CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 12

STANZAS: by Mrs. E. F. Ellet

MODERN TRAVELLING: by Solomon Sobersides

FRIENDSHIP, an essay: by Octavius Gilchrist

MISPAH: by Q.

CHARACTER OF CORIOLANUS

BEAUX OF WILLIAMSBURG: by Beauty

PHILOSOPHY OF ANTIQUITY No. I

THE GIRL OF HARPER’S FERRY

THE KIDNAPPER’S COVE

UNIVERSAL SYMPATHY. A winter’s night thought: by Edwin Saunders

CRIME AND CONSEQUENCE

LIFE’S STREAM: by Lucy T. Johnson

AN ADDRESS: by Thomas R. Dew

THE BRIDEGROOM’S DREAM: by Miss C. E. Gooch

ESSAYS OF GILCHRIST: by Octavius Gilchrist II. III. IV.

THE EXILE’S ADIEU TO HIS NATIVE LAND

WALLADMOR

TRAGEDIES OF SILVIO PELLICO: by Mrs. E. F. Ellet

MONODY

A CONTRAST: by Paulina

EDITORIAL CRITICAL NOTICES MEDICAL REVIEW: edited by John Forbes, M.D. and John Conolly, M.D. MR. LEE’S ADDRESS: by Z. Collins Lee, Esq. THE PICKWICK CLUB: edited by “Boz”

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

VOL. II. RICHMOND, NOVEMBER, 1836. NO. XII.

T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

STANZAS.

BY MRS. E. F. ELLET.

MODERN TRAVELLING.

Forty years ago, I used to be a great traveller, and was pretty well acquainted with the means of transportation then in use; but about that time, I retired to the country and settled upon a small farm, where I have, until lately, pursued the even tenor of my way. During the last summer, some business compelled me to set out for a distant point, and I left my little home with extreme reluctance. As I was to travel in a world about which I knew but little, except through the newspapers, I thought it right to rig myself out in somewhat better style than usual, so I put on my best bib and tucker and repaired to town and sought a barber’s shop to get my hair cut and my beard shaved, humming, as I went along, the old song,

Sixpence quotha!—it cost me four and sixpence, at the least. When I opened the door, I was so much astonished at the elegance of the apartment, that I drew back, and would have retired, thinking I had made some mistake, when two or three fellows flew out upon me, and began brushing my coat with such impetuous violence, that I could not escape from them; indeed, it was with much ado that I could prevent my ears from being brushed off, by their whizzing brooms. I was as restive, you may depend upon it, as my horse is under a cedar broom; twice they struck me severe blows on the cheek, but always begged pardon, so I could not be offended; and, indeed, I had made up my mind when I left home, not to betray my ignorance of present customs. All this time two small shavers were dusting my boots, and I protest it was with much difficulty I could keep my legs. After considerable suffering on my part, and repeated declarations of my being satisfied with their services, and paying each of them something, (for I saw they expected it,) they desisted. I now expressed a wish to be shaved and trimmed, and was immediately disrobed, and ushered to a high-backed chair, where my head was roughly thrown back, my chin tucked, and the operation of shaving performed in the twinkling of an ejaculation. It did not take long to cut my hair and strangle me with cologne water; but what was my surprise, when they were done with me, to find the whole of my occiput as bare as the palm of my hand, and nothing left upon my head but a few straggling locks at the side, time having already stripped naked my forehead. I was sadly vexed, but what could I say? I had voluntarily put myself in their power, and was devoutly glad when I got into the street, that I had escaped alive from their hands. Well, I had now paid four-and-sixpence; I had lost all my hair; my face had been scratched by brooms and lacerated by a razor, and I had learned in exchange, that barbers were different folks now-a-days from what they used to be, and that men were brushed down like horses—rather a bad speculation! I had not been in this world, it is true, “ever since king Pepin was a little boy,” but I was pretty old, and had never been treated so unceremoniously in my life. I had imagined when I entered the house, that I was going into just such a shop as my old friend Kippin used to keep, who received me with the profoundest of bows, and shaved me with a solemnity of manner that suited my temper exactly. No tawdry ornaments hung upon his walls; no mirrors flashed wheresoever you turned; no newspapers lay scattered around; no Helen Jewetts or other engravings caught your eye. His walls were mute as “Tara’s Halls”—a piece of broken looking-glass stood upon the table, and an old shaving-can, encrusted with the smoke of a thousand fires, sat disconsolately in the chimney; but, nevertheless, these modern fellows cannot shave as Kippin “used to could.” There is too much hurry in every thing now-a-days! It is true, shaving must be done by steam—the water ought to be hot, but the razor travels too incontinently fast, and the whirlpools in my beard cannot be crossed over with such despatch—but pshaw! this is nothing to what I have to tell of the changes in this world. My first trip was to be made in a steamboat which was to start (fly, perhaps, would be a better word) at ten o’clock at night. I had never been in one, having been of the same opinion with old what’s his name, who never could be induced to go on board, not even when the boat was lying at the wharf without a particle of fire—when urged to go, and told that there was no earthly danger, he always shook his head doubtingly, and declared “there was no knowing when accidents might happen.” However, go I must; my business required despatch, and there was no mode of travelling so expeditious. Accordingly, I went on board, and passing the fire-room, where they were just firing up, I stopped, with unfeigned horror, and asked myself if, indeed, I was prepared to die! I almost fancied myself at the entrance of the infernal regions, and the firemen, all begrimed and black and covered with sweat, seemed like the imps of the devil, tossing the damned spirits into the flames. I shuddered and turned away, inwardly vowing if heaven would be graciously pleased to spare me this time, I would never again, voluntarily, put myself in the way of being burnt to death. I proceeded to the cabin, which I found, as yet, unoccupied, and you may be certain if the barber’s shop had surprised me, my amazement was now complete, at finding myself in the most splendid apartment I had ever beheld. I shall not attempt any description, because I have no doubt, Mr. Editor, you have seen many a one; all I shall say is, that having examined every thing with as much wonder as did parson Polyglott when “he dinner’d wi’ a Lord,” I laid myself down in a birth, and could not satisfy myself of my personal identity, any more than could he who went once to see some great man, and was treated with so much distinction, that when he retired to bed, he lay some time revolving all that had passed, and the scene around him, and exclaimed, “can this be me!” Putting his foot out of bed, (he had a remarkable foot,) egad! he cried, that is certainly my foot. Just so, clapping my hand to the back of my head, and feeling that the barber had nearly scalped me, I became assured that it was indeed your humble servant, and was trying to compose myself, when I heard a cry of “the stage is come,” and in a few moments in walked the captain and seated himself at his writing-table, and immediately afterwards forty passengers, at least, rushed into the cabin, all talking in the loudest key, and dressed in every variety of mode, and seeming to strive with one another who should get first to the captain to pay his money. What does this mean? thought I; wherefore such hurry? “Why need they be so forward with death who calls not on them?” as Falstaff says. I soon found out the cause; they were securing births, and as they passed mine, they severally peeped into it; at length, one prying more earnestly than the others, exclaimed, “halloo, my hearty, you are in the wrong box; you must come out.” I made no reply, and he repeated his command to me to turn out—still I said nothing, and he turned to the captain: “I say captain, here’s a Jackson man in my birth.” “Yes,” said I, feeling my dander rise, as honest Jack Downing says, “and I shall assume the responsibility of staying in it.” Alas! I reckoned without my host, for the captain came up and desired me to evacuate the premises. “Why,” said I, “captain, I thought possession was eleven points of law.” “None of your nonsense, sir,” returned he, and took hold of my arm. Seeing how matters stood, I fixed myself, Dentatus-like, with my back to the side of the boat, and seizing my hickory stick, defended myself manfully, but numbers prevailed over valor, and I was, at last, ignominiously dragged forth, like Smith from the Chickahominy Swamp, to the no small amusement of the company, some of whom hurraed for old baldpate. Here was a pretty commencement of my journey! In the end, I was compelled to sleep upon a table, think o’ that! and imagine my horror when I found myself stretched out like a corpse, with a sheet over me!! All my previous fears of being scalded to death rushed upon my mind, and I made sure that this was indeed my winding-sheet. The thumping of the boat; the groans of the lever above, leaping and pitching like some vast giant struggling to be free; the snoring and snorting around me; the intense heat, produced by the juxta-position of so many human bodies, effectually banished sleep from my eyelids; I was “in a state of dissolution and thaw,” and wished myself anywhere else, even in “the Domdaniel caves under the roots of Ocean,” if there were such a place, so that I could escape my present thraldom. How often have I wondered, said I to myself, that people could be so foolhardy as to live at the foot of Mount Ætna or Vesuvius, where they are liable to be overwhelmed in a moment by burning lava; and here am I, lying near the crater of a volcano, without the hope of escape if there should be an eruption!! Overwhelmed by the oppressive weight of my thoughts, I sunk, from absolute exhaustion, about daybreak, into a doze, from which I was almost immediately aroused by a bell, which I mistook for the last trump, and springing up, perceived that it announced our arrival at the place of destination, and I was forced to huddle on my clothes as fast as possible. Such a scene of confusion and hurry as now presented itself, baffles my poor powers of description. Passengers, porters, trunks, wheelbarrows, hackmen, every body and every thing, in one moving mass upon the wharf, so completely confounded the few brains I had, that I stood like a fool, while “hack, sir?” was bawled in one ear, “hack, sir?” in another—“omnibus, sir? do you go in the omnibus?” One pulled me by the right, another by the left, until my limbs were almost dislocated. At last, remembering a little of my latin, I concluded it must be right to go with all, and I cried out “omnibus!” “Your baggage, sir, where is it?” “God only knows, my friend,” said I. “Is this it, sir?” “Yes, yes.” Into the omnibus they shoved me, with such despatch, that had I been the “stout gentleman” himself, I am sure none could have seen even the “broad disk of my pantaloons.” It was the first time in my life, that I had ever travelled in a carriage without shutting the door, except once, upon compulsion, when my horses ran off with me; but if you will credit me, sir, there is no door to an omnibus; so I suppose omnibus means without a door, but in what language is more than I pretend to know. Perhaps it may be the Garamna language, but none but the author of the Doctor can tell that. If you should be acquainted with the tongue, Mr. Editor, just drop me a hint in your next number, and I shall be much obliged to you.

