the hardest critic in the world must sympathize with the feelings of the author, whatever becomes of the book. And yet the book will be very welcome to every one who regards it as a feminine offering of tender admiration and grief laid upon the grave of departed genius. Though not exactly the sort of personal history one would wish for from another hand, it is still valuable, as furnishing very interesting matter for a future biography. We have in it several new letters of Shelley's, some letters of Godwin's, and others of Mrs. Shelley's, together with a number of touching extracts from the diary of the latter. There are also two papers from the poet's pen: one an "Address to Lord Ellenborough" in defence of a man punished for having published Paine's "Age of Reason," and another an "Essay on Christianity." In the first, with all a boy's enthusiasm, he opposes the high abstract logic of truth and toleration to the hard government policy which tries to keep a reckless kind of semi- civilization in order, and cannot bring itself to believe, that, as yet, the broad principle of license is the one that can serve the cosmogony best. In the next he rather surprises the reader by exhibiting himself as the eulogist and expounder of Jesus Christ,--but not after the manner of Saint Paul. No doubt, the secular and semi-pagan tone of this dissertation will jar against the orthodoxy of a great many readers,--to whom, however, it will be interesting as a literary curiosity. But it is meant to show the character of Shelley in a more amiable light than that in which it is contemplated by the generality of people.

To explain Percy Bysshe Shelley, by telling us he was inconsequent, absurd, and odd in his manners, is as futile as to explain him by saying he was a strange, wonderful genius, of the Platonic or Pythagorean order, always soaring above the atmosphere of common men. To call a man of genius an inspired idiot or an inspired oddity is an easy, but false way of interpreting him. The truth of Shelley's character may be found by a more matter-of-fact investigation. He was naturally of a feeble constitution from childhood, and not addicted to the amusements of stronger boys; hence he became shy, and, when bullied or flouted by the others, sensitive and irritable, and given to secret reading and study, instead of play with those "little fiends that scoffed incessantly." These habits gave him the name of an oddity, and what is called a "Miss Molly," and the persecution that followed only made him more recluse and speculative, and disgusted with the ways and feelings of others. He began to have thoughts beyond his years, and was happy to think he had, in these, a compensation for what he suffered from his schoolfellows. With his hermit habits grew naturally a strong egotistical vanity, which he could as little repress as the other youths could repress their muscular propensities to exercise; and hence his eagerness to set forth the threadbare heretical theories he had found among his books. For supporting these with an insolent show of importunity, he was turned away from college, and soon left his father's home, with his father's curse to bear him company. Had the baronet been in the way of a lettre de cachet, like Mirabeau's father, he would certainly have had Percy put into Newgate and kept there.

The malediction of the old man seems to have clung to Shelley's mind to the end, and made him rebellious against everything bearing the paternal name. He assailed the Father of the Hebrew theocracy with amazing bitterness, and joined Prometheus in cursing and dethroning Zeus, the Olympian usurper. With him, tyrant and father were synonymous, and he has drawn the old Cenci, in the play of that name, with the same fierce, unfilial pencil, dipped in blood and wormwood. Shelley was by nature, self-instruction, and inexperience of life, impatient and full of impulse; and the sharp and violent measures by which they attempted to reclaim him only exasperated him the more against everything respected by his opponents and persecutors. Genius is by nature aggressive or retaliatory; and the young poet, writhing and laughing hysterically, like Demogorgon, returned the scorn of society with a scorn, the deeper and loftier in the end, that it grew calm and became the abiding principle of a philosophic life. It was the act of his father which drove Shelley into such open rebellion against gods and men. Very probably, though he might have lived an infidel in religious matters, like tens of thousands of his fellows, he would not have written, or, at least, published, such shocking things, if his father had been more patient with a youth so organized. But parents have a right to show a terrible anger when thwarted by their children, and in this case the father too much resembled the son in wilful impetuosity of temper. Turned out of his first home, Shelley went wandering forth by land and sea,--a reed shaken by the wind, a restless outcast yearning for repose and human sympathy, and in this way encountering the questionable accidents of his troubled, unguarded life, and gathering all the feverish inspiration of his melancholy and unfamiliar poetry.

With a sense of physical infirmity or defect which shaped the sequestered philosophy of the Cowpers, the Bérangers, and others, the manlier minds of literature, including Byron himself, in some measure, Shelley felt he was not fit for the shock and hum of men and the greater or lesser legerdemain of life, and so turned shyly away to live and follow his plans and reveries apart, after the law of his being, violating in this way what may be called the common law of society, and meeting the fate of all nonconformists. He was slighted and ridiculed, and even suspected; for people in general, when they see a man go aside from the highway, maundering and talking to himself, think there must be a reason for it; they suppose him insane, or scornful, or meditating a murder,--in any case, one to be visited with hard thoughts; and thus baffled curiosity will grow uneasily into disgust, and into calumny, if not into some species of outrage,--and very naturally, after all; for man is, on the whole, made for society, and society has a sovereign right to take cognizance of him, his ways and his movements, as a matter of necessary surveillance.

The world will class men "in its coarse blacks and whites." Some mark Shelley with charcoal, others with chalk,--the former considering him a reprobate, the latter admiring him as a high-souled lover of human happiness and human liberty. But he was something of both together,--and would have been nothing without that worst part of him. He ran perversely counter to the lessons of his teachers, and acted in defiance of the regular opinions and habits of the world. He was too out-spoken, like all genius; whereas the world inculcates the high practical wisdom of a shut mouth and a secretive mind. Fontenelle, speaking according to the philosophy of the crowd, says, "A wise man, with his fist full of truths, would open only his little finger." Shelley opened his whole hand, in a fearless, unhappy manner; and was accordingly punished for ideas which multitudes entertain in a quiet way, saying nothing, and living in the odor of respectable opinion. With a mind that recoiled from anything like falsehood and injustice, he wanted prudence. And as, in the belief of the matter-of-fact Romans, no divinity is absent, if Prudentia be present, so it still seems that everything is wanting to a man, if he wants that. Shelley denied the commonly received Divinity, as all the world knows,--an Atheist of the most unpardonable stamp,--and has suffered in consequence; his life being considered a life of folly and vagary, and his punishment still enduring, as we may perceive from the tone and philosophy of his biographers, or rather his critics, who, not being able to comprehend such a simple savage, present his character as an oddity and a wonder,--an extravaganza that cannot be understood without some wall of the world's pattern and plastering to show it up against.

It is, to be sure, much easier and safer to regard Shelley's career in this way than to justify it, since the customs and opinions of the great majority must, after all, be the law and rule of the world. Shelley's apologist would be a bold man. Whether he shall ever have one is a question. At all events, he has not had a biographer as yet. His widow shrank from the task. Of those familiar friends of his, we can say that "no man's thought keeps the roadway better than theirs," and all to show how futile is the attempt to measure such a man with the footrule of the conventions. Shelley was a mutineer on board ship, and a deserter from the ranks; and he must, therefore, wait for a biographer, as other denounced and daring geniuses have waited for their audience or their epitaph.

* * *

CLARIAN'S PICTURE

A LEGEND OF NASSAU HALL.

"Turbine raptus ingenii."--Scaliger

[concluded.]

The next morning there was queer talk about Clarian. Mac and I stared at each other when we heard it at breakfast, but still kept our own counsel in silence. Some late walkers had met him in the moonlight, crossing the campus at full speed, hatless, dripping wet, and flying like a ghost.

"I tell you," said our informant, a good enough fellow, and one not prone to be violently startled, "he scared me, as he flitted past. His eyes were like saucers, his hair wet and streaming behind him, his face white as a chalk-mark on Professor Cosine's blackboard. Depend on it, that boy's either going mad or has got into some desperate scrape."

"Pshaw!" growled Mac, "you were drunk,--couldn't see straight."

"Mr. Innocence was returning from some assignation, I suspect", remarked Zoile.

"If he had been, you'd have encountered him, Mr. Zoile," said Mac, curtly.

But I noticed my chum did not like this new feature in the case.

After this, until the time of my receiving the lad's invitation, I neither saw nor had communication with Clarian, nor did any others of us. If he left his room, it was solely at night; he had his meals sent to him, under pretence of illness, and admitted no one, except his own servant. This fellow, Dennis, spoke of him as looking exceedingly feeble and ill; and also remarked that he had apparently not been to bed for some days, but was mixing colors, or painting, the whole time. I went to his door several times; but was invariably refused admittance, and told, kindly, but firmly, that he would not be interrupted. Mac also tried to see him, but in vain.

"I caught a glimpse of that boy's face at his window just now," said he, one day, coming in after recitation. "You may depend upon it, there's something terribly wrong. My God, I was horrified, Ned! Did you ever see any one drown? No? Well, I did once,--a woman. She fell overboard from a Chesapeake steamboat in which I was coming up the Bay, and sank just before they reached her. I shall never forget her looks as she came up the last time, turned her white, despairing, death-stricken face towards us, screamed a wild nightmare scream, and went down. Clarian's face was just like hers. Depend upon it, there's something wrong. What can we do?"

Nothing, indeed, save what we did,--wait, until that pleasant morning came round and brought me Clarian's note. I could scarcely brook the slow laziness with which the day dragged by, as if it knew its own beauty, and lingered to enjoy it. At last, however, the night came, the hour also, and punctually with it came Dr. Thorne, a kindly young physician, and a man of much promise, well- read, prompt, clear-headed, resourceful, and enthusiastically attached to his profession Mac tucked a volume of Shakspeare under his arm, and we made our way to Clarian's room forthwith. Here we found about a dozen students, all known to us intimately. They were seated close to one another, conversing in low tones, and betraying upon their faces quite an anxiety of expectation. The door of the bedroom was closed, the curtain was lowered, and the only light in the room came from a shaded lamp, which was placed upon a small table in the recess to the right of the picture.

"What is this for?" inquired Dr. Thorne, pointing to a sort of salver resting upon a low tripod directly in front of the picture.

"Where is Clarian?" asked I.

"He looks awful," someone began in a whisper, when the lad's feeble voice called out from the bedroom,--

"Is it Ned and Mac?"

The door was pulled open, and Clarian came towards us.

"I am glad to see you, my friends. Dr. Thorne, you are truly welcome. Pray, be seated. Mac, here is your place, you and your Shakspeare," said he, indicating the chair and table in the recess.

I had held out my hand to the lad, but he turned away without taking it, and began to adjust the cords that moved the curtain.

"The tripod, Dr. Thorne," said he, with a sickly smile, "is a--a mere fancy of mine,--childish,--but in the salver I shall burn some pyrotechnic preparations, while the picture is being exhibited, by way of substitute for daylight. Excuse me a moment," added he, as he went into the bedroom again.

"Blount," said Dr. Thorne, in my ear, "why have you permitted this? What ails that boy? If he is not cared for soon, he will go crazy. Hush!--here he comes,-- keep your eye on him."

