Chapter IV: Part 4

His bounteous goodness all creation fills,--
Even these wild woods where solitude prevails;
He sends his dews upon the untrodden hills,
And flowers he scatters o'er the lonely vales. {94}

Scenes unfrequented by the feet of men
Display his goodness, and proclaim his might:
He feeds the wild deer in the secret glen,
And the young eagles on the craggy height.

His mighty arm the vivid lightning speeds,
And bursts the clouds that o'er the hills impend:
The mountain stream through distant lands he leads
And Joy and Melody his steps attend.

To trace his wonders through each varying clime,
And all his mercies to the sons of men,
Fills the rapt soul with ecstacy sublime
Beyond the effort of the poet's pen.

O Solitude! how blissful are the hours
Among thy shades in heavenly musing past,
When Nature leads us through her secret bowers,
And Contemplation spreads the rich repast.

Among the haunts of men the thoughtful mind
That fain would rise above the things of earth,
Finds its bold flights on every hand confined,
By care distracted, and seduced by mirth.

But in the deep and solemn hour of night
The soul luxuriates in a scene like this:
From cliff to cliff she wings her daring flight
O'er foaming cataract or dark abyss.

Or else, uplifted o'er the things of time,
By heavenly Faith from all her bonds set free,
Among the fields of ether soars sublime,
And holds communion with the Deity.

Oh! how transporting is the glorious thought
That He whose power controls yon worlds above,
Is ever nigh--and ever found when sought
To save and bless us with a father's love.

Even his chastisements are with mercy fraught,
And seal instruction on the attentive mind.
Driven by disease these distant shades I sought,
And all the fruitless cares of life resigned:

'Twas there He met me, and in mercy healed
The raging fevers that my strength deprest,
His love paternal to my soul revealed,
And swell'd the tide of rapture in my breast.

Oh! then, my heart, may'st thou continual turn
To Him whose power alone can guide thy ways:
May love divine upon thine altar burn,
And every thought and feeling speak His praise.

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. VII.

He was too good for war, and ought to be
As far from danger, as from fear he's free.--_Cowley_.

"You are an accomplished Lovelace, Lionel!" said one of a merry throng, collected around a wine table. "Poor Miss Ellen Pilton is now fondly trusting to your mellow song of flattery and promise. Here's to her health! and to that of every pretty woman with a silly heart, and a credulous ear."

"'Tis pledged," cried I, forgetting every feeling of honor in the incense offered to my vanity, "and may each of you be equally successful."

The words were scarcely uttered by me, nor had the glass touched my lips, ere I received a violent blow in the face, which sent me reeling to the extremity of the room. Rising with shame from my debasing posture, I encountered the eye of Pilton, fixed on me with a firm, cool, and deliberate gaze, and in an instant, my dirk was pointed to his heart. I looked in his face with a stern, malignant, and merciless triumph, yet his color neither blanched--nor did his countenance quail. "Let him alone!" cried twenty voices, "he is unarmed, give him fair play;" and I thank God, that in the tempest of my rage I was sufficiently alive to this appeal to my manhood, suddenly to throw the vulgar weapon away.

"Base coward!" cried I, "I will not assassinate you--but remember that your blood alone, can cleanse this foul and dastardly assault."

"You have insulted my sister," he replied, "and I have punished your falsehood. I fear neither your attempt at assassination--nor the resentment of that baseness which can trample on unprotected innocence. Remember, Mr. Granby, that the blow which you received was from a brother's hand! and if you be a gentleman, your infamy will be deepened by the seething recollections of your own conscience."

"You have done wrong Lionel!" said many voices, "tell him, that you did not see him enter the room when the toast was offered, or you would not have wounded his feelings."

"Who dictates to me?" said I,--"who measures my honor? who controls my revenge? for whoever dare treat me with such impertinent freedom, I will hold as an enemy, whom I will pursue to the grave. As for you, Mr. Pilton--you will _understand_----_to-morrow_."

My couch that night was one of utter wretchedness, and my revenge was lashed into bitterness, by the whip of sleepless conscience. That I should in a moment of folly have committed an act disgraceful to a gentleman--that I should, under the excitement of puerile vanity, have offered myself to the just resentment of my enemy--that I should thus foolishly lose the "vantage ground," which I had long and anxiously sought--that I should be stung and tortured by a consciousness of impropriety--and that I should bear on my proud cheek, the scorching blush of a public insult, were feelings which conspired to humble and cheapen me to the lowest point of mental and personal degradation.

Where duelling is a passion--and where public opinion calls it chivalry, it is easy to procure a second, and I was saved the trouble of seeking one by the voluntary offer of the young man who had given the offensive toast to my vanity. Early on the next morning, the warlike missive, graced with the usual courtesies, was sent to Pilton, and in a short time I received the following answer--a brief, though comprehensive commentary on the truisms and philosophy of cowardice.

_Sir_--I cannot--I will not fight a duel. I owe duties to my country, my God, and my family, dependent on a life which none but a fool would idly risk. I am not sufficiently base to murder you--nor am I silly enough to offer my life to your malignant revenge. I have no right to kill you--therefore, I shall not attempt it. I {95} chastised you, as I shall do every man, who acts in a similar manner, for an insult to the reputation of a sister. Sustained by an approving conscience--and a mind honestly alive to a sense of its own dignity, I am prepared to defend myself from every attack of brutality and malice.

