Chapter VIII (4)

She obeyed; and he whispered to her earnestly for a few moments. None saw what passed upon her countenance; for it was partly hidden on the clothes of the bed, partly concealed by her beautiful arm. None heard the words he uttered in that low, murmuring tone. But suddenly, his wife started up with a look of horror indescribable. She had wedded the slayer of her brother. She had clasped the hand which had shed her kindred blood. She had loved, and caressed, and clasped with eager passion the man who had destroyed the cradle-fellow of her youth--she had borne him children!

One look of horror, and one long, piercing shriek, and she fell senseless upon the floor at the bedside. They took her up: they sprinkled water in her face; they bathed her temple with essences; and gradually light came back into her eyes. Then they turned toward the bed. What was it they saw there? He had seen the look. He had heard the shriek. He had beheld the last ray of hope depart. The knell of earthly happiness had rung. The gates of another world stood open, near at hand; and he had passed through to that place where all tears are wiped from all eyes. There was nothing but clay left behind.

Such was one of the tales told across the College table; and yet it was not a very sad or solemn place; and many a lighter and a gayer anecdote served to cheer up the heart after such sad pictures. There was a great deal of originality, too, at the table, which amused, if it did not interest. There was Doctor W---- there, who afterward became headmaster of a celebrated public school, and who was in reality a very eccentric man always affecting a most commonplace exterior. The most extraordinary, however, was Mr. R----, celebrated for occupying many hours every morning in shaving himself, an operation, all the accidents of which we generally, in this country, avoid by the precaution of trusting it to others. The process, however, of Mr. R---- who never confided in a barber, was this. He lathered and shaved one side of his face: then read a passage of Thucydides. Then he lathered and shaved the other side, read another passage, and then began again; and so on ad infinitum, or until somebody came in and dragged him out. His notions, however, were more extraordinary even than his habits. He used to contend, and did that night, that man having been created immortal, and having only lost his immortality by the knowledge of good and evil, it was in reality only the fear engendered by that knowledge which caused him to decay, or die. In vain gray hairs, a shriveled skin, defaulting teeth, warned him of the fragility of himself and his hypothesis: he still maintained dogmatically, that unless man were fool enough to be afraid, there would be no occasion for him to die at all. He actually carried his doctrine to the grave with him; for during another visit to Cambridge, many years after, I heard the close of his strange history. Feeling himself somewhat feeble, he went, several years after I saw him, to reside at Richmond, near London, where "the air is delicate." There a chronic disease under which he had been long laboring, assumed a serious form; and his friends and relations persuaded him to send for a physician. The physician giving no heed to his notions regarding corporeal immortality, prescribed for him sagely, but without effect. The disease went on undiminished, and it became necessary to inform him that his life was drawing to an end.

"Fiddlestick's ends," said Mr. R----. "Life has no end, but in consequence of fear. I am not the least afraid in the world; and hang me if I die, in spite of you all. Give me my coat and hat, John. I will go out and take a walk."

"By no means," cried the doctor. "You will only hasten the catastrophe, my dear sir, before any of your affairs are settled."

"Why, sir, you have hardly been able to walk across the room for this fortnight. You will never get half way up the hill;" said his faithful servant.

"Sir, you are at this moment in a dying state," said the provoked doctor.

"I will soon show you," cried Mr. R----; and walking to the door in his dressing gown, without his hat, down the stairs he went, and out into the busy streets of Richmond. For a hundred yards he tottered on; but then he fell upon the pavement, and was carried into a pastry-cook's store, where he expired without uttering one word, even in defense of his favorite theory.

The small town of Landeck, in the Vorarlberg, is surrounded by mountains, which--

I am afraid they are too high for me to get over in the short space which remains of this sheet, though I have written as small as possible, in order to leave myself room to conclude the tale of the Bride of Landeck. I must therefore put it off until I can find time to write you another epistle, in which I trust to be able to conclude all I have to say upon the subject; and in the mean time, with many thanks for your polite attention in printing these gossiping letters, I must beg you to believe me,

Your faithful servant,

P.

Editor's Drawer.

Perhaps no two of the "Mysteries of Science," as they are sometimes called, excite more interest among all classes of curiosity-mongers, than the _Balloon_ and the _Diving-bell_. They are the very antipodes of each other, and yet the interest felt in each partakes of a very kindred character. To descend to the bottom of the sea, "where never plummet sounded;" to sink quietly and solemnly down into the chambers of the Great Deep; to see the "sea-fan" wave its delicate wings, and the coral groves, inhabited by the beautiful mer-men and maidens, who take their pastime therein; to gloat over rich argosies, the treasures of gold and silver, that brighten the caverns of the deep; to watch the deep, deep green waves of softened light that come shimmering and trembling down the dense watery walls--these make up much of the _Poetry of the Diving-bell_, of which all imaginative people are enamored, and which is not without a certain influence upon all sorts and conditions of men.

On the other hand, to rise suddenly above the earth; to look down upon the gradually lessening crowds and vanishing cities beneath; to glance over the tops of mountains upon the vast inland plains, sprinkled with villages and towns; to sail on and on, exhausting horizon after horizon; to look down upon even the clouds of heaven, and thunder-storms and rainbows rolling and flashing beneath your feet, and upon glimpses of the heaving bosom of the "Great and wide Sea"--_these_, again, are the elements of the aeronaut, that may well be termed the "_Poetry of Ballooning_."