Then, as Clarian came out, and stood in the bedroom doorway, quite near me, I remarked the terrible change since I had last seen him. He leaned against the door-frame, as if too weak to support himself erect; and I saw that his knees shook, his hands jerked, and his mouth twitched in a continual nervous unrest. He had on a handsome robe de chambre of maroon velvet, which he seldom wore about college, though it was very becoming to him, its long skirts falling nearly to his feet, while its ample folds were gathered about his waist, and secured with cord and tassel. His feet were thrust into neat slippers, and his collar rolled over a flowing black cravat à la Corsaire. His long hair, which was just now longer than usual, was evenly parted in the middle, like a girl's, and, combed out straight, fell down to his shoulders on either side. All this care and neatness of dress made the contrast of his face stand out the more strikingly. Its pallor was ghastly: no other word conveys the idea of it. His lips kept asunder, as we see them sometimes in persons prostrated by long illness, and the nether one quivered incessantly, as did the smaller facial muscles near the mouth. His eyes were sunken and surrounded by livid circles, but they themselves seemed consuming with the dry and thirsty fire of fever: hot, red, staring, they glided ever to and fro with a snake-like motion, as uncertain, wild, and painful, in their unresting search, as those of a wounded and captive hawk. The same restlessness, approaching in violence the ceaseless spasmodic habit of a confirmed Chorea, betrayed itself in all his movements, particularly in a way he had of glancing over his shoulder with a stealthy look of apprehension, and the frequent starts and shivers that interrupted him when talking. His voice also was changed, and in every way he gave evidence not only of disease of mind and body, but of a nervous system shattered almost beyond hope of reaction and recovery. Trembling for him, I rose and attempted to speak with him aside, but he waived me off, saying, with that sickly smile which I had never before seen him wear,--

"No, Ned,--you must not interrupt me to-night, neither you nor the rest,--for I am very weak and nervous and ill, and just now need all my strength for my picture, which, as it has cost me labor and pain,--much pain,--I wish to show in its best light. Macbeth's terror--it means more than it did the other night, Ned--but"--

Here he murmured an inarticulate word or two, recovering himself almost instantly, however, and resuming in a stronger voice,--

"Macbeth's doom is my picture. You will wonder I preferred the solid wall to canvas, perhaps,--but so did the genuine old artists. Lippo Lippi, and Giotto, and--why, Orcagna painted on graveyard walls; and I can almost fancy, sometimes, that this room is a vault, a tomb, a dungeon, where they torture people. Turn to the place, good Mac, Shakespeare's tragedy of 'Macbeth,' Act Third, Scene Fourth, and read the scene to us, as you know how to read; I will manage the accompaniments."

As he spoke, he touched the salver with a lighted match, so that a blue alcoholic flame flickered up before the curtain, making the poor lad's face seem more ghastly than ever.

"You must sit down, Clarian," cried Dr. Thorne, resolutely.

Clarian smiled again, that dim, uncertain smile, and answered,--

"Nay, Doctor, let me have my own way for an hour, and after that you shall govern me as your learned skill suggests. And do not be uneasy about my 'creamfaced' aspect, as I see Ned is: there is plentiful cause for it, beyond the feebleness of this very present, and to-night is not the first time I have worn these 'linen cheeks.' Read on, Mac."

We sat there in the dim light, breathless, awed,--for all of us saw the boy's agony, and were the more shocked that we were unable to understand it,--until, at last, in a voice made more impressive by its tremor, Mac began to read the terrible text,--to read as I had never heard him read before, until a fair chill entered our veins and ran back to our shuddering hearts from sympathy. Then, as he read on and painted the king and murderer together, while his voice waxed stronger and fuller, we saw Clarian step forward to the salver and busy with its lambent flame, till it blazed up with a broad, red light, that, shedding a weird splendor upon all around, and lending a supernatural effect to the room's deep shadows, the picture's funereal aspect, and the unearthly pallor of the boy's countenance, startled our eyes like the painful glare of midnight lightning.

"Thou canst not say, I did it! Never shake

Thy gory locks at me!"

As the reader thrust the terror of these words upon us, all started back, for the curtain was plucked suddenly away, and there before us, not in Clarian's picture, it seemed, but in very truth, stood Macbeth, conscious of the murdered presence. Even the reader, absorbed as he was in his text, paused short, amazed; and I forgot that I had seen this picture, only knew that it was a living scene of terror. Doubtless much of this startling effect was the result of association, the agitation of anxiety, the influence of the impressive text, the suddenness of the apparition, the unusual light; but in the figure of Macbeth, at which alone we gazed, there was a life, a terrible significance, that outran all these causes. It was not in the posture, grand as that was,--not in the sin- stamped brow, rough with wrinkles like a storm-chafed sea,--not in the wiry hair, gray and half rising in haggard locks, like adders that in vain try to escape the foot that treads them down,--nor in the mouth, for that was hid behind the impotent guard of the upraised arm and clenched fist,--but in those painted eyes, into which, all-fascinated, we ever gazed, reading in them all that crouching terror, all the punishment of that spectral presence, all the poignant consciousness of his fate to whom such things could happen, to whom already his victims rise again,

"With twenty mortal murders on their crowns

And push us from our stools!"

While I yet gazed, a sickening terror pervading me in the presence of these ghastly eyes, there came a voice, as if from afar,--"Read on!"--so consonant with the tone of my emotions, that I looked to see the figure itself take speech, until Mac, with a gasp, resumed. Still, as he read, the nightmare-spell possessed me, till a convulsive clutch upon my arm roused me, and instinctively, with the returning sense, I turned to Clarian.

Not too soon,--for then, in his own person, and in that strange glare, he was interpreting the picture to us. He stood, not thrown back like Macbeth, but drawn forward, on tiptoe, with neck reached out, form erect, but lax, one arm extended, and one long diaphanous finger pointing over our heads at something he saw behind us, but towards which, in the extremity of our terror, we dared not turn our eyes. He saw it,--more than saw it,--we knew, as we noted the scream swelling in his throat, yet dying away into an inarticulate breath ere it passed the blue and shaken lips,--he saw it, and those eyes of his, large enough in their wont, waxed larger still, wilder, madder with desperate affright, till every one of us, save the absorbed reader, recognized in them the nightmare horror of the picture,--knew that in Macbeth Clarian had drawn his own portrait! There he stood, drawn on, staring, pointing--

"Stop!" shouted Dr. Thorne, his voice hoarse and strident with emotion; but Mac, absorbed in his text, still read, flinging a fine and subtile emotion of scorn into the words,--

"O proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fear:

This"----

"Triple fool! be silent!" cried Dr. Thorne again, springing to his feet,-- while we, spell-bound, sat still and waited for the end. "Cease! do you not see?" cried he, seizing Mac.

But there stood Clarian yet, that red light upon his cheek and brow, that fixed stare of a real, unpainted horror in his speechless face, that long finger still pointing and trembling not,--there he stood, fixed, while one might count ten. Then over his blue lips, like a ghost from its tomb, stole a low and hissing whisper, that curdled our blood, and peopled all the room with dreadful things,--a low whisper that said,--

"Prithee, see there! behold! it comes! it comes!" Now he beckoned in the air, and called with a shuddering, smothered shriek,--"Come! I did it! come! Ha!" yelled he, plucking the spell from his limbs like a garment, and springing madly forward towards the door,--"Ha! touch me not! Off, I say, off!" He paused, gazed wildly round, flung his hand to his brow, and, while his eyes rolled till nothing but their whites were seen, while the purple veins swelled like mole- tracks in his forehead, and a bubbling froth began to gather about his lips, he tossed his arms in the air, gave shrieking utterance to the cry,--"O Christ! it is gone! it is gone!" and fell to the floor with a bound.

We sprang to him,--Thorne first of any.

"This is my place, gentlemen," said he, in quick, nervous tones. Then, taking the prostrate child into his arms, he carried him to his bed, laid him down, felt his pulse, and placed his head in Mac's arms. Returning then, he veiled the picture, flung the salver out of the window, and dismissed the huddled throng of frightened students, warning them to be silent as to the night's events. "Very likely Clarian will never see to-morrow; so be careful, lest you soil his memory."

"What does it mean, Thorne?" asked Mac, as the Doctor and I came again to the bedside. "It is nothing more than an overdose of cannabis or opium upon an excited nervous system, is it?"

Thorne looked at the delicate-limbed child who lay there in Mac's strong arms, wiped away the gathering froth from the lips, replaced the feebly quivering limbs, and, as he lingered over the pulse, replied,--

"He has been taking hashish?"

"He has taken it,--I do not say he is under its influence now."

"No,--he has not touched any stimulant. This is much worse than that,--this means epilepsy, Mac, and we may have to choose between death and idiocy."

He was still examining the boy, and showing Mac how to hold him most comfortably.

"If I could only get at the causes of this attack,--those, I mean, which lie deeper than the mere physical disorder,--if I could only find out what it is he has been doing,--and I could, easily, were I not afraid of directing suspicion towards him, or bringing about some unfortunate embarrassment"--

"What is it you suspect?" thundered Mac.

"Either some cruel trick has been played upon the boy, or he has been guilty of some act of madness"--

"Impossible!" cried we in a breath; "Clarian is as pure as Heaven."

"Look at him, Thorne!" said my good chum,--"look at the child's baby-face, so frank and earnest!--look at him! You dare not say an impure thought ever awoke in that brain, an impure word ever crossed those lips."

Dr. Thorne smiled sadly.

"There is no standard of reason to the enthusiast, my dear Mac; and here is one, of a surety. However, time will reveal; I wish I knew. Come, Ned, help me to mix some medicines here. Be careful to keep his head right, Mac, so as to have the circulation as free as possible."

While we were occupied in the front room, there came a stout double knock at the door, and when I opened it, Hullfish, the weather-beaten old constable of the borough, made his hesitating appearance. The Doctor gave me a quick glance, as if to say, "I told you so," and then returned the old man's bluff salutation. As soon as Hullfish saw him, he came forward with something like a sigh of relief, and said,--

"Ah, Doc, you here? 'Tar'n't a hoax, then, though I was mightily 'feared it was. Them students is the Devil for chivying of a feller,--beggin' your pardon, Mr. Blount. Have you got him yonder, Doctor?" said he, his keen eye noticing Mac and Clarian in the back room.

"What do you mean, Hullfish? Got whom?" asked Thorne, making me a sign to be quiet.

"The party, Sir, that was to be copped. I've got a blank warrant here, all right, and a pair of bracelets, in case of trouble."

"What fool's errand is this, old man?" asked the Doctor, sternly.

"What! you don't know about it? Lord! p'raps it's a sell, after all," said he, quite chopfallen. "But I've got my pay, anyhow, and there's no mistake in a V on the Princeton Bank. And here's the papers," said he, handing a note to the Doctor. "If that's slum, I'm done, that's all."

The Doctor glanced at the scrap of paper, then handed it to me, asking, "Is that his handwriting?"

It was a note, requiring Mr. Hullfish. to privately arrest a person guilty of a capital offence, until now concealed. If he was not brought to Hullfish's house between nine and ten that night, then Hullfish was to proceed to No.-- North College, where he would be certain to find the party. The arrest must be made quietly. The handwriting was undoubtedly Clarian's, and I told Thorne as much.

"You see, gentlemen," said Hullfish, "I wouldn't 'a' taken no notice of it, ef it hadn't been for the money; but, thinks I, them students a'n't in the habit of sech costly jokes, and maybe there'll be some pinching to do, after all. So you mean to say it's a gam, do you, Doctor? May I be so bold as to inquire what yonder chap's holding on to 'tother about?"

"'Tother' is dangerously ill,--has a fit, Hullfish. He is the author of that note,--very probably was out of his mind when he wrote it."

"So? Pity! Very sick? Mayn't I see him?"

But, as he stepped forward, Thorne stood in the way and effectually intercepted his view. The constable smiled cunningly, as he drew back, and said,--

"You're sure 'ta'n't nothing else, then? Nobody's been getting rapped on the' head? Didn't see no blood, though,--that's true. Well, I don't like to be sold, that's a fact,--but there's no help for it. Here's the young man's change, Doctor,--warrant sixty-six, my fees one dollar."

