Chapter VI: Part 6

The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than offer him the service of my own, and he accepted the civility. Having obtained an oar at the Water-Gate, we proceeded together to his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great apparent cordiality.

There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being minute. The person of the stranger--let me call him by this title, who to all the world was still a stranger--the person of the stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been below rather than above the medium size: although there were moments of intense passion when his frame actually _expanded_ and belied the assertion. The light, almost _slender_ symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity--a nose like those delicate creations of the mind to be found only in the medallions of the Hebrew--singular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet, and a profusion of glossy, black hair, from which a forehead rather low than otherwise, gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivory--his were features than which I have seen none more classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all men have seen at some period of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again. It had no peculiar--I wish to be perfectly understood--it had no _settled predominant expression_ to be fastened upon the memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten--but forgotten with a vague and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit of each rapid passion failed at any time, to throw its own distinct image upon the mirror of that face--but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of the passion, when the passion had departed.

Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me, in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him very early the next morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself accordingly at his Palazzo, one of those huge piles of gloomy, yet fantastic grandeur, which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity of the Rialto. I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics, into an apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door with an actual glare, making me sick and dizzy with luxuriousness.

I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken of his possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms of ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not bring myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could have supplied the far more than imperial magnificence which burned and blazed around.

Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was still brilliantly lighted up. I judged from this circumstance, as well as from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night. In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design had been to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to the _decora_ of what is technically called _keeping_, or to the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to object, and rested upon none--neither the _grotesques_ of the Greek painters--nor the sculptures of the best Italian days--nor the huge carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich draperies in every part of the room trembled to the vibrations of low, melancholy music, whose unseen origin, undoubtedly lay in the recesses of the crimson trelliss work which tapestried the ceiling. The senses were oppressed by mingled and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange Arabesque censers, which seemed actually endued with a monstrous vitality, as their particolored fires writhed up and down, and around about their extravagant proportions. The rays of the newly risen sun poured in upon the whole, through windows formed each of a single pane of crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and fro, in a thousand reflections, from curtains which rolled from their cornices like cataracts of molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering in subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid looking cloth of Chili gold. Here then had the hand of genius been at work. A chaos--a wilderness of beauty lay before me. A sense of dreamy and incoherent grandeur took possession of my soul, and I remained within the door-way speechless.

Ha! ha! ha!--ha! ha! ha!--laughed the proprietor, motioning me to a seat, and throwing himself back at full length upon an ottoman. "I see," said he, perceiving that I could not immediately reconcile myself to the _bienseance_ of so singular a welcome--"I see you are astonished at my apartment--at my statues--my pictures--my originality of conception in architecture and upholstery--absolutely drunk, eh? with my magnificence. But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit of cordiality) pardon me, my dear sir, for my uncharitable laughter. You appeared so _utterly_ astonished. Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous that a man must laugh or die. To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More--a very fine man was Sir Thomas More--Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also there is a long list of characters who came to the same magnificent end, in the _Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor. Do you know, however,"--continued he musingly--"that at Sparta (which is now Palæochori), at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of _socle_ upon which are still legible the letters [Greek: LASM]. They are undoubtedly part of [Greek: GELASMA]. Now at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand different divinities. How exceedingly strange that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the others! But in the present instance"--he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and manner--"in the present instance I have no right to be merry at your expense. You might well have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my little regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the same order--mere _ultras_ of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashion--is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become the rage--that is with those who could afford it at the cost of their entire patrimony. I have guarded, however, against any such profanation. With one exception you are the only human being besides myself, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these imperial precincts."

I bowed in acknowledgement: for the overpowering sense of splendor and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity of his address and manner, prevented me from expressing in words my appreciation of what I might have construed into a compliment.

"Here"--he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered around the apartment--"here are paintings from the Greeks to Cimabue, and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen, as you see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtû. They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here too, are some _chéf d'oeuvres_ of the unknown great--and here unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence and to me. What think you"--said he, turning abruptly as he spoke--"what think you of this Madonna della Pietà?"

"It is Guido's own!" I said, with all the enthusiasm of my nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing loveliness. "It is Guido's own!--how _could_ you have obtained it?--she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in sculpture."

"Ha!" said he, thoughtfully, "the Venus?--the beautiful Venus--the Venus of the Medicis?--she of the gilded hair?--the work of Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty,) and all the right are restorations, and in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation. The Apollo too!--is a copy--there can be no doubt of it--blind fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help--pity me!--I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates who said that the statuary _found his statue in the block of marble_? Then Michæl Angelo was by no means original in his couplet--

'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto
Chè un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.'"

* * * * *

It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the true gentlemen, we are always aware of a difference from the bearing of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in what such difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied in its full force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt it, on that eventful morning, still more fully applicable to his moral temperament and character. Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than by calling it a _habit_ of intense and continual thought, pervading even his most trivial actions--intruding upon his moments of dalliance--and interweaving itself with his very flashes of merriment--like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.