But leaving the "Poetry of the Diving-bell" for another "Drawer," let us narrate an incident which we find in one of its compartments, or, rather, the synopsis of an incident, reduced from a more voluminous account, given at the time by a London writer of rare and varied accomplishments. It may, indeed, be termed, from the scanty materials preserved from the original record, a "_Memory_ of Ballooning."

Mr. Green, the great London aeronaut, who has ascended some hundred and fifty times from Vauxhall Gardens, London; who has taken his air-journeys at all times of the day and night; who has sailed over a continent with passengers in his frail bark, when it was so dark, that, according to the testimony of one of his fellow-voyagers, it seemed as though the balloon was making its noiseless way through a mass of impenetrable black marble--this same Mr. Green--to come back from our long sentence--once gave out, by hand-bills and the public prints, that on a certain afternoon in July, he would ascend from Vauxhall Gardens, London, at four o'clock in the afternoon, with a distinguished lady and gentleman, who had volunteered to accompany him on that occasion.

The day and the hour at length arrived. The spacious inclosures of the Garden were crowded with an excited multitude, awaiting with the utmost impatience for the tossing, rolling globe to mount up and be lost in the blue creation that spread out far above the giant city, pavilioned by its clouds of smoke. But the hour passed by, and the "distinguished lady and gentleman" came not.

"It's an 'oax!" exclaimed hundreds, simultaneously among the crowd: "There isn't no sich persons."

Mr. Green assured them of his good faith; read the letter that he had received from "the parties," and his answer: but still the "madness of the people" increased, and still the "distinguished lady and gentleman" came not. Matters were growing more and more serious, and a "row" seemed inevitable.

At this crisis of affairs, a solemn-visaged man, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, stepped forth from the dense crowd, to the edge of the boundary which inclosed the balloon, and beckoning to Mr. Green, said, in a very modest manner, and in a low tone:

"_I_ will go with you, sir, with pleasure; I should be _glad_ to go. I wish to escape, for a while, at least, from this infernal noisy town."

The aeronaut was only too glad to accept the proposition, as some sort of salvo to his disappointed auditory, whose denunciatory vociferations were increasing every moment.

Mr. Green, standing up in the car of his tossing and impatient vessel, now announced, that "a gentleman present, in the kindest manner, had volunteered to make the ascent with him," and that the "monster-balloon" would at once depart for the vague regions of the upper air.

This announcement was hailed with acclamations by the assembled multitudes; and giving some necessary orders to his assistants, who had become fatigued with holding the groaning ropes that had until now confined the "monster" to the earth, the balloon was liberated, and rose slowly and majestically over the vast crowd of spectators and the wilderness of brick and mortar, and towers and steeples, and spacious parks, that lay spread out below, and gradually melted into the celestial blue.

What followed is best represented by the partially remembered words of the aeronaut himself, as shadowed forth in the memorandum already referred to.

"As we rose above the metropolis, and its mighty mass began to melt into indistinctness, my companion, whose bearing and manner had hitherto most favorably impressed me, began to manifest symptoms of great uneasiness. As we were passing over Hanwell, dimly seen among the extended suburbs of the great city, his anxiety seemed to increase in an extraordinary degree. Pointing, with trembling finger, in that immediate direction, he said:

"'Can they _see us_ from THERE? can they _reach_ us in any way? can they telegraph us?--CAN they, I say?'

"Surprised at the excitement, and at the abrupt alarm of one who had been so remarkably cool and self-possessed at starting, I replied:

"'Certainly not, my dear sir; we are half a mile from the earth, at least.'

"'Ah, ha! then I am safe! they can't catch me _now_! I escaped from them only this morning!'

"With a vague sense of some impending evil, I asked:

"'Escaped!--how!--from where?'

"'From the lunatic asylum! They thought I was crazed, and sent me there to be confined. Crazed! Why, there's not a man in London so sane as I am, and they knew it. It was a trick, sir--a trick! A trick to get my estate! But I'll be even with 'em! _I'll_ show 'em! _I'll_ thwart em!'

"Good Heavens! I was now a mile from the earth, with a madman for my companion!--in a frail vessel, where the utmost caution and coolness were necessary, and where the least irregularity or carelessness would send us, through the intervening space with the speed of thought, to lie, crushed and bleeding masses of unrecognizable humanity, upon the earth.

"But I had not long to think of even this apparently inevitable fate; for my companion had seized upon the sand-bags, and, one after another, was throwing them over the side of the car.

"'Hold! rash man!' I exclaimed: 'what would you do? You are endangering both our lives!'

"All this time the balloon was ascending with such rapidity, that the rush of the air through the net-work was like the wild whistling of the wind in the cordage of a ship under bare poles, in a gale at sea.

"'What do I _do_?' repeated the madman; 'I am getting away! I am going to the moon!--I am going to the moon!--ha! ha! They can't catch us in the moon!'

"He had exhausted nearly all the ballast except what was under or near me, and we were rising at such an astounding speed that I expected every moment that the balloon would burst from the increasing expansion, when I observed him loosening his garments and taking off his coat.

"'It's two hundred thousand miles _now_ to the moon!' said he, 'and we must throw over some more ballast or we shan't be home till morning.'