Well, praised be heaven, I had escaped the death of a hog, and felt somewhat revived by the morning air. Away we whirled with great rapidity to the rail road depot, where the cars were ready to receive us. We were told that from some irregularity, I never knew what, we were to be drawn for some miles by horses, and I blessed my stars at the occurrence, as I had been anticipating, with some dread, that wonderful velocity of the engines of which I had heard and read so much; but short-lived indeed was my joy, as it began to be a matter of interesting speculation whether the cars meeting us, might not, peradventure, be driven by steam. We had not proceeded far, before our apprehensions were realized. Just as we turned an abrupt curvature in the road, there came the engine roaring and snorting upon us!! Mr. Editor, I have been pursued in my time by a mad bull; I have been upon the point of being tossed upon his horns; I have been in the imminent peril of being run over by squadrons of wild horses which had taken the stampado; I have seen perils by sea and perils by land, but never had I felt such alarm, such destitution of all hope of escape as now. Our driver sprang from his seat, and had just time to unhitch his horses, but what were we to do? One man jumped out and broke his leg, the rest of us kept our seats. I could not leave mine—I was transfixed with horror—my eyes were starting from my head and my mouth wide open. Breathless, we awaited the shock, and soon it came like a thunder-crash. What happened to others I cannot tell. All I remember distinctly is that the concussion was so tremendous, that it brought my two remaining teeth so violently together, that they were both knocked out; they were the last of the Capulets, and I would not have taken a thousand dollars a piece for them; it is a wonder I did not die of fright—my hair, if I had had any, must have turned grey; but thanks to the barber, I had none. I was taken up more dead than alive, and nothing could induce me to hazard my life again. I consigned to the devil all cars, steamboats, rail-roads, their projectors and inventors, solemnly vowing never to be in a hurry again as long as I lived, but to remember the old maxim, festina lente—make haste slowly.

My business I abandoned in despair,—bought the dullest horse I could procure,—sold my trunk and got a pair of saddle-bags, and resolved to jog slowly and safely homeward. After a fatiguing journey, I reached my own house, where nobody knew me. When I told my wife who I was and what had occurred to me, she said it was a judgment upon me for being such a fool as to cut my hair in that fashion. She will never listen to me now when I attempt to repeat the particulars of my excursion, and that is the reason that I have concluded to trouble you with my history. If it should entertain you, and serve as a warning to my countrymen not to be in such a confounded hurry in doing every thing, I shall be repaid for my trouble. The whole world seems to me to be in a sort of neck-or-nothing state; all the sobriety, frugality and simplicity of our forefathers seems to be forgotten, and the only object is, to grow rich suddenly, and time and space must be annihilated in the pursuit.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient, humble servant,

SOLOMON SOBERSIDES.

FRIENDSHIP,¹

AN ESSAY.

Solem e mundo tollere videntur, qui amicitiam a vitâ tollunt; quâ a Diis immortalibus, nihil melius, nihil jucundius, habemus.

Cicero de Amicitia.

¹ When New York was in possession of the English during the war of the revolution, the officers, to relieve the monotony of a garrison life, established a society in which some subject of a literary character was discussed at every meeting. Before this society was read this essay, by Mr. Gilchrist—which we print from his original MS. Of their author, personally, we know little, except that he was not an officer in either the army or navy, nor a member of either of the learned professions, although a gentleman of literary taste and extensive acquirements. Henry K. White, in a letter to his brother Neville, mentions a Mr. Gilchrist as one of the contributors to the “Monthly Mirror,” with Capel Lofft, Robert Bloomfield and others. If Mr. G. returned to England he was probably the author of most of the articles in the Monthly Mirror over the signature of Octavius. Judge Hoffman and Mr. Dunlap of New York, may be able to give some account of him, as well as of the “Literary Society.”

About this same time there existed, perhaps in opposition to, or in ridicule of the “Literary Society,” a junto formed by the young ladies, together with the students of medicine, and other young men of New York, and called the “Dreaming Society” one or more of whose members were appointed at each meeting to prepare an essay for the next, (either in prose or verse,) which essay was either to be a dream, or to represent the essayist as having obtained it by means of a dream, or to have written it while asleep. The sisters of Lindley Murray; the late Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell; Mr. Dunlap, (we believe,) the author of the “History of the American Theatre;” and Judge Hoffman, were members.

Pleasure, to be really such, must be the matter of our own free choice and voluntary election; whatever is commanded immediately becomes a duty; and though by the goodness and wisdom of the commander, the paths of duty may lead to pleasure; yet strictly and properly speaking, pleasure can never be enjoined by any authority, can never submit to the bonds of obligation.

No virtue can be more amiable and excellent than friendship, no pleasures more refined than that which it affords, and though friendship may be recommended as the most valuable acquisition and the highest enjoyment, it cannot be enjoined as a duty, or as an indispensable obligation; so that, if, after our utmost researches in pursuit of it, we should be disappointed, we cannot be condemned as criminal, or deficient in what we owe to our own happiness.

Friendship, to adopt the definition given by Lord Shaftsbury, is that peculiar relation which is formed by a consent and harmony of minds, by mutual esteem and reciprocal affection. Friendship, therefore, can never be enjoined as a duty, since our lot in life may never be cast amongst those whose minds will harmonize with our own; it is rather to be considered a singular blessing, vouchsafed, perhaps, to few, but when vouchsafed, one of the most exquisite cordials in human life. Intending man for social happiness, the author of his nature, in great wisdom and goodness, hath given this impulse to the human heart; and the heart rarely errs, or misleads us in its hints and admonitions. What a pleasure, what a comfort is it, to have one in perfect amity with us, to whom we can at all times unbosom ourselves with perfect confidence and safety, with whom we can enjoy all the refinements and peculiar pleasures of rational conversation; one who will tenderly enter into and share all our griefs, or kindly participate in all our joys; thus heightening the one, and alleviating the other. What pleasure to have a friend upon the wisdom of whose counsels we can safely rely in all our difficulties, in all our embarrassments; whose power and interest will always be at hand to succor and assist, or whose affection, at least, will always be forward to console and cheer us. Providence gives nothing in mortal life more valuable than such a friend; but the difficulty of the acquisition is in proportion to the value.

I cannot express my sentiments better on the difficulties which attend the acquisition of real friendship, than in the words of one of the most masterly writers of the age. When Socrates, says he, was building himself a house at Athens, being asked by one that observed the littleness of the design, why a man so eminent would not have an abode more suitable to his dignity, he replied, “That he should think himself sufficiently accommodated, if he could see that habitation, narrow as it was, filled with real friends.” Such was the opinion of that great master of human life, concerning the unfrequency of such an union of minds as might deserve the name of friendship.

