But when Tira Blake came to be told of Laura's trouble, and the reasons of it, that sage and prudent friend gave counsel that cheered her like a cordial, telling her it would be sinful to marry a man whom she disliked so heartily, and that in such a matter no one had the right to demand or enforce obedience.

"It's bad enough to be married when you're willin'," said she; "but when you a'n't willin', there's no law nor no gospel to make you."

"But if Maria should compel me, what should I do?" cried Laura, to whom her sister's will seemed more mighty than both law and gospel.

"She can't," replied Statira, sententiously; "she can't. Her 'yes,' in such a case, is only good for herself; it can't make you any man's wife.—What shall you do? Why, nothin',—nothin' in the world. If they should bring bridegroom and parson, and stand you up side of him by main force, (which of course is foolish to think of their doing so, only I suppose it just to show you what I mean,) even in such a case you needn't do anything. Keep your mouth shut and your head from bobbin', and there a'n't lawyers, nor squires, nor parsons, nor parsons' wives either for that matter, enough in all Connecticut to marry you to a mouse, let alone a man. Humph!" added Miss Blake, with scornful accent, "I should like to see 'em set out to marry me to anybody I didn't want to have!"

There was nothing in all that Tira said which Laura did not know before; but it was uttered in such a way that it sounded in her ears like a new revelation, filling her heart with peace and comfort, and inspiring her with hope and courage. The magic spell that had enthralled her spirit was broken by the power of a few cheery, confident, assuring words. A heavy weight seemed lifted from her heart, and, relieved from the pressure, her spirits rose, joyous and elastic. The shadow was dispelled which had darkened her future, and the sun seemed to shine brighter and the birds to sing more sweetly. She herself was changed,—or at least it was hard to believe she was the same Laura Stebbins who, the night before, had cried herself to sleep, and whose doleful visage, that very morning, had looked out at her from the mirror. She flew at Tira in a transport, and, without asking her leave, kissed her twenty times in less than a minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step, singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball, bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other hand with a gesture of resolute determination, at the same time uttering, through closed teeth and with compressed and puckered lips, an oft-repeated vow, that, never, never, the longest day she lived, would she marry Elam Hunt, to please anybody,—as her sister Maria (said she, with a saucy toss of the head) would find, if she tried to make her!

I doubt greatly, whether, if Laura had known what I am now going to tell my reader, she would have indulged in such vivacious pranks, and bold, defiant words: namely, that Mrs. Jaynes was hearing everything she said, and, in fact, had listened to and taken special heed of nearly the whole conversation, a part of which has been set forth above. Coming through the wicket in the garden fence, on an errand to the Bugbee kitchen, the sound of her own name, in Laura's excited tones, struck Mrs. Jaynes's ear and excited her curiosity. Walking nearer to the house, and concealing herself behind a little thicket of lilac bushes, near the open window of Statira's bedroom, she was enabled to hear with distinctness almost every word uttered by the unconscious conspirators, who were plotting against the fulfilment of her cherished project.

There is good reason for believing that what Mrs. Jaynes overheard, while lying in ambush, as has been related, excited in her heart emotions of indignation and resentment. Be that as it may, no trace of displeasure was visible upon her face or in her voice or manner, when, a few minutes afterwards, she stood by the side of the unsuspicious Tira, in the back veranda of the house, holding in her hand a plate containing a pat of butter she had just borrowed from the Doctor's housekeeper, while the latter, peeping through the curtain of vine-leaves, gazed at as pretty a spectacle as just then could have been seen anywhere in Belfield. On the grassplot, in the shade of a great cherry-tree, Laura and Helen were playing at graces. Both were full of frolicsome glee; the former, with spirits in their first glad rebound from recent despondency, being wild with gayety, enjoying the sport no less than the merry child, her playmate. Laura's glowing face was fairly radiant with beauty, and her figure was unconsciously displayed in such a variety of bewitching attitudes and dainty postures, that even a pair of frisky kittens, that had been chasing each other round the grassplot and up and down the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still, crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter she held in her hand would not have melted in her pursed-up mouth.

Mrs. Jaynes, for reasons of her own, thought proper to keep her temper in control, abstaining from any manifestation of displeasure for a much longer time than while she remained standing in the back veranda of Doctor Bugbee's house. She did not think it prudent to apprise Laura that her rebellious conference with Statira had been discovered, nor to forbid her from holding further communication with her evil counsellors; but contented herself, for the present, with keeping a stricter watch over her sister's conduct, by practising with increased rigor and vigilance that efficient system of tactics hereinbefore commemorated, by which the ardor of Laura's chance admirers was repressed and their advances repelled, and by alluding, from time to time, to Laura's prospective nuptials, as to an event predestined and inevitable, or, at least, no less sure to come to pass than if Laura herself had engaged her hand to Mr. Hunt of her own free will and accord, and was only waiting to be asked to name the wedding-day.

It was many months after Elam left the shady height of East Windsor Hill before he received a call to settle; for though he preached in different parts on trial, before many congregations that were destitute of pastors, none of these fastidious flocks would listen to his voice a second time, or agree to choose him for its shepherd. At last, however, the people of Walbury, a town in Windham County, lying nearly twenty miles from Belfield, made choice of Mr. Hunt to be their spiritual guide, and accordingly extended to him an invitation to be ordained and installed as the settled minister over their ancient parish. Upon receiving this proposal, Elam at once despatched a letter to his friend and ally, Mrs. Jaynes, informing her of his good fortune, and suggesting that Laura should at once bestir herself in preparations for their wedding, in order that this blissful event might precede his ordination. Then, after waiting for the lapse of that period of decorous delay which immemorial usage has prescribed in such cases, he indited an epistle to the church in Walbury, stating, in proper and accustomed form, that his native humility inclined him to refuse their request; but that, after a wrestle with his inclinations, he had got the better of them, and had resolved to sacrifice his own wishes and feelings, and to enter the field of labor to which the Israel in Walbury had invited him.

A year and more had elapsed since Laura, encouraged by Tira Blake's assuring words, had begun to hope that a better fate was in store for her than to become the wife of a man she detested. Meanwhile, Elam had often come to Belfield, sometimes preaching a sermon for Mr. Jaynes, and going away again, after a brief sojourn, without having opened his mouth to Laura to speak of love or marriage. At his later visits it was evident that he was inclined to despond about his prospects of getting a settlement, and Laura began to entertain strong hopes that he never would be successful; for she would have given up all the chances of beholding her military hero in person, and would have been content to live a maid forever, continually waiting for Elam, if she could have been assured the time would never come for him to claim her.

But, one morning, after breakfast, having made her bed and arranged her chamber, singing blithely all the while, she was just going to sit down by the window with her sewing, when Mrs. Jaynes came in with a letter in her hand. Laura guessed at once that the letter was from Elam, and that it contained the news of which the reader has been apprised already. Though she did not need to read the letter in order to inform herself of its contents, she took it in her hand, when her sister bade her read it, and made a pretence of obedience, shuddering, meanwhile, with disgust and terror. At last she came to the conclusion of the epistle, where Elam had mentioned his desire to be married before being ordained, and had subscribed himself as united in gospel bonds to the worthy lady to whom the letter was addressed. Then, folding up the paper with trembling hands, she held it towards her sister, without daring to look up, or to say a word.

"Now, Laura," asked Mrs. Jaynes, in a quiet tone, "when can you be ready to be married?"

Laura tried to speak, and looked up, with a pale, frightened face, into her sister's impassive countenance. Her white lips failed to form the words she strove to utter.

"When shall the wedding be?" said Mrs. Jaynes, with a smile of affected sportiveness. "Name the happy day, my love."

"Happy day!" repeated poor Laura. "Oh, Maria!"

"Why, what's the matter, child?" said Mrs. Jaynes; "what are you crying for?"

"Oh, dear, dear sister!" sobbed Laura, falling on her knees at Mrs. Jaynes's feet, "do hear me! You are my mother, for you fill her place."

"I have endeavored to do so," said Mrs. Jaynes.

"Then, for God's sake, don't make me marry this horrid man!" pursued Laura. "Don't tell me that I must! Don't force me to such a fate!" And with many passionate words like these, Laura implored her sister not to lay any command upon her to marry Elam Hunt.

"Hush, Laura! hush, my dear child!" said Mrs. Jaynes, who had anticipated this scene, and was well prepared with her replies. "Be calm; you behave absurdly. I have no power to force you to marry any man. I don't expect to compel you to accept Mr. Hunt for a husband. For at least two years past I had supposed, however, that it was your intention to do so. If you have changed your mind, and if you wish to break an engagement that has subsisted so long, whether for or without cause, I cannot prevent it. You have read so many foolish romances, that your head is turned, and you fancy yourself a heroine in distress. But let me tell you, my dear, that in real life, here, in New England, a woman cannot be forced to marry. So calm your transports, wipe your eyes, and get up from your knees. I'm not to be kneeled to, pray remember."