Thorne carelessly asked if there had been any rows lately,--if he had heard of any one being hurt,--if they had been quiet recently along the canal; and being assured that there had been no disturbance of moment,--"only a little brush between Arch and Long Tobe, down to Gibe's,"--he handed the money back to Hullfish.

"Keep that yourself,--it is yours by rights. And, look you, mum's the word in this case, for two reasons: there's danger that the poor little fellow there is going to croak before long, and you'd be sorry to think you'd given trouble to a dead man; and what's more, if the boys get hold of this, there'll be no end of their chaffing. There's not a few of them would like to cook your goose for you,--I needn't tell you why; so, if you don't want them to get the flashest kind of a pull over you, why, you'll take my advice and keep dark."

"Nothing like slang, Ned, with the police or the prigging gentry. It gives them a wonderful respect for your opinion," said the Doctor, when Hullfish was gone. But his serious, almost stern look returned immediately, as he continued, --"Now to solve this mystery, and find out what this wretched boy has been doing. Come, you and Mac, help me to understand him."

When we had told the Doctor all we knew of the lad, he pondered long over our recital.

"One thing is certain," said he: "the boy is innocent in intention, whatever he has done, and we must stand by him,--you two particularly; for you are to blame, if he has got himself into any predicament."

"The boy has done nothing wrong, Thorne," said Mac, sturdily; "he may have been trapped, or got himself involved somehow, but he never could have committed any crime capable of superinducing such an attack as this."

The Doctor shook his head.

"You may be right, my friend,--and I hope you are, for the child's sake, for it will certainly kill him, if he has. But I never trust an intense imagination when morbidly excited, and I have read of some strange freaks done by persons under the influence of that infernal hashish. However, trust me, I shall find out what is the matter before long, and bring the boy round nicely. He is improving fast now, and all we have to do is to avert another attack."

Thank Heaven, in a day or two Clarian was pronounced to be out of danger, and promising rapid recovery. We had removed him to our rooms, as soon as the violence of the convulsion left him, in order to spare him the associations connected with his own abode. Still, the lad continued very weak, and Thorne said he had never seen so slight an attack followed by such extreme prostration. Then it did my heart good to see how my chum transformed himself into the tenderest, the most efficient of nurses. He laid aside entirely his brusque manner, talked in the softest tones, stole noiselessly about our rooms, and showed all the tender solicitude, all the quiet "handiness" of a gentle woman. I could see that Clarian loved to have him at his bedside, and to feel his caressing hand.

"You see, Ned," Mac would say, in a deprecatory tone that amused me vastly, "I really pity the poor little devil, and can't help doing all in my power for him. He's such a soft little ass,--confound Thorne! he makes me mad with his cursed suspicions!--and then the boy is out of place here in this rough-and- tumble tiltyard. Reminds me of a delicate wineglass crowded in among a ruck of aleflagons and battered quart-cups."

But, though we rejoiced to see that Clarian's health promised to be better than it had been for months, we did not fail to notice with regret and apprehension, that, as he grew physically better and mentally clearer, a darkening cloud settled over his whole being, until he seemed on the point of drowning in the depths of an irremediable dejection and despair. Besides this, he was ever on the point of telling us something, which he yet failed of courage to put into words; and Thorne, noticing this, when, one day, we were all seated round the bed, while the lad fixed his shaded, large, mournful eyes upon us with a painfully imploring look, said suddenly, his fingers upon Clarian's pulse,--

"You have something to say to us,--a confession to make, Clarian."

The boy flushed and shuddered, but did not falter, as he replied, "Yes."

"You must withhold it until you are well again. I know what it is."

Clarian quickly withdrew his hand from the Doctor's grasp.

"You know it, and yet here, touching me? Impossible! entirely impossible!"

"Oh, as to that," said Thorne, with a cool shrug of the shoulders, "you must remember that our relations are simply those of physician and patient. Other things have nought to do with it. And, as your physician, I require you to withhold the matter until you are well enough to face the world."

"No,--I must reap where I have sown. I have no right to impose upon my friends any longer."

"Bad news travel fast enough, Clarian, and there is no wisdom in losing a friend so long as you can retain him."

"I do not see the force of your reasoning, Dr. Thorne. I have enough to answer for, without the additional contumely of being called an impostor."

"For your mother's sake, Clarian, I command you to wait. Spare her what pain you can, at least."

"My mother! Oh, my God, do not name her! do not name her!"

And he burst into the only tears I ever saw him shed, hiding his face in the bed-clothes, and sobbing piteously.

"What does this mean?" said Mac, as soon as we were where Clarian could not hear us. "What have you found out?"

"Positively nothing more than you know already," answered Thorne.

"Nothing?" echoed Mac, very indignantly; "you speak very confidently for one having such poor grounds."

"My dear Mac," said Thorne, kindly, "do you think I am not as much concerned about Clarian as you are? Positively, I would give half I own to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this mystery. But what can we do? The boy believes himself a great criminal. Do you not see at once, that, if we permit him to confess his crime, he will insist upon taking himself out of our keeping,-- commit suicide, get himself sent to the madhouse, or anyhow lose our care and our soothing influence? We cannot relieve him until we restore his strength and composure. All we can do now is to watch him, soothe him, and by all means stave off this confession until he is stronger. It would kill him to face a charge now. I am inquiring quietly, and, if anything serious has happened, shall be sure to find out his connection with it."

Though we rebelled against the Doctor's conclusions, we could not but see the prudence of the course he advised, and so we sat down to watch our poor little friend, gnawed with bitter anxiety, and feeling a sad consciousness that the disease itself under which he suffered was beyond our skilfullest surgery, and one that inevitably threatened the saddest consequences. A man has grand powers of recovery, so long as his spirit is free; but let him once be persuaded that his soul is chained down forever in adamantine fetters, and, though, like Prometheus, he may endure with silence, patience, even divinely, he is nevertheless utterly incapable of any positive effort towards recuperation. His faith becomes, by a subtile law of our being, his fact; the mountain is gifted with actual motion, and rewards the temerity of his zeal by falling upon him and crushing him forever. Such a person moves on, perchance, like a deep, noble river, in calm and silence, but still moves on, inevitably destined to lose himself in the common ocean. And this was the promise of Clarian's case. Whatever was his hidden woe, however trivial its rational results, or baseless its causes, it had beyond remedy seized upon his soul, and we knew, that, unless it could be done away with at the source, the end was certain: first the fury, then the apathy of madness. He was no longer tortured with a visible haunting presence, such as had borne him down on that fatal night, but we saw plainly that he had taken the spectre into his own breast, and nursed it, as a bosom serpent, upon his rapidly exhausting energies.

Happily for us,--ere Clarian was quite beyond recovery, while Mac still tore his hair in rage at his own impotence, while the Doctor still pursued his researches with the sedateness of a philosopher, and I was using what power I had to alleviate my little friend's misery,--that subtile and mysterious agency, which, in our blindness and need, we term Chance, interposed its offices, rolled away the cloud from the mystery, and, like a good angel, rescued Clarian, even as he was tottering upon the very brink of the dismal precipice to whose borders he had innocently strayed.

I shall never forget that pleasant June day. It was the first time that Clarian had been out since his illness; and I was his single companion, as he strayed slowly along through the college grounds, leaning tremulously upon my arm, dragging his feet languidly over the pebbled walks, and drinking in the warm, fresh, quivering air with a manner that, although apathetic, still spoke of some power of enjoyment. It was during the hour for the forenoon recitation, and the elm-shaded campus was entirely free of students. As Clarian walked along, his eyes bent down, I heard him murmuring that delicious verse of George Herbert's,--

"Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky!

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,

For thou must die!"

"'For thou must die,'--so sad! And yet the thought itself of death is not that which saddens us so, do you think, Ned?" he went on, I hearing his words without heeding them,--for I was looking just then towards the outer gate next the President's house, through which I saw Dr. Thorne coming rapidly, accompanied by a stout, middle-aged man, having the dress and appearance of a well-to-do farmer,--"Not the thought, simply, 'Thou must die,'" repeated Clarian, in his plaintive murmur, "but the feeling that all this decay and death is of ourselves, and could be averted by ourselves, had we only self-control, could we only keep ourselves pure, and so be ever near God and of Him. There's cause for a deeper melancholy, poignanter tears than ever Jacques shed."

Dr. Thorne and his companion were now quite near, coming towards us on the same path, when I saw the stranger slap his thigh energetically and catch Thorne by the arm, while he exclaimed in tones of boisterous surprise,--

"Why, there's the very little chap, as I'm alive!"

I had half a glimpse of the Doctor's seizing his companion and clapping one hand over his mouth, as if to prevent him from saying more,--but it was too late. At the sound of the man's voice I felt Clarian bound electrically. He looked up,--over his face began to come again that terrible anguish of the night of the picture, but the muscles seemed too weak to bring it all back,--he grew limp against me,--his arms hung inert at his side,--a word that sounded like "Spare me!" gurgled in his throat,--a feeble shudder shook him, and, ere I could interpose my arm, he sank in a heap at my feet, white, and cold, and lifeless. Before I had raised him, Thorne and the man sprang to my aid, and the latter, bending over with eager haste, took the thin white hands in his own, half caressing them, half fearing to grasp them, speaking to him the while in tones of frightened entreaty, that, on any other occasion, would have been ludicrous enough.

"Come, now, my little man," said he,--"come, don't be afeard, don't be afeard of me! Dan Buckhurst won't harm ye, not for the world, poor child! Come, stand up! 'Twas all a joke. Come, come!--My God! Doctor, he a'n't dead, is he?" cried he to Thorne, in horror.

"If he is, you have killed him, you damned old fool, you!" responded Thorne, impetuously, thrusting the man aside with an angry gesture, and bending down to examine the lad's inert form. "Thank God, Ned," said he at last, "it is only a swoon this time, and we'll soon have him all right. We must get him to bed, though. Here, Buckhurst, you are the strongest; stop whimpering there, you old jackanapes, and bring him along."

Buckhurst quickly obeyed, lifting Clarian up in his arms as gently and tenderly as if he had been an infant, and following Thorne, who led the way to our rooms. There the lad was placed upon the bed with which he had become only too familiar, and the Doctor, by means of his restoratives, soon had the satisfaction of recalling breath and motion. As soon as the boy's sighs gave evidence of returning vitality, Thorne thrust us all from the room, including Mac, who had now come in from class, saying to Buckhurst,--

"Now, Sir, tell them all about it,--and wait here; I shall want you presently." With which words he closed the door upon us, and returned to his patient.

Mr. Buckhurst refused the chair tendered him by Mac, and paced up and down the room in a state of immense perturbation.

"Well, I never!" said he, "well, I never! It taken me all aback, Sir," added he, turning to me. "Did you ever see anything like it? Why, he's jest like a gal! Dang it, Sir! my Molly a'n't half as nervous as he is. I hope he'll get well,--I raelly do, now. I wouldn't hev had it happen for I dunno what, now, indeed!" And he resumed his walk, repeating to himself, "Well, I never! Who'd 'a' judged 'twas a child like that?"

"May I beg to know what you refer to, Mr. Buckhurst?" asked Mac, with considerable impatience in his tones.

"Eh,--what? He's mighty delicate, a'n't he?" said the man, with his thumb indicating the next room.