I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation--a degree of nervous _intensity_ in action and in speech--an unquiet excitability of manner, which appeared to me at all times unaccountable, and, upon some occasions, even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation of a visiter, or to sounds which must have had existence in his imagination alone.

It was during one of these reveries, or pauses of apparent abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar Politian's beautiful tragedy "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian tragedy) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third act--a passage of the most heart-stirring excitement--a passage which, although tainted with impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion--no woman without a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears, and, upon the opposite interleaf, were the following lines, written in a hand so very different from the peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognizing it as his own.

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine--
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed around about with flowers;
And the flowers--they all were mine.

But the dream--it could not last;
And the star of Hope did rise
But to be overcast.
A voice from out the Future cries
"Onward!"--while o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For alas!--alas!--with me
Ambition--all--is o'er.
"No more--no more--no more,"
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore,)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my hours are trances;
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
By what Italian streams.

Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o'er the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow--
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver willow!

That these lines were written in English--a language with which I had not believed their author acquainted--afforded me little matter for surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing them from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery; but the place of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little amazement. It had been originally written _London_, and afterwards carefully overscored--but not, however, so effectually, as to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say this occasioned me no little amazement; for I well remember that, in a former conversation with my friend, I particularly inquired if he had at any time met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for some years previous to her marriage had resided in that city,) when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to understand that he had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain. I might as well here mention, that I have more than once heard, (without of coarse giving credit to a report involving so many improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak was not only by birth, but in education an _Englishman_.

* * * * *

"There is one painting," said he, without being aware of my notice of the tragedy--"there is still one painting which you have not seen." And throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full length portrait of the Marchesa Aphrodite.

Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her bosom. With her left she pointed downwards to a curiously fashioned vase. One small, fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth--and, scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed to encircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of the most delicately imagined wings. My glance fell from the painting to the figure of my friend, and the vigorous words of Chapman's _Bussy D'Ambois_ quivered instinctively upon my lips--

"He is up
There like a Roman statue! He will stand
Till Death hath made him marble!"

"Come!" he said at length, turning towards a table of richly enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the foreground of the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be Vin de Barâc. "Come!" he said abruptly, "let us drink! It is early--but let us drink! It is _indeed_ early," he continued thoughtfully as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer, made the apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise--"It is _indeed_ early, but what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out an offering to the solemn sun, which these gaudy lamps and censers are so eager to subdue!" And, having made me pledge him in a bumper, he swallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the wine.

"To dream," he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of the magnificent vases--"to dream has been the business of my life. I have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In the heart of Venice could I have erected a better? You behold around you, it is true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are stretching upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are the bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the magnificent. _Once_ I was myself _a decorist_: but that sublimation of folly has palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose. Like these Arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of that land of real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing." Thus saying, he confessed the power of the wine, and threw himself at full length upon an ottoman.

A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a second disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room, and faltered out, in a voice chokeing with emotion, the incoherent words, "My mistress!--my mistress!--poisoned!--poisoned! Oh beautiful--oh beautiful Aphrodite!"

Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were rigid--his lips were livid--his lately beaming eyes were riveted in _death_. I staggered back towards the table--my hand fell upon a cracked and blackened goblet--and a consciousness of the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

PETER'S MOUNTAIN.

An extract from the unpublished Journal of a Tourist.

The third and last mountain over which the traveller passes, as he proceeds from Fincastle to the Sweet Springs, is Peter's Mountain--here called the Sweet Spring Mountain. This is, on several accounts, one of the most remarkable mountains in Virginia. It is remarkable, in the first place, for the appearance of regularity which it presents to the eye of the traveller, when viewed from the west. It extends sixty or seventy miles, between Jackson river on the north, and New river on the south, apparently in a straight line, and of nearly a uniform elevation. But this is not its whole extent. The mountain north of Jackson river, and that south of New river, are evidently continuations of the same mountain, and exhibit the same unbroken and regular appearance. While on the east there are numerous spurs extending from it in every direction, there is nothing of the kind observable on the west. Were it not for the magnitude of this mountain, its elevation, and its peculiar structure, we might readily have imagined it to be, like the Chinese wall, the work of man, constructed by the line and the plummet, in a former age, as a bulwark of defence, by some hardier race than ours; but these point us to the heavens for its great original.

As we looked back upon it from the valley on its west, our thoughts reverted to the period, when the red men of the forest took up the line of march, and relinquished the east to the peaceable possession of their treacherous invaders. Here, it was natural to suppose, they halted, and pitched their tents, and constructed their villages, and began again to feel as though they were "monarchs of all they surveyed." As they looked upon the mountain behind them, feelings of security would be restored, and they would consider this mountain as a barrier, reared by the Great Spirit for their protection.