Laura did as she was told,—so much abashed that she dared not look up. To increase her confusion, her sister began to laugh.

"I beg your pardon, dear," said she, "but, ha, ha, ha! it was so funny!—like a scene in a play, I should think."

"I know I've been silly, Maria," said Laura, weeping again,—with shame, this time.

"Never mind, dear," said her sister, in a kind tone, "we're all silly sometimes. You'll never be guilty of the folly again, at any rate, of supposing that girls can be married, in spite of themselves, by cruel sisters; eh, Laura?"

"Oh, Maria, do forgive me!" cried Laura, blushing crimson. "I was so very silly!"

"Well, let it all go," said Mrs. Jaynes, kissing her. "Now we'll talk about this letter. Tell me why you don't wish to marry Mr. Hunt. If you have any good reason against it, I'm sure I don't desire it; though, I confess, having supposed so long it was a settled thing, I had set my heart upon it. Perhaps this disappointment has been sent to me for some wise purpose," added Mrs. Jaynes, with a pious sigh.

Thus encouraged, Laura opened her heart and began to talk, saying that she didn't like Mr. Hunt, that she didn't love him, that she disliked him, and hated him, and that he was hateful, and horrid, and awful, and dreadful, and so homely, and pale, and pimpled, and, ugh! she should never like him, nor love him, but always dislike him, and hate him. And on she went in this manner, till her fervor was cooled, and she had exhausted, by frequent repetition, every form of speech capable of expressing her great repugnance to a union with Elam Hunt. In conclusion, she said she was willing never to marry, but would remain with her sister and work for her and the children all her life.

"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Jaynes. "We'll talk of your kind offer presently; and you will see, I think, that I have no desire that you should live and die an old maid, even in case you do not marry Mr. Hunt."

"I'm sure I'd rather than not," said Laura, with a twinge of conscience at the thought of her hero.

"Have you said all that you've got to say?" asked Mrs. Jaynes, very quietly.

Laura looked up into her sister's grave, sober face, and felt a chill of vague apprehension begin to take the place of the hopeful glow in her heart.

"Eh?" said Mrs. Jaynes, inquiringly.

"Y—yes," faltered Laura, "only this,—I don't like him, and he's such a horrid, disgusting man,—and—and—that's all, I believe, except that I don't like him, and think he's so disagreeable,—and— oh, yes! there's another thing,—he wears blue spectacles,—ugh! blue spectacles!"

"Is there anything more?" said Mrs. Jaynes, still speaking with the same even, quiet voice.

"N—no," said Laura, "only I—" and here she paused.

"Don't like him," added Mrs. Jaynes, supplying the words.

"Yes, that's it," said Laura. "I know I'm foolish, but—"

"It's much to confess it," said Mrs. Jaynes. "Now that I've patiently heard all that you have to say, I wish to be heard a few words in favor of a dear and worthy friend of mine, against whom you appear to entertain a groundless antipathy."

"No, not groundless," interposed Laura.

"Well, I'll agree that a pale, studious face and blue spectacles are good reasons for hating a man. Now let me say a word or two in his favor, notwithstanding, and also in favor of a plan which I had supposed was agreed upon, and which I dislike extremely to see abandoned. You have reasons against it, which you have stated. I have reasons for it, which I will state. But first answer me two or three simple questions, 'yes' or 'no,'—will you, dear?"

And Laura assenting, she went on to ask if Mr. Hunt was not good, and pious, and of blameless life and reputation; extorting from Laura an affirmative reply to each separate inquiry.

"He's all these good qualities, then, to offset the complexion of his face and spectacles," resumed Mrs. Jaynes. "Now let us look at the matter in a worldly point of view. He is able to give you not only a place, but the very highest position in society; he can offer you, not wealth, but competence, which is better than either poverty or riches. Why, my dear, there are a hundred girls in this town, many of whom excel you in everything which men think desirable in a wife, except, perhaps, the poor, perishable quality of beauty,— girls of good family, rich, or likely to be so, intelligent, well educated, some of them, to say the least, almost as pretty as you, any one of whom would think herself honored by this offer which you despise; for most people are aware that to be a minister's wife, in New England, is, my dear, to occupy, as I have just said, the very summit of the social structure."

Here Mrs. Jaynes made a period, and watched the effect of her words. After a pause she resumed by alluding to Laura's offer to remain with her always, without marrying; and while poor Laura listened with a feeling as if the very earth was sinking beneath her feet, Mrs. Jaynes reminded her that she was a penniless orphan, who had been maintained for years by the bounty of one upon whom she had no claim, except that she was the sister of his wife.

"I have no right, you know, my dear," continued Mrs. Jaynes, "to tell you that you may stay here longer. Jabez, doubtless, would bid you remain and welcome, as he told you to come and welcome. But young women are usually expected to marry, at or near your age. It is probable, indeed I know, that, at the time you came, this event was thought of, and taken into account. Mr. Jaynes is Mr. Hunt's warm friend and admirer. He expects that you are going to marry this good friend. What will be his reflections when he learns that you prefer to remain here, a pensioner upon his income, rather than to marry such a man as Mr. Hunt, whose only demerits are his blue spectacles and pale complexion?"

Here Laura turned so white, and looked so woful, that her tormentor paused, in apprehension that the poor girl was going to swoon.

"Oh, my God! what shall I do?" cried Laura, beating her palms together, in sore distress.

"You know," resumed Mrs. Jaynes, watching her sister carefully, and speaking softly, "you know that Mr. Jaynes's salary is not large. It used to be more than sufficient for our wants, but the children are getting to be more expensive every year. Their clothes cost more, and the boys, at least, ought soon to go away to school, and Jabez has set his heart upon sending Newton to college. If—well, never mind, dear, I'll say no more; but when I think of this offer of Mr. Hunt,—such a good offer, especially to one in your circumstances, from such a worthy, talented, pious young clergyman, whose preference Julia Bramhall or Cornelia Bugbee, with their thousands, would be glad to win,—who is going to be settled in a good old parish, like Walbury, and receive at once a salary almost as large, I dare say, as Mr. Jaynes's,—I do say, Laura, that you ought to give better reasons for refusing him, nay, for jilting him, after a two-years' engagement, than that his cheeks are pale and his spectacles blue. We love you, Laura, and are willing to give you a home and the best we can afford to eat and drink and wear, but Mr. Hunt loves you as well, or better, and offers you more than we have it in our power to bestow. Take the day for reflection. To-morrow Mr. Hunt will be here. Think, my child, whether you will be justified in rejecting this offer. Your refusal, bear in mind, imposes upon others a sacrifice of something more than childish whims and silly prejudices. In order that you may have time and opportunity to give this important matter due consideration, you had better remain in your chamber. But don't fancy yourself a prisoner. If you choose to see any one that calls, you can do so. But, my dear, I cannot permit you to go and seek those who, from spite and malice against me, would take delight in giving you evil counsel."

With this sharp innuendo against Tira Blake, in which she thought she might now safely indulge, Mrs. Jaynes concluded her speech and went out softly, leaving poor Laura in a stupor of despair, sitting with her hands clasped in her lap and her head drooping on her bosom.

At last, looking up with a glance so woful that one would scarcely have known her, Laura perceived she was alone. She rose, went to the door and locked it, standing for a moment trembling, until of a sudden she fell a-crying piteously, and began to walk to and fro across her chamber, wringing her hands like one distraught, and sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person, nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that her maintenance was a matter of cost and calculation to those who provided it, nor reflected that she had no rightful claim upon those who gave her shelter, food, and clothing. She had been thankful to her protectors for their kindness, but the sentiment she entertained for them was more like filial love than gratitude. For the first time she realized that she was a pensioner on another's bounty, and felt the sharp sting of conscious dependence.