Multitudes are unqualified for a constant and warm reciprocation of benevolence, by perpetual attention to their interest, and unresisting subjection to their passions; many varieties of dispositions also, not inconsistent with the common degrees of virtue, may exclude friendship from the heart. Some, ardent enough in their benevolence, are mutable and uncertain, soon attracted by new objects, disgusted without offence, and alienated without enmity. Others are soft and flexible, easily influenced by reports and whispers, ready to catch alarms from every dubious circumstance, and to listen to every suspicion which envy and flattery shall suggest. Some are impatient of contradiction, more willing to go wrong by their own judgment, than to be indebted for a safer and better way to the sagacity of others, inclined to consider counsel as insult, and inquiry as want of confidence. Some are dark and involved, equally careful to conceal good and bad purposes, and pleased by showing their design only in the execution. Others are unusually communicative, alike open to every eye, and equally profuse of their own secrets and those of others, ready to accuse without malice, and to betray without treachery. Any of these may be useful to the community, and pass through the world with the reputation of uncorrupted morals, but they are unfit for close and tender intimacy. He cannot properly be chosen for a friend, whose kindness is exhaled by its own warmth, or frozen by the first blast of slander—he cannot be a useful counsellor who will hear no opinion but his own—he will not much invite confidence, whose principal maxim is to suspect—nor can the candor and frankness of that man be much esteemed, who spreads his arms to human kind, and makes every man, without distinction, a denizen of his bosom. Such is the picture of human disposition, drawn by the pen of that great moral master.

Having taken a view of the difficulties to be met with, I shall next take notice of those qualifications which seem necessary to obtain real and permanent friendship: and here we shall find that virtue is the only sure solid basis on which it can be built: if founded on other or less worthy motives, its continuance is short and precarious: as those motives shift and vary, it will vary with them: Cicero, in the treatise from which I have taken the prefatory lines says, “Nec sine virtute, amicitia esse ullo pacto potest.” Such unions deserve not the name of friendship; they are rather confederacies, so much the more dangerous and hurtful, as the uniting causes are mean and vicious.

To this mutual and virtuous complacency, is generally necessary, an uniformity of opinions, at least of those active and conspicuous principles which discriminate parties in government, or sects in religion. When differences in regard to these subsist, debates will arise; vehemence, acrimony and vexation, and, in time, an utter extinction of benevolence, will ensue. Intercourse of civilities may continue, but the poison of discord is infused, and though the countenance may preserve its smile, the heart is hardening and contracting; to use another quotation from the same author, “accedat autem suavitas quædam oportet sermonum atque morum, haudquaquam mediocre condimentum amicitiæ.”

Besides virtue and similarity of leading opinions and dispositions, there are many other qualifications necessary to the refinement of friendship; such as an openness and frankness of temper, joined with the greatest faithfulness, prudence and discretion; a constancy and firmness of mind; an evenness and uniformity of behavior, a suavity of manners, an absence of all jealousy, a readiness to overlook little faults and foibles, and an exquisite and generous sensibility—in short, all the dispositions directly opposite to those before mentioned; partly the produce of a kind and indulgent nature, and partly of virtuous culture.

Let us not, however, forget, while we specify those good qualities necessary to be found in another, that we are under every obligation to cultivate them in ourselves; for as no friendship can either be real or lasting which is not founded on virtue and the good qualities above enumerated, it follows that our entry into the union must encourage the cultivation of every right and amiable principle in the soul. Two virtuous minds will stimulate each other in every laudable pursuit, will guard each other from every wrong propensity, and criminal deviation; and never dare either of them to commit an action which the other would hear of with concern, or behold with a blush.

Nor is this union of less utility for the improvement of the lesser virtues, the graces of life, the arts of pleasing, the “amiable attentions”—as we will surely be solicitous to excel in those attentions, and to become amiable in proportion as we wish to be loved.

To enumerate all the advantages and all the pleasures of friendship, were I equal to the task, would far exceed my limits—that friendship which gives to human life its highest relish, and affords to virtue the strongest support and encouragement. I shall conclude, therefore, with the sentiment with which I began, “quâ a Diis immortalibus nihil melius habemus, nihil jucundius.”

MISPAH.

A late writer tells us, that being on board the packet ship Silas Richards, on his way from New York to Liverpool, the captain one day opened the letter bags in the round house, to sort the contents; and to amuse the passengers standing about him, read aloud some of the most singular superscriptions, when he came to a letter which had a seal with an epigraph on it which ran thus: “Mispah—Gen. xxxi. 49.” “Here,” said he to a clergyman by, (the writer himself, I suppose,) “this is for you to expound.” But the clergyman not being able to do so, ran for his Bible, and soon returning with it open at the place referred to, read out, “Mispah: the Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” “Beautiful!” said one. “Beautiful!” said another. “A gem! a gem!” exclaimed a third. “A gem indeed!” cried all together. “And surely,” adds the writer, “the brightest, most precious gem of all, was to find, in such a place and circle, these prompt and full-souled expressions of sympathy on this announcement of religion and christian piety. There were, indeed, powerful tendencies to such sympathy in the circumstances of us all. For who present, whether going to or from his home, did not feel himself separated from those he loved, and loved most dear? And who, with a wide and fitful ocean before him, tossing on its heaving bosom, would not feel his dependence, and looking back or forward to home and friends, lift up his aspirations to that high Providence who sits enthroned in Heaven, and rules the land and sea, and breathe to him the sweet and holy prayer—‘The Lord watch between me and mine, while we are absent one from another?’”

These reflections are all just and natural enough; but they are, perhaps, a little too vague and indefinite. At least, they do not strike me as quite true to the text. For the word “watch” here does not mean simply protect, but rather witness, and Laban’s idea when he said “Mispah,” was, “may the Lord stand witness, and look out to guard against any infraction of the covenant which has just been made between us.” So the author wanders a little from the point of the thing. And he does so again when he proceeds to ask, “And whose was the hand that fixed this stamp of piety on this winged messenger of love—of love that grows more ardent and more holy as it is distant and long away from its object? The first post-mark was Quebec, and the letter was directed to a quarter-master in London. Was it then, from a wife to a husband? or from a sister to a brother? or what was the relation?” Obviously, such a seal could be used with strict propriety only by one who either was, or was engaged to be, married, to the writee, and who might very nicely use it at once to assure and remind the absent partner of that conjugal, or connubial fidelity which they had vowed before God. At any rate, it must be felt, I think, by every one, that it would have a peculiar charm when used by a person who might happen to be in such a predicament. And taking the thing in this light, and putting myself for a moment in the shoes of the fair young fiancée who has just set the seal to her letter, I would expound or explain the motto upon it, something in this way:

Q.

CHARACTER OF CORIOLANUS.

Coriolanus possessed those traits of character, which in an unpolished age, and amongst a people so renowned for their chivalry as the Romans, are fitted to command universal admiration. Of high birth—of a frank, ingenuous nature—wise in the council-chamber, as he was ardent and intrepid in the field, it would have been strange if he had not soon won his way to the esteem and confidence of his countrymen. Accordingly we find him, after having signalized his name by a series of the most brilliant exploits in a campaign against the Volsci, returning to Rome, to receive in the gratitude and applause of his fellow-citizens, the reward of his heroic deeds. But neither the fame of his splendid successes, nor his own intrinsic dignity, could exempt him from the reverses of fortune. The chaplet with which the fickle goddess one moment decks the conqueror’s brow, the next she snatches away, and leaves him the wretched victim of disappointed ambition. Thus was it with Coriolanus. The Tribunes of the People, those infamous panders to the morbid appetites of the mob, finding it necessary to sacrifice him, the panoply of virtue proved a poor shield against their virulence. Taking advantage of that hauteur of which there was certainly a spice too much in his composition, they very dexterously managed to excite him to expressions of contempt for the commons, on the one hand, and, on the other, to inflame their minds with a sense of imaginary wrongs, and impress upon them a conviction, that if they would not be trampled in the dust, they must dispute every inch of ground with the Patricians, and omit no opportunity to strike a blow at a class of men they were taught to consider their natural enemies. As the influence of the tribunes with the people was unlimited, so their success was complete—their machinations resulting in the condemnation of Coriolanus to perpetual exile. Alas, that we have to deplore that the magnanimity this great man had so often exhibited, should desert him in the hour when most he needed it! Stung to madness that his distinguished services to the state should meet so base a return, he resolves, in an ecstacy of resentment, that Rome shall suffer the meed of her dark ingratitude. He goes over to the enemy, who receive him with open arms, and signify their readiness to do his bidding. An army is placed at his disposal, with which he invades the Roman territory, and ravaging the country as he passes along, at length draws up his legions within a few miles of the city, prepared, in the event of a refusal to comply with his harsh and extravagant requisitions, to whelm friend and foe in one indiscriminate ruin. Seized with consternation at his sudden and unexpected approach, the Romans sue for mercy. Successive deputations, consisting of the friends who had fought at his side in battle, and of the principal citizens who had stood by him when the decree was passed for his unjust and cruel banishment, are in vain sent to intreat him to lay aside his unnatural rebellion. Nothing can move him until, his wife and mother coming out to the camp, and throwing themselves at his feet, he reluctantly grants to their prayers and tears the amnesty which all feebler considerations had not availed to obtain.