"So saying he tore off his coat and threw it over--next his waistcoat--and was fumbling at his pantaloons, evidently for a similar purpose. But a new thought seemed to strike him:

"'_Two_ are too _many_ for this little balloon,' he said; 'she's going too slow! We shall not reach the moon before morning at _this_ rate. _Get out of this!_'

"I was wholly unnerved. I could have calmed the fears, or reasoned down the apprehensions of a reasonable companion; but my present _compagnon du voyage_ 'lacked discourse of reason' as much as the brute that perisheth, and remonstrance was of no avail.

"'GET OUT OF THIS!' he repeated, in tones strangely piercing, in the hush of the upper air; and thereupon I felt myself seized by a grasp, so often superhumanly powerful in madmen, and found myself suddenly poised over the side of the tilting car, and heard the _hum_ of the tortured gas in its silken prison above us:

"'Good-night!' said the infuriated wretch; 'you'll hear from me by telegraph from the moon! They can't catch me now! Ha! ha!--not now! _not now!_'"

It was but a dream of an aeronaut, reader, after all, on the night before his ascension; and this sketch is but a dream _of_ that dream; for it is from memory, and not "from the record."

* * * * *

As the fall rains may be expected, as the almanacs predict, "about these days" of autumn, we put on early record, for the next month, the fact, that umbrellas are not protected by the laws of the United States. They are not property, save that of the man of whom you buy them. They constitute an article which, by the morality of society, you may steal from friend or foe, and which, for the same reason, you should not lend to either. The coolest thing--the most doubly-iced impudence--we ever heard of, was in the case of a man who borrowed a new silk umbrella of a town-neighbor, which, as a matter of course, he forgot to return. One morning, in a heavy rain, he called on his neighbor for it. He found him on the steps, going out with the borrowed umbrella. He met him with that peculiar smile that one man gives another who suddenly claims his umbrella on a wet day, and said:

"Where are you going, Mr. B----?"

"I came for my umbrella," was the brief reply.

"But don't you see I am going out with it at this moment? It's a very nasty morning."

"Going _out_ with my umbrella! What am _I_ to do, I should like to know?"

"_Do?_--do as _I_ did--_borrow_ one!" said the borrower, as he walked away, leaving the lender well-nigh paralyzed at the great height of his neighbor's impudence.

A church is the place, of a rainy Sunday, where many indifferent and valuable "exchanges" are made, in the article of umbrellas. Perhaps many of our readers will remember the remark made at the close of morning service, on a drizzly Sabbath, by a pious brother:

"My friends, there was taken from this place of worship this morning a large black silk-umbrella, nearly new; and in place of it was left a small blue cotton umbrella, much tattered and worn, and of a coarse texture. The black silk umbrella was undoubtedly taken by mistake, but such mistakes are getting a leetle too common!"[6]

[6] "Ollapodiana;" Knickerbocker Magazine.

* * * * *

As we shall very soon have a new President coming into office for a new four-year's lease of care and "glory," we venture to insinuate what he may expect from the throngs of office-seekers by whom he will be surrounded; and we shall take but a single instance out of many hundreds that might be offered. A man writing from Washington at the coming in of our last National Chief Magistrate, gave this graphic sketch of a "Sucker" office-seeker:

Dickens might draw some laughable sketches, or caricatures, from the live specimens of office-seekers now on hand here. The new President has just advised them all to go home and leave their papers behind them; and such a scattering you never saw! One fellow came here from Illinois, and was introduced to a wag who, he was told, had "great influence at court," and who, although destitute of any such pretensions, kept up the delusion for the sake of the joke. The "Sucker" addressed the man of influence something in this wise:

"Now, stranger, look at them papers. Them names is the first in our whole town. There's Deacon Styles--there ain't no piouser man in all the county; and then there's Rogers, our shoemaker--he made them boots I got on, and a better pair never tramped over these diggins. You wouldn't think them soles had walked over more than three hundred miles of Hoosier mud, but they _hev_ though, and are sound yet. Every body in our town knows John Rogers. Just you go to Illinois, and ax about _me_. You'll find how I stand. Then you ask Jim Turner, our constable--_he_ knows me; ask _him_ what I did for the party. He'll tell you I was a screamer at the polls--nothing else. Now, I've come all the way from Illinois, and a-foot too, most of the way, to see if I can have justice. They even told me to take a town-office to--hum! but I must have something that pays aforehand--such as them '_char-gees_,' as they call 'em. I hain't got only seven dollars left, and I can't wait. Jist git me one o' them '_char-gees_,' will ye? Them'll do. Tell the old man how it is; _he'll_ do it. Fact is, he _must_! I've airnt the office, and no mistake!"

Doubtless he _had_ "airnt" it; few persons who go to Washington and _wait_ for an office, but _earn_ their office, whether they obtain it or not.

* * * * *

It is HORACE WALPOLE, in his egotistical but very amusing correspondence, who narrates the following amusing anecdote:

"I must add a curious story, which I believe will surprise your Italian surgeons as much as it has amazed the faculty here. A sailor who had broken his leg was advised to communicate his case to the Royal Society. The account he gave was, that having fallen from the top of the mast and fractured his leg, he had dressed it with nothing but tar and oakum, and yet in three days was able to walk as well as before the accident. The story at first appeared quite incredible, as no such efficacious qualities were known in tar, and still less in oakum; nor was a poor sailor to be credited on his own bare assertion of so wonderful a cure. The society very reasonably demanded a fuller relation, and, I suppose, the corroboration of evidence. Many doubted whether the leg had been really broken. That part of the story had been amply verified. Still it was difficult to believe that the man had made use of no other applications than tar and oakum; and how _they_ should cure a broken leg in three days, even if they could cure it at all, was a matter of the utmost wonder. Several letters passed between the society and the patient, who persevered in the most solemn asseverations of having used no other remedies, and it does appear beyond a doubt that the man speaks truth. It is a little uncharitable, but I fear there are surgeons who might not like this abbreviation of attendance and expense; but, on the other hand, you will be charmed with the plain, honest simplicity of the sailor. In a postscript to his last letter, he added these words:

"I forgot to tell your honors that the leg was a wooden one!"