At length, growing more calm after the first passionate outbreak of frantic sorrow had subsided, she dried her eyes and sat down on purpose to think. Poor child! Serious deliberation was a new exercise to her mind. Besides, her head ached, her brain seemed in a whirl, and her heart was so full and heavy she wanted to do nothing but cry with all her might till the burden was gone. But think she must, and knitting her brows and stilling her sobs, she tried to think. What could she do? Oh, if she could but ask Tira! But what good could Tira do? What could she tell her? It was not her sister that was forcing her, but Fate itself! All that her sister had told her was true, every word. The tone of her voice, her manner, had been unusually kind and gentle. There was nothing she had said that she could be blamed for saying. Tira herself must admit that it was all true and reasonable,—but, oh, how very dreadful! Then she conjured up to view the image of Elam Hunt,—his lank, slim figure, arrayed in sombre black,—his pale, cadaverous visage, spotted with pimples and blue blotches of close-shaven beard,—his spectral glance of admiration through those detestable blue spectacles. She imagined that she felt the clammy touch of his long, skinny fingers, and cold, flabby palm. She reflected upon the probability, nay, the certainty, that she must marry this man, for whom she felt such an invincible repugnance, and in a frenzy of dismay and terror she screamed aloud and started up as if to fly. Then, recollecting herself, she sank down moaning.—Oh, heavens! she thought, there was no escape, no help! How wretched she was! how utterly miserable! all alone, alone, in such a dreary, lonesome world, with no home, nor father, nor mother, nor brother,—with only a sister who had a husband and children, whom she loved, as she ought, far better than she did her. There was nobody to whom she was the dearest of all,— nobody, except Elam Hunt, whom she hated and loathed with all her heart, and the very thought of whose love made her shudder. What could she do? To stay and be a burden for her friends to support was worse than anything. That, at least, she was resolved to do no longer. If she were only strong enough, she would go where nobody knew her and work at housework, or in a factory, or anywhere. Oh, if she only knew enough to teach school! She should like that. It would be so pleasant to have the children love her, and bring her flowers to put upon her desk! But, oh, dear! she didn't know enough, she feared. For all that she had graduated at the Academy, she never dared to write a letter without looking up all the hard words of it in the dictionary, to see how they were spelt;—and parsing! and doing sums!— oh, gracious! she never could teach school,—that was out of the question!

At last, after a long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing and stitching from morning till night; but it was better than marrying Elam Hunt, or than eating other people's bread. Then she began to build castles in the air, as her custom was. She fancied herself a milliner's apprentice, working away at bonnets and caps, among a group of other girls,—sometimes rising to attend upon a customer, or peeping out between the folds of a curtain at people in the front shop. She wondered whether Cornelia and Helen would be ashamed of knowing a milliner's apprentice, if they should chance to see her in Hartford.

What would her schoolmates say? and would her hero despise a girl that worked for a livelihood? Then she whimpered a little, thinking how lonesome she would be, for a while, among strangers; but it was a kind of lamentation that differed widely from the frantic weeping of the morning. Then, all at once, a doubt began to depress her new-born hopes. Could she get a place? She was a stranger in Hartford, and beyond that city she dared not send her thoughts. Could Tira get a place for her? She feared not, for Tira herself seldom went to the city. But there was Doctor Bugbee, who knew a great many people there, and who was so rich and powerful, that even in Hartford, though it was a city, his word must have great influence. Besides, the firm of Bugbee Brothers purchased large quantities of goods at some of the great millinery shops. The Doctor's own private custom was not small, for Cornelia dressed as became her condition, and even little Helen scorned to wear a bonnet unless it came from Hartford. Doctor Bugbee could help her to find a place. Doubtless he would be willing, nay, even glad, to assist her in her trouble. At any rate, she would ask him. But how was she to see him? He was not likely to call upon her, unless she feigned sickness, and sent for him; for her sister would not permit her to go to his house, where she would be sure to see Tira. Besides, the Doctor's manner had of late grown so distant and forbidding, that she was a little fearful of obtruding herself upon his notice. Though sorry for this change, she had never laid it so much to heart as to be grieved or affronted; for even his children complained of his altered behavior, and all his friends had noticed the gloomy expression which his face sometimes wore. But now she troubled herself with wondering whether she had given him any cause to be offended with her. Perhaps her giddy nonsense and thoughtless gayety, which when he himself was cheerful and happy he had listened to without displeasure, had vexed and annoyed him in his moods of sadness and dejection. But what else could she do than solicit his aid? The favor, though small for him to grant, would be of immense benefit to her, and the good-hearted Doctor would not be likely to refuse. She would tell him how friendless she was, and beg him to help the fatherless in her distress. She knew that he would not turn her away. At all events, she could try.

Coming at last to this conclusion, and wonderfully cheered and strengthened by the purpose she had formed, she washed her face, arranged her dishevelled hair, and smoothed her rumpled dress. Then sitting down behind the window-curtain, she began to watch for Cornelia, hoping her friend would not long delay her accustomed visit to the parsonage. But it happened that Cornelia had that very day begun a novel, in three volumes, the heroine of which was represented to be a young lady whose extreme beauty and amiable temper made her deserving of better treatment than she received at the hands of the hard-hearted author, who suffered her to be cheated and bullied by a scheming and brutal guardian, to be slandered by his envious daughter, persecuted by a dissolute nobleman, haunted by a spectre, shut up in a tower, exposed to manifold dangers, beset by robbers, abducted, assaulted, barely rescued, and, finally, even teased and tormented by the chosen lover of her heart, a jealous-pated fellow, who was always making her miserable and himself ridiculous by his absurd suspicions and fractious behavior.

Sympathizing deeply with this distressed young woman, whose unexampled misfortunes and troubles would have touched the heart of even a marble statue, Cornelia was weeping dolefully over a page near the end of the second volume, where the lady's lover, in a fit of senseless jealousy, tears her miniature from his bosom, renounces her affection, and leaves her swooning upon the floor. Just then Helen rushed into her chamber, with a summons from Laura to hasten at once to her side. For Laura, after long watching, had caught sight of Helen jumping the rope on the grassplot, and by means of coughing and waving her handkerchief from the window had attracted the notice of the child, who, coming to the paling, had received the message she forthwith bore to Cornelia, adding to it the information that Laura's eyes appeared to be almost as red as Cornelia's own.

Staying only to finish the volume, Cornelia repaired to comfort and console her friend, to whose chamber she found ready access in spite of some vague misgivings in Mrs. Jaynes's mind. But, shrewd as this lady was by nature, and apprehensive as she felt that some untoward accident would prevent the accomplishment of her cherished plans, she never dreamed of the momentous results that were to follow this interview, apparently so harmless, between Laura and her friend; nor would it be fitting to suffer an account of so important a conference to appear at the end of a chapter.

[To be continued in the next Number.]

* * * * *



SPARTACUS.

The Romans had many virtues, and conspicuous amongst these was the virtue of impartiality. They treated everybody with equal inhumanity. They were as pitiless towards the humble as towards the proud. The quality of mercy was utterly unknown to them. Their motto,

"Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,"

Powell Buxton has happily translated, "They murdered all who resisted them, and enslaved the rest."

But it was as slaveholders that the Romans most clearly exhibited their impartiality. They were above those miserable subterfuges that are so common with Americans. They made slaves of all, of the high as well as the low,—of Thracians as well as Sardinians, of Greeks and Syrians as readily as of Scythians and Cappadocians.

The consequence of the modes by which the Romans obtained their bondmen,—by war, by purchase, and by kidnapping,—affecting as they did the most cultivated and the bravest races, necessarily made slavery a very dangerous institution. Greeks and Gauls, Thracians and Syrians, Germans and Spaniards were not likely to submit their necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses, and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae. One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his javelin defiantly into that city which he himself never could enter.

The treatment of their slaves by the Romans was not unlike that which slaves now experience. Some masters were kind, and there are many facts which show that the relations between master and slave were occasionally of the most amiable nature. But these were exceptional cases, the general rule being cruelty, as it must be where so much power is lodged in the hands of one class of men, and the other has only a nominal protection from the law. Even where cruelty takes no other form than that involved in hard labor, the slave must experience intolerable oppression. Now the Romans were the most avaricious people that ever lived. They had a hearty love of money for money's sake. They would do anything for gold. Such men were not likely to let their slaves grow fat from light tasks and abundant food; their food was light, and their tasks were heavy. So ill-fed were they that they were compelled to rob on the highway, and were encouraged to do so by their owners. Indeed, much of the private economy of the Romans was founded on cruelty to their slaves. Some, who have come down to us as model men, were infamous for their maltreatment of their bondmen. The life of any foreigner was of but little account with any Roman, but enslaved foreigners were regarded as on a level with brutes. Many anecdotes are related of the ferocious disregard of all humanity which the world's masters manifested towards the servile classes. There is a story told by Cicero, in one of the Verrine Orations, which peculiarly illustrates this feature of the Roman character. The praetorian edicts forbade slaves to carry arms. There were no exceptions. A boar of great size was once given to Lucius Domitius, who was a Sicilian Praetor. Its size caused him to ask by whom it was slain; and on being informed that the hunter was a shepherd and slave, he sent for him. The slave, not doubting that he should be rewarded for his bravery, hastened to present himself before the Praetor, who asked him what he killed the animal with. "With a spear," was the answer; whereupon the Praetor ordered that he should be immediately crucified. This was but one of thousands of similar acts that were perpetrated by Romans through many generations.