Your ob't servant,
EDMUND PILTON.

_Lionel Granby, Esq._

"Why did you suffer Pilton to refuse the challenge? Was it not delivered in proper form? and did you not assure him that there was no alternative?"

"It was with difficulty," replied my second, "that I could induce him to receive your note, and when he informed me of his refusal to fight, I called him a coward, and threw a glass of water into his face. Provoked to some spirit by the grossness of my insult, he struck me with a cane; I aimed a pistol at his bosom which unfortunately flashed; and he terminated my visit, by caning and kicking me down stairs. I am more deeply insulted than you are. What shall I do? How shall I act to obtain satisfaction?"

My second's reception added more gall to my wounded pride, and I resolved to coerce Pilton into a fight, by attacking him, whenever we should meet. I crushed his letter with my heel, and, throwing it into the fire, I watched it twisting and crackling amid the blaze. Ere it had wasted itself into ashes, Arthur Ludwell, almost breathless, entered my room.

"I feel deeply, dear Lionel," said he taking my hand, "for your situation, and regret that you have not sent for me, and demanded my assistance. I have waited on Pilton, who declares that he will make an apology for his blow, if you will say that you were ignorant of his presence in the room, when the toast was pledged. All who have heard of the affray know very well, that this was the fact; for you would not wantonly wound that exquisite sensibility which a brother alone can feel. It would be honorable on your part to express the truth, and it is magnanimous in Pilton to offer his reconciliation."

"And am I then so degraded, so contemptible, and so humble, that you can thus cruelly taunt me, and, with the harlotry of insidious friendship, counsel me to vilify my name, and commit a debasing suicide on my own character? Must I make an apology to a brute--one who is a disgrace to manhood's spirit--and who has rotted into life, on the dunghill of selfishness? Must I succumb to him, whom I have hated with long, unbroken, and relentless abhorrence? Must I be deaf to that fearful curse with which his malice blighted the freshness of my boyhood--which burnt on the tablet of memory, and graven in letters of blood, now agonizes my brain, and swells through my heart? Must I be recreant to my name, and family--forget that blow which will ever tingle on my cheek, and basely creep through life a reptile coward? Take back your treacherous friendship, if this be its infamy, and remember, Mr. Ludwell, that in one moment you have crushed every feeling of affection, and on its ruins, have arisen an eternal contempt for your duplicity, and a damning scorn for your character."

"Hear me, dear Lionel!" said he, bursting into tears, "and forgive that advice which sprung from a heart tenderly alive to every thing connected with your interest. Control your rage, and listen to the voice of that friend who will sacrifice life, and surrender every thing he has on earth, for your reputation. Pardon the intrusion of my counsel, and I will forgive your suspicions. Come, give me your hand, and let me not believe that you have a bad heart."

"What right sir! have you to allude to my heart, whatever it may be?--no imputation shall be cast on it, by a weeping coward. I shall hold you answerable," said I quitting the room--"for the baseness of your insinuation, and I can assure you that an ocean of hypocritical tears will not protect you."

So soon as I could procure a pen, I addressed a cruel and fiend-like letter to Arthur, demanding an humble apology--and an explicit disavowal of his insult, and in the event of his refusal, my second was authorised to make a _speedy arrangement_. "Let him not (concluded my letter) see your womanly accomplishments, for he is prepared to scorn the weakness, and loathe the duplicity of your tears."

The same second whom Pilton's attack had maddened into a demoniac rage for blood, bore my challenge to Arthur; and when he returned, I saw his eye kindled into animation at the hope of a certain fight. "Here is a letter for you! Ludwell is true game. You cannot retract your challenge, and he will be forced to meet you! I will clean the pistols, while you write family letters and starve; for the odds are against you, if you dine or eat any thing." While he busied himself in searching for the pistols, I opened and read with feelings of stern contempt, the letter of Arthur.

_My dear Lionel_,--Take back your challenge, and do not force me to meet _you_ in combat. I cannot refuse it, for I have not firmness of mind to do an act which my reason suggests, and my heart approves. I am afraid of that public opinion which would execrate me as a coward, and trample me into infamy, ere I had stept into manhood. In spite of your unkind letter, I still love you with the candor and truth of a boy's heart, and I think now more deeply of the innocent hours of our early days, when friendship united us, and sincerity hallowed the union. You know that I cannot make an apology under a threat. Retract it, and I will humble myself, if by such means I can regain your wonted affection.

Your friend,
ARTHUR LUDWELL.

"Return!" said I to my second, "and inform Mr. Ludwell that if he do not consent to fight, I will proclaim him as a coward, and publish his whining letter to the world. He, with every other man who dare sustain Pilton, is my enemy."