* * * * *

There was great delicacy in the manner in which a foreigner, having a friend hung in this country, broke the intelligence to his relations on the other side of the water. He wrote as follows:

"Your brother had been addressing a large meeting of citizens, who had manifested the deepest interest in him, when the platform upon which he stood, being, as was subsequently ascertained, very insecure, gave way, owing to which, he fell and broke his neck!"

* * * * *

If you will take a bank-note, and while you are folding it up according to direction, peruse the following lines, you will arrive at their meaning, with no little admiration for the writer's cleverness:

"I will tell you a plan for gaining wealth,
Better than banking, trading or leases;
Take a bank-note and fold it up,
And then you will find your wealth in-creases.

"This wonderful plan, without danger or loss,
Keeps your cash in your hands, and with nothing to trouble it,
And every time that you fold it across,
'Tis plain as the light of the day that you double it."

* * * * *

If your "Editor's Drawer," writes a correspondent, is not already full, you may think the inclosed, although an old story, worthy of being squeezed in.

"Soon after the close of the American Revolution, a deputation of Indian chiefs having some business to transact with the Governor, were invited to dine with some of the officials in Philadelphia. During the repast, the eyes of a young chief were attracted to a castor of _mustard_, having in it a spoon ready for use. Tempted by its bright color, he gently drew it toward him, and soon had a brimming spoonful in his mouth. Instantly detecting his mistake, he nevertheless had the fortitude to swallow it, although it forced the tears from his eyes.

"A chief opposite, at the table, who had observed the consequence, but not the cause, asked him 'What he was crying for?' He replied that he was 'thinking of his father, who was killed in battle.' Soon after, the questioner himself, prompted by curiosity, made the same experiment, with the same result, and in turn was asked by the younger Sachem 'What _he_ was crying for?' '_Because you were not killed when your father was_,' was the prompt reply."

* * * * *

Old Matthews, the most comic of all modern comic _raconteurs_, when in this country used to relate the following illustration of the manner in which the cool assumption of a "flunkey" was rebuked by an eccentric English original, one Lord EARDLEY, whose especial antipathy was, to have his servants of the class called "fine gentlemen:"

"During breakfast one day, Lord Eardley was informed that a person had applied for a footman's place, then vacant. He was ordered into the room, and a double refined specimen of the _genus_ so detested by his lordship made his appearance. The manner of the man was extremely affected and consequential, and it was evident that my lord understood him at a glance; moreover, it was as evident he determined to lower him a little.

"'Well, my good fellow,' said he, 'you want a lackey's place, do you?'

"'I came about an upper footman's situation, my lord,' said the gentleman, bridling up his head.

"'Oh, do ye, do ye?' replied Lord Eardley; 'I keep no upper servants; all alike, all alike here.'

"'Indeed, my lord!' exclaimed this upper footman, with an air of shocked dignity. 'What _department_ then am I to consider myself expected to fill?'

"'Department! department!' quoth my lord, in a tone like inquiry.

"'In what _capacity_, my lord?'

"My lord repeated the word capacity, as if not understanding its application to the present subject.

"'I mean, my lord,' explained the man, 'what shall I be expected to do, if I take the _situation_?'

"'Oh, you mean if you take the place. I understand you now,' rejoined my lord; 'why, you're to do every thing but sweep the chimneys and clean the pig-sties, and _those I do myself_.'

"The _gentleman_ stared, scarcely knowing what to make of this, and seemed to wish himself out of the room; he, however, grinned a ghastly smile, and, after a short pause, inquired what _salary_ his lordship gave!

"'Salary, salary?' reiterated his incorrigible lord ship, 'don't know the word, don't know the word, my good man.'

"Again the gentleman explained; 'I mean what wages?'

"'Oh, wages,' echoed my lord; 'what d'ye ask? what d'ye ask?'

"Trip regained his self-possession at this question, which looked like business, and considering for a few moments, answered--first stipulating to be found in hair-powder, and (on state occasions) silk stockings, and gloves, bags and bouquets--that he should expect thirty pounds a year.

"'How much, how much?' demanded my lord rapidly.

"'Thirty pounds, my lord.'

"'Thirty pounds!' exclaimed Lord Eardley, in affected amazement; 'make it guineas, and _I'll live with_ YOU;' then ringing the bell, said to the servant who answered it, 'Let out this _gentleman_, he's too good for me;' and then turning to Matthews, who was much amused, said, as the man made his exit, 'Conceited, impudent, scoundrel! Soon sent him off, soon sent him off, Master Matthews.'"

* * * * *

As specimens of the _retort courteous_ and the _retort uncourteous_, observe the two which ensue:

"Two of the guests at a public dinner having got into an altercation, one of them, a blustering vulgarian, vociferated: 'Sir, you're no gentleman!' 'Sir,' said his opponent, in a calm voice, 'you are no judge!'"

* * * * *

TALLEYRAND, being questioned on one occasion by a man who squinted awfully, with several importunate questions, concerning his leg, recently broken, replied:

"It is quite _crooked_--as you _see_!"

