A DIRGE.

———

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

———

Poet! lonely is thy bed,And the turf is overhead—Cold earth is thy cover;But thy heart hath found release,And it slumbers full of peace’Neath the rustle of green treesAnd the warm hum of the bees,’Mid the drowsy clover;Through thy chamber, still as death,A smooth gurgle wandereth,As the blue stream murmurethTo the blue sky over.Three paces from the silver strand,Gently in the fine, white sand,With a lily in thy hand,Pale as snow, they laid thee;In no coarse earth wast thou hid,And no gloomy coffin-lidDarkly overweighed thee.Silently as snow-flakes drift,The smooth sand did sift and siftO’er the bed they made thee;All sweet birds did come and singAt thy sunny burying—Choristers unbidden,And, beloved of sun and dew.Meek forget-me-nots upgrewWhere thine eyes so large and blue’Neath the turf were hidden.Where thy stainless clay doth lie,Blue and open is the sky,And the white clouds wander by,Dreams of summer silentlyDarkening the river;Thou hearest the clear water run,And the ripples every one,Scattering the golden sun,Through thy silence quiver;Vines trail down upon the stream,Into its smooth and glassy dreamA green stillness spreading,And the shiner, perch and breamThrough the shadowed waters gleam’Gainst the current heading.White as snow, thy winding sheetShelters thee from head to feet,Save thy pale face only;Thy face is turned toward the skies,The lids lie meekly o’er thine eyes,And the low-voiced pine-tree sighsO’er thy bed so lonely.All thy life thou lov’dst its shade:Underneath it thou art laid,In an endless shelter;Thou hearest it forever sighAs the wind’s vague longings dieIn its branches dim and high—Thou hear’st the waters gliding bySlumberously welter.Thou wast full of love and truth,Of forgivingness and ruth—Thy great heart with hope and youthTided to o’erflowing.Thou didst dwell in mysteries,And there lingered on thine eyesShadows of serener skies,Awfully wild memories,That were like foreknowing;Through the earth thou would’st have gone,Lighted from within alone,Seeds from flowers in Heaven grownWith a free hand sowing.Thou didst remember well and longSome fragments of thine angel-song,And strive, through want and wo and wrongTo win the world unto it;Thy sin it was to see and hearBeyond To-day’s dim hemisphere⁠—Beyond all mists of hope and fear,Into a life more true and clear,And dearly thou didst rue it;Light of the new world thou hadst won,O’er flooded by a purer sun—Slowly Fate’s ship came drifting on,And through the dark, save thou, not oneCaught of the land a token.Thou stood’st upon the farthest prow,Something within thy soul said “Now!”And leaping forth with eager brow,Thou fell’st on shore heart-broken.Long time thy brethren stood in fear;Only the breakers far and near,White with their anger, they could hear;The sounds of land, which thy quick earCaught long ago, they heard not.And, when at last they reached the strand,They found thee lying on the sandWith some wild flowers in thy hand,But thy cold bosom stirred not;They listened, but they heard no soundSave from the glad life all aroundA low, contented murmur.The long grass flowed adown the hill,A hum rose from a hidden rill,But thy glad heart, that knew no illBut too much love, lay dead and still⁠—The only thing that sent a chillInto the heart of summer.Thou didst not seek the poet’s wreathBut too soon didst win it;Without ’twas green, but underneathWere scorn and loneliness and death,Gnawing the brain with burning teeth,And making mock within it.Thou, who wast full of nobleness,Whose very life-blood ’twas to bless,Whose soul’s one law was giving,Must bandy words with wickedness,Haggle with hunger and distress,To win that death which worldlinessCalls bitterly a living.“Thou sow’st no gold, and shall not reap!”Muttered earth, turning in her sleep;“Come home to the Eternal Deep!”Murmured a voice, and a wide sweepOf wings through thy soul’s hush did creep,As of thy doom o’erflying;It seem’d that thy strong heart would leapOut of thy breast, and thou didst weep,But not with fear of dying;Men could not fathom thy deep fears,They could not understand thy tears,The hoarded agony of yearsOf bitter self-denying.So once, when high above the spheresThy spirit sought its starry peers,It came not back to face the jeersOf brothers who denied it;Star-crowned, thou dost possess the deepsOf God, and thy white body sleepsWhere the lone pine forever keepsPatient watch beside it.Poet! underneath the turf,Soft thou sleepest, free from morrow,Thou hast struggled through the surfOf wild thoughts and want and sorrow.Now, beneath the moaning pine,Full of rest, thy body lieth,While far up in clear sunshine,Underneath a sky divine,Her loosed wings thy spirit trieth;Oft she strove to spread them here,But they were too white and clearFor our dingy atmosphere.Thy body findeth ample roomIn its still and grassy tombBy the silent river;But thy spirit found the earthNarrow for the mighty birthWhich it dreamed of ever;Thou wast guilty of a rhymeLearned in a benigner clime,And of that more grievous crime,An ideal too sublimeFor the low-hung sky of Time.The calm spot where thy body liesGladdens thy soul in Paradise,It is so still and holy;Thy body sleeps serenely there,And well for it thy soul may care,It was so beautiful and fair,Lily white so wholly.From so pure and sweet a frameThy spirit parted as it came,Gentle as a maiden;Now it lieth full of rest—Sods are lighter on its breastThan the great, prophetic guestWherewith it was laden.

Poet! lonely is thy bed,

And the turf is overhead—

Cold earth is thy cover;

But thy heart hath found release,

And it slumbers full of peace

’Neath the rustle of green trees

And the warm hum of the bees,

’Mid the drowsy clover;

Through thy chamber, still as death,

A smooth gurgle wandereth,

As the blue stream murmureth

To the blue sky over.

Three paces from the silver strand,Gently in the fine, white sand,With a lily in thy hand,Pale as snow, they laid thee;In no coarse earth wast thou hid,And no gloomy coffin-lidDarkly overweighed thee.Silently as snow-flakes drift,The smooth sand did sift and siftO’er the bed they made thee;All sweet birds did come and singAt thy sunny burying—Choristers unbidden,And, beloved of sun and dew.Meek forget-me-nots upgrewWhere thine eyes so large and blue’Neath the turf were hidden.

Three paces from the silver strand,

Gently in the fine, white sand,

With a lily in thy hand,

Pale as snow, they laid thee;

In no coarse earth wast thou hid,

And no gloomy coffin-lid

Darkly overweighed thee.

Silently as snow-flakes drift,

The smooth sand did sift and sift

O’er the bed they made thee;

All sweet birds did come and sing

At thy sunny burying—

Choristers unbidden,

And, beloved of sun and dew.

Meek forget-me-nots upgrew

Where thine eyes so large and blue

’Neath the turf were hidden.

Where thy stainless clay doth lie,Blue and open is the sky,And the white clouds wander by,Dreams of summer silentlyDarkening the river;Thou hearest the clear water run,And the ripples every one,Scattering the golden sun,Through thy silence quiver;Vines trail down upon the stream,Into its smooth and glassy dreamA green stillness spreading,And the shiner, perch and breamThrough the shadowed waters gleam’Gainst the current heading.

Where thy stainless clay doth lie,

Blue and open is the sky,

And the white clouds wander by,

Dreams of summer silently

Darkening the river;

Thou hearest the clear water run,

And the ripples every one,

Scattering the golden sun,

Through thy silence quiver;

Vines trail down upon the stream,

Into its smooth and glassy dream

A green stillness spreading,

And the shiner, perch and bream

Through the shadowed waters gleam

’Gainst the current heading.

White as snow, thy winding sheetShelters thee from head to feet,Save thy pale face only;Thy face is turned toward the skies,The lids lie meekly o’er thine eyes,And the low-voiced pine-tree sighsO’er thy bed so lonely.All thy life thou lov’dst its shade:Underneath it thou art laid,In an endless shelter;Thou hearest it forever sighAs the wind’s vague longings dieIn its branches dim and high—Thou hear’st the waters gliding bySlumberously welter.

White as snow, thy winding sheet

Shelters thee from head to feet,

Save thy pale face only;

Thy face is turned toward the skies,

The lids lie meekly o’er thine eyes,

And the low-voiced pine-tree sighs

O’er thy bed so lonely.

All thy life thou lov’dst its shade:

Underneath it thou art laid,

In an endless shelter;

Thou hearest it forever sigh

As the wind’s vague longings die

In its branches dim and high—

Thou hear’st the waters gliding by

Slumberously welter.

Thou wast full of love and truth,Of forgivingness and ruth—Thy great heart with hope and youthTided to o’erflowing.Thou didst dwell in mysteries,And there lingered on thine eyesShadows of serener skies,Awfully wild memories,That were like foreknowing;Through the earth thou would’st have gone,Lighted from within alone,Seeds from flowers in Heaven grownWith a free hand sowing.

Thou wast full of love and truth,

Of forgivingness and ruth—

Thy great heart with hope and youth

Tided to o’erflowing.