"Very delicate indeed, Sir,--perhaps you can explain the cause of his present attack," said I, angrily; for I had begun to think, from Buckhurst's manner, that he had been guilty of some practical joke upon Clarian. I saw the fire of a similar suspicion blazing in Mac's eyes; and I fear, had our conclusions been verified, the worthy Mr. Buckhurst would have fared very badly at our hands, spite the laws of hospitality.

"What! did he never tell you? Of course not, though, being sick ever sence, and thinking me dead, too. Well, I'll tell you: but mind, you mustn't banter the child about it, for he can't stand it,--though it's only a joke. Might have been serious, to be sure, but, as things turns out, a pretty good joke, to my notion,--though I'm rael sorry he's been so bad about it."

Mac rose, removed his coat, and marched deliberately up to our guest. "See here, Sir," said he in his deepest bass voice, which his dark frown made still more ominous, "do you mean us to infer that you have been making that child Clarian the victim of any of your infernal jokes, as you style them?"

Buckhurst stared a moment, and then, seeming to comprehend the drift of Mac's words, burst into a hearty laugh.

"No, Sir!" he shouted, "the shoe's on the other foot, thank the Lord! The boy himself played the joke, or trick, whatever it was. Dr. Thorne tells me he was kind of crazy, from drinking laudanum, or some sech pisonous matter. Howsever that was, I'm sure he didn't do it in airnest,--thought so from the very first, --and now I've had a good look at his face, I'd swear to it"

"What did he do?" asked Mac, hurriedly.

Buckhurst laughed in that hearty way of his. Said he,--

"I'll wager you a stack of hay agin them books yander you couldn't guess in a week now. What d'ye think it was? Ho! ho! Why, why, the little rascal shoved me into the canawl!"

"Shoved you into the canal!" echoed I, while Mac, looking first at him, then at me, finally burst into a peal of laughter, shouting the while,--

"Bravo! There's your 'experience' philosophy, Ned Blount! Catch me teaching milksops again! Go on, Buckhurst, tell us all about it."

"Yes," said Mr. Buckhurst, apparently quite pleased to see that we laughed with him. "It don't look like it was in the nature of things, somehow, does it? Fact, though, he did indeed. Shoved me right in, so quick I didn't know what the Devil was the matter, until I soused kersplash! and see him taking out over the drawbridge like mad."

"When was that, Mr. Buckhurst?"

"Jest inside of a month ago, Sir, one night."

"Sapperment, Ned! that was the time of the 'herb Pantagruelion'!-- Well, what were you doing on the canal at that hour?" asked Mac, slyly.

"No, you needn't, now,--I see you wink at him,--honor bright. I'd been up to town, to take a mess o' clams at Giberson's, with maybe a sprinklin' of his apple-jack,--nothing else,--and I was on my way home,--to Skillman's tavern at the dép?t, you know,--and I'd jest stopped a piece, and was a-standing there, looking at the moon in the water, when he tipped me over. I tell you, I was mad when I crawled out wet as a rat; and if I'd ketched him then, you may depend upon it, I'd 'a' given his jacket a precious warming. As I said, he run off, but jest as I turned towards the tavern, I see him a-coming back, kinder wild-like; so I slipped behind a lumber-pile, hoping he might come over the bridge, so I could lay my fingers on him. The moon was about its highest, so I could see his face, plain as day,--white,--skim-milk warn't a circumstance to it,--and his eyes wide open as they could stretch. I tell you, he was wild! He looked up and down a bit, mumbled somethin' I couldn't make out, and then what do you think that boy did? Why, he jumped in, clothes and all, bold as a lion,--plainly to save me from drowning, and me all the time a-spyin' at him from behind a lumber-pile! He was sarching for me, I knowed, for he swum up and down jest about there for the space maybe of a quarter of an hour. And when he give it up at last, and come out, he kinder sunk down on the tow-path, and I heard him say plain enough, though he only whispered it,--jest like a woman actor I see down to York oncet, playin' in Guy something or other,--she was a sort of an old gypsy devil,--says he, 'I am a murderer, then!' Thinks I, 'Sonny, all but the murderer!' And as he stood up again, he 'peared to suffer so, his face was so white, and his knees so shaky, that I says to myself, 'Dan, you've carried the joke far enough.' So I sings out to him, and comes out from behind the lumber-stack, but, Lord bless ye! he jest peeped round over his shoulder oncet, gave a kind of chokin' scream like, and put out up the road as if the Devil was after him. I knowed it warn't no use to follow him, so I got on a dry shirt and went to bed. The next day I went home, and I'd mighty near forgot all about it, only today I came to see Dr. Thorne for somethin' to do my cold good, and he wantin' to know how I ketched it brought the whole matter back again."

"You're an old brick, Buckhurst!" cried Mac, giving the jovial farmer a thundering slap on the back, and a hearty grasp of his hand; "and you shall drink the boy's health with Ned and me this day, or I'll know the reason why. Ned Blount, a'n't it glorious? Said I not, you ill-omened bird, said I not, 'Il y a toujours un Dieu pour les enfans et pour les ivrognes'?--So you came down with Thorne to ease the poor little fellow's mind, did you, Buckhurst? That's right, and you shall see the picture, by Jove! And you'll say, when you see it, that such a picture were cheap at the cost of duckings for a dozen Buckhursts. Now tell me truly, what do you think made him push you in?

"Of course, it was the pison, Sir,--a baby like that wouldn't harm a flea. I thought maybe, until I see Dr. Thorne, that he done it out of mischieviousness, as boys will do, you know,--jest as they steal a feller's apples, and knock his turkeys of'n the roost,--but yander's not one of them kind; so he must 'a' been crazy, and I'm rael sorry he's been so bad put to about it,--I am, indeed."

Here the inner door was opened, and Thorne joined us, with a moisture about his eyes that he used afterwards to deny most vehemently.

"Buckhurst, he wants to see you; go in there," said he,--adding, in a lower tone, "Now, mind you, the child's delicate as spun glass; so be careful."

"Come in, Mr. Buckhurst," called Clarian.

The worthy farmer looked to right and left, as if he would much rather have made his escape, but, impelled by a shove from the Doctor, he ran his fingers through his coarse hair, and, with a very red and "I-wish-I-was-out-of-this" face, went in, closing the door behind him.

"Phew!" said Thorne, seating himself somewhat testily, after having filled and lighted a pipe,--"Phew! So that's over, and I a'n't sorry; it's as bad as reading the 'Diary of a Physician.' The boy will be all right now, and the lesson won't hurt him, though it has been a rough one. But no more metaphysics for him, Ned Blount! And, boys, let this be a warning to you. He's too brittle a toy to be handled in your rough fashion."

"You needn't tell us that, Thorne," said Mac, drawing a long breath. "Catch me kicking over children's baby-houses again, or telling 'em ghost-stories in the dark!"

"He vows never again to touch brush, crayon, or pencil; and if he is the devotee you describe him to be, Ned, I would not advise you to oppose him in his determination. You must keep him here till vacation, and next term he can exchange his room. Macbeth's company will never be very agreeable to him, I should judge; and it will not do to let him destroy the picture."

Thorne puffed away vigorously for a minute or two.

"That boy ought to turn preacher, Mac. He touched me nearer just now than I have been touched for an age.

"'His voice was a sweet tremble in mine ear,

Made tunable with every saddest grief,

Till those sad eyes, so spiritual and clear,'

almost persuaded me to follow the example of divine Achilles and 'refresh my soul with tears.' He has that tear-bringing privilege of genius, to a certainty."

And so it seemed, indeed; for presently the worthy Mr. Buckhurst made his reappearance in quite a sad state, mopping his red face and swollen eyes most vigorously with a figured cotton handkerchief, and proclaiming, with as much intelligibility as the cold in his head and the peculiar circumstances of the case would admit of, that he'd "be dagg'd ef he hadd't raver be chucked idto two cadawls dad 'ave dat iddocedt baby beggid his pardod about de codfouded duckid! Wat de hell did he care about gittid wet, he'd like to kdow? Dodsedse!--'twad all dud id fud, adyhow!"

---"And now you, my dear, dear friends," said Clarian, turning his sad, full eyes upon us, and calling us to his side, and to his arms.

But I shall draw a veil over that interview.

That night, after we had talked long and lovingly together, and were now sitting, each absorbed in his own thoughts, and emulating the quiet that reigned around college, Clarian softly joined us, and placed an open book in Mac's hands.

"Will you, dear Mac?" murmured he.

Then Mac, all full of solemn emotion, read through the grand periods of the Church Litany, and when he had finished, Clarian, with a thrilling "Let us pray," offered up such a thanksgiving as I had never heard, praying to the kind Father who had so mercifully extricated him, that our paths might still be enlightened, and our walks made humble and righteous.

"Clarian," said Mac, after a pause, when we were again on our feet,--he laid his hands on the boy's shoulders, as he spoke, and looked into his eyes,-- "Clarian, would it have happened, if you had not taken that foul drug?"

Clarian shuddered, and covered up his face in his hands.

"Do not ask me, dear Mac! do not ask me! Oh, be sure, my aims, I thought, were noble, and myself I thought so pure!--but---I cannot say, Mac, I cannot say.

"'We are so weak, we know our motives least

In their confused beginning.'"

"At least, Clarian," said Mac, after a while, his deep voice wonderfully refined with strong emotion, "at least, the picture was not painted in vain. Even as it is in the play, Banquo died that his issue might reign after him; and this lesson of ours will bear fruit far mightier than the trifling pains of its parturition. Ay, Clarian, your picture has not been vainly painted.--And now, Ned," said he, rising, "we must put our baby to bed; for he is to wake early to- morrow, and know himself a man!"

* * *

SPRING

Doves on the sunny eaves are cooing,

The chip-bird trills from the apple-tree,

Blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing,

And the crocus darts up the spring to see.

Spring has come with a smile of blessing,

Kissing the earth with her soft warm breath,

Till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing,

And wakes from the winter's dream of death.

Spring has come! The rills, as they glisten,

Sing to the pebbles and greening grass;

Under the sward the violets listen,

And dream of the sky as they hear her pass.

Coyest of roses feel her coming,

Swelling their buds with a promise to her,--

And the wild bee hears her, around them humming,

And booms about with a joyous stir.

Oaks, that the bark of a century covers,

Feel ye the spell, as ye groan and sigh?

Say,--does her spirit that round you hovers

Whisper of youth and love gone by?

Windows are open,--the pensive maiden

Leans o'er the sill with a wistful sigh,

Her heart with tender longings o'erladen,

And a happy sadness, she knows not why.

For we and the trees are brothers in nature;--

We feel in our veins the season's thrill

In hopes that reach to a higher stature,

In blind dim longings beyond our will.

Whence dost thou come, O joyous spirit?

From realms beyond this human ken,

To paint with beauty the earth we inherit,

And soften to love the hearts of men?

Dear angel! that blowest with breath of gladness

The trump to waken the year in its grave,

Shall we not hear, after death's deep sadness,

A voice as tender to gladden and save?

Dost thou not sing a constant promise

That joy shall follow that other voice,--

That nothing of good shall be taken from us,

But all who hear it shall rise, to rejoice?