* * * * *

If you have ever been a pic-nicking, reader, you will appreciate the annoyances set forth in these lively lines by a modern poet. We went on one of these excursions in August, not many years ago, and while addressing some words that we intended should be very agreeable, to a charming young lady in black, seated by our side, on the bank of a pleasant lake, in the upper region of the Ramapo mountains, a huge garter-snake crept forth at our feet, hissing at our intrusion upon his domain! How the young lady did scamper!--and how we did the same thing, for that matter! But we must not forget the lines we were speaking of:

Half-starved with hunger, parched with thirst,
All haste to spread the dishes,
When lo! we find the soda burst,
Amid the loaves and fishes;
Over the pie, a sudden sop,
The grasshoppers are skipping,
Each roll's a sponge, each loaf a mop,
And all the meat is dripping.

Bristling with broken glass you find
Some cakes among the bottles,
Which those may eat, who do not mind
Excoriated throttles:
The biscuits now are wiped and dried,
When shrilly voices utter:
"Look! look! a toad has got astride
Our only plate of butter!"

Your solids in a liquid state,
Your cooling liquids heated,
And every promised joy by Fate
Most fatally defeated:
All, save the serving-men, are soured,
_They_ smirk, the cunning sinners!
Having, before they came, devoured
Most comfortable dinners.

Still you assume, in very spite,
A grim and gloomy gladness;
Pretend to laugh--affect delight--
And scorn all show of sadness
While thus you smile, but storm within,
A storm without comes faster,
And down descends in deafening din
A deluge of disaster!

So, friend, if you are sick of _Home_,
Wanting a new sensation,
And sigh for the unwonted ease
Of un-accommodation;
If you would taste, as amateur,
And vagabond beginner,
The painful pleasures of the poor,
_Get up a Pic-Nic Dinner_!

* * * * *

There is a good deal of talk, in these latter days, about the article of guano: the right of discovery of the islands where it is obtained, and the like. We remember to have heard something about the discovery and occupation of the first of these islands, that of Ichaboe, which made us "laugh consumedly;" and we have been thinking that a thorough exploration of the Lobos islands might result in a similar discomfiture to the "grasping Britishers."

It seems that a party of Englishmen, claiming to have discovered the island of Ichaboe, landed from a British vessel upon that "rich" coast, and appreciating the great agricultural value of its minerals, walked up toward the top of the heap, to crow on their own dung-hill, and take possession of it in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, with the usual form of breaking a bottle of Madeira, and other the like observances. While they were thus taking possession, however, one of the party, more adventurous than the rest, made his way to the farther slope of a higher eminence, and saw, to his utter discomfiture and consternation, a Bangor schooner rocking in a little cove of the island, a parcel of Yankees digging into its sides, and loading the vessel, and a weazen-faced man administering the temperance-pledge to a group of the natives on a side-hill near by!

He went back to his party, reported what he had seen, and the ceremony of taking possession, in the name of Her Majesty, of an uninhabited island, was very suddenly interrupted and altogether done away with.

* * * * *

The readers of "The Drawer," who may have noticed the numerous signs of _Ladies' Schools_ which may be seen in the suburban streets and thoroughfares of our Atlantic cities, will find the following experience of a Frenchman in London not a little amusing:

"Sare, I shall tell you my impressions when I am come first from Paris to London. De English ladies, I say to myself, must be de most best educate women in de whole world. Dere is schools for dem every wheres--in a hole and in a corner. Let me take some walks in de Fauxbourgs, and what do I see all around myself? When I look dis way I see on a white house's front a large bord, with some gilded letters, which say, 'Seminary for Young Ladies.' When I look dat way at a big red house, I see anoder bord which say, 'Establishment for Young Ladies,' by Miss Someones. And when I look up at a little house, at a little window, over a barber-shop, I read on a paper, 'Ladies' School.' Den I see 'Prospect House,' and 'Grove House,' and de 'Manor House,' so many I can not call dem names, and also all schools for de young females. Day-schools besides. Yes; and in my walks always I meet some schools of Young Ladies, eight, nine, ten times in one day, making dere promenades, two and two and two. Den I come home to my lodging's door, and below de knocker I see one letter. I open it, and I find 'Prospectus of a Lady School.' By-and-by I say to my landlady, 'Where is your oldest of daughters, which used to bring to me my breakfast?' and she tell me, 'She is gone out a governess!' Next she notice me I must quit my apartement. 'What for?' I say: 'what have I dones? Do I not pay you all right, like a weekly man of honor?' 'O certainly, Mounseer,' she say, 'you are a gentleman, quite polite, and no mistakes, but I wants my whole of my house to myselfs for to set him up for a Lady School!' Noting but Ladies' Schools--and de widow of de butcher have one more over de street. 'Bless my soul and my body!' I say to myself, 'dere must be nobody borned in London except leetil girls!'"

* * * * *

Here is a very beautiful thought of that strange compound of Scotch shrewdness, strong common sense, and German mysticism, or _un_-common sense--Thomas Carlyle:

"When I gaze into the stars, they look down upon me with pity from their serene and silent spaces, like eyes glistening with tears over the little lot of man. Thousands of generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of Time, and there remains no record of them any more: yet Arcturus and Orion, Sirius and the Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar! 'What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!'"