Thou didst dwell in mysteries,

And there lingered on thine eyes

Shadows of serener skies,

Awfully wild memories,

That were like foreknowing;

Through the earth thou would’st have gone,

Lighted from within alone,

Seeds from flowers in Heaven grown

With a free hand sowing.

Thou didst remember well and longSome fragments of thine angel-song,And strive, through want and wo and wrongTo win the world unto it;Thy sin it was to see and hearBeyond To-day’s dim hemisphere⁠—Beyond all mists of hope and fear,Into a life more true and clear,And dearly thou didst rue it;Light of the new world thou hadst won,O’er flooded by a purer sun—Slowly Fate’s ship came drifting on,And through the dark, save thou, not oneCaught of the land a token.Thou stood’st upon the farthest prow,Something within thy soul said “Now!”And leaping forth with eager brow,Thou fell’st on shore heart-broken.

Thou didst remember well and long

Some fragments of thine angel-song,

And strive, through want and wo and wrong

To win the world unto it;

Thy sin it was to see and hear

Beyond To-day’s dim hemisphere⁠—

Beyond all mists of hope and fear,

Into a life more true and clear,

And dearly thou didst rue it;

Light of the new world thou hadst won,

O’er flooded by a purer sun—

Slowly Fate’s ship came drifting on,

And through the dark, save thou, not one

Caught of the land a token.

Thou stood’st upon the farthest prow,

Something within thy soul said “Now!”

And leaping forth with eager brow,

Thou fell’st on shore heart-broken.

Long time thy brethren stood in fear;Only the breakers far and near,White with their anger, they could hear;The sounds of land, which thy quick earCaught long ago, they heard not.And, when at last they reached the strand,They found thee lying on the sandWith some wild flowers in thy hand,But thy cold bosom stirred not;They listened, but they heard no soundSave from the glad life all aroundA low, contented murmur.The long grass flowed adown the hill,A hum rose from a hidden rill,But thy glad heart, that knew no illBut too much love, lay dead and still⁠—The only thing that sent a chillInto the heart of summer.

Long time thy brethren stood in fear;

Only the breakers far and near,

White with their anger, they could hear;

The sounds of land, which thy quick ear

Caught long ago, they heard not.

And, when at last they reached the strand,

They found thee lying on the sand

With some wild flowers in thy hand,

But thy cold bosom stirred not;

They listened, but they heard no sound

Save from the glad life all around

A low, contented murmur.

The long grass flowed adown the hill,

A hum rose from a hidden rill,

But thy glad heart, that knew no ill

But too much love, lay dead and still⁠—

The only thing that sent a chill

Into the heart of summer.

Thou didst not seek the poet’s wreathBut too soon didst win it;Without ’twas green, but underneathWere scorn and loneliness and death,Gnawing the brain with burning teeth,And making mock within it.Thou, who wast full of nobleness,Whose very life-blood ’twas to bless,Whose soul’s one law was giving,Must bandy words with wickedness,Haggle with hunger and distress,To win that death which worldlinessCalls bitterly a living.

Thou didst not seek the poet’s wreath

But too soon didst win it;

Without ’twas green, but underneath

Were scorn and loneliness and death,

Gnawing the brain with burning teeth,

And making mock within it.

Thou, who wast full of nobleness,

Whose very life-blood ’twas to bless,

Whose soul’s one law was giving,

Must bandy words with wickedness,

Haggle with hunger and distress,

To win that death which worldliness

Calls bitterly a living.

“Thou sow’st no gold, and shall not reap!”Muttered earth, turning in her sleep;“Come home to the Eternal Deep!”Murmured a voice, and a wide sweepOf wings through thy soul’s hush did creep,As of thy doom o’erflying;It seem’d that thy strong heart would leapOut of thy breast, and thou didst weep,But not with fear of dying;Men could not fathom thy deep fears,They could not understand thy tears,The hoarded agony of yearsOf bitter self-denying.So once, when high above the spheresThy spirit sought its starry peers,It came not back to face the jeersOf brothers who denied it;Star-crowned, thou dost possess the deepsOf God, and thy white body sleepsWhere the lone pine forever keepsPatient watch beside it.

“Thou sow’st no gold, and shall not reap!”

Muttered earth, turning in her sleep;

“Come home to the Eternal Deep!”

Murmured a voice, and a wide sweep

Of wings through thy soul’s hush did creep,

As of thy doom o’erflying;

It seem’d that thy strong heart would leap

Out of thy breast, and thou didst weep,

But not with fear of dying;

Men could not fathom thy deep fears,

They could not understand thy tears,

The hoarded agony of years

Of bitter self-denying.

So once, when high above the spheres

Thy spirit sought its starry peers,

It came not back to face the jeers

Of brothers who denied it;

Star-crowned, thou dost possess the deeps

Of God, and thy white body sleeps

Where the lone pine forever keeps

Patient watch beside it.

Poet! underneath the turf,Soft thou sleepest, free from morrow,Thou hast struggled through the surfOf wild thoughts and want and sorrow.Now, beneath the moaning pine,Full of rest, thy body lieth,While far up in clear sunshine,Underneath a sky divine,Her loosed wings thy spirit trieth;Oft she strove to spread them here,But they were too white and clearFor our dingy atmosphere.

Poet! underneath the turf,

Soft thou sleepest, free from morrow,

Thou hast struggled through the surf

Of wild thoughts and want and sorrow.

Now, beneath the moaning pine,

Full of rest, thy body lieth,

While far up in clear sunshine,

Underneath a sky divine,

Her loosed wings thy spirit trieth;

Oft she strove to spread them here,

But they were too white and clear

For our dingy atmosphere.

Thy body findeth ample roomIn its still and grassy tombBy the silent river;But thy spirit found the earthNarrow for the mighty birthWhich it dreamed of ever;Thou wast guilty of a rhymeLearned in a benigner clime,And of that more grievous crime,An ideal too sublimeFor the low-hung sky of Time.

Thy body findeth ample room

In its still and grassy tomb

By the silent river;

But thy spirit found the earth

Narrow for the mighty birth

Which it dreamed of ever;

Thou wast guilty of a rhyme

Learned in a benigner clime,

And of that more grievous crime,

An ideal too sublime

For the low-hung sky of Time.

The calm spot where thy body liesGladdens thy soul in Paradise,It is so still and holy;Thy body sleeps serenely there,And well for it thy soul may care,It was so beautiful and fair,Lily white so wholly.

The calm spot where thy body lies

Gladdens thy soul in Paradise,

It is so still and holy;

Thy body sleeps serenely there,

And well for it thy soul may care,

It was so beautiful and fair,

Lily white so wholly.

From so pure and sweet a frameThy spirit parted as it came,Gentle as a maiden;Now it lieth full of rest—Sods are lighter on its breastThan the great, prophetic guestWherewith it was laden.

From so pure and sweet a frame

Thy spirit parted as it came,

Gentle as a maiden;

Now it lieth full of rest—

Sods are lighter on its breast

Than the great, prophetic guest

Wherewith it was laden.

SONNET TO MY MOTHER.

———

BY T. HOLLEY CHIVERS, M. D.

———

Before mine eyes had seen the light of day,Or that my soul had come from Heaven’s great King⁠—A harmless, tiny, helpless little thing⁠—You loved me!—While my tender being layIn the soft rose-leaves of your heart at rest,Like some lone bird within its downy nest,Beneath the concave of its mother’s wing,Unborn—your soul came in my heart to dwell,Like perfume in the flower, each part to bring,As warmth unto the young bird in its shell,And built me up to what I was to be,A semblance of thyself. Thus, being castIn thy heart’s mould, I grew up like to thee,And lost in thee my first friend with my last!

Before mine eyes had seen the light of day,

Or that my soul had come from Heaven’s great King⁠—

A harmless, tiny, helpless little thing⁠—

You loved me!—While my tender being lay

In the soft rose-leaves of your heart at rest,

Like some lone bird within its downy nest,

Beneath the concave of its mother’s wing,

Unborn—your soul came in my heart to dwell,

Like perfume in the flower, each part to bring,

As warmth unto the young bird in its shell,

And built me up to what I was to be,

A semblance of thyself. Thus, being cast

In thy heart’s mould, I grew up like to thee,

And lost in thee my first friend with my last!

BOSTON RAMBLINGS.

———

BY MISS LESLIE.