The slaves, as we have remarked, occasionally revolted, and the efforts that were found necessary to subdue them rose sometimes to the dignity of wars. The first Servile War of the Romans occurred in Sicily. There were various reasons why this fine island should become the scene of servile wars sooner than other portions of the Roman dominions. Upon the final expulsion of the Carthaginians, about the middle of the second Punic War, great changes of property ensued. Speculators from Italy rushed into the island, "who," says Arnold, "in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large tracts of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates which had belonged to Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had been forfeited to Rome after the execution or flight of their owners. The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the example, and became rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were to be had cheap; and corn was likely to find a sure market whilst Italy was suffering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded with slaves, employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors, whether Sicilian or Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters that they soon began to provide for themselves by robbery. The poorer Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil; and as the masters were well content that their slaves should be maintained at the expense of others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus, although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and though exporting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with evils, which, seventy or eighty years after, broke out in the horrible atrocities of the Servile War." [2]

[Footnote 2: Arnold, History of Rome, Vol. III. pp. 317-318, London edition.]

The Sicilian Servile War began B.C. 133, only a few years after the destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and when the military power of the republic was probably at its height, though military discipline may have been somewhat relaxed from the old standard. It lasted two or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts, he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The victories he so often won over the Roman forces are placed to the credit of his lieutenant, a Cilician of the name of Cleon; but he must have been a man of considerable ability to have maintained his position so long, and to have commanded the services of those said to have been his superiors. Cleon's superiority was probably only that of the soldier. He fell in battle, and Eunus was made prisoner, but died before he could be brought to punishment,—no doubt, to the vast regret of his savage captors.

In the year B.C. 103, another Servile War broke out in Sicily, and was not brought to an end until after four years of hard fighting. The leaders were Salvius, or Tryphon, an Italian, and Athenion, a Cilician, or Greek. Both showed considerable talent, but owed their leadership, Salvius to his knowledge of divination, and Athenion to his pretensions to astrology. They were often successful, and it was not until a Consul had taken the field against them that the slaves were subdued, the chiefs having successively fallen, and no one arising to make their place good.

The next great Servile War was on a grander scale, though briefer, than either of the Sicilian contests. Its scene was Italy, and it was conducted, on the part of the rebels, by the profoundest military genius ever encountered by the Romans, with the exception, perhaps, of Hannibal. We speak of SPARTACUS, who defeated many Roman armies, and disputed with the all-conquering republic the dominion of the Italian Peninsula, and with it that of the civilized world. This war took place B.C. 73-71, while Rome was engaged in hostilities with Sertorius and Mithridates; and it was brought to an end only by the exertions of the ablest generals the republic then had,—the great Pompeius having been summoned from Spain, and it being in contemplation to order home Lucullus from the East. In the war with Hannibal the Romans showed their fearlessness by sending troops to Spain while the Carthaginian with his army was lying under their walls; but they called troops and generals from Spain to their assistance against the Thracian gladiator. He must have been a man of extraordinary powers to have accomplished so much with the means at his disposal. It has been regarded as a proof of the astonishing powers of Hannibal as a commander, that he could keep together, and in effective condition, an army composed of the outcasts, as it were, of many nations, and win with it great victories, scattered over a long period of time; yet this was less than was done by Spartacus. The Carthaginian, like Alexander, succeeded to an army formed by his father, next after himself the ablest man of the age. The Thracian, without country or home, and an outlaw from the beginning of his enterprise, had to create an army, and that out of the most heterogeneous and apparently the most unpromising materials. The palm must be aligned to the latter.

To what race did Spartacus belong? We are told that he was a Thracian, his family being shepherds. The Thracians were a brave people, but by no means remarkable for the highest intellectual superiority; yet Spartacus was eminently a man of mind, with large views, and an original genius for organization and war. Plutarch pays him the highest compliment in his power, by admitting that he deserved to be regarded as belonging to the Hellenic race. He was, says the old Lifemaker, "a man not only of great courage and strength, but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition, and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation." It is not impossible that he had Greek blood in his veins. Thrace was hard by Greece, had many Greek cities, and its full proportion of those Greek adventurers, military and civil, who were to be found in every country and city, from Spain to Persia, from Gades to Ecbatana. What more probable than that among his ancestors were Greeks? At the same time it must be admitted that the Thracians themselves were capable of producing eminent men, being a superior physical race, and prevented only by the force of circumstances from attaining to a respectable position. They were renowned for soldierlike qualities, which caused the Romans to give them the preference as gladiators,—a dubious honor, to say the best of it.

How, and under what circumstances, Spartacus became a gladiator, is a point by no means clear. We cannot trust the Roman accounts, as it was a meritorious thing, in the opinion of a Roman, for a man to lie for his country, as well as to die for it. Florus states, that he was first a Thracian mercenary, then a Roman soldier, then a deserter and robber, and then, because of his strength, a gladiator from choice. But, to say nothing of the national prejudices of Florus, he writes like a man who felt it to be a particular grievance that Romans should have been compelled to fight slaves, and particularly gladiators. This is in striking contrast with Plutarch, who was a contemporary of Florus, but whose patriotic pride was not wounded by the victories which the Thracian gladiator won over Roman generals. Indeed, as he was willing to admit that Spartacus ought to have been a Greek, we may suppose that he was pleased to read of his victories,— a not unnatural thing in a provincial, and particularly in a Greek, who knew so well what his country had once been. Plutarch says not a word about the Thracian having been a soldier and a thief, but introduces him with one of his good stories. "They say," he tells us, "that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this was a sign of a great and formidable power, which would attend him to a happy termination." She was the Thracian's wife, or mistress, being connected with him by some tender tie, and was with him when he subsequently escaped from Capua. In the bloody drama of the War of Spartacus hers is the sole relieving figure, and we would fain know more of her, for it could have been no ordinary woman who was loved by such a man.

The passion of the Romans for gladiatorial combats is well known. Not a few persons followed the calling of gladiator-trainers, and had whole corps of these doomed men, whom they let to those who wished to get up such shows. There were several schools of gladiators, the chief of which were at Ravenna and Capua, where garrisons were maintained to keep the pupils in subjection. According to one account, Spartacus, while on a predatory incursion, was made prisoner, and afterwards sold to Cneius Lentulus Batiatus, a trainer of gladiators, who sent him to his school at Capua. He was to have fought at Rome. But he had higher thoughts than of submitting to so degrading a destiny as the being "butchered to make a Roman holiday." Most of his companions were Gauls and Thracians, the bravest of men, who bore confinement with small patience. They conspired to make their escape,—the chief conspirators being Spartacus and two others, who were subsequently made his lieutenants,—Crixus, a Gaul, and Oenomaus, a Greek. Some two hundred persons were in the conspiracy, but only a portion of them succeeded in breaking the school bounds. Florus says that not more than thirty got out, while Velleius makes the number to have been sixty-four, and Plutarch seventy-eight. Having armed themselves with spits, knives, and cleavers, from a cook's shop, they hastened out of Capua. Passing along the Appian Way, they fell in with a number of wagons loaded with gladiators' weapons, which they seized, and were thus placed in good fighting condition. Shortly after this they encountered a small body of soldiers, whom they routed, and whose arms they substituted for the gladiatorial, deeming these no longer worthy of them.

They were now joined by a few others, fugitives and mountaineers, with whom they took refuge in the crater of Vesuvius, then, as from time immemorial, and for nearly a century and a half later, inactive. Thence, under the leadership of Spartacus and his lieutenants, Crixus and Oedomaus, they ravaged the country; but it is not probable that they caused much alarm, their number being only two hundred, and such collections of slaves being by no means uncommon. The Romans little dreamed that they were on the eve of one of the most terrible of their many wars. Claudius Pulcher, one of the Praetors, was sent against the "robbers," as they were considered to be. He found them so advantageously posted on the mountain, that, though superior to them in numbers in the ratio of fifteen to one, he resolved to blockade them, and so compel them to descend to the plain and fight at disadvantage, or starve. But he was contending with a man of genius, against whom even Rome's military system could not then succeed. He despised his enemy,—a sort of gratification which to those indulging in it generally costs very dear. Spartacus caused ropes to be made of vine branches, with the aid of which he and his followers lowered themselves to the base of the mountain, at a point which had been left unguarded by the Romans because considered inaccessible by the red-tapist who commanded them, and consequently affording a capital outlet for bold men under a daring leader. In the dead of night the gladiators stole round to the rear of the Roman camp, and assailed it. Taken by surprise and heavy with sleep, the Romans were routed like sheep, and their arms and baggage passed into the hands of the despised enemy.