We met! 'Twas a mild and peaceful evening when we approached the field, and the setting sun was rejoicing like a bridegroom in the blushing embrace of the trembling horizon. Its quivering rays were reflected in shadowy lines, through the foliage of the forest, while the scarlet fruit of two old holly trees--the mute records of many a duel--lent the only cheering aspect to the frightful solitude of the scene. Our seconds having retired a short distance, for the purpose of arranging the usual ceremonies, we were left standing near each other. I was proud and inflexible, yet I felt my heart throbbing with anguish, and long-prized friendship, and when I looked on his serene and {96} dignified countenance, the jeweled days of our childhood flashed before me--when I was untainted by revenge--and uncursed by hatred,--when I was lifted above the darkness of human passion--when hope illuminated the airy future, and pleasure grasped the unalloyed fruition of reality. I thought not of my own death--of that dreamless and sodden sleep, from whose ghastly phantasm wisdom sinks into horror--of that dark insensibility to warm and mantling life--to light, hope, and love--a shadowless, impenetrable and boundless desart. Could I destroy the life of him, who with tireless truth had ever joyed in my joys--and sorrowed in my sorrows? Could I crush and scatter into nothingness, the full harvest which his ambition had garnered--the gems of mind--the sparkling thoughts of genius--the rich treasures of learning--and bankrupt the accumulated spoils of wisdom? Could I seize from the fœtid riot of the grave the animated countenance, the brave, generous and affectionate heart, or call back from the eternal prison of death, the gifted mind, and the eloquent brow? I reasoned with a memory which could not be recreant, and of the result of that duel my heart is guiltless?

Our seconds, having finished their conversation, now approached, and placed the pistols in our hands, Arthur holding his in a perpendicular position, and mine according to the latest improvement, and the repeated suggestions of my second, being directed to the earth.

"I cannot consent to fire?" said I, "while Mr. Ludwell stands directly in the line of that tree, it gives me a great advantage!"

"It makes no difference, Lionel!--Mr. Granby," said Arthur, suddenly correcting himself, "I care not in what posture, or situation I stand." His second now advanced and placed him in a position, the advantage of which did not escape the keen eye of my friend, who turned me around twice, before he confessed himself satisfied with my attitude. The word "_fire_" was now given, and almost at the same moment our pistols were discharged, Arthur having fired his into the air, while I in raising mine, had involuntarily aimed it directly at my antagonist. The ball struck him I know not where, but I saw him reel backwards, stagger, and laying hold of a bush near him, stumble, and fall to the earth.

"I demand another fire," said his friend, "he is able to stand, and I claim the privilege." "Mr. Ludwell cannot fire again," replied my second, "for he has thrown away his shot."

"I resign my right," interrupted Arthur! "and Lionel, I forgive you. If I recover, I will forget all--and dying, you have my unalloyed friendship. Leave this frightful place as soon as possible, for you may be arrested; and do not fear, for I shall yet recover, and we will be friends again." These words were uttered by him in a faint, though distinct voice; his features were nerved with his usual lofty dignity of countenance, yet his eye quivered with a flitting light, and a dark and unearthly color fell, like a wintry cloud, over the radiance of his brow. I could not so far divest myself of pride, as to confess in presence of our seconds that my fire had been accidental, nor could I, even at that trying moment, reconcile it to myself to be an exception to that general rule, which requires that a challenger shall never throw away his fire. Motioning to our friends to retire, I approached Arthur, and leaning over him, I whispered the simple truth. A momentary smile flashed over his pallid countenance, and grasping my hand in an ecstacy of delight, he said, "I knew it! I believe you! I was confident that you did not fire intentionally!" He was here interrupted by my second who exclaimed "the civil authorities!" I looked round, and through the dim twilight, I saw a crowd of ill-dressed people rapidly approaching us. I knelt down, and asking forgiveness once more from my injured friend, fled with the burning brand of Cain on my forehead--an humbled and heart-broken man!

UNKNOWN FLOWERS.

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen."

Oh! many are the unknown flowers,
By human eyes unseen,
That bloom in nature's woodland bowers,
Of bright and changeless green.
The brightest flowers earth ever knew,
Of lovely breath, and brilliant hue,
Are sparkling there with morning dew,
Or bright with summer showers--
Above them tower the forest trees,
And o'er them blows the gentle breeze,
And by them many a mountain stream
Runs eddying thro' its banks of green,
And to each bud that o'er it bends
A drop of pearly radiance lends,
Dashes its sides with snowy spray,
Then hurries on its course away--
The wood-bee revels on their sweets,
And 'neath their leaves the bright Fay sleeps;
And by them bounds the gentle deer
So full of life, so full of fear:
And lovely birds, whose brilliant wings
Are bright with hues of brighter things,
Make music in those woodland bowers,
Those Edens of the unknown flowers.

MORNA.

SONNET TO ********.

BY ALEXANDER LACY BEARD, M.D.

I will not leave thee! no by heaven I swear,
Although thy soul be stained with guilt and shame,
I will not leave thee! for by me it came--
Then cheer up, sweet one, shudder not with fear;
From my own side, thy form they shall not tear;
I will not leave thee! one undying flame
Burns in my breast!--will ever burn the same,
'Mid sorrow's storm, and darkest hour of care.

O that some far off, dark, and desart isle,
To man a stranger and his heartless pride,
Would take us to its bosom lone and wild,
Where I, unwatched, could wander by thy side,
Soothed by thy voice and gladden'd by thy smile,
Rich in thy love so long and deeply tried.