———

Perhaps there is no place in America where the people continued to cling so long, and so fondly, to the relics and traditions of the olden time, as in Boston—their first era being that of the early settlers, their second that of the revolution. At the commencement of my acquaintance with Boston and Bostonians, I was particularly struck with the prevalence of this feeling, having found so little of it in my native city, Philadelphia. Yet I was sorry to hear from my eastern friends, that comparatively it was fast subsiding, and that a fancy for modern improvements (blended with the powerful incentive of pecuniary interest) was rapidly superseding that veneration so long cherished for the places and things connected with the history of their “ancient and honorable town,” and the founders of their country’s freedom. On my second visit to Boston I missed much that on my first I had found still undesecrated. On my third, but few vestiges remained of the poetry, the romance, and the quaintness that, with regard to external objects, had so interested and amused me in the year 1832. I looked in vain for the “old familiar faces” of certain antiquated and, perhaps, unsightly structures that I had delighted to contemplate as the time-honored habitations of men with undying names. They were gone, and new and more profitable buildings erected on their site. In many of these instances “I could have better spared a better house.”

Fortunately the charter of the city specifies that Faneuil Hall is never to be sold, nor can the ground on which it stands be appropriated to any other purpose. Except that the market-place in the lower story is now occupied by shops, the whole edifice still remains nearly as it was when the walls of its chief apartment resounded with the acclamations of the people who discussed, at their town meetings, those principles that led to their self-emancipation from the sway of Britain. Acclamations elicited by the bold and overpowering eloquence of James Otis, the enthusiastic outbreakings of the impetuous spirit of Warren, the pure and self-sacrificing patriotism of Quincy, and the calm but energetic plain sense of Samuel Adams, backed by the generous liberality of that wealthy and noble-minded merchant whose name, as president of the first Congress, leads on the glorious array of signatures appended to the Declaration of Independence. Did no one think of preserving the pen with which those names were written?—the sacred quill

“That wing’d the arrow, sure as fate,Which ascertain’d the rights of man.”

“That wing’d the arrow, sure as fate,

Which ascertain’d the rights of man.”

The full-length portrait of Peter Faneuil stands at the upper end of the hall, looking like its guardian spirit. It is a fine copy of a small original that was painted in his lifetime. In regarding the likeness of a person of note (provided always that the painter is a good artist) you can generally judge of its verisimilitude, by its representing the features of the mind in conjunction with those of the face. If a well painted portrait has no particular expression, you may safely conclude that the sitter had no particular character. When, at the first glance of a picture, you are struck with the conviction that the originalmusthave looked exactly so, it is because you at once perceive his mind in his face. Who that has ever seen it, while it hung so long in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, does not recollect Berthon’s admirable and life-like portrait of Buonaparte in the first year of that consulate. Every beholder was struck with an irresistible conviction of its perfect and unimpeachable fidelity of character. There, in his gold embroidered blue coat, his tri-colored sash, and his buff-leather gauntlets, was the pale, thin, almost cadaverous young soldier, just returned from the unwholesome regions of the Nile; with his dark, uncared-for hair shading his thoughtful brow, and his deep-set, intense eyes, that looked as if they could search into the soul of every man they saw. So self-evident was the truth of this picture, that it was unnecessary to be aware of its exact accordance with all the descriptions given at that time of the republican general, who had just made himself the chief magistrate of the French people, and was called only Buonaparte. A few years afterward, when “the hero had sunk into the king,” and was termed Napoleon, and when, in becoming more handsome, his face lost much of its original expression, this picture was equally valuable, as showing how he had looked in the early part of his wondrous career.

Another picture which we feel at once to be a most faithful representation, is Greuze’s portrait of Franklin. It was painted by that excellent artist when the venerable printer, philosopher, author, statesman (what shall we call him) was living in Paris. The dress is a coat and waistcoat of dark reddish silk, trimmed with brown fur. The head is very bald at the top, and he wears his gray locks plain and unpowdered. He has that noble expanse of forehead which is almost always found in persons of extraordinary intellect. His eye is indicative of strong sense and benevolence, enlivened with a keen relish for humor. His whole countenance exhibits that union of genius and common sense, shrewdness and kindness, which formed his character. My father had once in his possession (but lost it by lending) a fine French engraving taken from this very portrait, and printed in colors. He had known Dr. Franklin intimately, and he considered it the most admirable likeness he had ever seen—in fact the very man.

To return to Mr. Faneuil—hisportrait also is highly characteristic. No one can look at this picture of a tall, dignified gentleman, in a suit of crimson velvet and gold, a long lace cravat, and a powdered wig, according to the patrician costume of his time, and can view his fine open countenance, without believing the whole to be a correct portraiture of the opulent and public spirited merchant who, while he was yet living, gave its first market-place, with a hall for the accommodation of public meetings, to the town that had afforded an asylum to his Huguenot ancestor. The remains of Peter Faneuil, who died suddenly in 1743, are interred amid the green shades of the Granary Burying Ground, so called from the town granary having been in its immediate vicinity. This cemetery is close to the Tremont Hotel, and in view of another “ancient place of graves,” belonging to the King’s Chapel, which was founded in 1688, and, in early times, numbered among its congregation the largest portion of the Boston aristocracy; and many of their descendants still worship there. It is built of light brown stone, and is frequently called the Stone Chapel.

The length, thickness, and luxuriance of the grass, (which appears to require perpetual mowing,) and the closeness of the burial mounds, which seem almost piled upon each other, make it somewhat difficult to explore the monumental memorials of the old Boston families, whose first progenitors are slumbering beneath. A large number of these tombs are sculptured with armorial bearings, as an evidence that their mouldering occupants belonged, in their fatherland, to “gentle blood.” Of the tomb-stones dated after the revolution, I saw few that bore any indications of “the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power.” The founder of Boston, John Winthrop, is interred in the northwest corner of this cemetery, with his daughter, Grace Sears, (from whom the present Sears family is descended,) and his son, Waitstill Winthrop. The mansion of Governor Winthrop was a large two-story frame house, surrounded by a garden, and shaded with aboriginal trees that had been left standing for the purpose. Its location was near the old South Church, just below School street. Its site is now covered with stores; the block of buildings being termed South Row. I have seen an old portrait of this chief of the Boston colonists. It represents him as a tall, thin, dark-complexioned man, with an oval face, regular features, and a very serious countenance. He is habited in “a sad colored suit,” with a white lawn ruff round his neck, and a black cap on his head. In this burial ground Cooper has placed the vault of the Lechmere family, at the entrance of which the mother of Job Pray was found dead; and from the gallery of the stone chapel the half maniac father of Lionel Lincoln interrupted the marriage of his son with Cecil Dynevor, as they stood at the altar. Though reason may reject the interesting associations that emanate from fiction, feeling and fancy always unconsciously adopt them. It is this which conducts so many travellers to the shores of Loch Katrine, and sends them in a boat to the island of Ellen Douglas, though well aware that the damsel of the lake never in reality existed. I knew a gentleman who traversed the wilds of Connaught to visit the sea-beaten castle of Inismore, because it had been the fancied abode of Glorvina, the Wild Irish Girl, another charming creation of genius. And few will wonder at his doing so, who are familiar with the work that caused the flood-tide of Miss Owenson’s fortune, and who have, of course, read and re-read that beautiful letter in which Horatio describes his first acquaintance with the castle and its inmates.

I was yet a stranger in Boston, when a few days after my arrival I accompanied a lady and gentleman who were residents in that city, (and excellentciceroni) on an exploring walk into what is called the North End. This is a very old part of the town, extending northerly from Court street to Lynn street, and bounded on its eastern side by the waters of the harbor, and on the west by those of the estuary denominated Charles River. Its extreme point is immediately opposite to Bunker Hill. As it did not modernize as fast as the other sections of Boston, and as its old buildings were longer in getting demolished or furbished up, thehabitansof the North End lay under the imputation of being an old fashioned people, sadly deficient in the organ of go-a-headness, and pitifully submitting to creep on all fours, while the rest of the community were making unto themselves wings. There was even a scandalous story circulated of one of their pastors, (a good old gentleman, whose nasal elocution had not improved by age,) uttering in his prayer the words, “Have mercy upon us miserable offenders,” in a manner that sounded very much like, “Have mercy upon us miserable North-enders.”

To give me an idea of the habitations of the early Bostonians, I was purposely taken through some of the oldest and crookedest streets; several of which had pavements so narrow that we had to break rank and to proceed Indian file; for when we attempted to walk abreast and the wall was politely ceded to me, the other lady took the curb-stone, and the gentleman the gutter. Be it known, however, that a Boston gutter is merely a minor ravine, edged with wild flowers; and not a reservoir of liquid mud or a conduit for dirty water; all the conduits in that city being sub-terraneous, and entirely out of sight.

We saw very old houses, some of time-discolored brick, and some of wood in many instances unpainted, and therefore nearly black; in a few, the second story projected far over the first. Many of the ancient frame habitations were very large, and must have been built by people “that were well to do in the world.” In some, the clap-boards were ornamentally scolloped; and in many, the window frames instead of being inserted in the wall, were put on outside, and looked as if ready to burst forth upon us. There were primitive porches with seats in them, sheltered by moss-grown pent-houses, some of which would have furnished a tolerable crop of that roof-loving plant the house-leek. There were wooden balconies, with close heavy balustrades, of the pattern that looks like a range of innumerable narrow jugs. In some houses, the balconies were gone, but the door-windows belonging to them, were still there all the same; and as they now opened upon nothing, they looked most dangerous, especially for children or somnambulists to walk out at. There were street-doors cut horizontally in half, with steps descending inside instead of ascending outside. Many of the houses that stood alone had no front entrance, but ingress and egress were obtained through a small unpretending door in the side. This seemed to be a good plan, when the front was facing the chill blasts of the northeast. It is very disagreeable to have your street door blown open by the violence of the wind.