Spartacus saw now that it was time for him and his comrades to assume a higher character than had hitherto belonged to them. Instead of a leader of outlaws, he aspired to be the liberator of the servile population of Italy. He issued a proclamation, in which, while calling upon his followers to remember the multitudes who groaned in chains, he urged the slaves to rise, pointing out how strong they were and how weak were their oppressors, maintaining that the strength of the masters lay in the blind and disgraceful submission of the slaves, at the same time declaring that the land belonged of right to the bravest,—a sentiment as natural and proper when uttered by a man in his situation as it is base when proceeding from a modern buccaneer, who has taken up arms, not to obtain his own freedom, but to enslave others. The whole address is contemptuous towards the Romans, though somewhat too rhetorical for a man in the situation of Spartacus. It is the composition of Sallust, but we may believe that it expresses the sentiments of Spartacus, as Sallust was not only his contemporary, but was too good an artist to disregard keeping in what he wrote.

Italy was at this time full of slaves, many of whom must have been men of quite as much intelligence as the Romans, having been made captives in war. The free population of the Peninsula had almost entirely disappeared. Two generations before, Tiberius Gracchus had pointed to the miserable condition of Italy, and to the fact that the increase of the slave population had caused the Italian yeomanry to become almost extinct. In the years that had passed since his murder the work of extinction had gone on at an accelerated rate, the Social War and the Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An anecdote of the younger Scipio shows what must have been the character of a large part of the Roman population more than sixty years before the War of Spartacus. When he declared that Tiberius Gracchus had rightly been put to death, and an angry shout at the brutal speech came from the people, he turned to them and exclaimed, "Peace, ye stepsons of Italy! Remember who it was that brought you in chains to Rome!"

The country being full of slaves and the children of slaves, Spartacus had little difficulty in obtaining recruits. Apulia was particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, "What! are there no travellers with clothes on?" "The atrocious hint," says Liddell, "was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti, and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged to desert the country, and flock into the towns. So early as the year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (ergastula) where they talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance." [3] The century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number, men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to the restraints of discipline. They were strong, hardy, athletic, and active, and full of hatred of their masters. It shows the superiority of the Thracian that he could prevail upon them to act in a regular manner. He formed them into an army, the chief officers being the men who had escaped from Capua in his company. This army had some discipline, which was the more easily acquired because many of the men were originally soldiers, captives of the Roman sword. But the hatred of all in it to the Romans, and their knowledge that they had to choose between victory and the crudest forms of death known to the crudest of conquerors, made them the most reliable military force then to be found in the world.

[Footnote 3: Liddell, History of Rome, Vol. II, p. 144]

With such an army, thus composed, thus animated, and thus led, Spartacus commenced that war to which he has given his name. Bursting upon Lower Italy, the most horrible atrocities were perpetrated, the rich landholders being subjected to every species of indignity and cruelty, in accordance with that law of retaliation which was accepted and recognized by all the ancient world, and which the modern has not entirely abrogated. Towns were captured and destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or later encounter.

[Footnote 4: These ravages seem to have made a great impression on the Romans, and were by them long remembered. Forty years later Horace alludes to them, in that Ode which he wrote on the return of Augustus from Spain (Carm. III. xiv. 19). He calls to his young slave to fetch him a jar of wine that had seen the Marsiaii War, "If there could be found one that had escaped the vagabond Spartacus." The manner in which he, the son of a libertinus, speaks of Spartacus, is not only amusing as an instance of foolish pride, but is curious as illustrating a change in Roman ideas that was working out more important results than could have followed from all the acts of the first two Caesars, though, perhaps it was in some sense connected with, if not dependent upon, their legislation.]

Much as Spartacus had done, and signal as had been his successes, it was not yet the opinion at Rome that he was a formidable foe. The government despatched Publius Varinius Glaber to act against him, at the head of ten thousand men. This seems a small force, yet it was not much smaller than the army with which, three or four years later, Lucullus overthrew the whole military power of the Armenian monarchy; and it was half as large as that with which Caesar changed the fate of the world at Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a time apparently justified their confidence.

The army of Spartacus numbered forty thousand men, but it was poorly armed, and its discipline was very imperfect. It still lacked, to use a modern term, "the baptism of fire,"—never yet having been matched in the open field against a regular force. Its arms were chiefly agricultural implements, and wooden pikes that had been made by hardening the points of stakes with fire. Spartacus resolved upon retreating into Lucania; but the Gauls in his army, headed by his lieutenant Crixus, pronounced this decision cowardly, separated themselves from the main body, attacked the Romans, and were utterly routed. The retreat to Lucania was then made in perfect safety, and even with glory, apart from the skill with which it was conducted. Watching his opportunity, and showing that he understood the military principle of cutting up an enemy in detail, Spartacus fell upon a Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters, and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when, one night, Spartacus silently retreated, leaving his camp in such a state as completely deceived the enemy, who did not discover what had happened until the next morning, when the gladiators were beyond their reach.

This masterly retreat was followed up by a brilliant surprise of a division of the Roman army under the command of Cossinius. The night was just getting in, and the soldiers were resting from their day's march and from the labors of forming the encampment, when the Thracian fell upon them. Thus suddenly attacked, they fled, without making any show of resistance,—abandoning everything to the assailants. Cossinius himself, who was bathing, had time only to escape with his life. The Romans rallied, a battle ensued, and they were routed, Cossinius being among the slain. This action took place not far from the Aufidus, which had witnessed the slaughter of Cannae.

Spartacus now considered his army fairly "blooded." It had routed a Roman detachment, and defeated a small army. Two Roman camps had fallen into its hands, under circumstances that gave indications of superior generalship, and several towns had been stormed. Though still deficient in arms, he resolved to attack Varinius. Sallust represents him as addressing his army before the battle, and telling them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but upon a long war,—that from success, then, would follow a series of victories,—and that therein lay their only salvation from a death at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon victory after victory,—an expression that showed he had a clear comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus. His lictors, with the fasces, shared the same fate. Spartacus assumed the dress of the Roman, and all the ensigns of authority. He has been censured for this; but a little reflection ought to convince every one that he did not act from vanity, but from a profound appreciation of the state of things in Italy. The slaves, of which his army was composed, were accustomed to see the emblems of authority with which he was now clothed and surrounded in the possession of their masters alone; and when they beheld them on and about their chief, they were not only reminded of the governing power, but also of the overthrow of those who had therefore monopolized it. Spartacus was a statesman; and knew how to operate on the minds of the rude masses who followed him and obeyed his orders.

The defeat of Varinius left the whole of Lower Lucania at the mercy of the gladiators. Spartacus now established posts at Metapontum and at Thurii. Here he labored, with unceasing energy and industry, to organize and discipline his men. Adopting various measures to prevent them from becoming enervated through the abundance in which they were revelling, he prohibited the use of money among them, and gave all that he himself had to relieve those who had suffered from the war. Some of his officers are said to have followed his example in making so great a sacrifice for the common good.

Towards the close of the year Varinius had succeeded in getting another army on foot. With this he resolved to watch the enemy,— repeated defeats having made the Romans cautious, though they were not even yet seriously alarmed. He formed and fortified a camp, whence he kept a look-out. There was some skirmishing, but no fighting on a large scale. This did not suit Spartacus, who had become confident in himself and his men. He desired battle, but wished the Romans should take the initiative, and was convinced that the near approach of winter would compel them soon to fight or to retreat. To encourage them, he feigned fear, and commenced a retrograde movement; but no sooner had the elated Romans advanced in pursuit than he turned upon them, and they were compelled to fight under circumstances that made defeat certain. This second rout of Varinius was total, and we hear no more of him.