* * *

RUFUS CHOATE

Mr. Choate's mind was so complex, peculiar, and original,--so foreign in temperament and spirit to the more representative traits of New England character,--so large, philosophic, and sagacious in vision and survey of great questions, and so dramatic and vehement in their exposition and enforcement,--so judicial and conservative in always maintaining in his arguments the balance and relation of interdependent principles, and so often in details marring the most exquisite poetry with the wildest extravagancies of style,--so free from mere vulgar tricks of effect, and so full of imaginative tricksiness and surprises,-- so mischievous, subtle, mysterious, elusive, Protean,--that it is no wonder he has been more admired and more misunderstood than any eminent American of his time. It was because of these unaccustomed qualities of mind that matter-of-fact lawyers and judges came slowly but surely to Mr. Webster's conclusion, that he was "the most accomplished of American lawyers," whether arguing to courts or juries. In the same way, critically correct but unimaginative scholars, who "can pardon anything but a false quantity,"--who "see the hair on the rope, but not the rope," and detect minute errors, but not poetic apprehension,--admitted at last the fulness and variety of his scholastic attainments. And perhaps the finest tribute to the power and subtlety of his influence was, that, to the last, juries, who began cases by steeling themselves against it, and who ended by giving him their verdicts, maintained that they were not at all influenced by him,--so profound, so complete, and so unconscious had been the spell this man of genius had woven around them.

When it is remembered that a great lawyer in the United States is called upon (as he is not in England) to practise in all our courts, civil and criminal, law, equity, and admiralty, and, in addition to all the complicated questions between parties, involving life, liberty, and property, arising therein, that he is to know and discuss our whole scheme of government, from questions under its patent laws up to questions of jurisdiction and constitutional law,--it will be seen what a field there is for the exhibition of the highest talents, and how few lawyers in the country can become eminent in all these various and important departments of mental labor. In their whole extent Mr. Choate was not only thoroughly informed as a student and profound as a reasoner, but his genius produced such a fusion of imagination and understanding as to give creativeness to argumentation and philosophy to treatment of facts.

We propose to try to give some idea of those mental characteristics and peculiarities in which he differed from other lawyers, and to indicate some salient points of his genius and nature which went to make up so original and interesting an individuality. Immense labor and talent will no more produce genius or its results, than mere natural genius, without their aid and instrumentality, can reach and maintain the highest rank in any of the great departments of life or thought. With true genius, imagination is, to be sure, paramount to great and balanced faculties; but genius is always demonstrating its superiority to talent as well by its greater rapidity and certainty in seizing, arranging, and holding facts, and by the extent of its acquisitions, as by its superior philosophic and artistic grasp and vision.

Though Mr. Choate was so much more than a mere lawyer, it was in court that he displayed the full force and variety of his powers. Hic currus et arma. We shall, however, speak more especially of his jury-trials, because in them more of his whole nature was brought into play, and because of them and of his management of them there is and can be no full record. The arguments and triumphs of the great advocate are almost as evanescent and traditionary as the conversation of great talkers like Coleridge. In what we have to say we cannot be expected to call up the arguments and cases themselves, and we must necessarily be confined to a somewhat general statement of certain mental qualities and characteristics which were of the secret of his power. We shall be rewarded, if we succeed in giving in mere outline some explanation of the fact, that so much of interest and something of mystery attach themselves throughout the country to his name and genius.

A jury-trial is in itself dramatic; but mere eloquence is but a small part of what is demanded of a great advocate. Luther Martin and Jeremiah Mason were the most eminent American examples of the very many great jury-lawyers who were almost destitute of all that makes up popular eloquence. A jury-lawyer is of course greater with it, but he can do entirely without it. Almost all great trials appeal to the intellects rather than to the passions of jurors. What an advocate needs first is thorough knowledge of law, and that adaptiveness and readiness of faculty which are never surprised into forgetfulness or confusion, so that he can instantly see, meet, reason upon, and apply his legal learning to the unexpected as well as the expected points of law and evidence as they arise in a case. Secondly, he must have thorough knowledge of human nature: he must not only profoundly discuss motives in their relations to the laws of the human mind, and practically reconcile motives with conduct as they relate to the parties and witnesses in his cases, but he must prepare, present, develop, guide, and finally argue his case, within the rules of law, with strict reference to its effect upon the differing minds of twelve men. It would be difficult to name any other field of public mental effort which demands and gives scope for such variety of faculty and accomplishment.

Whatever may have been Mr. Choate's defects of character or of style, no competent judge ever saw his management of any case in court, from its opening to its close, without recognizing that he was a man of genius. It mattered not whether the amount involved was little or great, whether the parties were rich or poor, wise or ignorant, whether the subject-matter was dry or fertile,--such were his imaginative insight, his knowledge of law and of human nature, his perfection of arrangement, under which every point was treated fully, but none unduly, his consummate tact and tactics, his command of language in all its richness and delicacy to express the fullest force and the nicest shades of his meaning, and his haggard beauty of person and grace of nature, that every case rose to dramatic dignity and to its largest relations to law, psychology, and poetry; and thus, while giving it artistic unity and completeness, he all the more enforced his arguments and insured his success. How widely different in method and surroundings from the poet's exercise of the creative faculty in the calm of thought and retirement, on a selected topic and in selected hours of inspiration, was his entering, with little notice or preparation, into a case involving complicated questions of law and fact, with only a partial knowledge of the case of his antagonist! met at point after point by unexpected evidence and rulings of law, often involving such instantaneous decisions as to change his whole combinations and method of attack; examining witnesses with unerring skill, whom he was at once too chivalrous and too wise to browbeat; arguing to the court unexpected questions of law with full and available legal learning; carrying in his mind the case, and the known or surmised plan of attack of his antagonist, and shaping his own case to meet it; holding an exquisitely sensitive physical and mental organization in such perfect control as never to be irritated or disturbed; throwing his whole force on a given point, and rising to a joyousness of power in meeting the great obstacles to his success; and finally, with little or no respite for preparation, weaving visibly, as it were, before the mental eye, from all these elicited materials, his closing argument, which, as we have said, was all the more effective, because profound reasoning and exquisite tact and influence were involved in it as a work of art.

He had the temperament of the great actors,--that of the elder Kean and the elder Booth, not of Kemble and Macready,--and, like them, had the power of almost instantly passing into the nature and thought and emotion of another, and of not only absolutely realizing them, but of realizing them all the more completely because he had at the same time perfect self-direction and self- control. The absurd question is often asked, whether an actor is ever the character he represents throughout a whole play. He could be so, only if insane. But every great actor and orator must be capable of instantaneous abandonment to his part, and of as instantaneous withdrawal from it,--like the elder Booth, joking one minute at a side-scene and in the next having the big tears of a realized Lear running down his cheeks. An eminent critic says,--"Genius always lights its own fire,"--and this constant double process of mind,--one of self- direction and self-control, the other of absolute abandonment and identification,--each the more complete for the other,--the dramatic poet, the impassioned orator, and the great interpretative actor, all know, whenever the whole mind and nature are in their highest action. Mr. Choate, therefore, from pure force of mental constitution, threw himself into the life and position of the parties and witnesses in a jury-case, and they necessarily became dramatis personae, and moved in an atmosphere of his own creation. His narrative was the simplest and most artistic exhibition of his case thus seen and presented from the point of their lives and natures, and not from the dry facts and points of his case; and his argument was all the more perfect, because not exhibited in skeleton nakedness, but incorporated and intertwined with the interior and essential life of persons and events. It was in this way that he effected the acquittal of Tirrell, whom any matter-of-fact lawyer, however able, would have argued straight to the gallows; and yet we have the highest judicial authority for saying that in that case he did his simple technical duty, without interposing his own opinions or convictions. We shall say a word, before we close, of the charge that he surrendered himself too completely to his client; but to a great degree the explanation and the excuse at once lie in this dramatic imagination, which was of the essence of his genius and influence, and through which he lived the life, shared the views, and identified himself with a great actor's realization, in the part of his client.

In making real to himself the nature, life, and position of his client,--in gathering from him and his witnesses, in the preparation and trial of his case, its main facts and direction, as colored or inflamed by his client's opinions, passions, and motives,--and in seeking their explanation in the egotism and idiosyncrasy which his own sympathetic insight penetrated and harmonized into a consistent individuality,--he, of course, knew his client better than his client knew himself; he conceived him as an actor conceives character, and, in a great measure, saw with his eyes from his point of view, and, in the argument of his case, gave clear expression and consistent characterization to his nature and to his partisan views in their relations to the history of the case. We have seen his clients sit listening to the story of their own lives and conduct, held off in artistic relief and in dramatic relation, with tears running down cheeks which had not been moistened by the actual events themselves, re-presented by his arguments in such coloring and perspective.

As a part of this power of merging his own individuality in that of his client was his absolute freedom from egotism, conceit, self-assertion, and personal pride of opinion. Such an instance is, of course, exceptional. Nearly all the eminent jury-lawyers we have known have been, consciously or unconsciously, self-asserting, and their individuality rather than that of their clients has been impressed upon juries. An advocate with a great jury-reputation has two victories to win: the first, to overcome the determination of the jury to steel themselves against his influence; the second, to convince their judgments. Mr. Choate's self-surrender was so complete that they soon forgot him, because he forgot himself in his case; nothing personally demonstrative or antagonistic induced obstinacy or opposition, and every door was soon wide open to sympathy and conviction. If an advocate is conceited, or vain, or self- important, or if he thinks of producing effects as well for himself as for his client, or if his nature is hard and unadaptive,--great abilities display these qualities, instead of hiding them, and they make a refracting medium between a case and the minds of a jury. Mr. Choate was more completely free from them than any able man we ever knew. Any one of them would have been in complete contradiction to the whole composition and current of his nature. Though conscious of his powers, he was thoroughly and lovingly modest. It was because he thought so little of himself and so much of his client that he never made personal issues, and was never diverted by them from his strict and full duty. Instead of "greatly finding quarrel in a straw," where some supposed honor was at stake, he would suffer himself rather than that his case should suffer. Early in his practice, when a friend told him he bore too much from opposing counsel without rebuking them, he said: "Do you suppose I care what those men say? I want to get my client's case." Want of pugnacity too often passes for want of courage. We have seen him in positions where we wished he could have been more personally demonstrative, and (to apply the language of the ring to the contests of the court-room) that he could have stood still and struck straight from the shoulder; but when we remember how perfectly he saw through and through the faults and foibles of men, how his mischievous and genial irony, when it touched personal character, stamped and characterized it for life, and how keen was the edge and how fine the play of every weapon in his full armory of sarcasm and ridicule, (of which his speech in the Senate in reply to Mr. McDuffie's personalities gives masterly exhibition,) we are thankful that his sensibility was so exquisite and his temper so sweet, that he was a delight instead of a terror, and that he was loved instead of feared. Delicacy should be commensurate to power, that each may be complete. It would seem almost impossible that a lawyer with a practice truly immense, passing a great part of his life in public and heated contests and in discussing and often severely criticizing the motives and conduct of parties and witnesses, should not make many enemies; but he was so essentially modest, simple, gentlemanly, and tender, so considerate of the feelings of others, so evidently trying to mitigate the pain which it was often his duty to inflict, that we never heard of his searching and subtile examination of witnesses, or his profound and exhaustive analysis of character and motive, or his instantaneous and irresistible retorts upon counsel, creating or leaving behind him, in the bar or out of it, malice or ill-will in a human being. One of the most touching and beautiful things we ever saw in a court-room would have been in other hands purely painful and repulsive. It was his examination of the wretched women who were witnesses in the Tirrell case. His tact in eliciting what was necessary to be known, and which they would have concealed, was forgotten and lost in his chivalrous and Christian recognition of their common humanity, and in his gentlemanly thoughtfulness that even they were still women, with feelings yet sensitive to eye and word.