Now suppose, for a moment, that the reprobation which the Christian code of morals pronounces on the principle of revenge, be laid out of view; and let it be granted that Coriolanus had a right to retaliate on the men who had so deeply injured him; yet how shall we excuse the design he meditated of involving his innocent friends in the same heavy penalty? When he was banished, it was by a majority of only three tribes. The whole body of the Patricians were in his favor, and profoundly sympathized in his calamity; and he must have foreseen that if the Volscian soldiery, the ancient and uncompromising enemies of Rome, were admitted into the city with Aufidius, his co-equal in command, at their head, that nothing sacred or venerable would be spared by their rapacious violence—that the rights of property, the quiet and security of old men, the purity of virgins and matrons, and the sanctity of temples—in a word, all that age, or innocence, or religion had consecrated, would be made the inevitable victims of the same ruthless invasion. And all this he contemplated unmoved. Surely, in the very conception of an act implicating, in such tragical consequences, not his enemies merely, but his friends also, and those who should have been dearer to him than his own life—his family and kindred—there was a monstrous perfidy from which every mind that has not been too deeply corrupted to appreciate the force of any moral motive, must revolt with horror.

But it may be asked, “How can Coriolanus be justly charged with the crime of those consequences which his clemency prevented?” In estimating character, the man who has once evinced the inveterate malignity of his heart, must be branded with eternal infamy, unless it appears that he subsequently became penetrated with profound contrition, and changed his conduct from the purest and most virtuous motives. Was this true of Coriolanus? Having contemned the higher claims of his country, and thrown off her allegiance, his ultimately yielding to the yearning voice of natural affection was a weakness—an amiable weakness, it may be said—but still a weakness. Such is our mental conformation, that we behold a congruous character with a degree of complacency, even though the character be a bad one; and although we may lend a measure of our sympathy to those good acts of confessedly bad men, which are the mere gratification of a physical propensity, the unbending rigor of reason sternly refuses to allow any moral excellence to those deeds, or to insult the majesty of virtue by assigning them as her offspring. We return, however, to a point temporarily merged, in order to follow up another branch of the argument. The principle of revenge is wholly, and under all circumstances, inadmissible. Nor is it a proper reply to this proposition to say, that ours is an age of moral and intellectual light, and that it is unjust to apply to one who lived two thousand years ago, the same rigid rule of judgment to which he would be subjected at the present day. In the trial of questions involving an abstract principle, there should manifestly be but one standard for all ages and nations. Any other hypothesis will lead to the most glaring absurdities. For if the moral quality of an action could be modified by the unimportant circumstances of time or place, there is no crime in the decalogue which may not be justified. Modern heathen nations almost universally allow polygamy; in certain portions of the world murder is deemed innocent; and the ancient Spartan, we know, regarded theft as the prince of virtues. Where is the man who would presume to excuse these practices because they pertain to a barbarous nation, or to a period of moral darkness? Yet may it as well be done, as to justify the practice of revenge in the case under consideration. The ignorance of the age or nation may palliate the conduct of an individual; it cannot justify what is intrinsically wrong; and it would be in the last degree preposterous to put out the lights by which we are surrounded, and go to seek the radiant form of virtue in the dim twilight of heathenism. If Coriolanus had displayed a fortitude in suffering equal to his bravery in action—if he had never suffered a thought of retaliation upon his ingrate country to invade his breast; but, when thrust out from home and kindred, and all that on earth he held most dear, he had sought, in the conscious purity of his heart, and, in a sense of duty discharged, that tranquil happiness which, to a wise man, is of far higher price than the shouts and huzzas of the multitude—that mental peace which can cheer the gloom of solitude, and whose elastic energy can buoy up the soul under the heaviest distresses, his name would have come down to posterity circumvested with a halo of glory, ever enlarging, ever brightening. As it is, there is a spot upon his fame which all his splendid achievements may not wipe off. The man who courts toil, and suffering, and danger in his country’s cause, earns well the patriot’s meed; but he who conquers himself, achieves a nobler triumph. He bequeaths to the generations of all time, in the bright example he leaves for their emulation, a rarer and richer legacy.

In his contempt of this sentiment consisted Coriolanus’ great error. Alas for his fame, that he had not discerned its truth and acted accordingly!

MR. EDITOR,—Reading the “Belles of Williamsburg” in your July number of the Messenger, induced me to search amongst some old papers for the enclosed graphical and beautiful lines, which though not written at quite so early a period as 1777, will serve to show that in 1799 the halo of refinement and wit was still shining around that classical spot so famed in Virginia history.

P.

BEAUTY TO THE BEAUX OF WILLIAMSBURG.

BEAUTY.

Idalian Grove, 14th February 1799.

PHILOSOPHY OF ANTIQUITY.

NO. I.

Of all the benefits that modern times owe to antiquity, the most important but at the same time the least often acknowledged, is the boon of philosophy. The poets, orators, and historians of Greece and Rome are in the hands of every school-boy, and are the pleasure and study of all who pretend to education, while the works of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the other lights of antiquity (the heralds, they have been called, of the true cross) languish here and there on the shelves of some old library, or in the shop of some antiquarian Bibliopole. There is this remarkable difference between philosophy and the lighter literature of antiquity. Homer and Herodotus, Demosthenes and his fellow orators, flashed out, as it were, from the bosom of the people with no warning—no precursor, and first established that order or sequence of literary cultivation which the experience of subsequent ages has proved infallible; I mean first, poetry and eloquence—next, history, and last of all, philosophy. Philosophy itself was no child of the moment. As the sea-beach gains something as each wave rolls over it, so was it with philosophy. Each age made its deposit at the bank of truth, and slowly and imperceptibly, but with not less security, was that mountain raised, which, however wildly raged the storms of the middle ages—how much so ever its fair face was obscured—still never ceased to exist, but served as a place of rest to the weary bird of literature, a rest whence the yet callow philosophy and unfledged history might wing their infantine flight. We may give an era to history—for there is great difference between it and tradition—we may positively ascertain the first poet, but we cannot approximate to the first philosopher. Socrates is not the only sage who never gave his lucubrations to posterity, and we learn from its very name, (love of wisdom,) that it is coeval with mind, nay, almost one of its principles. Were we to treat as philosophy only what has been written, we should be forced again to bound our researches by what has descended to us, and short indeed would be our course; but it is not so. We know with as much certainty the opinions of those who never wrote, as we do those of Plato and his followers, and are thus able to trace philosophy ab ovo usque ad mala, from the alpha not to the omega, for that has not been reached, but to the point at which we find it now.

Philosophy first presents itself to the historian about the commencement of the sixth century. The country where we first behold it, is Asia Minor; beneath its warm climate the Grecian colonists, who from time to time had settled there, grew day by day more and more cultivated, till at length they were the tutors of their father-land. Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytelene in Lesbos, Bias of Priene flourished in a quick succession, while as yet Hellas had produced but Solon, who was more lawgiver than sage, and who would better be associated with Lycurgus than with Thales.

The philosophy of Ionia was echoed back with increased vigor from Magna Grecia. It is customary for the imagination, when Italy is its theme, to fly back to the days of Rome—to revel with Horace and with Cicero, with Virgil and Macænas. How great so ever may be our veneration for those later ages, they should never blot out from memory Italy’s earlier civilization, when Apuleia and Brutium were seats of learning instead of Tuscany, and when Pythagoras was master of its philosophy instead of Cicero and Seneca.

The point de depart of philosophy was the origin of the world and its elementary principle. Perhaps it was necessary that the mental machinery should first be employed upon the grosser matter ere it should seize hold of that most delicate of all materials, mind—that the artillerymen of logic should first acquire skill in battering to pieces erroneous opinions on natural philosophy ere his piece should be directed against errors in ethics and psychology. Its modus operandi was, generally, that of empiricism. This is in a degree true of all from Thales to Plato.

As the astrologers and alchemists of all ages, so did the philosophers of the time of Thales. Though arguing on correct bases, they obtained the most improper results. Pushing their analysis beyond the bound of reason—not content with the phenomena of matter, of which experience has taught us more than suffices for the mind of man, they sought to discover the arcanum, the hidden principle of the world’s existence. They failed of course, and it is a humiliating though not less instructive task to glance in succession at the varied, though not less incoherent, labors of those great spirits who, notwithstanding that absurdity which belonged more properly to their age than to them individually, yet emitted occasional glimpses of what we in vain would hope had led to better results.

According to Thales the principle of the world is water. He is said to have been induced to adopt this, in consequence of some partial experiments. There was besides another principle, prime mover of all things, which he called nous. To him we are indebted for that best and most ancient of maxims, Know thyself.

Friend and townsman of Thales was Anaxamander. He lit his lamp at the same light and cast its blaze on the same subjects. His point de depart is infinity, which he surnamed all-containing and divine, without determining it more precisely. Perpetual changes of earth and of things can take place in infinity. These were his principia, but from them he developed multitudes of doctrines which it is not now important to examine. He bent his attention to astronomy, and nearly similar were the doctrines of Pherecydes of Syros. He called his trinity of principles, God, time, and matter. He attempted to explain animated bodies and mankind. He considered the soul as imperishable. Anaxamander and Pherecydes were the two first philosophers who wrote their doctrines out.