Never had there been a more successful campaign than that which Spartacus had just closed. His force had been increased from less than one hundred men to nearly one hundred thousand. He had proved himself more than the equal of the generals who had been sent against him, both in strategy and in arms. He had fought three great battles, and numerous lesser actions, and had been uniformly successful. Like Carnot, he had "organized victory." A large part of Italy was at his command, and, under any other circumstances than those which existed, or against any other foe than Rome, he would probably have found little difficulty in establishing a powerful state, the origin of which would have been far more respectable than of that with which he was contending. But he was a statesman, and knew, that, brilliant as were his successes, he had no chance of accomplishing anything permanent within the Peninsula. He was fighting, too, for freedom, not for dominion. His plan was to get out of Italy. Two courses were open to him. He might retreat to the extremity of the Peninsula, cross the strait that separates it from Sicily, and renew the servile wars of that island; or he might march north, force his way out of Italy, and so with most of his followers reach their homes in Gaul and Thrace. The latter course was determined upon; but the more hot-headed portion of his men, the Gauls, were opposed to it, and resolved to march upon Rome. A division of the victorious army ensued. The larger number, under Spartacus, proceeded to carry out the wise plan of their leader, but the minority refused to obey him. We have seen, that, at the very outset of his enterprise, Spartacus encountered opposition from the Gauls in his army, who were ever for rash measures, and that, separating themselves from their associates, under the lead of Crixus, they had been defeated. Crixus rejoined his old chieftain, and did good service; but he and his countrymen, untaught by experience, and inflated with a notion of invincibility,—on what founded, it would be hard to say,—would not aid Spartacus in his prudent attempt to lead his followers out of Italy. Rome was their object, and, to the number of thirty thousand, they separated themselves from the main army. At first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting a Roman army, commanded by the Prtor Arrius, on the borders of Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and, while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon by a Roman army under the Consul Gellius. He was killed, and his followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was the first great victory won by the Romans in the war.

The defeat of Varinius aroused the Roman government to see that their enemy was not to be despised, and, revolted slave though he was, they were compelled to pay him the respect of making prodigious efforts to effect his destruction. The Consuls Gellius and Lentulus were charged with the conduct of the war. The former overthrew the Gauls. The latter followed Spartacus, and came up with him in Etruria. Here a contest of pure generalship took place. Lentulus was determined not to fight until Gellius—whose victory he knew of— should have come up; and Spartacus was equally determined that fight he should before the junction could be effected. He succeeded in blocking up the road by which Gellius was advancing, unknown to Lentulus, and then offered the latter battle. Supposing that his colleague would join him in the course of the action, the Roman accepted the challenge and was beaten. The victors then marched to meet Gellius, who was served after the same manner as Lentulus. Spartacus was the only general who ever defeated two great Roman armies, each headed by a Consul, on the same day, and in different battles. Hannibal's Austerlitz, Cannae, approaches nearest to this exploit of the Thracian; but on that field the two consular armies were united under the command of Varro.

These great successes were soon followed by the defeat of two lesser Roman armies, combined under the lead of the Praetor Manlius and the Proconsul Cassius. This last victory not only left the whole open country at the command of Spartacus, but also the road to Rome, upon which city he now resolved to march. It would have been wiser, had he persevered in his original plan, the execution of which his victories must have made it easy to carry out. But perhaps success had its usual effect, even on his mind, and blinded him to the impossibility of permanent triumph in Italy. He winnowed his army, dismissing all his soldiers except such as were distinguished by their bravery, their strength, and their intelligence. In order that his march might be swift, he caused all the superfluous baggage to be destroyed. Every beast of burden that could be dispensed with was slain. His prisoners were disposed of after the same fashion. In a modern general such an act would be utterly without excuse. But it was strictly in accordance with the laws of ancient warfare, and Spartacus probably felt far more regret at sacrificing his beasts of burden than he experienced in consenting to, if he did not order, the butchery of some thousands of men whom he must have looked upon as so many brutes.

Proceeding to the south, Spartacus fell in with a great Roman army led by Arrius, and a battle was fought near Ancona, in which victory was true to the gladiator. The Romans were not only beaten, their army was utterly destroyed; a result which they seem to have felt to be so shameful, that they made no apologies for it. Why, after this signal victory, Spartacus did not forthwith carry out his grand design of attacking Rome,—a design every way so worthy of his genius, and which alone could give him a chance of achieving permanent success after he had abandoned the idea of forcing his way out of Italy by a northern march,—can never be known. It is supposed to have been in consequence of information that circumstances had now placed it in his power to effect a passage into Sicily, a project which he had regarded with favor at an earlier period.

At this time the Cilician pirates had the command of the Mediterranean, which they held until they were conquered, some years later, by Pompeius. It was by the aid of these men that Spartacus expected to carry his army into Sicily. They had shipping in abundance, and in a few days they could have conveyed a hundred thousand men across the narrow strait that separates Sicily from Italy. This they agreed to do, and were paid in advance by Spartacus, though it is probable that he relied less upon that payment for their assistance than upon the palpable fact that their interests were the same as his own. The pirates were on the sea what the gladiatorial army was on land. They were the victims of Roman oppression, and had become outlaws because the world's law was against them. A union of their fleets, which numbered more than a thousand vessels, with the army of Spartacus, in the harbors and on the fields of Sicily, would perhaps have been more than a match for the whole power of Rome, contending as the republic then was with Mithridates, and bleeding still from the wounds inflicted by Marius and Sulla, as well as from the blows of Spartacus. Sicily, too, was then in a state which promised well for the design of the Thracian. Verres was ruling over the island,—and how he ruled it Cicero has told us. Had the victorious Thracian entered the island, both the free population and the slaves would have risen against the Romans. A new state might have been formed, strong both in fleets and in armies, and compelled from the very nature of its origin to contend to the death with its old oppressors. Whatever the result, it is certain that a long Sicilian war, like that which the Romans had been compelled to wage with the Carthaginians, would have changed the course of history, by directing the attention and the energies of such men as Crassus, Pompeius, and Caesar to very different fields from those on which their fame and power were won.

But it was not to be. There was work for Rome to do, which could be done by no other nation. The power that had been found superior to Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his followers were, it is altogether probable, incapable of building them. The Romans, too, must have had ships in the strait, and a very few would have been found enough to keep it clear of the unskilful gladiators, even had the latter had the time and the means to construct boats.

After the defeat of the Romans under Arrius, the Senate had called Crassus to the chief command, resolving to make an herculean effort to destroy their terrible enemy. The accounts are somewhat confused, but, according to Plutarch, Crassus commenced operations against Spartacus before the latter marched for Sicily. He sent one of his lieutenants, Mummius, to follow and harass the gladiators, but with orders to avoid a general engagement. The lieutenant disobeyed his orders, fought a battle, and was defeated. Not a few of his men threw away their arms, and fled,—an uncommon thing with a Roman army. The victors continued their march, but, as we have seen, failed in their main object. Spartacus then took up a position in the territory of Rhegium, which is over against Sicily. He must have been convinced by this time that the crisis of his fortune had arrived, and though he would not even then entirely give up all idea of crossing over into the island that lay within sight of his camp, he prepared to meet the coming storm, which had been for some time gathering in his rear. Accordingly he faced about, and commenced a game of generalship with Crassus, who was now in person at the head of the Roman army. [5]

[Footnote 5: It is probable that justice has never been done to Crassus as a military man. Roman writers were not likely to deal fairly with a man who closed his career so fatally to himself, and so disgracefully in every way to his country. It was his misfortune— a misfortune of his own creating—to lead the finest Roman army that had ever been seen in the East to destruction, in an unjust attack on the Parthians. Had he succeeded, the injustice of his course would have been overlooked by his countrymen; but they never could forgive his defeat. Yet it is certain that this man, who has come down to us as a contemptible creature, having small claim to consideration beyond what he derived from his enormous possessions, not only exhibited eminent military ability in the War of Spartacus, but, when a young man, won that great battle which takes its name from the Colline Gate, and which laid the Roman world at the feet of Sulla. Pontius Telesious had marched upon Rome, with the intention of "destroying the den of the wolves of Italy," and Sulla arrived to the city's rescue but just in time. In the battle that immediately followed, Sulla, at the head of the left wing of his army, was completely defeated, while the right wing, commanded by Crassus, was as completely victorious. Talent must have had something to do with Crassus's success, which enabled Sulla to retrieve his fortunes, and to triumph over the Marius party. One hundred thousand men are said to have fallen in this battle. The avarice of Crassus and his want of popular manners were fatal to him in life, and his defeat left him no friends in death.]

Of all men then living, Crassus was best entitled to command an army employed in fighting revolted slaves. If not the greatest slaveholder in Rome, he was the most systematic of the class of owners, and knew best how to turn the industry of slaves to account. He was the wealthiest citizen of the republic. One can understand how indignant such a person must have felt at the audacity of the gladiator and his followers. As a slaveholder, as a man of property, as a lover of law and order, he was concerned at so very disorderly a spectacle as that of slaves subverting all the laws of the republic; as a Roman, he felt that abhorrence for slaves which was common to the character. Here were motives enough to bring out the powers of any man, if powers he had in him; and it does not follow that because Crassus was very rich he was therefore a fool. He was a man of consummate talents, and at this particular time was probably the most influential citizen of Rome. The Romans had confidence in him, as the embodiment of the spirit of supremacy by which they were so completely animated. The event showed that their confidence was not misplaced.