In jury-trials it would be foolish to judge style by severe or classic standards. If an advocate have skill and insight and adequate powers of expression, his style must yield and vary with the circumstances of different cases and the minds of different juries and jurors. When a friend of Erskine asked him, at the close of a jury-argument, why he so unusually and iteratively, and with such singular illustration, prolonged one part of his case, he said,-- "It took me two hours to make that fat man with the buff waistcoat join the eleven!"

All men of great powers of practical influence over the minds of men know how stupid and dull of apprehension the mass of mankind are; and no one knows better than a great jury-lawyer in how many different ways it is often necessary to present arguments, and how they must be pressed, urged, and hammered into most men's minds. He is endeavoring to persuade and convince twelve men upon a question in which they have no direct pecuniary or personal interest, and he must more or less know and adapt his reasoning and his style to each juror's mind. He should know no audience but the judge and these twelve men. Retainers never seek and should not find counsel who address jurors with classical or formal correctness. Napoleon, at St. Helena, after reading one of his bulletins, which had produced the great and exact effect for which he had intended it, exclaimed,--"And yet they said I couldn't write!"

The true Yankee is suspicious of eloquence, and "stops a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country." A stranger, who looked in for a few minutes upon one of Mr. Choate's jury-arguments, and saw a lawyer with a lithe and elastic figure of about five feet and eleven inches, with a face not merely of a scholarly paleness, but wrinkled all over, and, as it were, scathed with thought and with past nervous and intellectual struggles, yet still beautiful, with black hair curling as if from heat and dewy from heightened action and intensity of thought and feeling, and heard a clear, sympathetic, and varying voice uttering rapidly and unhesitatingly, sometimes with sweet caesural and almost monotonous cadences, and again with startling and electric shocks, language now exquisitely delicate and poetic, now vehement in its direct force, and again decorated and wild with Eastern extravagance and fervor of fancy, would have thought him the last man to have been born on New England soil, or to convince the judgments of twelve Yankee jurors. But those twelve men, if he had opened the case himself, had been quietly, simply, and sympathetically led into a knowledge of its facts in connection with its actors and their motives; they had seen how calmly and with what tact he had examined his witnesses, how ready, graceful, and unheated had been his arguments to the court, and how complete throughout had been his self-possession and self-control; they had, moreover, learned and become interested in the case, and were no longer the same hard and dispassionate men with whom he had begun, and they knew, as the casual spectator could not know, how systematically he was arguing while he was also vehemently enforcing his case. He, meanwhile, knew his twelve men, and what arguments, appeals, and illustrations were needed to reach the minds of one or all. He did not care how certain extravagances of style struck the critical spectator, if they stamped and riveted certain points of his case in the minds of his jury. With the keenest perception of the ridiculous himself, he did not hesitate to say things which, disconnected from his purpose, might seem ridiculous. One consequence of these audacities of expression was, that, when it became necessary for him to be iterative, he was never tedious. They gave full play to his imaginative humor and irony, and to his poetic unexpectedness and surprises. A wise observer, hearing him try a case from first to last, while recognizing those higher qualities of genius which we have before described, saw, that, for all the purposes of persuasion and argumentation, for conveying his meaning in its full force and in its most delicate distinctions and shadings, for analytic reasoning or for the "clothing upon" of the imagination, for all the essential objects and vital uses of language, his style was perfect for his purpose and for his audience. His excesses came from surplus power and dramatic intensity, and were pardoned by all imaginative minds to the real genius with which they were informed.

Every great advocate must, at times, especially in the trial of capital cases, be held popularly responsible for the acquittal of men whom the public has prejudged to be guilty. This unreasoning, impulsive, and irresponsible public never stops to inform itself; never discriminates between legal acumen and pettifogging trickery, between doing one's full duty to his client and interposing or misrepresenting his own personal opinions; and never remembers that the functions of law and the practice of law are to prevent and to punish crime, to ascertain the truth, and to determine and enforce justice,--that trial by jury, and the other means and methods through which justice is administered, are founded in the largest wisdom, philanthropy, and experience,--that they cannot work perfectly, because human nature is imperfect, but they constitute the best practical system for the application of abstract principles of right to the complicated affairs of life which the world has yet seen, and which steadily improves as our race improves,--and that every great lawyer is aiding in elucidating truth and in administering justice, when doing his duty to his client under this system. Our trial by jury has its imperfections; but, laying aside its demonstrated value and necessity in great struggles for freedom, before and since the time of Erskine, no better scheme can be devised to do its great and indispensable work. The very things which seem to an uninformed man like rejection or confusion of truth are a part of the sifting by which it is to be reached. The admission or rejection of evidence under sound rules of law, the presenting of the whole case of each party and of the best argument which can be made upon it by his counsel, the charge of the judge and the verdict of the jury,--all are necessary parts of the process of reaching truth and justice. Counsel themselves cannot know a whole case until tried to its end; their clients have a right to their best services, within the limits of personal honor; and lawyers are derelict in duty, not only to their clients, but to justice itself, if they do not present their cases to the best of their ability, when they are to be followed by opposing counsel, by the judge, and by the jury. The popular judgment is not only capricious,--it not only assumes that legal precedents, founded in justice for the protection of the honest, are petty technicalities or tricks through which the dishonest escape,--it is not only formed out of the court-room, with no opportunity to see witnesses and hear testimony, often very different in reality from what they seem in print,--but it visits upon counsel its ignorant prejudices against the theory and practice of the law itself, and forgets that lawyers cannot present to the jury a particle of evidence except with the sanction of the court under sound rules of law, and that the law is to be laid down by the court alone.

A man thoroughly in earnest in any direction is more or less a partisan. Histories are commonly uninfluential or worthless, unless written with views so earnest and decided as to show bias. As the greater interests of truth are best subserved by those whose zeal is commensurate to their scope of mind, so it is a part of the scheme of jury-trials, that, within the limits we have named, counsel shall throw their whole force into their cases, that thus they may be presented fully in all lights, and the right results more surely reached. The scheme of jury-trials itself thus providing for a lawyer's standing in the place of his client and deriving from him his partisan opinions, and for urging his case in its full force within the limits of sound rules of law, it almost invariably follows, that, the greater the talent and zeal of the advocate, and the more he believes in the views of his client, the more liable he is to be charged with overstating or misstating testimony. Mr. Choate never conceived that his duty to his client should carry him up to the line of self-surrender drawn by Lord Brougham; but, recognizing his client's full and just claims upon him, entering into his opinions and nature with the sympathetic and dramatic realization we have described, he could not faithfully perform the prescribed and admitted duty of the advocate,--necessarily, with him, involving his throwing the whole force of his physical and intellectual vitality into every case he tried,--without being a vehement partisan, or without being sometimes charged with misstating evidence or going too far for his client. Occasionally this may have been true; but we see the explanation in the very quality of his genius and temperament, and not in conscious or intentional wrong-doing.

His ability and method in his strictly legal arguments to courts of law are substantially indicated in what we have already said. His manner, however, was here calm, his general views of his subject large and philosophic, his legal learning full, his reasoning clear, strong, and consequential, his discrimination quick and sure, and his detection of a logical fallacy unerring, his style, though sometimes fairly open to the charge of redundancy, graceful and transparent in its exhibition of his argument, and his mind always at home, and in its easiest and most natural exercise, when anything in his case rose into connection with great principles.

While exhibiting in his jury-trials, as we have shown, this double process of absolute identification and of perfect supervision and self-control,--of instantaneous imaginative dips into his work, and of as instantaneous withdrawal from it,--of purposely and yet completely throwing himself in one sentence into the realization of an emotion, thus perfectly conveying his meaning while living the thought, and yet coming out of it to see quicker than any one that it might be made absurd by displacement,--he always had, as it were, an air-drawn, circle of larger thought and superintending relation far around the immediate question into which he passed so dramatically. Within this outer circle, attached and related to it by everything in the subject-matter of real poetic or philosophic importance, was his case, creatively woven and spread in artistic light and perspective; and between the two (if we do not press our illustration beyond clear limits) was a heat-lightning-like play of mind, showing itself, at one moment, in unexpected flashes of poetic analogy, at another in Puck-like mischief, and again in imaginative irony or humor.

As he recovered himself from abandonment to some part of his case or argument to guide and mould the whole, so, going into his library, he could, as completely, for minutes or for hours, banish and forget his anxieties and dramatic excitements, and pass into the cooling air and loftier and purer stimulations of the great minds of other times and countries and of the great questions that overhang us all. His mind, capacious, informed, wise, doubting, "looking before and after," here found its highest pleasures, and its little, but most loved repose. "The more a man does, the more he can do"; and, notwithstanding his immense practice, and that by physical and intellectual constitution he couldn't half do anything, he never allowed a day of his life to pass, without reading some, if ever so little, Greek, and it was a surprise to those who knew him well to find that he kept up with everything important in modern literature. Rising and going to bed early, taking early morning exercise, having a strong constitution, though he was subject to sudden but quickly overcome nervous and bilious illness, wasting no time, caring nothing for the coarser social enjoyments, leading, out of court, a self- withdrawn and solitary life, though playful, genial, and stimulating in social intercourse, with a memory as tenacious and ready as his apprehension was quick, with high powers of detecting, mastering, arranging, and fusing his acquisitions, and of penetrating to the centre of historical characters and events,--it is not strange, though he may not have been critically exact and nice in questions of quantity and college exercises, that his scholarship was large and available in all its higher aims and uses.

It will naturally be asked, how such qualities as we have described manifested themselves in character, and in political and other fields of thought and exertion. Fair abilities, zeal, industry, a sanguine temperament, and some special bent or fitness for the profession of the law, will make a good and successful lawyer. Such a man's mind will be entirely in and limited by the immediate case in hand, and virtually his intellectual life will be recorded in his cases. But with Mr. Choate, the dramatic genius and large scope and vision which made him superior to other great advocates at the same time prevented his overestimating the value of his work in kind or degree, showed him how ephemeral are the actual triumphs and how small the real value of nearly all the questions he thus vitalized into artistic reality, when compared with the great outlying truths and principles to which he allied them. Feeling this all through his cases, at the same time that he was moulding them and giving them dramatic vitality, they took their true position from natural reaction and rebound, with all the more sharpness of contrast, when he came out of them. With such a nature, it could be assumed a priori as a psychological certainty, at any rate it was the fact with him, that a certain unreality was at times thrown over life and its objects, that its projects and ambitions seemed games and mockeries, and "this brave o'erhanging firmament a pestilent congregation of vapors," and that grave doubts and fears on the great questions of existence were ever on the horizon of his mind. This gave perpetual play to his irony, and made it a necessity and a relief of mind. Except when in earnest in some larger matter, or closely occupied in accomplishing some smaller necessary purpose or duty, his imagination loved the tricksy play of exhibiting the petty side of life in contrast to its realities, just as in his cases it found its exercise in lifting them up to relations with what is poetic and permanent. But, though irony was thus the natural language of his mind, it did not pass beyond the limits of the mischievous and kindly, because there was nothing scoffing or bitter in his nature. It was fresh and natural, never studied for effect, and gave his conversation the charm of constant novelty and surprises. He loved to condense the results of thought and study into humorous or grotesque overstatements, which, while they amused his hearers, conveyed his exact meaning to every one who followed the mercurial movement of his mind. It will readily be seen how a person with neither insight into his nature nor apprehension of his meaning should, without intending it, misinterpret his life and caricature his opinions,--blundering only the more deeply when trying to be literally exact in reporting conversations or portraying character.