* * * * *

There is probably not another word in the English language that can be worse "twisted" than that which composes the burden of the ensuing lines:

WRITE we know is written right,
When we see it written write:
But when we see it written wright,
We know 'tis not then written right;
For write, to have it written right,
Must not be written right nor wright,
Nor yet should it be written rite,
But WRITE--for so 'tis written right.

* * * * *

We commend the following to the scores of dashing "spirited" belles who have just returned disappointed from "the Springs," Newport, and other fashionable resorts. The writer is describing a dashing female character, whose "mission" she considered it to be, to take the world and admiration "by storm:"

"With all her blaze of notoriety, did any body _esteem_ her particularly? Was there any one man upon earth who on his pillow could say, 'What a lovely angel is Fanny Wilding!' Had she ever refused an offer of marriage? No; for nobody ever had made her one. She was like a fine fire-work, entertaining to look at, but dangerous to come near to: her bouncing and cracking in the open air gave a lustre to surrounding objects, but there was not a human being who could be tempted to take the dangerous exhibition into his own house! _That_ was a thing not to be thought of for a moment."

* * * * *

"In your Magazine for July," writes a city correspondent, "I notice in the '_Editor's Drawer_,' an allusion to and quotation from '_The Execution of Montrose_,' the author of which you state is unknown or not named. You seem not to be aware that this is one of Aytoun's Ballads, which, with others, was published in London, under the title of 'Lays of the Cavaliers.' But why did you not give the most beautiful verse:

'He is coming! He is coming!
Like a bridegroom from his room,
Came the hero from his prison,
To the scaffold and the doom.
There was glory on his forehead,
There was lustre in his eye,
And he never went to battle
More proudly than to die!'

"I quote only from memory, but the original has 'walked to battle'--is not 'went' a better word? The book is full of gems: let me give you one more, which would make a fine subject for an artist. It is from 'Edinburgh after Flodden;' when Randolph Murray returns from the battle, to announce to the old burghers their sad defeat:

'They knew so sad a messenger,
Some ghastly news must bring;
And all of them were fathers,
And their sons were with the King.'"

* * * * *

"How do you spell Feladelfy?" asked a small city grocer of his partner one day, as he was sprinkling sand upon a letter which he was about to dispatch to the "City of Brotherly Love."

"Why, _Fel-a_, Fela, _del_, Feladel, _fy_--Feladelfy."

"Then I've got it right," said the partner (in ignorance as well as in business), "I thought I might have made a mistake!"

* * * * *

DICKENS, in a passage of his Travels in Italy, describes an embarrassing position, and a pursuit of knowledge under difficulties that would have discouraged most learners: "There was a traveling party on board our steamer, of whom one member was very ill in the cabin next to mine, and being ill was cross, and therefore declined to give up the dictionary, which he kept under his pillow; thereby obliging his companions to come down to him constantly, to ask what was the Italian for a lump of sugar, a glass of brandy-and-water, 'what's o'clock?' and so forth; which he always insisted on looking out himself, with his own sea-sick eyes, declining to trust the book to any man alive. Ignorance was scarcely 'bliss' in this case, however much folly there might have been in being 'wise.'"

CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR DRAWER.

On the 25th December, 1840, when the excitement in diplomatic circles upon the subject of the so-called Eastern question was at its height, an English friend dined with Sir Hamilton Seymour and Lady Seymour, in Brussels. Seymour's note of invitation ran "Will you and your wife come and eat a turkey with us." The dinner was a very good one, but there was no turkey; and on the following day our friend sent him the lines below:

"On the notorious breach of political faith committed by Sir G. Hamilton Seymour, G.C.H., &c., &c., &c. Her Britannic Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Belgium, on the 25th December, 1840.

"Most perfidious, most base of all living ministers,
You deserve to fall back to the rank of plain Misters,
Your star taken off, and your chain only serving
To fetter your ankles _selon_ your deserving.
Don't think that my charge is some trumpery matter
Of court etiquette. It is greater, and fatter;
Fit cause throughout Europe to spread conflagration,
Set King against Kaiser, and nation 'gainst nation.
'Tis a fraud diplomatic--a protocol broken--
The breach of a treaty both written and spoken--
A matter too bad for e'en Thiers' digestion--
The loss of an empire, the great Eastern question!
In vain would you move my ambition or pity--
In vain do you offer the province or city--
Neither Bordeaux nor Xeres, nor eke all Champagne,
Can make me forgetful of promises vain.
Such pitiful make-weights I send to perdition;
'Twas _Turkey_ you promised--at least a partition.
'Twas _Turkey_ you promised--you've broken your word.
'Twas _Turkey_ you promised: and where is the bird?"

Seymour's answer the same day:

"Of eastern affairs most infernally sick,
No wonder I failed to my promise to stick.
With the subject of _Turkey_ officially cramm'd,
If Turkey I dined on, I swore I'd be d--d.
But at least, my good friend, and the thought should bring peace,
If I gave you no _Turkey_, I gave you no Greece (grease)."

* * * * *

It is related of ex-President Tyler, that from the time of his election to the Vice-Presidency until the death of General Harrison, he kept no carriage on account of the insufficiency of his salary. When, however, he found himself accidentally elevated to the chief Magistracy, the former difficulty being removed, he at once determined to set up an equipage. He accordingly bought a pair of horses, and engaged a coachman, and then began to look about for a vehicle. Hearing of one for sale which belonged to a gentleman residing in Washington, and which had only been driven a few times, the President went to look at it. Upon examination he was perfectly satisfied with it himself, but still he thought it more prudent, before purchasing it, to take the opinion of his Hibernian coachman upon it. Pat reported that it was "jist the thing for his honor."