In an early stage of “our winding way,” we came to the junction of Union and Marshall streets, and there I saw a large square block of dark brown stone, on one side of which was painted in white letters the words “Boston Stone.” Supposing it to be one of the landmarks of the city, and something memorable, I seated myself for a few moments upon it. I was told by one of my companions, that this stone had been an object of great controversy among certain antiquaries of the city. In newspapers a century old there were advertisements of shopkeepers and mechanics, who, in giving their locations, made assurance doubly sure, by stating that they lived near the Boston Stone. Houses were announced for sale or hire in the neighborhood of the Boston Stone. Street-fights and dreadful accidents happened not far from the Boston Stone. What then was the Boston Stone? How came it there, and for what purpose? There was no mention of it in history. Patriotic picturesque people thought it was the foundation-stone of a flag staff or a beacon-mast; and it is certain that the top or upper surface of the block exhibited a slight circular cavity, evidently made on purpose for something: though practical people contended that the hollow was not deep enough to hold anything. I cherished for two or three months the persuasion that the Boston Stone was either a remarkable relic connected with great events, or else that it had been placed there when the peninsula was first laid out for a town, as a mark to designate where some place left off, and another place began; or perhaps to denote the very centre of the settlement. But “the shadows, clouds and darkness” that rested upon all my conjectures, were very prosaically dispelled just before my departure from Boston, by a most unexciting account obtained through the medium of a grandson of “the oldest inhabitant” of that neighborhood. The real solution of the mystery was so very natural, that none but very commonplace people would believe it. It simply implied that a certain apothecary of the olden time being in want of a very large mortar, and unable to obtain one ready made, procured this block of stone and set his boys to hollowing it out for the purpose. They made a beginning, but soon found that the stone was too hard and the labor too great; and having taken a spite at the obdurate block, they shoved it out of doors and left it on the pavement in front of the shop. From hence no one took the trouble to remove it, and finding that the neighbors began to date from its vicinity, the apothecary’s boys made it moredistinguéby inscribing it with the title of the Boston Stone—How a plain tale will put us down.

Shortly after quitting the Boston Stone, we came to a house at the corner of Union and Hanover streets, which was shown to me as the one in which Dr. Franklin was born. It is of two stories, and built partly of brick and partly of wood. The lower part was now occupied by a little shop, with a blue bell as a sign. Adjoining it in Hanover street was a dark low grocery store into which you descended by a step. It looked exactly as if it had been the soap and candle shop of Josiah Franklin. It was easy to imagine poor Ben. serving customers behind the old counter; cutting candle-wicks into lengths; and snatching, at intervals, a few minutes to read a little in hidden books when nobody saw him. An aged and excellent woman, who had passed her life in this part of the town, told me at a subsequent period, that she well remembered, when a little girl, seeing the old corner house (the dwelling part of the establishment,) pulled down, and the present one erected in its stead. The original corner house had always been regarded as one of the habitations of the Franklin family, and the adjoining old one-story shop (now the grocery) as theirs. It seems to me highly probable that the elder Franklindidlive in Milk street (as is generally believed) at the time his son Benjamin was born, and that the infantwaswrapped in a blanket and carried over the way to the old South Church to be christened. His baptism is noted in the register of the church, and the date is the same as that of his birth. This speedy performance of the rite of baptism was in accordance with the custom of the times. The Milk street house was a small two-story frame building, and was accidentally burnt in 1810. On the spot has since been erected a three-story furniture warehouse. It is but a few steps from the corner of Washington street, opposite to the Old South. There was an old printing office just back of it; and it is said that Josiah Franklin relinquished the Milk street house to his son James the printer, and removed with his wife and the younger children to Hanover street, and there carried on the soap and candle business, in the dark low one-story shop that is still there: living in the adjoining house at the corner. That the parents of Franklin were residents of the North End at the time of their death there can be no doubt, as they were interred in the North Burying Ground on Copp’s Hill. Many years ago their remains were exhumed, and transferred to the Granary burial place in Tremont street, at the expense of several gentlemen of Boston. A neat monument of granite has been erected upon the mound that covers their ashes; and in the front of the little obelisk is inserted a slab of slate, a part of the original grave stone on Copp’s Hill. This humble medallion bears the names of Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife, with the date of their deaths. I regarded this monument with much interest, as reflecting back upon his lowly but respectable parents a portion of the honor so universally accorded to the great man their son.

Having diverged from Hanover street to the North Square, we soon found ourselves in front of two very old and remarkable houses; one of which had been the residence of Governor Hutchinson, and the other of William Clarke, a wealthy merchant of the early part of the last century. Both were large old-fashioned buildings, their sides and chimneys overgrown with the scarlet-flowering creeper-vine. Above the front-door of the Hutchinson House, was the wooden balcony from which “Stingy Tommy,” as he was disrespectfully called by the populace, sometimes addressed the restive and stiffnecked people whom it was his hard lot to govern; and by whom he was so much disliked, that whether he did well or ill they were resolved not to be pleased. Perhaps the primary cause of his unpopularity may be traced to his parsimonious habits, or at least to the stories circulated of them. No man that is noted for a mean and avaricious disposition ever was or ever can be liked, either in private life or in a public capacity. However he may attempt to disguise it by an occasional act of liberality, the sordid spirit that is in him will be always creeping out, and exciting disgust and contempt. Yet (as is often the case with such persons) Governor Hutchinson spent much upon show and finery. At the time his house was sacked by the mob (when he narrowly escaped with his life) from this balcony were thrown the splendid brocade gowns and petticoats of his wife, with her laced caps, and numerous ornamental articles of dress and furniture. A bonfire was made of them in the street before the door.

The gentleman who piloted us on this walk through the North End was acquainted with the occupants of the Clarke House, (much the most curious of the two,) therefore we stopped in, and were courteously shown its principal apartments. It was built by Mr. Clarke, in the time of Queen Anne, and was after him occupied by Sir Henry Frankland, and called, for awhile, the Frankland House. It had a large, wide entrance hall, with a parlor on each side. All the ceilings were much too low for the taste of the present times; and a low ceiling always causes a room to look smaller than it really is. The walls of the left hand parlor had been covered with rich tapestry, over which a modern wall-paper was now pasted. A small portion of the papering being peeled off, we saw part of the tapestry beneath. But the other parlor had been evidently the room of state. The floor required no carpet, for it wasparquetéall over with small square pieces of American wood, comprising, as we were told, fifty different sorts or specimens; the light-colored pieces forming the ground-work, and the dark ones the figure or pattern. At the first glance it resembled an oil-cloth, or rather (to adopt a very homely comparison) it was not unlike the block-work bed quilts that our grandmothers took such pains in making. On this floor there was a border all round: and in the centre the marquetry represented a large swan with a crown on its head, and a chain round its breast. This was the cognizance of the Clarke family. Those conversant with heraldry know that there is always a reason, either historical, traditionary, or allegorical, for the introduction of certain strange symbols into a coat of arms. We were told that this tesselated floor had cost fifteen hundred dollars. The walls of the room were divided into compartments, edged with rich gilded mouldings; each containing an oil painting, tolerably good, but very vividly colored. The subjects were beyond our comprehension. We did not know whether they were what the drawing-masters call figure-pieces, or whether they were landscapes with figures in them.

In the room over this parlor the chimney-piece was of marble, decorated with a rich and admirably executed carving of flowers, fruit, and Indian corn, beautifully arranged, and descending down the sides as far as the hearth. Above the mantle-piece was a verymediocrepicture, in a narrow gilt frame, inserted in the wall. This painting represented a boy and girl, evidently brother and sister. The boy is presenting something that is either a peach or an apple to the girl, who is dressed in a ruffled night-gown and sitting on the side of a couch. The young gentleman is standing upright, habited in a rich suit of blue and gold, ornamented at the wrist with deep cuffs of white lace. On his legs are white silk stockings, ascending above his knees, and buskins laced with gold cord. Neither of the children are looking towards each other, but both are staring out of the picture, and fixing their very large eyes on the spectator.

We were told that Cooper had visited this house previous to commencing Lionel Lincoln. Changing its location to Tremont street, he has described it as the mansion of Mrs. Lechmere.