It has been shrewdly said, that, "when the Lord wants anything done in this world, he makes a man a little wrong-headed in the right direction." With this goes the disposition to overestimate the importance of one's work and to push principles and theories towards extremes. The saying is true of some individuals at or before certain crises in affairs; it is not true of the great inevitable historical movements, any more than the history of revolutions is the history of nations. Halifax is called a trimmer. William Wilberforce was a reformer. Each did a great work. But it would be simply absurd, except in the estimation of the moral purist, to call Wilberforce as great a man or as great an historical and influential person as Halifax. Halifax saw and acted in the clear light and large relations in which the great historian of our own times wrote the history of the Stuarts. Wilberforce was a purer man, who acted more conscientiously and persistently within his smaller range of life and thought. It would have been inconsistent with Mr. Choate's nature for him to have been "wrong-headed" in any direction. Such largeness of view, such dramatic and interpretative imagination, such volatile play of thought and fancy, and such perception of the pettiness and hollowness of nearly all the aims and ambitions of daily life we cannot expect to find coexisting with the coarser "blood-sympathies," the direct passion, and the dogged and tenacious hold of temporary and smaller objects and issues, which distinguish the American politician, or with the narrowness of view, the zeal, and the moral persistency which characterize the practical reformer. There was, therefore, in his nature a certain want of the sturdier, harder, and more robust elements of character, which, though commonly manifesting themselves in connection with self-assertion and partisan zeal, are indispensable to the man who, in any large and political way, would take hold of practical circumstances and work a purpose out of them. We admire him for what he was. We do not condemn him for the absence of qualities not allied to such delicacy and breadth of nature. It is simply just to state the fact.

He had too little political ambition to seek his own advancement. He never could have been a strictly party man. His interest in our politics was a patriotic interest in the country. While he recognized the necessity of two great parties, he despised the arts and intrigues of the politician. His modesty, sensibility, large views, and want of political ambition and partisan spirit prevented interest, as they would have precluded success in party management. Had he spent many years instead of a few in the national Senate, he never could have been a leader in its great party struggles. He had not the hardier personal and constitutional qualities of mind and character which lead and control deliberative bodies in great crises. He would not have had that statesmanlike prescience which in the case of Lord Chatham and others seems separable from great general scope of thought, and which one is tempted to call a faculty for government. But he must have been influential; for, besides being the most eloquent man in the Senate, his speeches would have been distinguished for amplitude and judgment in design, and for tact and persuasiveness in enforcement. They might not have had immediate and commanding effect, but they would have had permanent value. His speech upon the Ashburton Treaty indicates the powers he would have shown, with a longer training in the Senate. More than ten years had passed between that speech and his two speeches in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, upon Representation and the Judiciary, and in that time a great maturing and solidifying work had been going on in his mind. Indeed, it was one sure test of his genius, that his intellect plainly grew to the day of his death. We would point to those two speeches as giving some adequate expression of his ability to treat large subjects simply, profoundly, artistically, and convincingly. Many of his earlier and some of his later speeches and addresses, though large in conception and stamped with unmistakable genius, want solid body of thought, and are, so to speak, too fluid in style. This obviously springs from the qualities of mind and from the circumstances we have indicated. In court, the necessities of his case and the determination and shaping of all his argument and persuasion to convincing twelve men, or a court only, on questions requiring prompt decision, kept his style free from everything foreign to his purpose. But, released from these restraints, and called upon for a treatment more general and comprehensive than acute and discriminating, his style often became inflamed and decorated with sensibility and fancy. His mind, moreover, was overtasked in his profession. His unremitting mental labor in the preparation and trial of so many cases was immense and exhausting. It shortened his life. That his genius might have that free and joyous exercise necessary to its full use and exhibition in literary or political directions, an abandonment of a great part of his professional duties was indispensable. This was to him neither possible nor desirable. The mental heat and pressure, therefore, under which he wrote his speeches and addresses, and the necessity for the exercise of different methods of thought and treatment from those called into play at the bar, explain why (with a few noble exceptions) they do not give a fair or full exhibition of his genius and accomplishments. But in them his judgment never lost its anchorage. Unlike Burke, who was the god of his political idolatry, his sensibility never overmastered his reasoning. Through a style sometimes Eastern in flush and fervor, and again tropical in heat and luxuriance, were always seen the adjusting and attempering habit of thought and argument and the even balance of his mind.

We have said that his interest in politics was a patriotic interest in the nation. He knew her history and her triumphs and reverses on land and sea by heart. Though limited by no narrow love of country, he felt from sentiment and imagination that attachment to every symbol of patriotism and national power which makes the sailor suffer death with joy when he sees his country's flag floating in the smoke of victory. "The radiant ensign of the Republic" was to him the living embodiment of her honor and her power. He had for it the pride and passion of the boy, with the prophetic hopes of the patriot. Men of genius are ever revivifying the commonplace expressions and visible signs of popular enthusiasm with the poetic and historic realities which gave them birth. He felt the glow and impulse of the great sentiments of race and nationality in all their natural simplicity and poetic force. It is not now the time to discuss Mr. Choate's political preferences and opinions. No one who knew him well can hesitate to pronounce his motives pure and patriotic. We could not come to his conclusions on the policy and duty of our people at the last Presidential election. Our duties to the Union forced us to regard as paramount what he regarded as subsidiary. Our fear for the Union sprang from other sources than his. But we believe he acted from the highest convictions of duty, and he certainly exposed himself with unflinching courage to obloquy and misinterpretation when silence would have been easy and safe.

In what we have said of him as a lawyer we are sure that in every essential respect we have not overstated or misstated his powers and characteristics as they were known and conceded by lawyers and judges in Massachusetts. We have confined ourselves mainly to his jury-trials, because into them he threw the whole force and vitality of his nature, and because we could thus more completely indicate the variety of his accomplishments and the essential characteristics of his genius and individuality. A knowledge of them is indispensable to a just estimate of the man, and it must die with him and his hearers, excepting only as it may be preserved by contemporaneous written criticism and judgment, and by indeterminate and shadowy tradition.

The labors of so great a lawyer are as much more useful as they are less conspicuous than those of any prominent politician or legislator, unless he be one of the very few who have high constructive or creative ability. There is little risk of overestimating the value of a life devoted to mastering that complex system of jurisprudence, the old, ever-expanding, and ever-improving common law which is interwoven with our whole fabric of government, property, and personal rights, and to applying it profoundly through trial by jury and before courts of law, not merely that justice may be obtained for clients, but that decisions shall be made determining the rights and duties of men for generations to come. And when such a life is not only full of immense work and achievement, but is penetrated and informed with genius, sensibility, and loving-kindness, it passes sweetly and untraceably, but influentially and immortally, into the life of the nation.

* * *

THE REGICIDE COLONELS IN NEW ENGLAND

Before the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660, to the throne of his ancestors, he had issued a "Declaration," promising to all persons but such as should be excepted by Parliament a pardon of offences committed during the late disorderly times. In the Parliamentary Act of Indemnity which followed, such as had been directly concerned in the death of the late King were excepted from mercy. Colonel Whalley and Colonel Goffe were members of the High Court of Justice which convicted and sentenced him. It was known that they had fled from England; and one Captain Breedon, lately returned from Boston, reported that he had seen them there. The Ministry sent an order to Endicott, the Governor of Massachusetts, for their apprehension and transportation to England.

The friendly welcome which had in fact been extended to the distinguished fugitives cannot be confidently interpreted as an indication of favorable judgment of the act by which their lives were now endangered. No one of the New- England Colonies had formally expressed approval of the execution of King Charles the First, nor is there any other evidence of its having been generally regarded by them with favor. It is likely that in New England, as in the parent country, the opinions of patriotic men were divided in respect to the character of that measure. In New England, remote as it was from the scene of those crimes which had provoked so extreme a proceeding, it may be presumed that there was greater difficulty in admitting the force of the reasons, by which it was vindicated. And the sympathy of New England would be more likely to be with Vane, who condemned it, than with Cromwell. But the strangers, however one act of theirs might be regarded, had been eminent among those who had fought for the rights of Englishmen, and they brought introductions from men venerated and beloved by the people among whom a refuge was sought.

Edward Whalley, a younger son of a good family, first cousin of the Protector Oliver, and of John Hampden, distinguished himself at the Battle of Naseby as an officer of cavalry, and was presently promoted by Parliament to the command of a regiment. He commanded at the storm of Banbury, and at the first capture of Worcester. He was intrusted with the custody of the King's person at Hampton Court; he sat in the High Court of Justice at the trial of Charles, and was one of the signers of the death-warrant. After the Battle of Dunbar, at which he again won renown, Cromwell left him in Scotland in command of four regiments of horse. He was one of the Major-Generals among whom the kingdom was parcelled out by one of the Protector's last arrangements, and as such governed the Counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Warwick, and Leicester. He sat as a member for Nottinghamshire in Cromwell's Second and Third Parliaments, and was called up to "the other House" when that body was constituted.

William Goffe, son of a Puritan clergyman in Sussex, was a member of Parliament, and a colonel of infantry soon after the breaking out of the Civil War. He married a daughter of Whalley. Like his father-in-law, he was a member of the High Court of Justice for the King's trial, a signer of the warrant for his execution, a member of the Protector's Third and Fourth Parliaments, and then a member of "the other House." He commanded Cromwell's regiment at the Battle of Dunbar, and rendered service particularly acceptable to him in the second expurgation of Parliament. As one of the ten Major-Generals, he held the government of Hampshire, Berkshire, and Sussex.

When Whalley and Goffe, upon the King's return, left England to escape what they apprehended might prove the fate of regicides, the policy of the Court in respect to persons circumstanced as they were had not been promulgated. Arriving in Boston, in July, and having been courteously welcomed by the Governor, they proceeded the same day to Cambridge, which place for the present they made their home. For several months they appeared there freely in public. They attended the public religious meetings, and others held at private houses, at which latter they prayed, and prophesied, or preached. They visited some of the principal towns in the neighborhood, were often in Boston, and were received, wherever they went, with distinguished attention.

At the end of four months, intelligence came to Massachusetts of the Act of Indemnity, and that Whalley and Goffe were among those excepted from it, and marked for vengeance. Three months longer they lived at Cambridge unmolested; but in the mean while affairs had been growing critical between Massachusetts and the mother country, and, though some members of the General Court assured them of protection, others thought it more prudent that they should have a hint to provide for their safety in some way which would not imply an affront to the royal government on the part of the Colony. The Governor called a Court of Assistants, in February, and without secrecy asked their advice respecting his obligation to secure the refugees. The Court refused to recommend that measure, and four days more passed, at the end of which time--whether induced by the persuasion of others, or by their own conviction of the impropriety of involving their generous hosts in further embarrassment, or simply because they had been awaiting till then the completion of arrangements for their reception at New Haven--they set off for that place.

A journey of nine days brought them to the hospitable house of the Reverend Mr. Davenport, where again they moved freely in the society of the ministers and the magistrates. But they had scarcely been at New Haven three weeks, when tidings came thither of the reception at Boston of a proclamation issued by the King for their arrest. To release their host from responsibility, they went to Milford, (as if on their way to New Netherland,) and there showed themselves in public; but returned secretly the same night to New Haven, and were concealed in Davenport's house. This was towards the last of March.