A. W. Schlegel says, that in a German drama is the following stage direction. "He flashes lightning at him with his eyes, and exit." (_Er blitzt ihn mit den augen an._)

{97}

METZENGERSTEIN. A TALE IN IMITATION OF THE GERMAN.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

Pestis eram vivus--moriens tua mors ero.
_Martin Luther_.

Horror and Fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to the story I have to tell? I will not. Besides, I have other reasons for concealment. Let it suffice to say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves--that is, of their falsity, or of their probability--I say nothing. I assert, however, that much of our incredulity--as La Bruyére says of all our unhappiness--"_vient de ne pouvoir etre seuls_."

But there were some points in the Hungarian superstition which were fast verging to absurdity. They--the Hungarians--differed very essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example. "_The soul_," said the former--I give the words of an acute and intelligent Parisian--"_ne demeure qu'un seul fois dans un corps sensible: au reste--un cheval, un chien, un homme même n' est que la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux._"

* * * * *

The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so illustrious mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. Indeed, at the era of this history, it was observed by an old crone of haggard and sinister appearance, that "fire and water might sooner mingle than a Berlifitzing clasp the hand of a Metzengerstein." The origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy--"A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, like the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing."

To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But more trivial causes have given rise--and that no long while ago--to consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs of a busy government. Moreover, near neighbors are seldom friends--and the inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of the Chateau Metzengerstein. Least of all was the more than feudal magnificence thus discovered calculated to allay the irritable feelings of the less ancient and less wealthy Berlifitzings. What wonder, then, that the words, however silly, of that prediction, should have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two families already predisposed to quarrel by every instigation of hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to imply--if it implied any thing--a final triumph on the part of the already more powerful house; and was of course remembered with the more bitter animosity on the side of the weaker and less influential.

* * * * *

Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although honorably and loftily descended, was, at the epoch of this narrative, an infirm and doting old man, remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal antipathy to the family of his rival, and so passionate a love of horses, and of hunting, that neither bodily infirmity, great age, nor mental incapacity, prevented his daily participation in the dangers of the chase.

Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, was, on the other hand, not yet of age. His father, the Minister G----, died young. His mother, the Lady Mary, followed quickly after. Frederick was, at that time, in his fifteenth year. In a city fifteen years are no long period--a child may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in a wilderness--in so magnificent a wilderness as that old principality, fifteen years have a far deeper meaning.

The beautiful Lady Mary! How _could_ she die?--and of consumption! But it is a path I have prayed to follow. I would wish all I love to perish of that gentle disease. How glorious! to depart in the hey-day of the young blood--the heart all passion--the imagination all fire--amid the remembrances of happier days--in the fall of the year--and so be buried up forever in the gorgeous autumnal leaves!

Thus died the Lady Mary. The young Baron Frederick stood without a living relative by the coffin of his dead mother. He placed his hand upon her placid forehead. No shudder came over his delicate frame--no sigh from his flinty bosom. Heartless, self-willed, and impetuous from his childhood, he had reached the age of which I speak through a career of unfeeling, wanton, and reckless dissipation; and a barrier had long since arisen in the channel of all holy thoughts and gentle recollections.

* * * * *

From some peculiar circumstances attending the administration of his father, the young Baron, at the decease of the former, entered immediately upon his vast possessions. Such estates were seldom held before by a nobleman of Hungary. His castles were without number--of these the chief in point of splendor and extent was the "Chateau Metzengerstein." The boundary line of his dominions was never clearly defined--but his principal park embraced a circuit of fifty miles.

Upon the succession of a proprietor so young--with a character so well known--to a fortune so unparalleled--little speculation was afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct. And, indeed, for the space of three days the behavior of the heir out-heroded Herod, and fairly surpassed the expectations of his most enthusiastic admirers. Shameful debaucheries--flagrant treacheries--unheard-of atrocities--gave his trembling vassals quickly to understand that no servile submission on their part--no punctilios of conscience on his own--were thenceforward to prove any security against the remorseless and bloody fangs of a petty Caligula. On the night of the fourth day, the stables of the Castle Berlifitzing were discovered to be on fire: and the unanimous opinion of the neighborhood instantaneously added the crime of the incendiary to the already hideous list of the Baron's misdemeanors and enormities.

But during the tumult occasioned by this occurrence, the young nobleman himself sat, apparently buried in meditation, in a vast and desolate upper apartment of the family palace of Metzengerstein. The rich although faded tapestry-hangings which swung gloomily upon the walls, represented the shadowy and majestic forms of a thousand illustrious ancestors. _Here_, rich-ermined priests, and pontifical dignitaries, familiarly seated with the autocrat and the sovereign, put a veto on the wishes of a temporal king--or {98} restrained with the fiat of papal supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-Enemy. _There_, the dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein--their muscular war-coursers plunging over the carcass of a fallen foe--startled the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression: and _here_, again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames of days gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the strains of imaginary melody.

But as the Baron listened, or affected to listen to the gradually increasing uproar in the stables of Berlifitzing--or perhaps pondered upon some more novel--some more decided act of audacity--his eyes became unwittingly rivetted to the figure of an enormous, and unnaturally colored horse, represented in the tapestry as belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his rival. The horse itself, in the foreground of the design, stood motionless and statue-like--while farther back its discomfitted rider perished by the dagger of a Metzengerstein.