Few of our American cities have retained their old family domiciles as long as the town of Boston, and they attest the opulence of many of its early inhabitants. However, they are fast disappearing; the large portions of ground that they occupy, surrounded with their gardens and lofty trees, having become too valuable to escape being converted to more profitable purposes. When I first knew Boston, the spacious domain of Gardiner Green extended along Pemberton Hill, far back of Somerset street, including garden, shrubbery, and pasture ground, from whence I was sometimes disturbed at night by the tinkling of a cow-bell, which seemed to me strange in the very heart of a large city. Near it, on Tremont street, stood, with its pilasters and tall windows, the mansion of Jonathan Philips, looking like the residence of an old English nobleman. It had a smooth green lawn in front, and an elevated terrace, which was ascended by a lofty flight of stone steps, bordered with vases of exotics; and among its fine shade trees was the beautiful mountain ash, with its clusters of light scarlet berries. It was built, and originally occupied, by Mr. Faneuil, uncle to the gentleman who bestowed the town-hall on Boston.

Next to the house of Governor Philips stood the residence of the talented and unfortunate Sir Harry Vane, who had come over with the early settlers, and afterwards been appointed governor of the province of Massachusetts. He returned to England during the protectorate of Cromwell; and after the restoration, was committed to the Tower for the republican principles he persisted in advocating. Charles the Second had him tried on a charge of high treason, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill—behaving on the scaffold with the utmost composure and dignity. He attempted to address the people, but the drums and trumpets were sounded to drown his voice. This house of Sir Harry Vane was near two centuries old. It was a large brick building, with a garden at the side. The antique back casements still retained the small diamond-shaped panes set in lead; but, when I saw the house, its front windows looked as if they had been modernized about a century ago.

On my last visit to Boston, about two years since, I found that all the above-mentioned old mansions had been demolished, and their places filled with rows of modern structures suited to the utilitarian spirit of the times. The old Coolidge house, in Bowdoin Square, was still standing in 1840. It also is a large brick building, the bricks much darkened and discolored with time and damp. The house is almost hidden by enormous old trees, which cast their impervious branches so close to the windows that I wondered how its inhabitants could possibly see to do anything, unless they burned lamps or candles all day long. The dense gloominess of shade that environed this mansion, reminded me of the commencement of one of Moore’s earliest poems.

“The darkness that hung upon Willemberg’s wallsHas long been remember’d with grief and dismay,For years not a sunbeam had play’d in its halls,And it seem’d as shut out from the regions of day.”

“The darkness that hung upon Willemberg’s walls

Has long been remember’d with grief and dismay,

For years not a sunbeam had play’d in its halls,

And it seem’d as shut out from the regions of day.”

AUTUMN.

———

BY ALBERT PIKE.

———

It is the evening of a pleasant dayIn these old woods. The sun profusely flingsHis flood of light through every narrow wayThat winds around the trees. His spirit clings,In orange mist, around the snowy wingsOf many a patient cloud, that now, since noon,Over the western mountains idly swings,Waiting when night shall come—alas! too soon!To veil the timid blushes of the virgin moon.The trees with crimson robes are garmented:Clad with frail brilliants by the Autumn frost,For the young leaves, that Spring with beauty fed,Their greenness and luxuriance have lost,Gaining new beauty at too dear a cost:Unnatural beauty, that precedes decay.Too soon, upon the harsh winds wildly toss’d,Leaving the naked trees ghost-like and gray,These leaf-flocks, like vain hopes, will vanish all away.How does your sad, yet calm and cheerful guise,Ye melancholy Autumn solitudes,With my own feelings softly harmonize!For though I love the hoar and solemn woods,In all their manifold and changing moods⁠—In gloom and sunshine, storm and quietness,By day, or when the dim night on them broods;Their lightsome glades, their darker mysteries⁠—Yet the sad heart loves a still, calm scene like this.Soon will the year like this sweet day have fled,With swift feet speeding noiselessly and fast,As a ghost speeds, to join its kindred dead,In the dark realms of that mysterious vast,The shadow-peopled and eternal past.Life’s current deathward flows—a rapid stream,With clouds and shadows often overcast,Yet lighted often by a sunny beamOf happiness, like sweet thoughts in a gloomy dream.Like the brown leaves, our lov’d ones drop away,One after one, into the dark abyssOf Sleep and Death. The frosts of Trouble layTheir withering touch upon our happiness,Even as the hoar frosts of the Autumn kissThe green lip from the unoffending leaves;And Love and Hope and Youth’s warm cheerfulnessFlit from the heart—Age lonely sits and grieves,Or sadly smiles, while Youth fondly his day-dream weaves.Day draweth to its close—night cometh on⁠—Death standeth dimly on Life’s western verge,Casting his shadow o’er the startled sun⁠—A deeper gloom, that seemeth to emergeFrom gloomy night—and bending forth, to urgeHis eyeless steeds, fleet as the tempest’s blast:And hear we not eternity’s dim surgeThundering anear? At the dread sound aghast,Time hurries headlong, pale with frantic terror, past.

It is the evening of a pleasant day

In these old woods. The sun profusely flings

His flood of light through every narrow way

That winds around the trees. His spirit clings,

In orange mist, around the snowy wings

Of many a patient cloud, that now, since noon,

Over the western mountains idly swings,

Waiting when night shall come—alas! too soon!

To veil the timid blushes of the virgin moon.

The trees with crimson robes are garmented:Clad with frail brilliants by the Autumn frost,For the young leaves, that Spring with beauty fed,Their greenness and luxuriance have lost,Gaining new beauty at too dear a cost:Unnatural beauty, that precedes decay.Too soon, upon the harsh winds wildly toss’d,Leaving the naked trees ghost-like and gray,These leaf-flocks, like vain hopes, will vanish all away.

The trees with crimson robes are garmented:

Clad with frail brilliants by the Autumn frost,

For the young leaves, that Spring with beauty fed,

Their greenness and luxuriance have lost,

Gaining new beauty at too dear a cost:

Unnatural beauty, that precedes decay.

Too soon, upon the harsh winds wildly toss’d,

Leaving the naked trees ghost-like and gray,

These leaf-flocks, like vain hopes, will vanish all away.

How does your sad, yet calm and cheerful guise,Ye melancholy Autumn solitudes,With my own feelings softly harmonize!For though I love the hoar and solemn woods,In all their manifold and changing moods⁠—In gloom and sunshine, storm and quietness,By day, or when the dim night on them broods;Their lightsome glades, their darker mysteries⁠—Yet the sad heart loves a still, calm scene like this.

How does your sad, yet calm and cheerful guise,

Ye melancholy Autumn solitudes,

With my own feelings softly harmonize!

For though I love the hoar and solemn woods,

In all their manifold and changing moods⁠—

In gloom and sunshine, storm and quietness,

By day, or when the dim night on them broods;

Their lightsome glades, their darker mysteries⁠—

Yet the sad heart loves a still, calm scene like this.

Soon will the year like this sweet day have fled,With swift feet speeding noiselessly and fast,As a ghost speeds, to join its kindred dead,In the dark realms of that mysterious vast,The shadow-peopled and eternal past.Life’s current deathward flows—a rapid stream,With clouds and shadows often overcast,Yet lighted often by a sunny beamOf happiness, like sweet thoughts in a gloomy dream.

Soon will the year like this sweet day have fled,

With swift feet speeding noiselessly and fast,

As a ghost speeds, to join its kindred dead,

In the dark realms of that mysterious vast,

The shadow-peopled and eternal past.

Life’s current deathward flows—a rapid stream,

With clouds and shadows often overcast,

Yet lighted often by a sunny beam

Of happiness, like sweet thoughts in a gloomy dream.

Like the brown leaves, our lov’d ones drop away,One after one, into the dark abyssOf Sleep and Death. The frosts of Trouble layTheir withering touch upon our happiness,Even as the hoar frosts of the Autumn kissThe green lip from the unoffending leaves;And Love and Hope and Youth’s warm cheerfulnessFlit from the heart—Age lonely sits and grieves,Or sadly smiles, while Youth fondly his day-dream weaves.

Like the brown leaves, our lov’d ones drop away,

One after one, into the dark abyss

Of Sleep and Death. The frosts of Trouble lay

Their withering touch upon our happiness,

Even as the hoar frosts of the Autumn kiss

The green lip from the unoffending leaves;

And Love and Hope and Youth’s warm cheerfulness

Flit from the heart—Age lonely sits and grieves,

Or sadly smiles, while Youth fondly his day-dream weaves.

Day draweth to its close—night cometh on⁠—Death standeth dimly on Life’s western verge,Casting his shadow o’er the startled sun⁠—A deeper gloom, that seemeth to emergeFrom gloomy night—and bending forth, to urgeHis eyeless steeds, fleet as the tempest’s blast:And hear we not eternity’s dim surgeThundering anear? At the dread sound aghast,Time hurries headlong, pale with frantic terror, past.

Day draweth to its close—night cometh on⁠—

Death standeth dimly on Life’s western verge,

Casting his shadow o’er the startled sun⁠—

A deeper gloom, that seemeth to emerge

From gloomy night—and bending forth, to urge

His eyeless steeds, fleet as the tempest’s blast:

And hear we not eternity’s dim surge

Thundering anear? At the dread sound aghast,

Time hurries headlong, pale with frantic terror, past.

THE BROTHER AND SISTER.

———

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

———

In the days of my early childhood, the little village of ——, separated by green hills and broad fields from the busy city, formed one of the pleasantest summer resorts of the wealthy inhabitants of New York. Many a stately villa was reared upon the banks of the Hudson, many a neat country-house sheltered itself within the winding lanes which traversed the village, for its vicinity to the great mart offered irresistible temptations to those whose hands were chained to the galley of commerce, while their hearts were still wedded to nature. One of the fairest pictures in the “chambers of mine imagery” is that of a large old-fashioned mansion, seated in the midst of a garden “too trim for nature, and too rude for art,” where a long avenue of cherry trees threw a pleasant shade across the lawn, while a rude swing, suspended between two of these sturdy old denizens of the soil, afforded a cool and delightful lounge to the studious and imaginative child. My earliest days were passed in that pleasant home, and my earliest lessons of wisdom learned in the school of that pretty village; therefore it is that my thoughts love to linger around those scenes, and therefore it is that I have fancied others might find something of interest inoneof my reminiscences.

My shortest road to school led through a narrow green lane, rarely traversed by the gay vehicles which dashed along the main avenues of the village, and I was delighted to find such a quiet and shady path, where the turf was always so soft, and the air so fragrant with the breath of flowers. But I was soon induced to take a wide circuit rather than pass the solitary cottage which stood within that secluded lane. It was a low one-story building, with a broad projecting roof, throwing the narrow windows far into shade; and, as if to add to its sombre appearance, some former occupant had painted the house a dull lead color, which, by the frequent washings of the rain, and powderings of wayside dust, had assumed the grayish tint that gave to the cottage its distinctive appellation. Every village has its haunted house, and an evil name had early fallen on the “gray cottage.” Behind it, and so near that three paces from the little porch would lead a person to its very brink, was a deep and rocky ravine, forming a basin for the waters of a rapid brook, which, after flowing in sunshine and music through half the village, fell with sullen plash into the gloom of this wild dell. Some dark and half forgotten tale of guilt had added the horrors of superstition to the natural melancholy of the place, and few of the humbler inhabitants of the neighborhood would have been willing to stand after sunset on the brink of the Robbers’ Glen. It was said that the house, in former times, had been the abode of wicked and desperate men. The earth of the cellar beneath it was heaved up with hillocks like graves, and supernatural sounds had been heard to issue from these mysterious mounds. For many years it had stood untenanted, and the boys of the village often amused themselves by pelting it, at a cautious distance, with stones.

But a “haunted house” had great attractions for the mind of one who revelled in fancies of the wild and wonderful. I was exceedingly anxious to behold the interior of the lonely cottage, which had now become invested with so much dignity in my eyes, and finding a few companions of like spirit, we determined to visit it. We accordingly fixed upon a certain Saturday afternoon, and determined to find some means of ingress into the barred and bolted cottage. A gay and light-hearted troop were we, as we scrambled over rail fences, gathered our aprons full of wild flowers, or chased the bright butterflies which mocked our glad pursuit. But as we entered the lane our merry shouts of laughter ceased, each looked earnestly in the face of the other, as if, for the first time, sensible of the mysterious importance of our undertaking, and, but for shame, several would have retraced their steps. I believe not one of us was insensible to the gloom which seemed suddenly to fall upon us, and as we looked towards the cottage, standing in the deep shadow of a spreading elm, while all else within the lane was glistening in the slant beams of the declining sun, we almost feared to approach the darkened spot. Cautiously advancing, however, and peeping through the rusted keyhole, we found our curiosity entirely baffled by the total darkness of the interior. It was proposed that we should climb the fence and attempt an entrance from the rear of the building, where we should be less likely to be interrupted or discovered by wayfarers, and after a brief consultation, held in hurried whispers, we resolved upon the daring feat. Silently treading the margin of the Robbers’ Glen, we reached the back porch of the little cottage, and beheld one of the window shutters open. We looked into the apartment but saw nothing save the naked walls of the dilapidated room, and as one of our party turned the latch of the door, to our great astonishment, it yielded to the touch and allowed us free entrance. Half frightened at our own success, we stood huddled together in the narrow passage, hesitating to advance, when suddenly a tall woman, clad in the deepest black, and displaying a countenance as white and (as it seemed to our excited fancies) as ghostly and rigid as a sheeted corpse, stood in the midst of us. How we ever got out of the house I cannot tell. I remember our desperate speed, the wild and headlong haste with which we threw ourselves over the low fence, and the total exhaustion we felt when once fairly escaped from that frightful place. As we lay on the grass, to rest before returning home, each one told her own story of that terrible apparition. None had heard a footstep when that fearful woman came among us; none had seen her approach, and though the sound of our own buzzing voices, and the fixed attention with which we were just then regarding the door of the apartment, which we wished yet dreaded to enter, might easily account for both these circumstances, yet we all came to the conclusion that we had seen a ghost, or, at the least, a witch.

On the following Sunday we were scarcely less alarmed, for, just as the services were commencing, the same tall figure, arrayed in deep mourning and veiled to her very feet, slowly proceeded up the aisle and took her seat on the step of the altar. My blood ran cold as I looked upon her, and when I afterwards heard that she had recently become the occupant of the gray cottage, my dread of her supernatural powers gave place to a belief that she was in some way or other mysteriously connected with the guilty deeds of which that cottage had been the scene. I did not trouble myself to remember that the events which had flung such horror around the Robbers’ Glen must have occurred at least half a century previous, and therefore could have little to do with a woman yet in the prime of life. The curiosity which her presence excited was not confined to the children of the village. Her tall stature, her sombre garb, her veiled face, and her singular choice of a place of abode excited the conjectures of many an older and wiser head. But whatever interest her appearance had awakened, it was not destined to be satisfied. Those who, led by curiosity or real kindness, sought to visit her, were repulsed from the threshold; no one was allowed to enter her house; all prying inquiries were silenced, either by stern reserve or bitter vituperations; even the village pastor was refused admittance to her solitude; and, after months and even years, as little was known of her as on the day she first appeared. She lived entirely alone; once in each week she was seen walking towards the city, and on Sunday she was regularly to be found at the foot of the pulpit—but beyond this nothing was to be discovered. Few, very few, had ever distinctly seen the face whose paleness gleamed out from the folds of her thick veil, and, after some time, the people found other objects of interest, while the children carefully avoided all approach to the haunted cottage, and could scarcely repress a shudder of horror as they heard the low rustle of her dusky garments on each returning Sunday.

Years passed on; circumstances occurred to remove me from the village, and the various changes which the heart experiences between the period of joyous childhood and earnest womanhood, had almost effaced from my mind all recollection of the “black witch,” when I was unexpectedly and rather strangely made acquainted with her true history. It was a tale of ordinary trials and sorrows, such as might have befallen many others, and yet there are peculiarities in the sufferings of every individual as strongly marked as are the traits of character. There was no supernatural interest in her story, but it invested her in my mind with the dignity of unmerited sorrow, and it enables me to open for your perusal, gentle reader, another of the many strange written pages of human nature.

For more than twelve years Madeline Graham had been an only child, the darling of her invalid mother, and the pride of her doting father, when the birth of a brother opened a new channel for the affections of all the family. During the earliest period of his infancy the child seemed feebly struggling for existence, but he gradually acquired strength to resist the frequent attacks of disease, and though he gave no promise of robust health, his constitution seemed sufficiently invigorated to warrant a hope of prolonged life. The most unwearied exertions, however, were necessary, and his guidance over the very threshold of being was a task of more difficulty than the lifelong care of a hardy and healthy child. Yet the anxiety which his precarious state awakened, and the constant attention which he required, seemed to endear him the more closely to the little family. He became their idol, the object of their incessant solicitude, and comfort, happiness, even life itself was sacrificed to his welfare. Ere he had attained his third year, Mrs. Graham, who had long been in declining health, sank beneath the fatigue and anxiety she had endured, while, with her dying breath, she enjoined upon Madeline the most devoted attention to her darling boy. Madeline scarcely needed such admonition, for, from his very birth, her brother had been the object of her passionate love; but such a charge, given at such a solemn moment, sank deep into the heart of the young and sensitive girl. Falling on her knees beside her mother, she uttered a solemn vow that no earthly affection and no other duty should ever induce her to place her brother’s interests secondary to her own. A smile of grateful tenderness lit up the face of the dying woman, and her last glance thanked Madeline for the self-sacrifice to which she had thus unconsciously pledged herself.

From that hour the young Alfred became his sister’s especial charge. Young as she was, her father knew that he could trust her latent strength of character, and when she took her brother, even as a child, to her bosom, he felt assured that his boy would never need a mother’s care.

Madeline Graham was no common character. Though she had scarcely counted her fifteenth summer, she had grown up tall and stately, with a face almost severe in its fixed and classical beauty, while her manners, calm almost to coldness, were scarcely such as are usually found connected with youthful feeling and girlish simplicity. Educated solely by her parents, Madeline had acquired some of the characteristic traits of both. To her mother’s morbid sensibility and enthusiasm she united her father’s reserve and fixedness of purpose. She possessed strong passions, but an innate power of repressing them seemed born with them. Her love for truth was unbounded; even the common courtesies of society seemed to her but as so many fetters on the limbs of the goddess of her idolatry, and, therefore, even in her girlhood, her manners had become characterized by a sincerity almost amounting tobrusquerie. Her talents were of the highest order, and her habits of reflection, which were singularly developed in one so young, enabled her to reap a rich harvest of knowledge from her father’s careful culture. She was one to be admired, and praised, and wondered at, but she was scarcely calculated to awaken affection. The spontaneous gush of feeling, the guileless frankness of a heart that knows no evil and dreads no danger, the warm sympathy of a youthful nature, the sweet susceptibility which, though dangerous to its possessor, is yet so winning a trait of girlish character—all these attributes, which seem to belong to the spring-time of life, even as the buds and blossoms are inseparably connected with the renewed youth of the visible creation, were wanting to Madeline.

But it was from the religious opinions of her parents that the deepest tint of coloring was imparted to the mind of Madeline. Mrs. Graham, a lineal descendant of one of the sternest and most intolerant of the puritans, had early united herself to one of the strictest of strict sects, and had been accustomed to practise a system of self-denial as rigid, if not quite as visible, as the penances of cloistered austerity. The impulses of innocent gaiety, the promptings of harmless vanity, the wanderings of youthful fancy were regarded by her only as evidences of a sinful nature, which ought to awaken remorse as keen as that which visits the penitent bosom of deep-dyed guilt. In the enthusiasm of her early zeal she seemed lifted above the weaknesses of humanity, and even the gray-headed members of the Christian community looked upon her as a chosen servant of the truth. But her excitement had been too great; the hour of reaction came, and it was when lukewarmness and weariness had taken full possession of her feelings for a season, that she first met with her future husband. Ever in extremes, an earthly passion now absorbed the heart which had consumed its energies in zeal without knowledge, and she married Mr. Graham without allowing herself to look upon the broad line of separation which lay between them. Had she ever made religion a question she would have learned the fact; for if good taste forbade him to obtrude his opinions upon others, yet love of truth prevented him from seeking to conceal them. Mr. Graham was a skeptic. The great truths of revealed religion were to him but as fables to amuse the multitude; and while in the works of creation he recognised the hand of a Deity, he read not in the hearts of men the necessity of a Redeemer. Mrs. Graham was horror-stricken when she discovered that her husband was not a Christian, and in proportion as the ardor of youthful passion faded into the tender light of conjugal affection, the terrible abyss which yawned between them became more painfully visible to her sight. The attempt to change his opinions again awakened her slumbering zeal, and with all the penitence of one who was conscious of having fallen from a state of elevated piety, she endeavored to make amends for her temporary alienation by renewed devotion. But her system of ascetic severity was little calculated to make religion attractive to her husband. The “beauty of holiness” was hidden beneath the sackcloth and ashes with which her mistaken judgment endued it, and Mr. Graham learned to look upon her piety as theone defect, rather than thecrowning grace, in his wife’s character. Her sincere affection, and a desire to preserve domestic harmony, at length compelled her to give up all attempts to change her husband’s opinions, and she was therefore doomed to cherish a secret sorrow which wasted her very life away. The ascetic devotion which seemed so unlovely to the husband, produced a very different effect upon the imagination of Madeline. Accustomed to regard her mother as the best of human beings, she early learned to reverence and imitate her fervent zeal. Her reserve of character induced her to conceal her impressions even from the mother who labored to deepen them, and no one suspected the severe self-discipline which, even in childhood, she practised in imitation of her parent’s example. Her father, who, while despising Christianity, yet paid it the involuntary homage of considering it a very proper safeguard for women and children, did not attempt to interfere in her religious education. He contented himself with cultivating the field of mind, and left her mother to sow her moral nature with the tares of prejudice along with the seed of true piety.

Madeline had scarcely attained her twentieth year when a sudden and violent illness deprived her of her father, and left her the sole guardian of her young brother. Upon looking into Mr. Graham’s affairs, it was found that his profession had only procured for him a comfortable subsistence, and, as his income died with him, the orphans were almost penniless. The small house which they had long occupied, together with its furniture and a library of some value, were all that remained. To convert these into money was Madeline’s first care, and her next step was to invest the amount thus obtained in the name of her brother, as a fund for his education and future subsistence. For herself she seemed to have no anxieties, and with a degree of disinterestedness, as rare as it was praiseworthy, she determined to derive her own maintenance from the labor of her hands. With characteristic energy she made all her arrangements without consulting any one, or asking the advice of her father’s best friends. The bold self-reliance which formed her most striking and least amiable trait was now fully developed, and she felt no need of other aid than that of her own strong mind. She had a deep design to work out in future—a darling scheme to mature—a hope, which in her stern nature assumed the form of a determination to compass, and all sacrifices seemed light which could aid her to a successful issue. Need I add, that her brother was the object of all her future aspirations.

Alfred Graham had already given evidence of precocious genius which seemed fully to justify Madeline’s ambition. Nature in his case had displayed her usual compensating kindness, and since she had bestowed on him a dwarfed and diminutive form, a delicate and fragile body, made amends by giving him a countenance of almost feminine beauty, and a mind filled with the most exquisite perceptions. He was born a poet. His fervid feelings, his nervous temperament, his delicate sense of beauty in the moral and physical world—even the very fragility of constitution which shut him out from the rude conflicts of real life, and confined him within the limits of the fairyland of reverie—all seemed to point out his future vocation. Too young to frame in numbers the fancies of his childish hours, he yet breathed into his sister’s ear the eloquent words of pure and passionless enthusiasm, and Madeline’s heart thrilled with high hopes of his future glory. But she did not suffer nature to direct his course. Long ere the child had seriously commenced the work of education, she had destined him to become an apostle of Christianity to the benighted world of paganism. Imaginative, high minded, stern, and self-sacrificing, Madeline was just such a woman as in the olden time might have embroidered the cross upon the mantle of her best beloved one, and sent him forth to fight the battles of the holy church. But the missionary of modern days has a far more difficult and therefore far nobler office to perform. Amid belted knights and men-at-arms to do battle with myriads of the Paynim foe is a lighter task than that which falls upon him, who goes forth alone and single handed to face the more insidious foes of ignorance and sin amid the blinded and perverse heathen. Yet such was the high and holy duty to which Madeline destined her brother, while her own ambition was limited to the hope of being the companion of his toils and his labors. She looked forward to the time when they should go forth hand in hand into the howling wilderness of superstition, with the gospel as a light to their feet and a lamp to their path, while they scattered the blessings of truth among the benighted idolaters of distant lands.

As Alfred advanced in life he learned the full extent of his sister’s sacrifices for his welfare. He saw her relinquishing all the intellectual pleasures she had once enjoyed, and devoting herself day and night to the humble labors of the needle. He noticed her attention to his most trifling wishes, and he did not fail to observe that while his dress was of the neatest and finest texture, and his food of the delicate kind which best suited the capricious appetite of an invalid, Madeline practised the strictest economy in all that affected only her own individual comfort. Yet Alfred did not love Madeline with the entire affection which could alone repay her devotedness. There was too much awe, too much fear blended with his feelings towards her. Her strong mind and stern integrity seemed ever ready to rebuke the vacillating temper and morbid sensibility of the youth. Superior to temptations which had no power over herself, she had little charity for the failings of another; and the boyish errors, often but the earliest trial of principles which the world will hereafter put to a far more severe test—were regarded by her as heavy sins. Educated in the seclusion of home, she could not imagine the dangers which beset a boy from his first entrance into the miniature world of a large school. Instead of rewarding with her approbation the first struggles of principle with passion in the youthful heart, she seemed only shocked and mortified that any conflict should have been necessary, and was more keenly sensible to the weakness which had required defence, than to the strength which had offered resistance. Such mistaken views of character soon checked the flow of confidence between them. Alfred could not open his whole heart to one who was incapable of comprehending all his feelings, and though he never needed a mother’s care, he early learned the want of a mother’s sympathy.

Madeline had seen sufficient proofs of Alfred’s facile temper and instability of purpose to dread his introduction into scenes of greater temptation, and, vainly fancying that he would be safer any where than in the busy city, she preferred that he should enter a distant college. At the age of seventeen he was removed from his sister’s influence to enter upon his new course of studies, and although at first truly unhappy at this separation from his only relative, it was not long before the absence of her keen eye and stern rebuke became a positive relief to him. Hitherto his life had passed amid the sombre shades of domestic life, and with all Madeline’s noble traits of character, she lacked the tact, so truly feminine, which enables a woman to throw sunshine around the humblest home. The cheerful song, the pleasant jest, the merry voice, the bright smile, the buoyant step—all the lighter graces without which a woman’s character, however elevated and noble, is but as a Corinthian column without its capital, or as a rose without its perfume—were wanting to the unbending nature of Madeline. The world was to her a scene of probation and preparation, and to waste a thought upon enlivening its grave duties seemed to her as idle as planting flowers around a sepulchre. When therefore Alfred found himself amid a throng of young men from every part of the country—some ambitious of renown, some fond of study for its own sake, some utterly careless of present duties, some slothful and indifferent to honor, but all equally alive to pleasurable excitement and equally eager in the pursuit of amusement, he felt as if he had suddenly been transported to a world of which he had never dreamed. His susceptible temper rendered him an easy prey to the lures of gay society. Intellectual enjoyments mingled their pure odors with the fumes of the wine cup, and the refinements of elegant taste served to veil the native deformity of vice, until, long before he had learned the danger of his position, he was bound in the strong toils of sensual indulgence. Full of intellect, and wonderfully acute in his perceptions, he soon became distinguished for his genius, and the heart of his sister was often gladdened by tidings of his success. But she knew not that he was drinking from more turbid waters than those which flow from the fountain of wisdom—she dreamed not that the offering which she hoped to bring pure and unpolluted to the altar of Heaven was already blemished and unworthy to be presented.

Alfred Graham was not designed by nature to be a votary of evil. Temptation had found him weak to resist, but conscience was still true to her charge, and the youth was as free from habitual vice as he was destitute of unsullied virtue. When the vacations brought him to his quiet home, the better feelings of his nature were ever aroused; he respected the virtue of his sister’s character, and when surrounded by that pure atmosphere which envelopes real goodness, he forgot even to harbor a sinful thought. But day by day the profession to which he was destined became more repugnant to his feelings, and after deferring as long as possible the announcement of his wishes, he at length summoned courage to reveal the truth to his sister. The blow fell upon Madeline with almost stunning violence. He had just left college crowned with honors and flushed with success, and Madeline was exulting in the hope of his future usefulness, when he revealed to her his change of purpose. The first intimation of his unwillingness to devote himself to the church, almost drove her to frenzy. All the violence of her secret nature broke forth in the fearful threats of temporal and eternal punishment which she predicted for such apostacy, and Alfred’s feeble temper was actually crushed beneath the weight of her indignation. He trembled at the storm which he had raised, and when, after days of entreaty and expostulation, Madeline, the stern, proud Madeline, even knelt at his feet, and implored the child of her affections to listen to the voice of God, speaking by the lips of her who had ever been as a mother to his heart, the weak youth yielded to her prayers and promised what he well knew he could not conscientiously perform. His was not the free-will offering of talents and time and health and strength in the service of the Redeemer. He entered the sanctuary as one driven onward by irresistible force, not as one drawn by the cords of love and piety.

Time passed on and taught Alfred a lesson of deep hypocrisy. His timid and feeble nature could neither resist the influence of evil nor brave its consequences, and therefore it was that the fair face of the youth became more and more characterized by sanctity in proportion as his heart became less susceptible of its influences. Happy is it for mankind that the eye rarely pierces beneath the veil which conceals the hideous depravity of the heart. Who but would have shrunk from the delicate beauty of Alfred’s gentle countenance—who but would have shuddered at the contemplation of those clear blue eyes, that feminine complexion, the delicate rose tint of his thin cheek, and the exceeding loveliness of his chiselled and flexible lips, if the dark mass of evil thoughts which lay beneath that fair seeming, could have been discerned. Yet Alfred was far from being happy. Unstable as water, he had no power over his own impulses, and remorse preyed upon him, even while he sought to drown his senses in indulgence. Conscience was his perpetual tormentor, and yet a constant course of sinning and repenting left him neither time nor will to struggle effectually with his errors.

But a still darker change came upon his character. His health, which had several times required a suspension of his studies, began again to fail, a short time before the period fixed upon for his ordination, and he eagerly seized the opportunity of deferring the dreaded ordeal. The physicians ordered perfect relaxation from all mental labors, and unfortunately for his future peace, the listlessness of unwonted idleness led him to examine a chest of old papers, the accumulated records of many years, where he accidentally met with a catalogue of his father’s library. Alfred was so young at the time of his father’s death that he retained little recollection of him, and Madeline had carefully kept him in ignorance of those skeptical opinions which had so grieved both mother and daughter. It was with no little surprise, therefore, that Alfred found the names of so great a number of infidel works among his father’s books. He pondered long upon the subject, and at length conjectured the truth. This excited his interest, and a vague curiosity, awakened rather by a belief in his sister’s desire to conceal from him his father’s opinions, led him secretly to procure the prohibited volumes. Upon the feeble mind of one who was “blown about by every wind of doctrine,” and who yearned after worldly pleasures while he shrunk with unutterable disgust from religious duties, the subtleties of the skeptics had a most fatal effect. He had never been well grounded in the faith, and the doubts now suggested to his mind were exactly such things as in his present state of feeling he would gladly have adopted as truths. These six months of respite from theological studies were spent in the careful perusal of all skeptical writings, and when Alfred resumed his former pursuits the plague spot of infidelity had already given evidence of the fatal disease which was spreading over his moral nature.

If my tale were designed only for the eye of the student of human nature, I might dwell long upon the strange incongruity of feeling and action, the wonderful contrariety between principle and practice, and all the complicated workings of a wayward heart, which characterized the deceptive course of the young student. With his usual timid hypocrisy he concealed every real feeling, every genuine impulse. His conduct was apparently irreproachable, his principles seemed unimpeachable, and he even schooled himself to come forward and enrol himself beneath the banner of the cross, when he was but too conscious that he had already trampled the holy emblem beneath his feet. Why did he carry his deceit to such an awful extent? Alas! who can tell just where the waves of sin may stay their whelming force? He feared the world’s dread laugh at his apostacy, he shrunk from the scorn of all good men, and, above all, his mind absolutely cowered at the thought of his sister’s bitter wrath. So he buried his secret within his own bosom, and trusting to some future chance to rescue him from the irksome duties of his profession, prepared himself for the ceremony of ordination. But he was not yet sensible of the terrible power of Conscience.

The day came, and, as usual, crowds were assembled to witness the dedication of the youthful candidates. The two young men—for Alfred had a companion, a pious, humble-minded, meek-hearted youth—stood before the altar to offer their vows. Madeline, the weeping but happy Madeline—who had sacrificed her youth and health and beauty, aye and the hopes ever dearest to a woman’s heart, to this one darling hope—was there too, and as she looked on her brother bending before the altar, while his bright curls just caught one straggling sunbeam which shed a glory around his youthful brow, she was heard to murmur “Lo, here am I, Lord, and the child which thou hast given me.”

The services commenced—the prayers of the congregation had arisen to Heaven, the incense of praise had floated upward on the solemn melody of the organ, the exhortation to the candidates had been affectionately uttered by an aged pastor, and the moment came when the presentation of the two was made to the Bishop by the officiating clergyman. The solemn appeal was then uttered⁠—

“Brethren, if there be any of you who knoweth any impediment or any notable crime on either of these persons for the which he ought not to be admitted to the holy office, let him come forth in the name of God and show what the crime or impediment is.”

At these words a sudden terror seemed to seize upon Alfred Graham. His frame shook with suppressed emotion, his countenance became livid, and his fine features were strangely contorted as if some sudden pang had convulsed him. The next instant he uttered a faint cry and fell prostrate to the ground, while his very life-blood was poured at the foot of the altar which he had dared to touch with polluted hands.

He was borne to his home in utter insensibility. The sting of conscience had finished the work which disease had long since begun, and the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs had been the consequence of his unnatural excitement and self-command. All that medical skill could effect was tried, but without success, and ere the lapse of another day it was known that Alfred Graham was sinking into the arms of death. There was no time for repentance—no time to combat prejudices and awaken better impulses. He lay as if in the deep torpor of insensibility, until aroused by some cordial administered by his physician, when his strength seemed to rally, and raising himself on his pillow, he addressed his sister in words which fell like molten lead upon her heart. With all the eloquence of passion he poured forth a wild confession of his errors and his doubts, and then, in language equally fervid but far more bitter, he reproached her—herwho had devoted her whole life to his welfare—as the cause of all his guilt. He accused her of having crushed his timid spirit by sternness and unbending rigor—of having taught him hypocrisy by her fierce contempt for his weaknesses—of having killed him by forcing him to a profession which he hated and contemned.

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