"But," said Mr. Tyler, "do you think it would be altogether proper for the President of the United States to drive a second-hand carriage?"

"And why not?" answered the Jehu; "_sure and ye're only a second-hand president!_"

* * * * *

We have seen many lazy men (and women, too, for that matter) in our day and generation, but we _do_ think that a little the laziest individual we ever did meet, is a certain bald-headed, oldish gentleman, who lives somewhere in Fourteenth-street near the Fifth Avenue. Standing the other day with a friend, at the southeast corner of Broadway and Union-square, waiting for a Fourth Avenue omnibus, upward bound, we noticed the subject of this paragraph crossing the street, with his arm in a sling. Turning to our companion, who was well acquainted with him, we asked,

"Why, what in the world has happened to Mr. ----'s arm?"

"Oh, nothing at all," was the reply, "he only wears it in a sling, because he is _too lazy to swing it_!"

* * * * *

The following commencement to a legal document, to which our attention was once called in a business-matter is curious enough. The parties mentioned were English people, the names not being uncommon on the other side of the water:

"James Elder, the younger, in right of Elizabeth Husband, his wife, &c., &c."

* * * * *

HENRY ERSKINE is reputed to have been quite as clever a man as his more famous brother. His wit was ready, pungent, and at times somewhat bitter. Another brother, Lord Buchan, as is well known, was pompous, conceited, and ineffably stupid. Upon one occasion, having purchased a new estate in a very picturesque section of the country, he took his brother Henry down to see it. When they arrived at the park gate, Lord Buchan, climbing upon the gate-post, commenced a vehement and florid discourse upon the beauty of the surrounding scenery. After a while his language became so hyperbolical and his gesticulations so violent that Henry, being tired of so extravagant a performance, called out to him, "I say, Buchan, if your gate was as high as your _style_ (_stile_), and you were to happen to fall, you would most certainly break your neck!"

* * * * *

One evening Henry Erskine accompanied the notorious Duchess of Gordon, and her daughter, a sweet girl, who afterward became the Marchioness of Abercorn, to the Opera. At the close of the performance, the duchess's carriage was sought for in vain--the coachman had failed to return for them. No other carriage was to be found, and there was no alternative for the ladies but to walk home in their laced and be-spangled evening dresses. A few minutes after they had started, the duchess, turning to Erskine, said,

"Harry, my dear, what must any one take us for, who should meet us walking the streets at this hour of the night in Opera costume?"

"Your grace would undoubtedly be taken _for what you are_, and your daughter for _what she is not_," was the caustic reply.

* * * * *

A lady, who had a propensity for Newport last summer, but who found it very difficult to induce her husband to take her there, called upon the eminent Doctor Francis, of Bond-street, for the purpose of procuring his certificate of the importance of sea-bathing for the preservation of her health.

"Are you ill, madam?" asked the doctor.

"Not at all, doctor," the lady answered, "but I am afraid that I shall become so, in this extremely hot weather, unless I have the opportunity to bathe in the sea, and thus preserve my health."

"Very well, madam," replied the doctor, "if you are sure that you _can not keep without pickling_, the sooner you start for Newport the better, and I shall have much pleasure in giving you my certificate to that effect."

* * * * *

The following inscription upon a tombstone is to be found in Mechlem church-yard, in England. The poet evidently was of the opinion that so long as he made use of the proper verb, what part of it he employed was of very little consequence:

Long time she strove with sorrow and with care,
Died like a man, and like a Christian bear!

* * * * *

There once lived in Scotland a man named John Ford, who abused and maltreated his wife in every possible way. Poor Mrs. Ford, in consequence of injuries to which she was subjected, finally died. Soon after his wife's decease, John came to the sexton of the kirk and expressed a desire to have an epitaph written for the "puir body." "Ye're the mon to do it, Maister Sexton, and an ye'll write one, I'll gie ye a guinea," said the bereaved widower. The sexton was somewhat surprised at the request, and so stated to the petitioner. He said that it was well known that Mrs. Ford's matrimonial life had been any thing but a happy one, and if he wrote any thing, his conscience would only permit him to write the truth. John told him to write exactly what he pleased--that decency required some inscription over the "gudewife's" grave, and that he'd "gie the guinea" for whatever the sexton saw fit to compose. Upon these conditions, the man of the spade finally consented to invoke his muse, and it was agreed that Johnny should call the next evening to receive the epitaph. Accordingly at the appointed time, the following composition was placed in his hands and met with his unbounded approval:

Here lies the body of Mary Ford,
We hope her soul is with the Lord,
But if for Tophet she's changed this life,
Better be there than John Ford's wife.

* * * * *

The only known house-settlement of Gipsies in the world is in Scotland, not very far from Edinburgh. When Sir Walter Scott was a young man he was sent down from the capital to the "Egyptian village" for the purpose of collecting the rents. He was directed upon his arrival to report himself to a certain person whose address was given him and then to follow in all respects this person's instructions. He accordingly upon reaching his destination, at once sent his letter of introduction to the place indicated, and was soon afterward waited upon by the individual to whom he was recommended. The advice which he then received was, to let his presence in the village be known, but to remain at home and by no means attempt to collect any of the rents by calling at the houses. This advice he followed for three days, during which time only two of the gipsies called and paid. After this he was advised to return to Edinburgh, leaving word at the settlement that he had gone back to town where he would be happy to see any of the tenants. In less than a week nearly all made their appearance and paid what they owed. They were unwilling to do under the slightest semblance of coercion what they cheerfully did voluntarily.