On Frederick's lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became aware of the direction his glance had, without his consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the contrary he could by no means account for the singular, intense, and overwhelming anxiety which appeared falling like a shroud upon his senses. It was with difficulty that he reconciled his dreamy and incoherent feelings with the certainty of being awake. The longer he gazed, the more absorbing became the spell--the more impossible did it appear that he could ever withdraw his glance from the fascination of that tapestry. But the tumult without becoming suddenly more violent, with a kind of compulsory and desperate exertion he diverted his attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the flaming stables upon the windows of the apartment.

The action, however, was but momentary--his gaze returned mechanically to the wall. To his extreme horror and astonishment the head of the gigantic steed had, in the meantime, altered its position. The neck of the animal, before arched, as if in compassion, over the prostrate body of its lord, was now extended, at full length, in the direction of the Baron. The eyes, before invisible, now wore an energetic and human expression, while they gleamed with a fiery and unusual red: and the distended lips of the apparently enraged horse left in full view his sepulchral and disgusting teeth.

Stupified with terror the young nobleman tottered to the door. As he threw it open, a flash of red light streaming far into the chamber, flung his shadow with a clear outline against the quivering tapestry; and he shuddered to perceive that shadow--as he staggered awhile upon the threshold--assuming the exact position, and precisely filling up the contour of the relentless and triumphant murderer of the Saracen Berlifitzing.

To lighten the depression of his spirits the Baron hurried into the open air. At the principal gate of the Chateau he encountered three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril of their lives, they were restraining the unnatural and convulsive plunges of a gigantic and fiery-colored horse.

"Whose horse? Where did you get him?" demanded the youth in a querulous and husky tone of voice, as he became instantly aware that the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes.

"He is your own property, Sire"--replied one of the equerries--"at least he is claimed by no other owner. We caught him flying, all smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of the Castle Berlifitzing. Supposing him to have belonged to the old Count's stud of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray. But the grooms there disclaim any title to the creature--which is strange, since he bears evident marks of having made a narrow escape from the flames."

"The letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his forehead"--interrupted a second equerry--"I supposed them, of course, to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing--but all at the Castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse."

"Extremely singular!" said the young Baron, with a musing air, and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his words--"He is, as you say, a remarkable horse--a prodigious horse! although, as you very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable character----Let him be mine, however," he added, after a pause--"perhaps a rider like Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even the devil from the stables of Berlifitzing."

"You are mistaken, my lord--the horse, as I think we mentioned, is _not_ from the stables of the Count. If such were the case, we know our duty better than to bring him into the presence of a noble of your family."

"True!" observed the Baron drily--and at that instant a page of the bed chamber came from the Chateau with a heightened color, and precipitate step. He whispered into his master's ear an account of the miraculous and sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry, in an apartment which he designated: entering, at the same time, into particulars of a minute and circumstantial character--but from the low tone of voice in which these latter were communicated, nothing escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of the equerries.

The young Frederick, during the conference, seemed agitated by a variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure, and an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his countenance, as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber should be immediately locked up, and the key placed in his own possession.

* * * * *

"Have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter Berlifitzing?" said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after the affair of the page, the huge and mysterious steed which that nobleman had adopted as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled and supernatural fury, down the long avenue which extended from the Chateau to the stables of Metzengerstein.

"No!"--said the Baron, turning abruptly towards the speaker--"dead! say you?"

"It is indeed true, my lord--and, to a noble of your name, will be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence."

A rapid smile of a peculiar and unintelligible meaning shot over the beautiful countenance of the listener--"How died he?"

"In his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames."

"I--n--d--e--e--d--!"--ejaculated the Baron, as if {99} slowly and deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.

"Indeed"--repeated the vassal.

"Shocking!" said the youth calmly, and turned quietly into the Chateau.

* * * * *

From this date a marked alteration took place in the outward demeanor of the dissolute young Baron Frederick Von Metzengerstein. Indeed his behaviour disappointed every expectation, and proved little in accordance with the views of many a manœuvering mamma--while his habits and manners, still less than formerly, offered any thing congenial with those of the neighboring aristocracy. He was never to be seen beyond the limits of his own domain, and, in this wide and social world, was utterly companionless--unless, indeed, that unnatural, impetuous, and fiery-colored horse, which he henceforward continually bestrode, had any mysterious right to the title of his friend.

Numerous invitations on the part of the neighborhood for a long time, however, periodically came in--"Will the Baron honor our festivals with his presence?" "Will the Baron join us in a hunting of the boar?" "Metzengerstein does not hunt"--"Metzengerstein will not attend"--were the haughty and laconic answers.

These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious nobility. Such invitations became less cordial--less frequent--in time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count Berlifitzing, was even heard to express a hope--"that the Baron might be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he disdained the company of his equals: and ride when he did not wish to ride, since he preferred the society of a horse." This to be sure was a very silly explosion of hereditary pique; and merely proved how singularly unmeaning our sayings are apt to become, when we desire to be unusually energetic.

The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for the untimely loss of his parents--forgetting, however, his atrocious and reckless behavior during the short period immediately succeeding that bereavement. Some there were, indeed, who suggested a too haughty idea of self-consequence and dignity. Others again--among whom may be mentioned the family physician--did not hesitate in speaking of morbid melancholy, and hereditary ill-heath: while dark hints, of a more equivocal nature, were current among the multitude.