"It is true, the white men made them wings--they flapped the winds, and passed over the wide waters, and up the big rivers. They gathered on the plains--they cleared the land, and made it theirs. But their wings were made for the waters, and not for the rugged mountains--and their feet are tender--they cannot encounter the flinty rock. Here, then, shall the waves of pride and oppression be stayed. Here may our wives and our children once more sit them down secure from foes, and build their fires, and gather their nuts, while we chase the deer and the buffalo in the far off west." Such we may suppose to have been the reflections of some savage chieftain, _nescius auræ fallacis_, as he looked upon the lofty, and seemingly interminable mountain bulwark before him. But, if such they were, they proved deceptive. A few revolving years passed away, and the white man was again on his borders. His track was seen on the mountain, and the stroke of his axe, and the shrill sound of his rifle were heard in the hollows. A few years more, and the Indian again disappeared, and the white man stood in his place--and the green grass grew, and the corn-blade rustled, and the farm house was seen, where once stood the rude villages, in which the chieftains had told the tale of the white man's fraud, and of their own and their father's wrong, and their own and their father's valor.

The circumstance which, more than any other, renders this mountain remarkable, is its intersection with that chain of mountains known as the Alleghany, which divides the waters that flow east into the Atlantic, from those which flow west into the Ohio and Mississippi. At about an equal distance between the Sweet Springs and Peterton, or the Grey Sulphur, the Alleghany dips under this mountain, and emerges again on its eastern side. The principal branches of the James river, head on the west of Peter's Mountain, but east of the Alleghany; while New river, the principal branch of the Great Kanawha, arises far to the east of Peter's Mountain, though west of the Alleghany. The waters of the Warm, Hot and Sweet Springs pass off to the ocean through the James river; while those of the White, Salt, Red and Grey Sulphur communicate with the Ohio, through the Kanawha.

This mountain, though uniform in its outline, is sufficiently variegated in other respects. In some places it sustains heavy forests, and is arable nearly to its summit; while in other places it is nearly denuded, sustaining only a stinted shrubbery. In some places, the large masses of sandstone which project near its summit, exhibit the most grotesque and romantic appearance. In the neighborhood of the Hot and Warm Springs, there are several very picturesque views. There is one in particular, which seen at the distance of three, four or five miles, has the appearance of a village in ruins, with some of its public edifices standing, and numerous villas or country mansions in a dilapidated state, scattered around it. In the skirts of this rocky village, is what appears to be an extensive burying-ground, with its vaults and tomb-stones, protecting the dust of the dead from the unhallowed tread of the living. In other places, the projections are less extensive, and resemble fortified outposts. As one gazes on such scenes, the mind is involuntarily led back to former ages, and the spectator is apt to fancy that he views one of the castles or fortified places, in which were transacted the tragical events of which he had heard or read in the records of a feudal age.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE DUEL.

"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 of _McCarthy 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.

LINES.

The dove of my bosom lies bleeding,
The hopes I once cherished are fled,
I gaze on their ruins unheeding,
Earth's brightest is low with the dead.

The eye that with rapture was beaming,
Is clouded in silence and gloom,
And those locks that like sunlight were gleaming,
Are damp with the dews of the tomb.

The smile that I sought as a treasure,
Is gone with the being who gave
To this bosom its throbbings of pleasure,
And my heart is with her in the grave.

* * * * *

Above her the wild flowers are growing,
They were nursed by the thoughts of her love,
They are wet by the tears that are flowing,
And shall flow, till I greet her above.

MORNA.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MY NATIVE HOME.

BY GEO. WATTERSTON.

When storms howl around me and dark tempests roll,
And Nature seems mov'd and convulsed to each pole--
When billows o'er billows tempestuously foam,
How dear is the thought of my lov'd native home.

The Laplander's breast, cold and dreary as night,
Beats wildly with transport, and throbs with delight,
When mem'ry, sad mem'ry, once chances to roam,
And recalls the past joys of his lov'd native home.

The soldier who combats at tyranny's call,
In far distant climes, where grim terrors appal,
At the last beat of life, when he ceases to roam,
While dying, remembers his dear native home.

Grim slav'ry's poor victim, long destin'd to mourn
O'er the ruins of peace that will never return,
Views with heart-bursting grief, old Ocean's white foam,
And dies as he thinks of his lov'd native home.

Misfortune's sad child, while he wanders afar,
Still guided by Destiny's mysterious star,
Heaves a sigh, while visions of intellect roam,
And paint on his mem'ry the sweets of his home.

When sorrows the cheek of remembrance bedew,
And disease, death, and misery glare dreadful to view,
How grateful, when far from our country we roam,
Are the long cherish'd thoughts of our lov'd native home.

Who wanders o'er far distant realms to enjoy
Life's baubles of pleasure and wealth's glitt'ring toy,
In his old age returns, no longer to roam,
From the long absent shades of his dear native home.

Would fortune permit me once more to return
To the cot of my youth, that in sadness I mourn,
Oh! nothing again shall induce me to roam
From the scenes, the lov'd scenes of my sweet native home.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MEMOIR OF THE AMBITIOUS LAWYER.

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 particularly _a 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 the _world_ in 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.