The army of Crassus was two hundred thousand strong, and having restored its discipline by examples of great severity, he marched to meet Spartacus; but on arriving in front of the latter's position, he would not attack it, while Spartacus showed an equal unwillingness to fight. The Roman determined to blockade the enemy. As they had the sea on one side, and that was held by a fleet, he commenced a line of works, the completion of which would have rendered it impossible for the gladiators to escape. These works were on the usual Roman scale, and consisted principally of walls and ditches, a hundred thousand men being employed in their construction. So cleverly did Crassus conceal what he was about, that it was not until he had almost accomplished his design that Spartacus discovered the intention of his foe. The emergency was suited to his genius, and he was not unequal to it. He began a series of attacks on the Romans, harassing them perpetually, retarding their labors, and drawing their attention from that point of their line by which he purposed to extricate his army. At last, on a night when a terrible snow-storm was raging, he led his men to a place where the Roman works were yet incomplete, the snow enabling them to march noiselessly. When they reached the line, the immense ditches seemed to bar their further advance; but they set resolutely at work to fill them. Earth, snow, fagots, and dead bodies of men and beasts were hastily thrown into them; and across this singular bridge the whole army poured into the country, leaving the Roman camp behind, and having rendered nugatory all the laborious digging and trenching of the legions.

It was not until the next morning that Crassus discovered what had been done, and how thoroughly he had been out-generalled by Spartacus. But he had no room for vexation in his mind. He was so frightened as a Roman citizen, that he could not feel mortified as a Roman soldier. He took counsel of his fears, and did that which he had cause both to be ashamed of and to regret in after days. He wrote to the Senate, stating that in his opinion not only should Pompeius be summoned home from Spain, but Lucullus also from the East, to aid in putting down an enemy who was unconquerable by ordinary means. A short time sufficed to show how indiscreetly for his own fame he had acted; for Spartacus was unable to follow up his success, in consequence of mutinies in his army. The Gauls again rebelled against his authority, and left him. Crassus concentrated his whole force in an attack on the seceders, and a battle followed which Plutarch says was the most severely contested of the war. The Romans remained masters of the field, more than twelve thousand of the Gauls being slain, of whom only two were wounded in the back, the rest falling in the ranks. Spartacus retreated to the mountains of Petelia, closely followed by Roman detachments. Turning upon them, he drove them back; but this last gleam of success led to his destruction. His policy was to avoid a battle, but his men would not listen to his prudent counsels, and compelled him to face about and march against Crassus. This was what the Roman desired; for Pompeius was bringing up an army from Spain, and would be sure to reap all the honors of the war, were it to be prolonged.

Some accounts represent Spartacus as anxious for battle. Whether he was so or not, he made every preparation that became a good general. The armies met on the Silarus, in the northern part of Lucania; and the battle which followed, and which was to finish this remarkable war, was fought not far from where the traveller now sees the noble ruins of Paestum. Spartacus made his last speech to his soldiers, warning them of what they would have to expect, if they should fall alive into the hands of their old masters. By way of practical commentary on his text, he caused a cross to be erected on a height, and to that cross was nailed a living Roman, whose agonies were visible to the whole army. Spartacus then ordered his horse to be brought to him in front of the army, and slew the animal with his own hands. "I am determined," he said to his men, "to share all your dangers. Our positions shall be the same. If we are victorious, I shall get horses enough from the foe. If we are beaten, I shall need a horse no more." [6]

[Footnote 6: When the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, killed his horse in front of the Yorkist army, at the battle of Towton, (fought on Palm Sunday, 1461,) he little knew that he was imitating the action of a general of revolted slaves, more than fifteen centuries earlier. Warwick is said to have done the same thing at the battle of Barnet, the last of his fields, where he was defeated and slain, fighting for the House of Lancaster.]

The battle that followed was the most severely contested action of that warlike period, which, extending through two generations, saw the victories of Marius over the Northern barbarians at its commencement, and Pharsalia and Munda and Philippi at its close. The insurgents attacked with great fury, but with method, Spartacus leading the way at the head of a band of select followers, thus acting the part of a soldier as well as of a general. The Romans steadily resisted,—and the slaughter was great on both sides. At last, victory began to incline towards the gladiators, when Spartacus fell, and the fortune of the day was changed. He had made a fierce charge on the Romans, with the intention of cutting his way to Crassus. Two centurions had fallen by his sword, and a number of inferior men, when he was himself wounded in one of his thighs. Falling upon one knee, he still continued to fight, until he was overpowered and slain. The battle was maintained for some time longer, and ended only with the destruction of the insurgents, thirty thousand of whom were killed;—Livy puts their killed at forty thousand. The Roman slain numbered twenty thousand, and they had as many more wounded. Only six thousand prisoners fell into the hands of Crassus, who caused the whole of them to be crucified,—the crosses being placed at intervals on both sides of the Appian Way, between Capua and Rome, and the whole Roman army being marched through the horrible lines. A body of five thousand fugitives, who sought refuge in the north, were intercepted by Pompeius on his homeward march from Spain, and slaughtered to a man.

Thus fell Spartacus, and far more nobly than either of the great republican chiefs whose deaths were so soon to follow. Pompeius, who boasted that he had cut up the war by the roots, ran away from Pharsalia, without an effort to retrieve his fortunes, though the force opposed to him in the battle was only half as large as his own, and he had still abundant resources for future operations. Crassus, who claimed to have conquered Spartacus, and who not unreasonably resented the pretensions of Pompeius, fell miserably in Parthia, after having led the Romans to the most fatal of their fields except Cannae. Wanting the nerve to die sword in hand in the midst of his foes, like Spartacus, he consented to adorn the triumph of those foes, and perished as ignominiously as the great gladiator gloriously.

* * * * *



WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?

I.

"If anything could make a man forgive himself for being sixty years old," said the Consul, holding up his wine-glass between his eye and the setting sun,—for it was summer-time, "it would be that he can remember M. —— in her divine sixteenity at the Park Theatre, thirty odd years ago. Egad, Sir, one couldn't help making great allowances for Don Giovanni, after seeing her in Zerlina. She was beyond imagination piquante and delicious."

The Consul, as my readers may have partly inferred, was not a Roman Consul, nor yet a French one. He had had the honor of representing this great republic at one of the Hanse Towns,—I forget which,—in President Monroe's time. I don't recollect how long he held the office, but it was long enough to make the title stick to him for the rest of his life with the tenacity of a militia colonelcy or village diaconate. The country people round about used to call him "the Counsel" which, I believe,—for I am not very fresh from my school-books,—was etymologically correct enough, however orthoepically erroneous. He had not limited his European life, however, within the precinct of his Hanseatic consulship, but had dispersed himself very promiscuously over the Continent, and had seen many cities, and the manners of many men—and of some women,— singing-women, I mean, in their public character; for the Consul, correct of life as of ear, never sought to undeify his divinities by pursuing them from the heaven of the stage to the purgatorial intermediacy of the coulisses, still less to the lower depth of disenchantment into which too many of them sunk in their private life.

"Yes, Sir," he went on, "I have seen and heard them all,—Catalani, Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag,— though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is none that has taken lodgings here," tapping his forehead, "so permanently as the Signorina G——, or that I can see and hear so distinctly, when I am in the mood of it, by myself. Rosina, Desdemona, Cinderella, and, as I said just now, Zerlina,—she is as fresh in them all to my mind's eye and ear, as if the Park Theatre had not given way to a cursed shoe-shop, and I had been hearing her there only last night. Let's drink her memory," the Consul added, half in mirth and half in melancholy,—a mood to which he was not unused, and which did not ill become him.

Now no intelligent person, who knew the excellence of the Consul's wine, could refuse to pay this posthumous honor to the harmonious shade of the lost Muse. The Consul was an old-fashioned man in his tastes, to be sure, and held to the old religion of Madeira which divided the faith of our fathers with the Cambridge Platform, and had never given in to the later heresies which have crept into the communion of good-fellowship from the South of France and the Rhine.

"A glass of Champagne," he would say, "is all well enough at the end of dinner, just to take the grease out of one's throat, and get the palate ready for the more serious vintages ordained for the solemn and deliberate drinking by which man justifies his creation; but Madeira, Sir, Madeira is the only stand-by that never fails a man and can always be depended upon as something sure and steadfast."