Indeed the Baron's perverse attachment to his lately-acquired charger--an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from every fresh example of the animal's ferocious and demonlike propensities--at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men, a hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noon--at the dead hour of night--in sickness or in health--in calm or in tempest--in moonlight or in shadow--the young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that colossal horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded with the spirit of his own.

There were circumstances, moreover, which, coupled with late events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania of the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space passed over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and was found to exceed by an astounding difference, the wildest expectations of the most imaginative. The Baron, besides, had no particular _name_ for the animal, although all the rest in his extensive collection were distinguished by characteristic appellations. His stable, too, was appointed at a distance from the rest; and with regard to grooming and other necessary offices, none but the owner in person had ventured to officiate, or even to enter the enclosure of that particular stall. It was also to be observed, that although the three grooms, who had caught the horse as he fled from the conflagration at Berlifitzing, had succeeded in arresting his course, by means of a chain-bridle and noose--yet no one of the three could with any certainty affirm that he had, during that dangerous struggle, or at any period thereafter, actually placed his hand upon the body of the beast. Instances of peculiar intelligence in the demeanor of a noble and high spirited steed are not to be supposed capable of exciting unreasonable attention--especially among men who, daily trained to the labors of the chase, might appear well acquainted with the sagacity of a horse--but there were certain circumstances which intruded themselves per force, upon the most skeptical and phlegmatic--and it is said there were times when this singular and mysterious animal, caused the gaping crowd who stood around to recoil in silent horror from the deep and impressive meaning of his terrible stamp--times when the young Metzengerstein turned pale and shrunk away from the rapid and searching expression of his intense and human-looking eye.

Among all the retinue of the Baron, however, none were found to doubt the ardor of that extraordinary affection which existed on the part of the young nobleman for the fiery qualities of his horse--at least, none but an insignificant and misshapen little page, whose deformities were in every body's way, and whose opinions were of the least possible importance. He--if his ideas are worth mentioning at all--had the effrontery to assert that his master never vaulted into the saddle, without an unaccountable and almost imperceptible shudder--and that, upon his return from every long-continued and habitual ride, an expression of triumphant malignity distorted every muscle in his countenance.

One tempestuous night, Metzengerstein, awaking from a heavy and oppressive slumber, descended like a maniac from his chamber, and mounting in great haste, bounded away into the mazes of the forest. An occurrence so common attracted no particular attention--but his return was looked for with intense anxiety on the part of his domestics, when, after some hour's absence, the stupendous and magnificent battlements of the Chateau Metzengerstein, were discovered crackling and rocking to their very foundation, under the influence of a dense and livid mass of ungovernable fire.

As the flames, when first seen, had already made so terrible a progress that all efforts to save any portion of the building were evidently futile, the astonished neighborhood stood idly around in silent and apathetic wonder. But a new and fearful object soon rivetted the attention of the multitude, and proved how much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.

{100} Up the long avenue of aged oaks which led from the forest to the main entrance of the Chateau Metzengerstein, a steed, bearing an unbonneted and disordered rider, was seen leaping with an impetuosity which outstripped the very Demon of the Tempest, and extorted from every stupified beholder the ejaculation--"horrible!"

The career of the horseman was indisputably, on his own part, uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance--the convulsive struggle of his frame--gave evidence of superhuman exertion: but no sound, save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through in the intensity of terror. One instant, and the clattering of hoofs resounded sharply and shrilly above the roaring of the flames and the shrieking of the winds--another, and, clearing at a single plunge the gateway and the moat, the steed bounded far up the tottering stair-cases of the Palace, and, with its rider, disappeared amid the whirlwind of chaotic fire.

The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm sullenly succeeded. A white flame still enveloped the building like a shroud, and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere, shot forth a glare of preternatural light; while a cloud of smoke settled heavily over the battlements in the distinct collossal figure of--a horse.

THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.

[_From a Philadelphia Journal_.]

A PRIZE POEM--BY A VIRGINIAN.

'Twas no longer day
In an isle that lay
Distant o'er ocean--far
Beyond the western star,
Under a sky unknown,
All beautiful and lone.

It was a fairy isle,
Where summer's golden smile
Shines on forever unchangingly,
O'er its glittering vine-clad hills,
Green valleys and cold limpid rills,
And the encircling emerald sea.
Oh! there are spirits that dwell
In every wizard dell--
Sweet forms that haunt each grottoed fount,
Each fragrant vale and sunlit mount,
And voices that whisper at even-tide,
On the silver sands by the lone sea side.

There came a youth to the shore alone,
His step was light--his air was free,
And his glittering eye flashed joyously--
He knelt him down on the printless sand,
And in the hollow of his hand,
Dipped the clear waves, and o'er a stone,
A curious greyish stone, that stood
Just on the margin of the flood,
He sprinkled the drops, and half-sung, half-spoke,
In a low faint tone, that scarcely broke
The hush that hung round that wild shore,
The waters were silently creeping o'er--

"Stars are weeping
O'er the waves,
Winds are sleeping
In their caves--
'Tis the hour,
Then come to me,
By love's power
I conjure thee--
Quickly come
Unto me,
From thy coral home
Under the sea."

"Beautiful spirit,
Hear my call--
Ocean! bear it
To her hall
Where she twines
Her yellow hair
By light that shines
From diamonds there!
Bid her come
Unto me,
From her coral home
Under the sea."

* * * * *

"Does she wait to deck
With gems her hair?
Tell her I nothing reck
Of jewels rare,
Other than those eyes
So wildly bright--
They dim the starred skies
With their purer light.
Ocean Spirit come--
Oh! come to me,
From thy coral home
Beneath the sea."
He paused, and silent stood
In listening attitude--
His head bent forward, and his eye
Gazing with fixed intensity;
A low sad tone
Came o'er the wave
Like the wind's faint moan
In a hollow cave,
Throughout the echoing archways sighing,
Then in mysterious whispers dying--
And all was calm and still again,
So still--the place might seem to be
The grave of sound.--Oh! mournfully
From the noiseless sands the youth turned then,
And slowly upward from the shore
His step retraced, with a heavy heart,
And dimming eye, as those who part
With something much loved and cherished of yore.

Now at the foot of a mountain
In the silence and shadow he stood,
By the brink of the charmed fountain
Whose dark and sullen flood
Doth bring forgetfulness to those
Who drink its wave, of all their woes.
For thence he took
The magic flower,
And three times shook
Its leaves of power, {101}
And muttered the word
Which in our clime
Hath not been heard
Since the birth of Time--
This done, 'tis said,
If the youth or the maid
Of thy heart be untrue,
The leaves will fade
And fall where they grew;
Alas! he knew
By this same never-erring token,
That the faith of his ocean-love was broken.

In mute surprise and grief the youth remained,
Gazing upon the stalk unleaved and bare,
Which still his hand unconsciously retained,
Then proudly tossed it on the green sward there--
"Thus," said he, "from my heart, false one, I cast
The memory of thee and of the past."

Now o'er the fountain's brim he stooped to lave
His eager lip in the oblivious wave;
But ere he had approached so near, his breath
Might break the mirror sleeping calm beneath,
Her image, in the beauty of a dream,
Between him and the waters seemed to swim,
And memories which his heart unconsciously
Had garnered up, came o'er him hurriedly,
In sweet succession, 'till his soul of feeling
Thrilled like harp-strings o'er which the winds are stealing.
He drew back, undecided--in dismay,
And as, whene'er he strove, the vision smiled,
So was he ever baffled and beguiled,
Until at last he rose and went his way--
Unhappy howsoe'er, he fancied yet
_Nought could so joyless be as to forget_.

MORAL

There must be something beautiful in wo
That springs from love, else what is it that makes
The heart, cling to its veriest sorrows so,
And will not part with them until it breaks?
Indeed love's pleasure with its pain so blends
Like the warm sunset glow, and 'mid heaven's blue,
We cannot tell where one begins or ends,
Tho' each so totally unlike in hue.

ENGLISH POETRY.

CHAPTER III.

My task has been in part a task of selection. Many of the old Poets whose frequent beauties I have acknowledged, (at no time more than when occupied in the compilation of these papers,) have been passed over in silence. Herrick, the "honey-bee of letters"--Rare Drummond, hight "of Hawthornden"--Lovelace, whose Althea will live with Surry's Geraldine--and many other "names noble and bright" have met with bare mention. It cannot be expected then that I should rake up from the dung-hill of the day the Tennysons, the Montgomeries, the Blessingtons, etc. etc. with whose writings magazine readers are so conversant. These are "bad bardlings." But many will be passed by for whom I entertain much respect, and more love. Mrs. Norton, the elder Montgomery, Miss Landon, gentle and sad Grahame, are lights of no mean magnitude. But "in looking upon the moon the dimmer orbs are forgotten." I avail myself of this introductory paragraph to say, that this paper will be unlike those which have preceded it. Accurate research, and close examination into points of literary history, although necessary in treating of English Poetry in its earlier stages, are scarcely so in treating of the same subject in its later. The reason of this is evident. I shall therefore content myself with brief critical remarks, (_too_ brief, perhaps, to excite interest) and as a matter of less importance than in my former papers--with snatches of biography. This being the case, I fear that these papers will be thought trivial.

My last chapter ended with Pope. Passing over Swift and a few others, we come at once upon a worthy name.

I. James Thomson, the author of the _Seasons_ and other Poems of merit, was born in Roxburgshire, Scotland, in September, 1700. His father, a clergyman of small estate, died while the Poet was yet a boy; and, after a few years spent in obscurity, the son went to London as a literary adventurer. "By what gradation of indigence he became reduced to a Poet it would be vain to inquire." He did become "_reduced to a Poet_," however, and, after a season of want, he succeeded in selling his "Winter." Mr. Wheatley and Aaron Hill took active parts in his advancement, and Thomson was so blinded by gratitude for the kindness of the latter gentleman, that he flattered him without stint,--for which our poet no doubt underwent the repentance of Caliban on discovering the earthly quality of Stephano.

----------"What a thrice double ass
Was I to take the drunkard for a God,
And worship this dull fool."