Now bursts on us a genius of the most astounding kind—Pythagoras. Mighty as was his fame—great as the influence he exerted on posterity—Homer-like, it seems his doom was to have “no place of burial or of birth.” Iamblychus, in his life of Pythagoras, makes him appear even from his infancy a sage and a philosopher. Where he was instructed— how—by whom—we know not. There are accounts that he travelled far and wide in search of science, studied among the Egyptians for twenty-two years, and travelled so far as to meet and converse with the Indian Gymnosophists. His life was a varied one—now persecuted from town to town—now a prisoner at Babylon. With the sages of Egypt he doubtless there met with, and imbibed a portion at least of that God-revealed doctrine, which we have reason to believe had sent some glimmerings of its glorious radiance to Babylon, the Rome, the Athens of the East.

In our days, when the genius of the press flits from clime to clime—when distance is annihilated, it seems a small matter to us to study the philosophy, to pour over the lucubrations of distant lands; but it was not so then. Each dogma was learned with difficulty and attained with labor; we may then judge how great was that philosophic spirit which prompted its possessor to so long and painful voyages, and how strongly circumstances favored him, turning even apparent obstructions into favorable events. For another paper we reserve the philosophy of Pythagoras.

THE GIRL OF HARPER’S FERRY.

THE KIDNAPPER’S COVE.

I have always felt deeply interested in the past history of the Aborigines of our country; and with a pleasure amounting to enthusiasm, embrace every occasion of retracing the annals of that once noble and heroic, but now degraded and scattered race. Who that has any taste for the wild and picturesque, would not love to roam along the Susquehanna, and call up the associations with which its leafy forests are rife? They were once the favorite hunting grounds of the numerous tribes of Indians, belonging to the empire of the Five Nations, whose sway extended over every mountain, plain and river, from Champlain to Carolina.

I set out upon my summer ramble, attracted by the feelings I have mentioned, to visit scenes of so much traditionary interest; and being unacquainted with the topography of the adjacent country, I sought out one of its oldest settlers in the hope of obtaining a guide, and some information respecting the most remarkable relics of the past. I was so fortunate as to fall in with a real old forester, one who loved nature in her wildness, who had trod her labyrinths of shade ere the woodman’s axe was heard clearing the way for rising villages and busy factories. I found him animated with antiquarian zeal, with a memory filled with stories of by-gone days, and a spirit of poetic fervor, which could re-people every spot with living images of the wild beings who had there fulfilled their mysterious destiny. He readily offered to be my guide in Indian antiquities, and we set out on our pilgrimage; Oliver Oldham (thus was my cicerone called) beguiling the way, now with a story, now with a song of ancient time, suggested by this well-remembered pass, that over-hanging rock, or steep waterfall. All was animated, all interesting, on the tongue of this old narrator. He carried me back to the days when the Indians and the white settlers were united in bonds of amity and love; when the unsuspecting red man showed no dispositions but those of the most friendly and confiding nature, towards the race before which he was so soon to disappear, and from which he was fated to receive such injuries. He retraced the history of aggression, and related several incidents of harrowing barbarity, in which the power of our race was perverted to oppress and finally to crush our ancient friends and allies. My mind retaining some historical recollection of the massacre of the Conestogo Indians by the white inhabitants of Pextang, I requested my companion to proceed towards the site of that ancient settlement. As we advanced, we saw nothing to remind us of the first masters of the soil, save the magnificent features of nature, still bearing the appropriate epithets of their language. The mighty voice of the Susquehanna still roared through its breakers, and the dark form of the Black Warrior lifted itself on high. Having arrived at the supposed spot of the cruel massacre, Oliver gave me a short history of the war-like and generous tribe who once inhabited the extensive and flourishing settlement, lying between the Susquehanna and Conestogo creek. Among the rocks and fastnesses to which it is said the Indians fled for refuge in the general destruction of their tribe, he particularised one, called the “Rock of Sacrifice,” with which, he remarked, there was a singular tradition connected; and another story of still deeper interest, with a bend in the river just below it, which he pointed out as the “Kidnapper’s Cove;” thus designated from a remarkable circumstance which once happened there. “But,” said he, “as both places are inseparably connected in my own mind, I will begin with the ‘Rock of Sacrifice,’ and tell you what the Indian legends relate of both.”

The tradition is, that only six warriors escaped the murder of their people; and not wishing to survive the fall of their nation, sacrificed themselves on this spot to the god of vengeance, believing they should be permitted in the land of spirits to behold the day of just retribution on their murderers. One of these chiefs was known by the appellation of the “Spread Eagle,” from his power and majesty. He was a famous chief; his word in council, and his arm in war, were alike irresistible. He was the friend and ally of the whites. He said, “they are wise, they will teach us their arts, there is room enough for us both, let them fell the trees and till the soil, the wilderness stretches to the great waters, our young men can follow the chase, and our old ones learn to grow a great nation. Our white brethren must dwell among us.” His counsel was followed, and mutual amity established between the two races. At length the rapacious thirst for gain fomented discord, and the Indians were assailed and murdered in cold blood. The Spread Eagle, by his wonderfully muscular strength, fought through the enemy, bearing two children (the only remaining members of his family) on his shoulders. He fled to the habitation of Colonel Carlisle, who in the general defection had maintained the cause of the persecuted Indians. His confidence in this tried friend, while all around was treachery and bloodshed, wavered not; and he rushed through the infuriated crowd to the covert of his protection. Exhausted by exertion and mental anguish, he had scarcely reached the door, when he beheld his murderers in close pursuit. Darting forward with a last effort, he threw his children at the feet of Carlisle, exclaiming, “is there mercy, is there faith, in the heart of one white man?” “Fear not,” replied the voice of his protector, “I will defend you from every assault of your enemies.” The Indian’s emotion was overwhelming. He vented not in words the deep feelings with which his heart was torn, but his large chest heaved with the inward struggle. After a few moments he became tranquil, and uttered his determination in a few brief words—“Carlisle, my people are gone—their blood dyes the ground—the smoke of their wigwams darkens the sky—I will not stay to see their ashes scattered by the wind—I will join my brothers in the spirit-land—see you yonder rock? It points upwards. To night its blaze will tell that the last Conestogo chiefs have gone to call down vengeance on their murderers. The Great Spirit drinks the blood of the brave, but he calls not for the death of the young, they must live to do deeds of glory. Carlisle, your children have sported with mine on the brink of the roaring stream—let them roam together until ten winters have stripped the leaves off the trees: then, my children, mind the course of the sun—he rises in the east, but he goes down in the west—follow his path until you find the home of the red man. Arrowfoot and Caraola, my children, remember the words of your father. Make not your home with the white man—get far away from him, but shed not his blood—you have eaten of his bread, and slept by his fire: die sooner than do him harm, lest the frown of the Great Spirit darken your souls, but forget not he has shed the blood of your people, and broken the faith of his promise.” He rose, and unloosing his wampum belt, presented it to Carlisle, which he received as the pledge of faith and friendship. The next moment the “Spread Eagle” was gone. As soon as it was dark, Colonel Carlisle looked towards the beacon rock. Its fires were just kindling, but soon six figures were seen within the circle of their ravages. They stood, like the rocks around, unmoved and unterrified by the fury of the conflagration. He watched, until the fiery billows swept over the self-devoted victims. Arrowfoot and Caraola were also spectators of the scene. Their sympathies, unlike those of the little group around, were not expressed in tears of grief, or shrieks of terror. In silent and fixed attention they stood with their backs against a tree, until the last flickering spark was gone. Then each took the hand of the other, and pointing to the extinguished pile, promised to obey their father’s command.

Arrowfoot and Caraola were immediately taken as inmates into Colonel Carlisle’s family, and the natural shyness and suspicion of the Indian character, dispelled by the affectionate attention bestowed on them by every member of the household.

Colonel Carlisle had been very unfortunate in his domestic ties. Death had successively swept to the grave six children; and last of all his beloved wife, who sunk under the repeated strokes of family affliction. Eva and Eldred were now the melancholy father’s only ties to existence. She was the oldest. Eleven summers had fanned the auburn ringlets on her snowy brow, and health and joy sparkled on her radiant cheek. But little Eldred, though nine years old, was feeble and infantine; claiming a double share of his father’s care and tenderness. The Indian children soon became the favorite and happy companions of Carlisle’s own. They bounded with them through the wild woods of the Susquehanna, Caraola bearing Eldred on her shoulder as lightly as a bird skipped over the rocks; and Arrowfoot teaching the nimble foot of Eva where to rest in climbing the steep precipice. His dexterity in the use of the bow was an unceasing source of amusement: and the young foresters often spent the day pursuing the chase, and at night brought home a fawn, the trophy of Arrowfoot’s skill.

Such was the childhood of Eva and Eldred—passed amidst the magnificence of nature, with two of her untutored children to teach them how to love and commune with her in the thundering waterfall, the deep voice of the coming storm, or the whispers of the evening wind—each was alike delightful, because each was alike expressive of her beauty or her grandeur. The disposition of Arrowfoot was naturally contemplative—that of Caraola, tender and romantic. While he, in thoughtful mood, watched the swift current of the mighty river, journeying to meet its kindred fountains in the deep, and imagined himself also a traveller in ceaseless step in pursuit of an unknown destiny, she would sit on the beetling rock, overhung by the dark hemlock, and chant the funeral dirge of her tribe, and, pointing to the Indian mound, describe to her little group of wrapt listeners, the mysterious rites of interment, and the plentiful supplies which are left with the dead, to sustain them till they reach the spirit-land. Her soul seemed to live in the memories of the past, associating with the majestic scenery around her recollections of the faded glory of her people.

Colonel Carlisle thought it his duty to instruct these young orphans in some of the most useful branches of education; but he soon found that their spirits could not be tamed down to con over the dull elements of the white man’s language. They loved better to climb some rocky steep in search of the young eaglet, or follow the bounding deer into the depths of the near forest. It was only when the young Eva became his teacher, that Arrowfoot listened to the page of instruction, and even then his eye would stray from the lesson, to the bright countenance that hung over it, in which his musing fancy beheld all it could picture of beauty and happiness. Believe not those who say the Indian’s heart is only susceptible of the fierce emotions. Love, in all its strength and purity, often lies hidden in the deep recesses of his nature, prompting him to deeds of high daring and self-sacrifice, which the energies and feelings of civilized life, dissipated upon a thousand objects, are too weak to achieve. Arrowfoot looked on young Eva’s face of sunshine, and felt the pride and sternness of his soul melt before it. At first he was happy, for it beamed on him in his lonely walks, and gladdened the darkest wood path. But a change came over him, when he attempted to analyze the feelings that soon warred within his bosom. He became moody and sad, for he knew the vision he had so long dwelt on would never pass away from his soul, and he remembered the promise that bound him. He held it sacred, for it was made to the parent and the chief; but darkness fell upon his soul, and no star lighted the dim and dreary destiny to which he was hastening. The struggle was however fearful between the dignity and firmness of the Indian character, and the softer but still powerful feelings that are called forth in men of every tribe and language, by the fascinations of beauty, and the smiles of artless affection. One day, when Eva was trying to awaken his interest in the records of history, he exclaimed, turning on her a countenance of grief and wounded pride, “Does Eva wish Arrowfoot to forget the misfortunes of his race? Then tell him not of the triumphs, the glories of other nations. Once the Indian could boast of the valor of his warriors, and the number of his captives, but now he is driven from his war-paths, and his hunting grounds. He is robbed of his rights; and his injuries swell the page of your nations triumphs. If he receives justice, it is because the oppressor grows weary of trampling on the fallen. If he receives kindness, he is base enough to forget the wrongs of his people. But Eva, my father’s death-song sounds in my ears. His voice calls to me from the spirit-land, and bids me break the spell that has bound me even near the grave of my nation. He says the daughter of the white man has smiled on me, and the coil of the serpent is around my heart. Oh, start not! The bright sun warms into life the poison hemlock, and the healing balsam. But I must go. It is the hand of destiny that shapes our lot; we may war against it, but we cannot control it.”

The spring of the young Indian’s activity seemed gone. He no longer took delight in the difficult and perilous adventure. He wandered amid the solitude of nature, only to indulge the musings of a sensitive and unhappy mind.

Colonel Carlisle marked, with deep interest, the change which had come over the boy. He knew too well the silent, dignified fortitude of the Indian, to make any direct inquiry as to the cause of his sadness. His sympathy was only shown in redoubled acts of kindness, which availed nothing but to make Arrowfoot throw a deeper covering of reserve over his feelings, and avoid, as much as possible, the society of those he loved best. Months passed away, and still there was on his countenance, “the settled shadow of an inward strife.” The cause was a mystery to all, but it acted as a check upon the full tide of joyful existence, which animated Eva and Eldred.

The lapse of two years wrote its changes on the brows of all that household. In Eva, the lovely child expanded into the fair and beautiful proportions of womanhood. Eldred’s pale cheek was exchanged for the ruddy glow of health and exercise, and his frame became more vigorous as he grew old enough to share the mountain sports of the young Indian, who, now tall and athletic, displayed all the physical powers of his race. His constitutional fortitude, strengthened by the habits of reflection acquired in civilized life, enabled him to bear his fate with great endurance; and he looked on the object of his affections with the fixed and melancholy gaze, which some lovely wanderer might cast towards the pure star, that shone bright and far, above him. He sought not to attain her; he made no effort even to gain her sympathy: but his way was not altogether so dark as if the beam had been withdrawn.

Colonel Carlisle had resided in Pennsylvania from early manhood: one sister shared with him the valuable funded property left by their father, a wealthy Bristol merchant; but a large proportion of the estate he had realized, was vested in land, which, according to the custom of the country, only descended in the male line. The feeble state of Eldred’s health through infancy and childhood, led many to anticipate the time when these large estates would pass from Colonel Carlisle’s family, to that of his sister; who, married to an East Indian, was the mother of a wild and roving boy. Communication was tardy and uncertain in those days; for the hidden powers of earth, air and water, had not then been called into action, by the commanding energies of man; and Colonel Carlisle having united his fortune with the early adventurers in the colonies, while animated by the ardor of youth, soon felt that the ties which bound him to the home of his childhood, were feeble, compared with those man frames for himself in maturer years.

He was sitting one evening, revolving in his mind some of the pleasant memories of days long past, and scenes in which that sister had been always at his side, when a purpose he had formed, of writing forthwith to inquire after her welfare, and inform her of the health and happiness of his own domestic circle, was frustrated by the arrival of tidings from New York, that an officer in the British Navy, the son of his sister Mrs. Fitzgerald, had just arrived in port, and would come down to visit him in a few days. The heart of the affectionate old man throbbed with joy at the prospect of embracing his young relative. “He is a noble fellow I doubt not,” said he to his daughter. “A little wild in his youth, I have heard that his strange adventures gave my sister much pain, but young men will be thoughtless, and women’s fears often outrun discretion, you know, my little Eva.” “Yes,” he continued to himself, as she went dancing on, to spread the joyful news of the arrival of a gay young visitor, through the house, “the boldest and finest spirits often commit extravagancies, before education and experience give them the right bent, ‘the upward and onward course.’ Poor fellow! he has had little of that best instruction, a father’s high and pure example. Fitzgerald is an honest man, as the world goes, but I doubt if he could teach his son any thing better than to scrape together ingots. But half the blood in his veins is Carlisle, and that could not flow on in the same current with any thing mean or dishonorable. Besides, he wears his majesty’s uniform; so, as his father would say, the balance is in favor of his being a brave man and a true.”

The expected guest at length came, and was welcomed by Colonel Carlisle with honest warmth. As he surveyed the noble figure of his nephew, in the imposing costume of the British navy, he felt assured that all his hopes for him were realized; and was proud of the relationship between them. Eva and Eldred with beating hearts gave a timid welcome to their dashing kinsman, but were not perfectly at ease until, with the frankness of a sailor, he inquired if they believed him to be “the old man of the sea,” told of in children’s story books? “Ah,” he said, taking Eva by the hand, “I have dreamed of your blue eyes and sunny curls, but I never even dreamed that you would not be glad to see your own cousin Julian. You will not confess it, but I hope this warm hand and mantling cheek, tell another tale.” Then turning to Eldred, he exclaimed, “Is this the little fellow I have often heard my mother talk of, who was’nt quite large enough to be elected king of the fairies? Why here he is a sturdy boy, who could heave the anchor of my schooner.” Then the young Indians were introduced, and a few particulars added to what Julian already knew of their history. Caraola was struck with the glitter of the young officer, but Arrowfoot looked coldly on him, and soon turned away. Between the visitor and the stern Indian there existed, from the first, a sort of repulsion, such as we see between substances of the most opposite nature. It was attributed by those around them, to the difference of nature and habit, which had brought all the feelings and mental qualities of the sailor to the surface, and buried those of Arrowfoot in impenetrable reserve. This assumed the rigidity of marked dislike towards the stranger, who evidently felt uneasy at “the keen encounter” of his dark eye. The Indian was often reproached by the open-hearted company, for avoiding their society, and taking part in none of their plans of amusement: but as he gave no reason, his coldness was attributed to some trivial prejudice, or intuitive dislike. This was a check upon the hilarity of the young party: for Julian was the spring of all their gaiety. Now, gathered around him, they hung with breathless interest upon the fascinating adventures of the sailor’s life; now, seated in the pleasure boat, they skimmed the clear waves of the Susquehanna, he chanting some merry or sentimental air, and keeping time with the graceful dip of his oar. The person of the young officer never appeared to so much advantage as when borne on the surface of his own element; his spirits seemed to acquire an elasticity which gave grace to every motion, while his full, black eyes sparkled through the thick curls that floated in the evening breeze. Arrowroot never failed to join these excursions; though apparently unobservant of what was passing, he sat silent and apart. Julian was evidently incommoded by his presence, and sometimes seemed to shrink from his searching eye. What could there be about the gay visitant to awaken the suspicion or the hatred of the Indian! It could not be jealousy. The young foreigner had disclaimed all pretensions to the hand of his fair cousin, by urging her, with the freedom and affection of a brother, to accept the addresses of a youthful admirer in the neighborhood. Indeed, Eldred appeared Julian’s favorite, from the deep interest he took in all the boy’s amusements, and the fatigue and self-denial he would undergo to promote his pleasure. With all the zest of fifteen, he hunted, sailed or angled as suited the whim of Eldred; and declared he would joyfully exchange the deck of his schooner, for the hunting grounds of the Susquehanna. He had so completely won the boy’s heart, that Eldred talked boldly of forsaking his books and going abroad with Fitzgerald. The proposition was actually made to Colonel Carlisle, who, at first, treated it as a jest; but when he perceived that his nephew was serious in urging the thing, and that he had gained Eldred’s hearty assent, he firmly but affectionately refused to suffer his son to go beyond parental restraint at his early age. Eldred was disappointed, but with the gentleness which marked his disposition, cheerfully submitted to his father’s wishes; but Julian was not only disturbed, but displeased. This was the first time he had exhibited any thing of a sensitive or suspicious nature. He asked if his uncle had not confidence in the affection he had evinced for Eldred, or in the promises he had made to guard him from all evil? His feelings were only calmed by new assurances on the part of Colonel Carlisle, that his confidence in the regard of his nephew was greatly heightened by this last expression of it.

The day following, Julian, with a melancholy countenance, informed Colonel Carlisle, that he had received orders to leave port in less than a week, and of course he must reach his vessel in time to make the necessary arrangements; two or three days more were all he could spend with the beloved relatives to whom his heart was doubly bound by the ties of kindred and affection. These tidings spread gloom over every face but Arrowfoot’s. With a penetrating glance, he sought to read the secret purposes of the stranger, whose words he heeded not. Julian turned from the inquisitive look; and, with averted eyes, remarked to Colonel Carlisle, that business called him immediately to the neighboring town; but as he should only be detained a few hours, he hoped to return in time to take a last sail with the little party on the noble river, which would ever dwell in his memory, the mirror of many past joys.

But I see you are curious to know whether the young Eva was proof against the attractions of the gallant officer? Did her guileless heart receive no arrow from the vagrant Cupid, who is so apt to make one in water excursions and rambles in search of the picturesque; and who, often an unbidden guest, forces himself into pleasant country parties, to disturb their harmony and mar all their pastimes. She remained “fancy free;” for Julian Fitzgerald deigned not to borrow from the quiver of the mischievous boy, and Eva’s was not a love to be bestowed, unsought. She was a being, too, of deep affections: and though her cousin was handsome, brave, full of recitals of wild and varied interest, and amusing sketches of life and manners, which she knew only through books, his character was not one to excite her enthusiasm. It seemed to her romantic spirit, deficient in the lofty qualities which could alone call forth the enduring love of a refined, feeling woman; though she admitted that it must be a very pleasant world where the men were all as gay, and agreeable, and courteous as he. With his knowledge of the human heart, he might have found it no very difficult matter to deceive his cousin Eva’s penetration, had his pride or vanity, or any of the thousand springs of action by which men are actuated, been put in motion: but he existed for more stirring scenes; though, now like a bird pursuing its mysterious way from one far land to another, he paused to rest for awhile amid song and sunshine.

The hours of Fitzgerald’s absence were spent by the family in preparing mementos of regard, for him to take to their mutual friends in England. He returned before Eva had completed her package; and, as if to drive away care, rallied her on the Quaker taste of her presents. But though he assumed gaiety, he was restless and uneasy, and sometimes fell into fits of abstraction, from which he would suddenly start, and attribute his unusual sadness to the prospect of parting so soon from his only friends in America. Eldred hung on him, persuading him with artless and disinterested affection to renounce his wandering life, and share with him the large domains that would be his in a few years. But the young officer smiling at the boy’s simplicity, replied that he would “owe fortune only to his own arm, and to the favoring gale.”

The evening came on, and the little party embarked on the bright river. The breeze was fresh, dimpling it with smiles, and soft and fleecy clouds flitted over them, on their way to form a canopy of splendor the retiring monarch of day. The scene seemed to revive the spirits of Julian, and he resumed his animated tone, as he called over the roll for the excursion. “Where is our pilot Arrowfoot?” said Eva, looking round. “Oh, the Indian boy,” replied Julian, “I did not perceive he was missing. But you will not deny me the pleasure of commanding your little bark this last cruise we shall make together? I am sure I shall steer as gallantly as he, and as safely too.” “No doubt of it, dear cousin,” answered Eva, “but there is something singular in his leaving his post, without giving us any reason for it.” “I thought,” said Eldred, “he had gone with you, Julian. I hav’nt seen him since your return.” “No, indeed,” replied the young officer, “I believe he has no desire for my companionship. These Indians are strange beings; I would as soon think of taming the mountain eagle as of civilizing them.” “Slacken sail,” cried Eldred, “if I mistake not, that speck on the waters is Arrowfoot’s bark canoe. Yes, I know the dash of his paddle; he is making towards us with all his strength.” “What can the boy have been after?” remarked Fitzgerald, in rather an anxious tone: but the next moment the Indian came alongside, and bounded into the boat, leaving his own light canoe to drift down the current.

“I thought,” said Eldred joyfully, “that our old pilot would not desert us altogether. But where have you been? Out of breath, and as pale as a corpse! Have you been fighting with a wolf, or capsized by the water-fiend?” “You will not speak,” exclaimed Eva, as he turned silently away, and fixed his eyes on the dark cove they were nearing; “can you not tell us whether the spirit who haunts yon depths will be propitious, for we are going to invade his realms?” “You have nothing to fear from the water-spirit,” replied Arrowfoot, “but why do you not sail up the river as you have always done before?” “Because Julian wishes to see the cove,” said Eva gaily; “and with you at the helm we fear nothing.” “Trust not to that,” replied he, in a low tone, “I would guard you from danger with my life, but—I would we were sailing up the stream,” he continued with increased anxiety. “What can you mean, Arrowfoot?” cried the now alarmed girl, but immediately recovering her natural buoyancy of spirit, she rallied him on his superstition. “Have you seen a raven hovering over us, or does the moon dip her horn?” she laughingly inquired. “Believe not the omen, but let us follow these merry waves that go dancing by us, to ‘the cave of their slumbers,’ and hear the wild song of the water-spirit soothing them to rest under yon rude canopy of rock.” Fitzgerald now approached. “I do not like to see my cousin’s bright countenance wearing this shadow? What gloomy forebodings are these that disturb you, Eva?” “I wish,” answered she, “that we had taken the usual course, for Arrowfoot thinks we are not quite safe in venturing into the cove this evening. Night is coming on, and perhaps we may strike upon some hidden rock.” “Never fear,” rejoined he, “I am an old cruiser, who has doubled Cape Horn and been baptized by Neptune. I want to show you how we steer through dangers in real nautical style. This young Indian,” he continued in a lower tone, “knows nothing about it.” “More perhaps than you think he does,” said Arrowfoot, sternly; for the almost whispered accents had reached his acute ear. Julian turned away apparently disconcerted, but in a few moments was himself again, and that he might obliterate every uneasy feeling from the breasts of the little party, played off Jack-tar for their entertainment with so much odd singularity and humor, that all, save the lone Indian, entered into the spirit of his drollery, and forgot every thing but the fantastic drama before them. He stood apart, gazing first on the dark masses of rock which overhung the river, then down its broad and deep solitudes of water, on which no skiff or fishing boat was visible. They were now entering the unfrequented cove. Seldom was it that even the canoe of the wild Indian disturbed the stillness of this spot. How strange was it then to see a small boat rise as it were out of the waters, and emerge from the shadow of the rocks within a few hundred yards of them. Arrowfoot, whose wary ear had heard the dash of oars before it was visible, stood with straining eye fixed upon it as it rapidly approached them. “I’ll declare, the water-spirit you were talking of,” said Fitzgerald, “has taken the form of a fishing boat, and Arrowfoot is going to answer his demand why we presume to come into his presence. But let me speak him as we do a ship at sea, and lo! the charm will dissolve, and the whole affair turn out to be nothing more than a trader going down stream.” In a moment he took out an instrument something like a bugle, but of a peculiar tone, and blew a few notes, which were answered by another of the same kind, and an attempt on the part of the trader to overhaul them. “I told you,” said Julian, “it was no water-witch. See she wishes to give us a friendly salute, and learn where we are bound.” Eva’s looks were directed first to her cousin and then to the Indian, but for whose look of alarm and defiance she would have enjoyed the adventure. The boat came nearer, and yet seemed steered by invisible hands, for no one could be seen beneath the awning which was raised at one end of it. “What lazy hulks,” exclaimed Fitzgerald, “to let their boat float on with the current, while they lie dozing there. I’ll pipe them again, and if they dont answer more gaily I’ll board them straightway.” He raised his bugle just as they were in the act of passing, and sounded a note, which was replied to by two figures masked and muffled in short cloaks, springing on the side of their little bark. “Good God! who are you? what is your purpose?” cried he, in a tone of consternation. “Villains! Murderers!” shouted Arrowfoot, straining the terrified Eldred close to his bosom. The ruffians rushed upon him, and the cry of despair he uttered when he found he could not retain his hold upon the boy, revealed their success. The struggle had been momentary. The Indian was shaken off into the water, by men whose nerve had been strengthened by many a scene of blood and strife; and the child he had so vainly striven to defend was heaved into the boat of the strangers. One wild shriek pierced the silence of the cove and all was still, while the pirates pushed silently down the stream. Eva sunk lifeless on the bosom of Caraola, who seemed stunned by the events which had just occurred, but soon her mournful wail told her utter hopelessness. Julian Fitzgerald stood silent and unmoved. Where was his vaunted courage, which had made no effort to rescue a helpless boy? “Caraola,” he at length said, “I have been thinking what course we had best pursue, to overtake these murderers before they have completed their bloody purpose. I would follow them immediately, but we must first get assistance for this fainting girl.” “Oh go,” cried she, “I can steer the boat—I can revive Eva.” Her voice, as it dwelt on the emphatic word “go,” roused the unconscious sufferer to a sense of her wretchedness. “Go—haste—save him—my brother, my father’s darling,” she shrieked in agony. “Julian, do you hesitate?” “No, Eva—I am rowing with all my strength—I must leave you in safety. My plan is formed. Your father will approve it. We must raise forces and scout the country around, for the ruffians will not dare to execute their design on the river. We can rescue the boy before they reach a place of concealment.” “Oh Julian, speed, speed fast,” she said, in a tone of touching entreaty, “my brother’s life depends upon your arm. Oh Caraola, is Arrowfoot too gone? I know he clung to him as long as life remained. Did they kill him?” “They threw him off,” replied Caraola, “but he lives still. I saw him striving to reach yonder shore. His heart is strong, and though his young arm bends like the sapling, I know the Great Spirit will strengthen it.”