They had been so situated a month, when their friends had information from Boston that the search for them was to be undertaken in earnest. Further accounts of their having been seen in that place had reached England, and the King had sent a peremptory order to the Colonial governments for their apprehension. Endicott, to whom it was transmitted, could do no less than appear to interest himself to execute it; and this he might do with the less reluctance, because, under the circumstances, there was small likelihood that his exertions would be effectual. Two young English merchants, Thomas Kellond and Thomas Kirk, received from him a commission to prosecute the search in Massachusetts, and were also furnished with letters of recommendation to the Governors of the other Colonies. That they were zealous Royalists, direct from England, would be some evidence to the home government that the quest would be pursued in good faith. That they were foreigners, unacquainted with the roads and with the habits of the country, and betraying themselves by their deportment wherever they should go in New England, would afford comfortable assurance to the Governor that they would pursue their quest in vain.

From Boston, the pursuivants, early in May, went to Hartford, where they were informed by Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut, that "the Colonels," as they were called, had passed thence immediately before, on their way to New Haven. Thither the messengers proceeded, stopping on the way at Guilford, the residence of Deputy-Governor Leete. Since the recent death of Governor Newman, Leete had been Chief Magistrate of the Colony of New Haven, which was now, and for a few years later, distinct from Connecticut.

The Deputy-Governor received them in the presence of several other persons. He looked over their papers, and then "began to read them audibly; whereupon we told him," say the messengers, "it was convenient to be more private in such concernments as that was." They desired to be furnished "with horses, &c.," for their further journey, "which was prepared with some delays." They were accosted, on coming out, by a person who told them that the Colonels were secreted at Mr. Davenport's, "and that, without all question, Deputy Leete knew as much"; and that "in the head of a company in the field a-training," it had lately been "openly spoken by them, that, if they had but two hundred friends that would stand by them, they would not care for Old or New England."

The messengers returned to Leete, and made an application for "aid and a power to search and apprehend" the fugitives. "He refused to give any power to apprehend them, nor order any other, and said he could do nothing until he had spoken with one Mr. Gilbert and the rest of his magistrates." New Haven, the seat of government of the Colony, was twenty miles distant from Guilford. It was now Saturday afternoon, and for a New-England Governor to break the Sabbath by setting off on a journey, or by procuring horses for any other traveller, was impossible. An Indian was observed to have left Guilford while the parley was going on, and was supposed to have gone on an errand to New Haven.

Monday morning the messengers proceeded thither. "To our certain knowledge," they write, "one John Meigs was sent a-horseback before us, and by his speedy and unexpected going so early before day was to give them an information, and the rather because by the delays was used, it was break of day before we got to horse; so he got there before us. Upon our suspicion, we required the Deputy that the said John Meigs might be examined what his business was, that might occasion so early going; to which the Deputy answered, that he did not know any such thing, and refused to examine him." Leete was in no haste to make his own journey to the capital. It was for the messengers to judge whether they would use such despatch as to give an alarm there some time before any magistrate was present, to be invoked for aid. He arrived, they write, "within two hours, or thereabouts, after us and came to us to the Court chamber, where we again acquainted him with the information we had received, and that we had cause to believe they [the fugitives] were concealed in New Haven, and thereupon we required his assistance and aid for their apprehension; to which he answered, that he did not believe they were; whereupon we desired him to empower us, or order others for it; to which he gave us this answer, the he could not, or would not, make us magistrates... We set before him the danger of that delay and their inevitable escape, and how much the honor and service of his Majesty was despised and trampled on by him, and that we supposed by his unwillingness to assist in the apprehension he was willing they should escape. After which he left us, and went to several of the magistrates, and were together five or six hours in consultation, and upon breaking up of their council they told us they would not nor could not to anything until they had called a General Court of the freemen."

The messengers labored with great earnestness to shake this determination, but all in vain. For precedents they appealed to the promptness of the Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut, "who, upon the recite of his Majesty's pleasure and order concerning the said persons, stood not upon such niceties and formalities." They represented "how much the honor and justice of his Majesty was concerned, and how ill his Sacred Majesty would resent such horrid and detestable concealments and abettings of such traitors and regicides as they were, and asked him whether he would honor and obey the King or no in this affair, and set before him the danger which by law is incurred by any one that conceals or abets traitors; to which the Deputy Leete answered, 'We honor his Majesty, but we have tender consciences'; to which we replied, that we believed that he knew where they were, and only pretended tenderness of conscience for a refusal.... We told them that for their respect to two traitors they would do themselves injury, and possibly ruin themselves and the whole Colony of New Haven."

"Finding them obstinate and pertinacious in their contempt of his Majesty," the messengers, probably misled by some false information, took the road to New Netherland, the next day, in further prosecution of their business. The Dutch Governor at that place promised them, that, if the Colonels appeared within his jurisdiction, he would give notice to Endicott, and take measures to prevent their escape by sea. Thereupon Kellond and Kirk returned by water to Boston, where they made oath before the magistrates to a report of their proceedings.

The fugitives had received timely notice of the chase. A week before Kellond and Kirk left Boston, they removed from Mr. Davenport's house to that of William Jones, son-in-law of Governor Eaton, and afterwards Deputy-Governor of Connecticut. On the day when the messengers were debating with Governor Leete at Guilford, Whalley and Goffe were conducted to a mill, at a short distance from New Haven, where they were hidden two days and nights. Thence they were led to a spot called Hatchet Harbor, about as much farther in a northwesterly direction, where they lay two nights more. Meantime, for fear of the effect of the large rewards which the messengers had offered for their capture, a more secure hiding-place had been provided for them in a hollow on the east side of West Rock, five miles from the town. In this retreat they remained four weeks, being supplied with food from a lonely farm-house in the neighborhood, to which they also sometimes withdrew in stormy weather. They caused the Deputy-Governor to be informed of their hiding-place; and on hearing that Mr. Davenport was in danger from a suspicion of harboring them, they left it, and for a week or two showed themselves at different times at New Haven and elsewhere. After two months more of concealment in their retreat on the side of West Bock, they betook themselves, just after the middle of August, to the house of one Tomkins, in or near Milford. There they remained in complete secrecy for two years, after which time they indulged themselves in more freedom, and even conducted the devotions of a few neighbors assembled in their chamber.

But the arrival at Boston of Commissioners from the King with extraordinary powers was now expected, and it was likely that they would be charged to institute a new search, which might endanger the fugitives, and would certainly be embarrassing to their protectors. Just at this time a feud in the churches of Hartford and Wethersfield had led to an emigration to a spot of fertile meadow forty miles farther up the river. Mr. Russell, hitherto minister of Wethersfield, accompanied the new settlers as their pastor. The General Court gave their town the name of Hadley. In this remotest northwestern frontier of New England a refuge was prepared for the fugitives. On hearing of the arrival of the Commissioners at Boston, they withdrew to their cave; but some Indians in hunting observed that it had been occupied, and its secrecy could no longer be counted on. They consequently directed their steps towards Hadley, travelling only by night, and there, in the month of October, 1664, were received into the house of Mr. Russell.

There--except for a remarkable momentary appearance of one of them, and except for the visits of a few confidential friends--they remained lost forever to the view of men. Presents were made to them by leading persons among the colonists, and they received remittances from friends in England. Governor Hutchinson, when he wrote his History, had in his hands the Diary of Goffe, begun at the time of their leaving London, and continued for six or seven years. They were for a time encouraged by a belief, founded on their interpretation of the Apocalypse, that the execution of their comrades was "the slaying of the witnesses," and that their own triumph was speedily to follow. Letters passed between Goffe and his wife, purporting to be between a son and mother, and signed respectively with the names of Walter and Frances Goldsmith. Four of these letters survive; tender, magnanimous, and devout, they are scarcely to be read without tears.

In the tenth year of his abode at Hadley Whalley had become extremely infirm in mind and body, and he probably did not outlive that year. Mr. Russell's house was standing till within a little more than half a century ago. At its demolition, the removal of a slab in the cellar discovered human remains of a large size. They are believed to have belonged to the stout frame which swept through Prince Rupert's lines at Naseby. Goffe survived his father-in-law nearly five years, at least; how much longer, is not known. Once he was seen abroad, after his retirement to Mr. Russell's house. The dreadful war, to which the Indian King Philip bequeathed his long execrated name, was raging with its worst terrors in the autumn of 1675. On the first day of September, the people of Hadley kept a fast, to implore the Divine protection in their distress. While they were engaged in their worship, a sentry's shot gave notice that the stealthy savages were upon them. Hutchinson, in his History, relates what follows, as he had received it from the family of Governor Leverett, who was one of the few visitors of Goffe in his retreat. "The people were in the utmost confusion. Suddenly a grave, elderly person appeared in the midst of them. In his mien and dress he differed from the rest of the people. He not only encouraged them to defend themselves, but put himself at their head, rallied, instructed, and led them on to encounter the enemy, who by this means were repulsed. As suddenly the deliverer of Hadley disappeared. The people were left in consternation, utterly unable to account for this strange phenomenon. It is not probable that they were ever able to explain it."

In the first years of the retirement of the Colonels at Hadley, they enjoyed the society of a former friend, who did not feel obliged to use the same strict precautions against discovery. John Dixwell, like themselves, was a colonel in the Parliamentary service, a member of the High Court of Justice, and a signer of the death-warrant of the King. Nothing is known of his proceedings after the restoration of the monarchy, till he came to Hadley, three or four months later than Whalley and Goffe. After a residence of some years in their neighborhood, he removed to New Haven, where, bearing the name of James Davids, and affecting no particular privacy, he lived to old age. The home-government never traced him to America; and though, among his acquaintance, it was understood that he had a secret to keep, there was no disposition to penetrate it. He married twice at New Haven, and by his second nuptials established a family, one branch of which survives. In testamentary documents, as well as in communications, while he lived, to his minister and others, he frankly made known his character and history. He died just too early to hear the tidings, which would have renewed his strength like the eagle's, of the expulsion of the House of Stuart. A fit monument directs the traveller to the place of his burial, in the square bounded on one side by the halls of Yale College.

* * *

TO THE CAT-BIRD

You, who would with wanton art

Counterfeit another's part,

And with noisy utterance claim

Right to an ignoble name,--

Inharmonious!--why must you,

To a better self untrue,

Gifted with the charm of song,

Do the generous gift such wrong?

Delicate and downy throat,

Shaped for pure, melodious note,--

Silvery wing of softest gray,--

Bright eyes glancing every way,--

Graceful outline,--motion free:

Types of perfect harmony!

Ah! you much mistake your duty,

Mating discord thus with beauty,--

'Mid these heavenly sunset gleams,

Vexing the smooth air with screams,--

Burdening the dainty breeze

With insane discordancies.

I have heard you tell a tale

Tender as the nightingale,

Sweeter than the early thrush

Pipes at day-dawn from the bush.

Wake once more the liquid strain

That you poured, like music-rain,

When, last night, in the sweet weather,

You and I were out together.

Unto whom two notes are given,

One of earth, and one of heaven,

Were it not a shameful tale

That the earth-note should prevail?

For the sake of those who love us,

For the sake of God above us,

Each and all should do their best

To make music for the rest.

So will I no more reprove,

Though the chiding be in love:

Uttering harsh rebuke to you,

That were inharmonious, too.

* * *

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY