For the Southern Literary Messenger.
"McCarthy is no more!" said George, as I rushed out on learning his arrival from the scene of conflict. "Raymond reserved his fire; then deliberately taking aim, sent his ball through the heart of our gallant friend, who stood firm and undaunted to receive his fire."
"Good God!" I exclaimed, "was there no man present whose humanity prompted him to interpose for the prevention of so murderous a deed?"
"The attempt was made," said George, "but unavailingly. Raymond was the challenged party, and with a savage sternness of purpose insisted on his right, according to the rules which were agreed upon to govern the conflict."
"He is a hardened villain," cried I, "stained with the blood of four victims; and palsied be the hand that has robbed society of so pure and generous a spirit as McCarthy's."
Struck with horror at the occurrence, and overwhelmed with sorrow at the loss of so worthy a friend, needing consolation myself rather than capable of affording any, I hurried nevertheless to the house of the deceased, to share, if not to alleviate the sufferings of his bereaved mother and sister. Never, never shall I forget the scene which there awaited me. The lifeless body of McCarthy, weltering in his own blood, lay extended on a large folding table. The ball had entered the right side, and with fatal energy had passed through the body, leaving a corresponding wound on the left. The mother and sister, with disordered hair and the wild expression of maniacs, stood at either side of the corpse, applying their mouths to the wounds from which the blood was still oozing; nor could anything short of absolute violence withdraw them from the body. They wept not—they spoke not; but in all the wild impassioned energy of despair, kept their mouths still applied to the gaping wounds of the son and brother.
The deceased was a young gentleman, who inherited a handsome estate in the south of Ireland. He had but the year before become of age, and returned from Trinity College, where his vigorous understanding and zeal in the pursuit of literature had won for him the first honors of that venerable institution. Frank, generous and beneficent, he seemed intent on applying the energies of his active mind and the resources of an ample fortune, to the moral and physical improvement of his tenantry and dependants. A year of unexampled scarcity, gave him an early opportunity of developing those generous purposes of his pure and elevated mind. To the lower classes of his tenantry he remitted a part of their rents, and to the surrounding poor he distributed provisions, exacting from them in return, only increased attention to cleanliness and neatness in their persons and dwellings. He had besides a large tract of unreclaimed peat land, on which, at proper intervals, he erected comfortable stone dwellings, and let portions of this land to the industrious poor, requiring no rent from them except the application to the soil which they were to cultivate for their own benefit, of some bushels of lime, easily procured from the contiguous quarries. Thus, in a very short period, he effected a perceptible change in the condition of his tenantry, while he was in fact developing new resources for the indulgence of further beneficence. His tenantry already looked to him as a friend and protector; they submitted their difficulties to his arbitration, and applied to him for redress for their grievances, when oppressed or maltreated by any of the petty gentry of the vicinage. In addition to this generous devotion to their interests, McCarthy possessed advantages, which are no where more fully appreciated than among the imaginative and half chivalrous Irish peasantry. With a Moorish head, and face of the finest cast, often met with among the Milesian gentry of Ireland, he had a form developed in muscular and beautiful proportions, much above the common stature, resembling his ancestors in that particular, who from their large and muscular frames, obtained familiarly the appellation ofMcCarthy Mores. The cordial frankness of his manners too, assured the peasants who approached him, that his was no affected interest in their welfare and happiness. Thus endowed with every quality of mind, heart and person that could win esteem and confidence, was it to be wondered at that he should have become, almost at once, the idol of a warm-hearted and grateful people? Alas! they had too many opportunities of contrasting his kindness and generosity, with the indifference, if not harshness of neighboring landlords; or with the odious oppressions of mercenary agents to whom they confided their estates. To this latter class Raymond belonged; he was one of that wretched faction that so long kept Ireland in degradation. A Palatine by extraction—a member of the Orange Club—distinguished for his zeal in the unholy objects of that mischievous and once powerful association—without fortune and without education, save a limited knowledge of accounts, he possessed cunning and contrivance enough to win his way to the agency of a large estate, belonging to an absentee nobleman, who appeared once in three years among his tenantry, only to exasperate their feelings by walking at the head of an Orange procession. Raymond had a pecuniary claim against one of the humblest of McCarthy's tenantry, and in the hour of his greatest need, was enforcing it with the spirit of a Shylock. McCarthy remonstrated—offered to insure the payment, if he would extend the time until the ripening crop should enable the poor man to meet the demand. Raymond insultingly refused—charged McCarthy with rendering the tenantry of the surrounding country insubordinate to their landlords, and creating discontent among his neighbor's tenantry, by ill-timed indulgence to his own; and intimated in McCarthy a purpose inconsistent with loyalty to his sovereign. Unhappily, instead of inflicting on the miscreant the punishment which his strong arm could so easily have enforced, yielding to a barbarous usage which his better judgment must have condemned, McCarthy sent him a hostile message on the following morning. Proud of meeting such an antagonist—conscious of his unerring dexterity in the use of a weapon which on three former occasions had been fatally true in his hands—and anxious to remove a neighbor whose virtues and whose energy were a painful rebuke, and promised to be a troublesome check on his own views—Raymond gladly accepted the challenge, and dictated through his friend, as vindictive as himself, the terms of the combat. The result is known; and long shall the impressions made by that result, leave their traces in the breasts of the inhabitants of Kenmare. Amidst the general sorrow for what was regarded as a public bereavement, there was one heart on which it fell with a blight that withered every joy, and dried up at its very source the fountain of every hope. The mother and the daughter were privileged in their wailings; but there was one, who had received from him only the first evidences of newly kindled love, but who, silent and unobserved, had reposed on that evidence, slight though it was, all that she hoped for of earthly felicity. It was Ellen—to whom an expression of tenderness which her love made her interpret aright, and a hurried earnestness of manner in his last adieu, had whispered that the heart in which she had unconsciously garnered up her happiness, reciprocated a feeling which she strove to conceal even from herself. Daily intercourse with both, too plainly told me that the world contained but one being capable of interesting Ellen. I saw the wasting of a flame, which I feared would consume her; and believing her every way worthy of my noble-hearted friend, I sought to fix his attention on the charms of her person, and the elegance and purity of her mind, without wounding his delicacy by an intimation that I believed he had any hold on her affections. At first his mind was so occupied with schemes for ameliorating the condition of his tenantry, that they seemed to render him indifferent to all besides. The natural enjoyments of his age and station seemed to be shut out by these thoughts; and it was only when the approach of the fatal rencontre with Raymond caused him to look more closely into the recesses of his own breast, that McCarthy felt that Ellen was not to him an object of indifference. He sought her presence the evening before his fall. There was in his manner that which told the watchful eye of a lover that her love was returned. Yet he breathed no word of love—he sought no pledge of affection, lest the event of the morrow should pierce too deeply a heart which he now felt he would not wound for the world. Leaving to other friends the task of consoling, if possible, the distracted relatives of the deceased, I sought the home of Ellen. I found her alone; she started wildly on seeing me.
"Is it true?" she exclaimed; "is he dead? Say, is McCarthy dead?"
"It is too true, Ellen," said I; "our friend—our generous, noble-hearted friend, has fallen by the hands of a privileged assassin."
"Friend!" said Ellen impetuously, "he was to me—" and checking herself in the expression which to me was not necessary to convey what she meant, she sunk back, relaxed and colorless, into her chair; her bosom heaved as if contending with a tide of emotions—she sobbed hysterically, and at last found temporary relief in a flood of tears.
Poor Ellen, alas! the relief was but temporary. The wild tide of passionate sorrow, it is true, subsided soon; but it had left deep furrows in the broken heart of Ellen, which time could not efface. Her spirits sunk daily; her beautifully rounded figure became lank and attenuated; her eye lost its lustre, and she shrunk instinctively from the gaze of all, as if anxious to hide the secret of that grief which was consuming her. Her physicians recommended change of air and scene; they were tried—but no scene had a charm, no air had a balm for poor Ellen.
Twelve months rolled by, and a gloomy pageant was seen passing through the streets of Kenmare; that pageant was conducting to the family vault, the lifeless remains of Ellen Mahony.
The fatal ball which drank the life's blood of the generous McCarthy, broke also the heart of Ellen. Nor were they the only victims immolated on the altar of a false honor. The mother of McCarthy sunk prematurely into the grave; and his lovely sister continued to manifest for many years, by occasional fits of melancholy madness, the severe shock which her heart and understanding had received from the premature fall of an idolized brother.
The pursuit of professional knowledge called me far away from the scene of these occurrences. The fate of McCarthy and Ellen presented itself less frequently to my mind, occluded by new scenes and avocations. In 1818, six years after the fatal catastrophe, I returned to visit, for the last time, my relatives in Kenmare. Mary, the lovely sister of my murdered friend, bereft of every nearer relative, was residing with her uncle, a distinguished officer of the Irish Brigade, who with a constitution broken down by the fatigues of an eventful life, had retired to a small estate near the lakes of Killarney. I owed it to the memory of my deceased friend, to visit the last surviving object of his affection. The day was full of freshness and beauty, and the country through which I must travel to reach the seat of Colonel McCarthy, is not surpassed by any in the world, in the wild grandeur of its scenery. The road from Kenmare winds along a chain of lakes, now narrowing into deep channels, hurrying precipitously their angry and foaming waters into reservoirs below—now expanding into broad and silvery inland seas, studded with verdant islands, blooming with Arbutus and Lauristina. From the unruffled surface of these lakes, you behold reflected, as from an expanded mirror, the images of the over-hanging mountains, wooded to their tops, and varying in the hues of the dense foliage that covers them with every varying stratum of soil, from their bases to their summits. The high and threatening Turk Mountain yields its reluctant base to the winding road. The beautiful Peninsula of Mucrus is seen in full view. Its venerable Abbey, still exhibiting traces of its former grandeur, containing within its sombre walls the slumbering remains of many a gallant knight and gentle maiden, of the humble and the great, in indiscriminate oblivion. The proud mansion of the Herberts, still in fine keeping—the long vistas opening in every direction on some cultivated villa or rich demesne; the town of Killarney, with its spires and undulating lines of white buildings; the mansions of the Kenmares, the Cronins, and O'Connells,—all seen in distant perspective, afford a coup d'oeil unsurpassed in beauty and natural munificence by any in the world. As I revisited these scenes which my boyhood loved to trace, there stole upon my heart a melancholy joy; it was indeed "pleasant but mournful to the soul." The friends with whom I had enjoyed these scenes were gone, or hurried far apart by the varying engagements of busy life. To one of those friends this journey was devoted, and his virtues and his fate rose before me in vivid colors. The tear rose unbidden to my eye, and dimmed for awhile the bright scene before me. Thus attuned to melancholy, I approached about ten o'clock the residence of Colonel McCarthy. The modest but tasteful dwelling was situated on a small eminence in the centre of a basin, formed by a hill in the rear, and two projecting wings, open and expanding to the south and southeast, having in full view before it the ancient castles of Dunloe and Desmond—the beautiful lower lake and its crowning ornament, the island of Innisfallen—Ross, the majestic castle of the O'Donoghues—and to the right the bold Mountain of Tornies, with its foaming cataract, appearing to the distant eye like the giant guardian of the place, with his silvery beard flowing on his venerable breast. The grounds were tastefully laid out, and the regularity and order that was observable in all the decorations of the place, gave evidence of a superintending mind trained to discipline; while the surrounding scenery bespoke it an appropriate refuge for the warrior worn with toil and years.
As I approached, I beheld a female form sitting on a little eminence to the right of the house, which was decorated with a cluster of white pines. I could not mistake the light and graceful form of the beautiful Mary. It was she, much as I had beheld her six years before. Her large blue eye had the same wildness of expression which was observable in it after the death of her brother; her figure was if anything more beautiful, set off by a dress which she had selected in the wild imaginings of her sorrow, to fit her in a special manner for communion with the spirits of her mother and brother; her hair was loose, but carefully combed, flowing gracefully on her shoulders; her bust was incased in a plain white spencer, most studiously fitted to her person; and she wore hanging in loose folds around her, a pure and virgin white drapery, that was rivalled by the pellucid whiteness of her uncovered neck, hand and arm. This dress, as I afterwards learned, she always wore when the mind gave way before periodical melancholy; and its approach was too truly announced by the cautious vigilance with which she was observed to hide from her friends the preparations for her strange attire. As I approached, I saw too plainly that Mary had no thought for any object before her.
"Mary," said I, "do you not know me? do you not know E——, the friend of your brother?"
"Oh yes," said she, keeping her eye steadily fixed as on some object towards the lake. "Yes, yes," said she in a hurried manner. Then placing her soft hand gently in my arm, she said, "Go, good spirit, go; I want my mother and Sandy. See, they are coming; Mary will yet have a mother and brother."
I spoke, I reasoned, I entreated her to come with me into the presence of her uncle.
She replied with a hysterical laugh, and said, "He too is gone with them."
I turned towards the house, and all there seemed silent and full of sorrow. The Colonel's servant, with eyes swollen from weeping, replied to my inquiries about his master, that he had that morning expired, having for some days suffered intensely from the effects of his old wounds.
"And who," said I, "remains to give consolation to the poor and forlorn Mary?"
"Ah," said John, "Miss Mary is always light when any sorrow comes on the family. The Dunloe family are coming here to take Miss Mary home with them."
"God grant," said I, "she may be soothed by their kindness. Has she no attendant, John?"
"Yes sir, but my poor master said it was best not to trouble her when she is in her strange way."
I wound my way back slowly and mournfully from this house of sorrow. I have since passed from scene to scene; I have witnessed the agonies of many a breaking heart, and have been myself the subject of much sorrow and anguish; but never did I witness blight and desolation equal to that brought on the house of McCarthy by the murderous hand of Raymond.
E.
Henry County.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
MORNA.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
BY GEO. WATTERSTON.
BY GEO. WATTERSTON.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
NO. I.
NO. I.
Will your honor hear me through, before you pronounce sentence.—Old Play.
I was the son of a country clergyman, who, passionately fond of literature himself, determined to send me into the world with a good collegiate education. I went through the course of study at the University of ——, studied hard, graduated with considerable distinction, and was very fully impressed with the idea that I was a youth of fine parts and acquirements. On leaving college, I determined to spend a twelvemonth in recreation and amusement, before I entered upon the study of a profession.
On my first introduction into the society of the active world, I expected of course, to command that homage to my superior talents and acquirements which I thought I so richly merited, and which was so willingly awarded by the young men at the University of ——. But I was not only treated with indifference, but contempt. I soon acquired the character of a conceited coxcomb—a dogmatist without knowledge or talents. Few of the enlightened part of the community condescended to converse with me on equal terms; my challenges for argument, in order to discover my abilities, were disregarded: and I had the mortification of having the reputation of a fool, without the opportunity as I thought, of correcting the impression. This treatment determined me to anticipate the time I had allotted for the commencement of the study of a profession. The consciousness that I possessed talents, and the illiberal treatment I conceived I had met with from the world, excited within me, an ambition of the most corroding nature. I was determined to extort from an envious world, that respect which I believed was so unworthily withheld. I had a restless desire to chalk out my fortunes unassisted. With a single eye to my purpose, I placed myself somewhat in a hostile attitude to the world. Such was the uncompromising nature of my pride, and such the ill-judged confidence in my own abilities, that I enjoyed no man's friendship, and sought the patronage of none. In two months after I left the University of ——, I purchased a few books, and commenced the study of the law. For two years, I gave the most unremitting, untiring attention to my books. Many nights did I toil over the dry pages of Coke, until the east was streaked with the approach of returning day. Many times was my mind so far absorbed, by intense and abstract thought, that I have been forced suddenly to throw down my books and count the tiles on the roof of the house, to recall my aberrated thoughts and prevent absolute derangement. There is always an exhilaration of feeling which attends mental excitement, that renders the life of a student happy; and, while my health remained unimpaired, my hours of study passed pleasantly away. But intense application began to affect my health, and consequently my spirits; a melancholy sat continually on my "faded brow." I became unhappy, without then knowing why; yet I never lost sight of my unalterable resolve, to make those crouch to my importance, who had once spurned me from their presence. Occasionally the idea would recur, "would it not be better to return to my social feelings, unbosom myself to my relatives, and be content with the good opinion of those with whom I associated;" but pride and ambition would soon silence such intimations of my better nature, and goad me on to the attainment of my object at any sacrifice. In looking back through a period of more than threescore years, I can distinctly recollect that sullen pride, that mortified but unsubdued ambition which shut me out from the pleasures of social intercourse, and "preyed like the canker worm, on the vitals of my repose."
On perceiving the decline of my health and spirits, my father, with little persuasion, prevailed on me to take out license and commence the practise of my profession. By devotion to my studies, I had acquired such a knowledge of the elementary works, as enabled me to pass a sustainable examination before the judges of ——. In the twenty-first year of my age, on the twenty-fifth day of October, with my license in my pocket, I set out for a distant county court. It was a fine morning; the air was bracing, but not cold. When I had mounted my horse, and set off in a brisk trot, on a level and beaten Virginia country road, I felt an exhilaration that the novelty of my purpose and the healthy nature of my exercise was well calculated to inspire. It is needless to inform the reader of the multifarious and never realized visions of distinction and applause, that my heated brain formed that day. There is something rather enervating in the young dreams of love; but the early visions of ambition instil an ardor into the soul, which nerves the faculties to the most daring enterprize, or the most laborious undertaking. Both, however, heighten self-respect, and diffuse a pleasing tranquillity over even excited feeling.
The crowd had already gathered when I reached the court house of ——. The political rivals had commenced haranguing the mob; the shrill cry of the Yankee pedler vendueing his goods, the hoarse laugh of the stout Virginia planter, the neighing of horses, the loud voice of the stump orator, and the menaces of county bullies, met for the purpose of testing their pugilistic talents, broke upon the tympanum in no agreeable confusion. Here was a group collected around a decapitated cask of whiskey, emptying its contents to the health of favorite candidates; there a collection eyeing with eagerness two combatants encircled in a ring, struggling for the acclamation of "the best man." At a respectful distance stood the man of authority, the Virginia justice, commanding the peace; but his vociferous interference only met with the response of "Hands off: fair play!" In this promiscuous assemblage, every grade of society in the county was represented. Here was the rich, unpopular aristocrat, with his lofty bearing. The representatives of old, and once rich and aristocratical families, who had left nothing but a name for their posterity, were here mingling familiarly with the plebeian herd, seeking popularity as the only step-stone to political eminence. Here was seen, also, the rich demagogue—the people's man—the frequenter of militia musters, the giver of good dinners, without distinction of guests. Here, also, was the substantial two hundred acre freeholder. Of the most conspicuous "minora sidera," the Kentuckian horsedrover, the horsejockey, the ganderpuller, might be mentioned. I soon passed this congregated mass, and reached the bar. One of the fraternity was kind enough to introduce me to the court and his professional brethren. It is useless to describe my sensations during the continuance of that term of the court. I was, generally, either entirely unnoticed, or treated with marked contempt. So undeserving and discourteous did this treatment seem, that I asked an old lawyer, who appeared rather more affable than his brethren, what it meant; he smiled, and whispered that every young lawyer, and particularlya college lawyer, was,prima facie, a fool, until he showed the contrary. I profited so much by this rough response, as to resolve to push my own way, without soliciting favor, and careless even of common courtesy.
After about four months attention to my courts, I found a world of difference between the life of a student and a lawyer. The one deals with his fellow at the most confiding and innocent age; the other deals with every variety of character, and meets with every grade of vice. When I first discovered with what a cold and selfish set of creatures I had to mingle, I became melancholy, disgusted with my profession and every thing attached to it. The fearful thought came over my mind to turn scoundrel, and manage theworldin its own way; to "carve it like an oyster"—"to ride mankind as Pyrrhus did his elephant." But my better nature prevailed, and I determined to persevere in the difficult task of mingling with mankind and preserving my principles uncontaminated by the contact.
When we reflect what a trivial occurrence alters one's fortunes, we are ready to conclude that life is a complete game of hazard, and man the creature of circumstances. If it had not been for a singular accident, I might have toiled on through the prime of my existence, without success in my profession, and deserted it after my glittering youth was spent, a disappointed and pennyless misanthrope. I took a small "tide of fortune at its flood, and it led to glory." It was twelve months from the time I took out license, that I was touched on the arm by a stranger, who asked me if I was not Owen the lawyer? I told him I was; he then retained me to defend him in a prosecution against him for forgery, and added, that my general celebrity as a criminal advocate, had induced him to employ me. The application was of a kind so new to me, (for I had never been spoken to either for counsel or defence) that in the agitation of the moment I did not discover that I was mistaken for a lawyer of some eminence, of the same name, who attended the same court. As soon as he left me, cool reflection came, and I was convinced that I had been retained through mistake. I immediately went in search of the forger, to suggest the mistake. I met with him among a number of by-standers and a few members of the bar. As soon as he saw me, he accused me of practising a fraud upon him, by designingly confirming him in his error. I immediately turned from him, remarking that I could be no gainer by altercation with a forger. But from the reception that his charge met with among some of the by-standers and lawyers, I was impressed with the conviction that they either believed, or affected to believe, the accusation of the forger. I concealed my chagrin as well as I could until his trial came on, and availing myself of the invitation of the prosecutor to assist him, I made a speech containing the bitterest invective and perhaps the best argument that I have ever made since. As soon as I look my seat I observed approbation or envy on every countenance that met my eye, for the criminal was very opprobrious to the multitude. He was convicted by the unanimous voice of the court. I was congratulated on every side on the success of my "maiden effort," and by numbers of the obsequious crowd who previously withheld from me even the ordinary civilities of life.
NARRATOR.
THE CRAYON MISCELLANY, No. II. containing Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1835.
We hailed with pleasure the appearance of the first number of the Crayon Miscellany, but we knew not what a feast was preparing for us in the second. In Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, the author of the Sketch Book is at home. By no one could this offering to the memories of Scott and Byron have been more appropriately made. It is the tribute of genius to its kindred spirits, and it breathes a sanctifying influence over the graves of the departed. The kindly feelings of Irving are beautifully developed in his description of the innocent pursuits and cheerful conversation of Sir Walter Scott, while they give a melancholy interest to the early misfortunes of Byron. He luxuriates among the scenes and associations which hallow the walls of Newstead, and warms us into admiration of the wizard of the north, by a matchless description of the man, his habits, and his thoughts. The simplicity and innocence of his heart, his domestic affections, and his warm hospitality, are presented in their most attractive forms. The scenes and the beings with which Sir Walter was surrounded, are drawn with a graphic pencil. All conduce to strengthen impressions formerly made of the goodness and beneficence of Scott's character, and to gratify the thousands who have drawn delight from his works, with the conviction that their author was one of the most amiable of his species. No man knows better than Washington Irving, the value which is placed by the world (and with justice) upon incidents connected with really great men, which seem trifling in themselves, and which borrow importance only from the individuals to whom they have relation. Hence he has given us a familiar (yet how beautiful!) picture of Abbotsford and its presiding genius; but the relics of Newstead, which his pensive muse has collected and thrown together, brightening every fragment by the lustre of his own genius, are perhaps even more attractive. He touches but a few points in Byron's early history, but they are those on which we could have wished the illumination of his researches. The whole of the details respecting Miss Chaworth, and Byron's unfortunate attachment to that lady, are in his best manner. The story of the White Lady is one of deep interest, and suits well with the melancholy thoughts connected with Newstead. An instance of monomania like that of the White Lady, has seldom been recorded; and the author has, without over-coloring the picture, presented to his readers the history of a real being, whose whole character and actions and melancholy fate belong to the regions of romance. In nothing that he has ever written, has his peculiar faculty of imparting to all he touches the coloring of his genius, been more fully displayed than in this work.
We give a short extract from each of these sketches, although they can afford no idea of their collective charms. The conversational powers and social qualities of Sir Walter Scott, are thus described:
"The conversation of Scott was frank, hearty, picturesque, and dramatic. During the time of my visit he inclined to the comic rather than the grave, in his anecdotes and stories, and such, I was told, was his general inclination. He relished a joke, or a trait of humor in social intercourse, and laughed with right good will. He talked not for effect or display, but from the flow of his spirits, the stores of his memory, and the vigor of his imagination. He had a natural turn for narration, and his narratives and descriptions were without effort, yet wonderfully graphic. He placed the scene before you like a picture; he gave the dialogue with the appropriate dialect or peculiarities, and described the appearance and characters of his personages with that spirit and felicity evinced in his writings. Indeed, his conversation reminded me continually of his novels; and it seemed to me, that during the whole time I was with him, he talked enough to fill volumes, and that they could not have been filled more delightfully.
"He was as good a listener as talker, appreciating every thing that others said, however humble might be their rank or pretensions, and was quick to testify his perception of any point in their discourse. He arrogated nothing to himself, but was perfectly unassuming and unpretending, entering with heart and soul into the business, or pleasure, or, I had almost said folly, of the hour and the company. No one's concerns, no one's thoughts, no one's opinions, no one's tastes and pleasures seemed beneath him. He made himself so thoroughly the companion of those with whom he happened to be, that they forgot for a time his vast superiority, and only recollected and wondered, when all was over, that it was Scott with whom they had been on familiar terms, and in whose society they had felt so perfectly at their ease.