The first public recognition of the gipsies as a people in England, is in a proclamation of Queen Elizabeth, in which she directs all sheriffs and magistrates to "aid, counsel, and assist our loving cousin John, Prince of Thebes and of Upper Egypt, in apprehending and punishing certain of his subjects guilty of divers crimes and misdemeanors."

* * * * *

HOGG, the Ettrick shepherd, was an eccentric genius. He was once dining at a table where he was seated next to a daughter of Sir William Drysdale. His companion was a charming young lady--unaffected, affable, and yet withal gifted with considerable shrewdness and cleverness. To some remark which he made, she replied, "You're a funny man, Mr. Hogg," to which he instantly rejoined, "And ye, a nice lassie, Miss Drysdale. Nearly all girls are like a bundle of pens, cut by the same machine--ye're not of the bundle."

We have a friend who knew Hogg well. Our friend once arranged a party for an excursion to Lake St. Mary's, and it was proposed to stop at Hogg's house on the way, and take him up. Before they reached it, however, they saw a man fishing in the "Yarrow," not very far from the high-road. The fisherman the moment that he noticed a carriage full of people whose attention was apparently attracted to himself, gathered up his rod and line and began to run in an opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry him. Our friend descended from the carriage, and shouted after him at the top of his voice. But it was of no use--the fugitive never stopped until he reached an elevated spot of ground, when he turned round to watch the movements of the intruders. Recognizing our friend, he laughingly returned his greeting, and, approaching him, said--we translate his Scotch dialect into the vernacular--"Why, S----, my boy, how are you? Do you know, I took you for some of those rascally tourists, who come down upon me in swarms, like the locusts of Egypt, and eat me out of house and home." His fears removed, he accompanied the party to the lake, and they had a merry day of it.

Hogg's egotism and conceit were very amusing. Witness the following extract from his "Familiar anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott."

"One of Sir Walter's representatives has taken it upon him to assert, that Sir Walter held me in the lowest contempt! He never was further wrong in his life, but Sir Walter would have been still further wrong, if he had done so. Of that, posterity will judge."

* * * * *

There are many engraved portraits of Lord Byron afloat, but it is said that none of them resemble him. A friend of ours, who knew him intimately, assures us that the face of the Macedonian monarch in Paul Veronese's celebrated picture of "Alexander in the tent of Darius" at Venice, is the exact image of his lordship. Standing before it one day with a lady, he mentioned the extraordinary likeness to her in English, when the _cicerone_ who accompanied them, said, "Ah, sir, I see that you knew my old master well. Many a time since his death have I stood and gazed upon that face which recalled his own so strongly to my recollection."

By-the-by, the history of this picture is rather curious.

The artist, whose real name was Paul Caliari, was invited by a hospitable family to spend some time with them at their villa, on the banks of the Brenta. While in the house his habits were exceedingly peculiar. He remained in his room the greater part of the time, and refused to allow any one to enter it on any pretext. The maid was not even permitted to make his bed--and every morning she found the sweepings of the room at the door, whence she was at liberty to remove them. One day the painter suddenly disappeared. The door of the room was found open. The sheets were gone from the bed. The frightened servant reported to the master that they had been stolen. A search was instituted. In one corner of the room was found a large roll of canvas. Upon opening it, it proved to be a magnificent picture--the famous "Alexander in the tent of Darius." Upon close inspection, it was discovered that it was painted upon the sheets of the bed! The artist had left it as a present to the family, and had taken this curious method of evincing his gratitude.

* * * * *

Most travelers in Italy make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Juliet, at Verona. Verona and Shakspeare are, of course, inseparable; but when you are on the spot, little can be found to identify the creations of the poet. We have no more traces of Valentine and Proteus at Verona, than we possess of Launce and his dog at Milan. The _Montecchi_ belonged to the Ghibellines; and as they _joined_ with the _Capelletti_ in expelling Azo di Ferrara (shortly previous to 1207), it is probable that both were of the same party. The laconic mention of their families, which Dante places in the mouth of Sordello, proves their celebrity

"O Alberto tedesco, ch' abbandoni
Costei ch' è fatta indomita e selveggia,
E dovresti inforcar li suoi arcioni;
Giusto guidicio dalle stelle coggia
Sovra 'l tuo sangue, e sia nuovo e asserto,
Tal che 'l tuo successor temenza n' aggia:
Ch' avete, tu e 'l tuo padre, sofferto
Per cupidigia di costá distretti,
Che 'l giardin dell' 'mperio sia diserto.
Vieni a veder Montecchi e Capuletti,
Monaldi e Filippeschi, nom senza cura,
Color giá tristi, e costor con sospetti."

Purgatorio VI. 97, 109

"O Austrian Albert! who desertest her,
(Ungovernable now and savage grown),
When most she needed pressing with the spur--
May on thy race Heaven's righteous judgment fall;
And be it signally and plainly shown,
With terror thy successor to appal!
Since by thy lust yon distant lands to gain,
Thou and thy sire have suffered wild to run
What was the garden of thy fair domain.
Come see the Capulets and Montagues--
Monaldi--Filippeschi, reckless one!
These now in fear--already wretched those."

Wright's _Dante_.