The night had fallen dark and gloomy ere they reached Colonel Carlisle’s door. Eva’s cry of anguish caught her father’s ear, and he rushed to meet them. “Is it my child’s voice I hear?” exclaimed he, with alarm. “Speak Eva! where is your brother? Oh God! what has befallen him?” “He is gone, father—gone! seized by strangers; hasten to pursue—Julian, tell him all!” she said, as she gasping, fell into Caraola’s arms. He briefly sketched the events of the evening, and the probable design of the ruffians, to obtain the costly watch and diamonds which it was ascertained Eldred wore as a pledge of the inheritance to which he was heir. It might be from some motive of revenge to the father, but that Colonel Carlisle’s open heart and hand, his high-minded and useful career, checked the supposition of his having a secret enemy.

The necessity for instant exertion prevented the old man’s heart from bursting under this unexpected calamity. A company was raised for immediate pursuit. Julian co-operated in every plan to regain the lost boy, and set out as the leader of a party to search every spot where it was possible the villains had found a harbor. Colonel Carlisle himself headed another, but being scarcely able to guide his own steps, he yielded to his nephew’s counsel, and returned home, that he might not delay others in their search.

We will leave Fitzgerald engaged in this fruitless enterprise, and follow the trace of the boat which bore Eldred away from all he loved on earth. He lay still in the bottom of it, with a gag in his mouth and his tender frame enveloped in a seaman’s cloak. He heard but the splash of the oars and the shrill cries of the night-hawk scared from its solitary resting place. The hardened wretches, whose victim he had become, heeded not his stifled sobs, but leaving the wide Susquehanna, rowed up Conistoga creek until they came to a little inlet, which formed a very secluded cove, overhung by precipitous banks and surrounded by unbroken wood. There they lifted out the now senseless boy, and making fast their boat to the rocks, bore him through rugged paths to an old tenantless habitation, which had once been a mill-house, but all its works having been destroyed by a recent flood it had been left a wreck in the midst of desolation. Not until they had deposited their burden in the remotest corner of the building, did these murderers break the profound silence in which they had travelled. Having descended the ladder by which they had entered the upper story, and carefully concealed it from view, they began to consult upon the best means to adopt. “Did he say,” asked McMurdough, “that he would be here before day light? I am against delaying the thing. A bird in the hand may flutter.” “He said we might depend on him,” replied Hawkins. “I would rather obey orders in these things. It is enough for my conscience to do the deed; let them bear the responsibility that get the money.” “Hush!” whispered the other; “didn’t you hear the leaves stir?” “Nothing,” said his comrade, “but that cursed whippoorwill going to set up its screech. I’ll tell you, Hawkins, I had just as lief tap the boy on the head as to crack an egg, but this Antonio is a cunning fellow. He always leaves some hole to creep out at himself, but his poor followers must take care of themselves. He likes to get others to do his dangerous deeds too, but I know I must hear the clink of the Spanish dollars or he never sets foot on the deck of the Scudder again, and so I’ve told him.” “McMurdough,” said Hawkins, “did I tell you what I heard them Yankee lubbers say, as we cruised off Newport?” “Who cares for their guesses? As soon set a parcel of clams to privateering as such as them.” “Not so fast. They showed some cuteness in their talk. One tapped the other as our vessel was gliding by and said, ‘Jonathan, as ever I hope to eat pumpkin pie thanksgiving day, that’s no English trader, though she does spread their colors. Notice how clear she keeps of “old Ironsides.” I bet you don’t find her shaking hands, if she can help it. I’ll stake a Jews-harp she hoists other colors before she gets much farther.’ ‘And strikes them too,’ replied the other. ‘That’s all talk,’ said the first: ‘I’ve heard all about the Buccaneers, as they call ’em, and what nice traps are laid for ’em, but where’s one they have ever catched? Catch a pirate before you hang him say I.’” “So say I too,” said McMurdough, laughing. “As long as we have satisfaction among ourselves we may defy the devil; but some things must be altered, or I don’t serve under, Antonio.” “McMurdough, the boy keeps very quiet,” observed Hawkins: “like as not you fixed him, so he’ll die before his time.” “May be so—he’s but an unfledged bird, and will not stand rough handling. No concern of mine, I did but his bidding.” “The moon is wrapping herself up in as black a cloak as ours,” remarked Hawkins, “so we might as well take a little rest. But first I’ll step above and see about the child. If he’s smothered, all the better; I never had so little mind to a job in my life.” “Why so? he says there is no doubt of the fortune—just put this one out of the way, and he’s the next heir.” “It goes against my conscience, McMurdough, to shed the blood of the young and innocent; let there be guilt where I strike.”

He ascended the ladder, and groped for the spot where lay the victim of their cruelty. No sound escaped from him, and it was not until he pulled away the gag and uncovered his face, that he perceived the boy still breathed. His pulses were quick and faint, betokening exhausted and failing life. He was evidently locked in a deep slumber, which neither the terrors of his situation nor the gripe of the iron screws, had power to break. Folded in the sweet mantle of forgetfulness, he was insensible to every thing but the busy fancies that sported in his brain. Even the stern heart of the murderer relented, when a straggling moonbeam fell on the pale face, and revealed the bruises made by the hand of violence. The fresh air seemed already to revive the young slumberer, and he had not the heart to shut it out, but turned his head towards the rent in the wall, and then endeavored to seek repose in another part of the building.

The covering of night was not so secure as the banditti supposed. The faithful Arrowfoot, with untiring step, had followed all the windings of their rugged course. Resolving not to lose the traces of their flight, he had traversed dangers which by day light would have appeared impassable; and while they were placing their charge in the upper story of the house, crept within hearing and laid himself down in a thick underwood, where his ear caught every word which passed between them. It was his presence which had scared the whippoorwill from its perch, and gave occasion to the imprecation of the ruffian. He listened intently to their discourse, which revealed all he suspected, that Julian was the contriver of the whole scheme of abduction and murder. As soon as he heard this, he moved off as lightly as the air itself, and making his way to the boat they had left, seized the oars, and with the skill of a practised hand pushed over the water, straining every nerve to give the alarm before Fitzgerald’s arrival at the designated spot.