"It was delightful to observe the generous mode in which he spoke of all his literary cotemporaries, quoting the beauties of their works, and this, too, with respect to persons with whom he might be supposed to be at variance in literature or politics. Jeffrey, it was thought, had ruffled his plumes in one of his reviews, yet Scott spoke of him in terms of high and warm eulogy, both as an author and as a man.
"His humor in conversation, as in his works, was genial and free from all causticity. He had a quick perception of faults and foibles, but he looked upon poor human nature with an indulgent eye, relishing what was good and pleasant, tolerating what was frail, and pitying what was evil. It is this beneficent spirit which gives such an air of bonhommie to Scott's humor throughout all his works. He played with the foibles and errors of his fellow beings, and presented them in a thousand whimsical and characteristic lights, but the kindness and generosity of his nature would not allow him to be a satirist. I do not recollect a sneer throughout his conversation any more than there is throughout his works."
It is more difficult to fix upon an extract from the sketch of Newstead Abbey, but we take the following as coming within the limits of our notice:
"I was attracted to this grove, however, by memorials of a more touching character. It had been one of the favorite haunts of the late Lord Byron. In his farewell visit to the abbey, after he had parted with the possession of it, he passed some time in this grove, in company with his sister; and as a last memento, engraved their names on the bark of a tree.
"The feelings that agitated his bosom during this farewell visit, when he beheld around him objects dear to his pride, and dear to his juvenile recollections, but of which the narrowness of his fortune would not permit him to retain possession, may be gathered from a passage in a poetical epistle, written to his sister in after years.
"I searched the grove for sometime, before I found the tree on which Lord Byron had left his frail memorial. It was an elm of peculiar form, having two trunks, which sprang from the same root, and after growing side by side, mingled their branches together. He had selected it doubtless, as emblematical of his sister and himself. The names of BYRONand AUGUSTAwere still visible. They had been deeply cut in the bark, but the natural growth of the tree was gradually rendering them illegible, and a few years hence, strangers will seek in vain for this record of fraternal affection.
* * * * *
"At a distance on the border of the lawn, stood another memento of Lord Byron; an oak planted by him in his boyhood, on his first visit to the abbey. With a superstitious feeling inherent in him, he linked his own destiny with that of the tree. 'As it fares,' said he, 'so will fare my fortunes.' Several years elapsed, many of them passed in idleness and dissipation. He returned to the abbey a youth scarce grown to manhood, but as he thought with vices and follies beyond his years. He found his emblem oak almost choked by weeds and brambles, and took the lesson to himself.
"I leaned over the stone ballustrade of the terrace, and gazed upon the valley of Newstead, with its silver sheets of water gleaming in the morning sun. It was a Sabbath morning, which always seems to have a hallowed influence over the landscape, probably from the quiet of the day, and the cessation of all kinds of week day labor. As I mused upon the mild and beautiful scene, and the wayward destinies of the man whose stormy temperament forced him from this tranquil paradise to battle with the passions and perils of the world, the sweet chime of bells from a village a few miles distant, came stealing up the valley. Every sight and sound this morning, seemed calculated to summon up touching recollections of poor Byron. The chime was from the village spire of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains lie buried!
"I have since visited his tomb. It is in an old gray country church, venerable with the lapse of centuries. He lies buried beneath the pavement, at one end of the principal aisle. A light falls upon the spot through the stained glass of a gothic window, and a tablet on the adjacent wall announces the family vault of the Byrons. It had been the wayward intention of the poet to be entombed with his faithful dog in the monument erected by him in the garden of Newstead Abbey. His executors showed better judgment and feeling, in consigning his ashes to the family sepulchre, to mingle with those of his mother and his kindred.
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"How nearly did his dying hour realize the wish made by him but a few years previously in one of his fitful moods of melancholy and misanthropy:
"He died among strangers, in a foreign land, without a kindred hand to close his eyes, yet he did not die unwept. With all his faults, and errors, and passions, and caprices, he had the gift of attaching his humble dependants warmly to him. One of them, a poor Greek, accompanied his remains to England, and followed them to the grave. I am told that during the ceremony, he stood holding on by a pew in an agony of grief, and when all was over, seemed as if he would have gone down into the tomb with his master.—A nature that could inspire such attachments, must have been generous and beneficent."