His "Winter" was dedicated to Sir Spencer Compton, afterwards Viscount Pevensey--and twenty guineas were the price of the compliment. This poem soon became popular; so much so, that he was induced to publish his "Summer"--after which, "Spring" and "Autumn" followed in the order in which I write them. In 1727 he wrote "Britannia," a satirical poem, and "Sophonisba," a tragedy.[1] Other plays followed, several of which were suppressed by the licenser. Then came "Liberty," an elaborate and heavy poem. Thomson, at this stage of his affairs, was without funds or patronage. The Prince of Wales, however, having reduced his own fortunes to a condition almost as desperate as the Poet's, either from sympathy or from a supposition that the patronage of literature would be one means of gaining popular favor, employed Mr. Lyttleton to enlist Thomson. Our Poet, when the Prince on his first introduction familiarly inquired into his affairs, answered that 'they were in a more poetical posture than formerly'--whereupon he was presented with a yearly pension of 100_l_. After this he produced Agamemnon, a tragedy--Edward and Eleonora, a tragedy--Alfred, a mask--and the tragedy of Tancred and Sigismunda. Mr. Lyttleton having come into office, appointed him {102} surveyor general of the Leeward Islands. The salary appertaining to this office was something more than 300_l_., and then it was that, unharassed by petty troubles, he finished his "Castle of Indolence."

[Footnote 1: Now only remembered from a rough parody on one of its verses. The play had excited high expectation, and was well received; but when the actor came to repeat--"O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O," a voice from the audience chimed in--"O, Jemmie Thomson, Jemmie Thomson, O," which for a time was a mouth-verse throughout the city.]

To this Poem I will confine myself in treating hurriedly of the writings of Thomson. His Seasons are too well known to call for comment--and his other works are (perhaps deservedly) out of the public recollection. The "Castle of Indolence" then, is a renewal of Spenser's best pictures--a renewal not only in its dreamy voluptuousness of character, but in its stanzaic peculiarities. It has been said that no other writers ever succeeded in acquiring the peculiar flow of Milton's blank verse, or the singular play of Spenser's old time rhythm. This is true with an exception. One half of the Castle of Indolence, if a little more antiquated, might be inserted among the cantos of the Faery Queene without detection. And this I hold to be no slight compliment to the later poet.

The Castle of Indolence was the work in which the idle Thomson gave words to his individual mood. A sluggard, he had a sluggard's visions. His visions of nature were of nature lulled into quietude. His landscapes sleep under quiet skies--his winds come from "the land of Drowsy Head." He reared shadowy battlements, and planted "sleep-soothing groves," under which lay

"Idlesse in her dreaming mood."

And in such pictures the Poet rejoiced. But with this drowsy enchantment he mingled all the freshness of that age which, from its far distance in the past, takes upon itself the hue of far clouds--becoming in the eyes of men an age of gold. The freshness of which I speak is of the patriarchal age--

"What time Dan Abraham left the Chaldee land,
And pastured on from verdant stage to stage,
Where fields and fountains fresh could best engage."

And this freshness retrieves the swooning and too sickly tone of a poem, all in all, inimitable.

If, reader, you wish an hour of forgetfulness, go to some quiet hollow, in the pleasant summer time, and after working thought and heart into the mood which can

"Pour all the Arabian heaven upon our nights,"

hum such sleep-begetting verses as these:

"Joined to the prattle of the purling rills
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks were bleating from the distant hills,
_And vacant shepherds piping in the dale_:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And _still a coil the grasshopper did keep_:
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.

* * * * *

And up the hills, on either side, a wood
Of blackening pines aye waving to and fro,
Sent forth _a sleepy horror thro' the blood_;
And where this valley winded out below,
_The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow_.
A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,
Of _dreams that wave before the half-shut eye_;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky:
There, eke _the soft delights that witchingly
Instill a wanton sweetness through the breast_,
And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh."

Such soporific verses are of more worth than all the narcotics ever squeezed from the pores of the poppy. They sound like the trickle of rain from the eaves, or like the hum of bees about a tulip-tree in early summer.

Thomson died in August 1748, and was buried in the church of Richmond.

He is said to have been above the middle stature; somewhat corpulent; of a stupid look and repulsive appearance; taciturn in strange company, but sociable among his intimate friends; fixed in his attachments, and fervid in his benevolence. But he was too fat to be active; and often failed to bestow as well as obtain a favor through mere indolence. We have already seen that he wrote one poem on this vice; and reflecting upon its effects in his own affairs, he is said to have designed an eastern tale 'of the man who loved to be in distress.'

He has a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey.

II. The father of Edward Young was chaplain to William and Mary, and afterwards to Queen Anne--the latter of whom, when Princess royal, stood godmother to the Poet. Young, early in life, lost his father, and having fallen in with the wild Duke of Wharton, went with him to Ireland, where he remained long enough to acquire many of that young nobleman's dissipated habits. The impressions however of his childhood still had influence upon him, and in his worst hours he defended the Christian belief against the atheistical Tindall, and his cavilling companions.

In the least religious years of his life, he wrote a poem called "The Last Day." Indeed his mind was at all times rather dark and visionary. It is told of him that "while a mere boy, at Oxford, he would close his windows at mid-day, and compose by lamp light,"--with a skull upon his table.