I confess to having fallen away myself from the gracious doctrine and works to which he had held so fast; but I am no bigot,—which for a heretic is something remarkable,—and had no scruple about uniting with him in the service he proposed, without demur or protestation as to form or substance. Indeed, he disarmed fanaticism by the curious care he bestowed on making his works conformable to the faith that was in him; for, partly by inheritance and partly by industrious pains, his old house was undermined by a cellar of wine such as is seldom seen in these days of modern degeneracy. He is the last gentleman, that I know of, of that old school that used to import their own wine and lay it down annually themselves,—their bins forming a kind of vinous calendar suggestive of great events. Their degenerate sons are content to be furnished, as they want it, from the dubious stores of the vintner, by retail.

"I suppose it was her youth and beauty, Sir," I suggested, "that made her so rememberable to you. You know she was barely turned seventeen when she sung in this country."

"Partly that, no doubt," replied the Consul, "but not altogether, nor chiefly. No, Sir, it was her genius which made her beauty so glorious. She was wonderfully handsome, though. She was a phantom of delight, as that Lake fellow says,"—it was thus profanely that the Consul designated the poet Wordsworth, whom he could not abide,— "and the best thing he ever said, by Jove!"

"And did you never see her again?" I inquired.

"Once, only," he answered,—"eight or nine years afterwards, a year or two before she died. It was at Venice, and in Norma. She was different, and yet not changed for the worse. There was an indescribable look of sadness out of her eyes, that touched one oddly and fixed itself in the memory. But she was something apart and by herself, and stamped herself on one's mind as Rachel did in Camille or Phdre. It was true genius, and no imitation, that made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had by the force of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the scene before you."

"But do you rank M. —— with Rachel as a dramatic artist?" I asked.

"I cannot tell," he answered; "but if she had not the studied perfection of Rachel, which was always the same and could not be altered without harm, she had at least a capacity of impulsive self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character she personated,—not always the same, but such as the woman she represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight-and-twenty! What might not ten years more have made her!"

"It is odd," I observed, "that her fame should be forever connected with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York. For it was unlucky enough, I believe,—was it not?"

"You may say that," responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending. It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G—— was the one who suffered the most by the operation."

"I have always heard," said I, "that old G—— was cheated out of the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. M. —— got his wife on false pretences."

"Not altogether so," returned the Consul. "I happen to know all about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false pretences, to be sure, but it was not G—— that suffered by them. M. M. ——, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet G—— got it for all that."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed, "it must have been a neat operation. I cannot exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?"

"I see no reason why not," said the Consul; "the sufferer made no secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year 'Thirty-five."

"And who was he?" I inquired, "and what had he to do with it?"

"I'll tell you," responded the Consul, filling his glass and passing the bottle, "if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind you and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the mountains as soon as the sun is down."

I beg your pardon,—did you make a remark?—Oh, what mountains? You must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number, you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent, from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just where you like. Only you must leave a gap to the westward, through which the river—also anonymous for the present distress—breaks its way, and which gives him half an hour's more sunshine than he would otherwise be entitled to, and slope the fields down to its margin near a mile off, with their native timber thinned so skilfully as to have the effect of the best landscape-gardening. It is a grand and lovely scene; and when I look at it, I do not wonder at one of the Consul's apophthegms, namely, that the chief advantage of foreign travel is, that it teaches you that one place is just as good to live in as another. Imagine that the one place he had in his mind at the time was just this one. But that is neither here nor there. When candles came, we drew our chairs together, and he told me in substance the following story. I will tell it in my own words,—not that they are so good as his, but because they come more readily to the nib of my pen.

II.

New York has grown considerably since she was New Amsterdam, and has almost forgotten her whilom dependence on her first godmother. Indeed, had it not been for the historic industry of the erudite Diedrich Knickerbocker, very few of her sons would know much about the obligations of their nursing mother to their old grandame beyond sea, in the days of the Dutch dynasty. Still, though the old monopoly has been dead these two hundred years, or thereabout, there is I know not how many fold more traffic with her than in the days when it was in full life and force. Doth not that benefactor of his species, Mr. Udolpho Wolfe, derive thence his immortal, or immortalizing, Schiedam Schnapps, the virtues whereof, according to his advertisements, are fast transferring dram-drinking from the domain of pleasure to that of positive duty? Tobacco-pipes, too, and toys, such as the friendly saint, whom Protestant children have been taught by Dutch tradition to invoke, delights to drop into the votive stocking,—they come from the mother city, where she sits upon the waters, quite as much a Sea-Cybele as Venice herself. And linens, too, fair and fresh and pure as the maidens that weave them, come forth from Dutch looms ready to grace our tables or to deck our beds. And the mention of these brings me back to my story,—though the immediate connection between Holland linen and M. ——'s marriage may not at first view be palpable to sight. Still, it is a fact that the web of this part of her variegated destiny was spun and woven out of threads of flax that took the substantial shape of fine Hollands;—and this is the way in which it came to pass.

Mynheer Van Holland, of whom the Consul spoke just now, you must understand to have been one of the chief merchants of Amsterdam, a city whose merchants are princes and have been kings. His transactions extended to all parts of the Old World and did not skip over the New. His ships visited the harbor of New York as well as of London; and as he died two or three years ago a very rich man, his adventures in general must have been more remunerative than the one I am going to relate. In the autumn of the year 1825, it seemed good to this worthy merchant to despatch a vessel with a cargo chiefly made up of linens to the market of New York. The honest man little dreamed with what a fate his ship was fraught, wrapped up in those flaxen folds. He happened to be in London the Winter before, and was present at the dbut of Maria G—— at the King's Theatre. He must have admired the beauty, grace, and promise of the youthful Rosina, had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to Doctor Bartolo in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a more serious provocation to himself, in downright earnest. He thought of this, himself, after it had all happened.

Well, the good ship Steenbok had prosperous gales and fair weather across the ocean, and dropped anchor off the Battery with some days to spare from the amount due to the voyage. The consignee came off and took possession of the cargo, and duly transferred it to his own warehouse. Though the advantages of advertising were not as fully understood in those days of comparative ignorance as they have been since, he duly announced the goods which he had received, and waited for a customer. He did not have to wait long. It was but a day or two after the appearance of the advertisement in the newspapers that he had prime Holland linens on hand, just received from Amsterdam, when he was waited upon by a gentleman of good address and evidently of French extraction, who inquired of the consignee, whom we will call Mr. Schulemberg for the nonce, "whether he had the linens he had advertised yet on hand."

"They are still on hand and on sale," said Mr. Schulemberg.

"What is the price of the entire consignment?" inquired the customer.

"Fifty thousand dollars," responded Mr. Schulemberg.

"And the terms?"

"Cash, on delivery."

"Very good," replied the obliging buyer, "if they be of the quality you describe in your advertisement, I will take them on those terms. Send them down to my warehouse, No. 118 Pearl Street, tomorrow morning, and I will send you the money."

"And your name?" inquired Mr. Schulemberg.

"Is M. ——," responded the courteous purchaser.

The two merchants bowed politely, the one to the other, mutually well pleased with the morning's work, and bade each other good day.

Mr. Schulemberg knew but little, if anything, about his new customer; but as the transaction was to be a cash one, he did not mind that. He calculated his commissions, gave orders to his head clerk to see the goods duly delivered the next morning, and went on change and thence to dinner in the enjoyment of a complacent mind and a good appetite.

It is to be supposed that M. M. —— did the same. At any rate, he had the most reason,—at least, according to his probable notions of mercantile morality and success.

III.

The next day came, and with it came, betimes, the packages of linens to M. M. ——'s warehouse in Pearl Street; but the price for the same did not come as punctually to Mr. Schulemberg's counting-room, according to the contract under which they were delivered. In point of fact, M. M. —— was not in at the time; but there was no doubt that he would attend to the matter without delay, as soon as he came in. A cash transaction does not necessarily imply so much the instant presence of coin as the unequivocal absence of credit. A day or two more or less is of no material consequence, only there is to be no delay for sales and returns before payment. So Mr. Schulemberg gave himself no uneasiness about the matter when two, three, and even five and six days had slid away without producing the apparition of the current money of the merchant. A man who transacted affairs on so large a scale as M. M. ——, and conducted them on the sound basis of ready money, might safely be trusted for so short a time. But when a week had elapsed and no tidings had been received either of purchaser or purchase-money, Mr. Schulemberg thought it time for himself to interfere in his own proper person. Accordingly, he incontinently proceeded to the counting-house of M. M. —— to receive the promised price or to know the reason why. If he failed to obtain the one satisfaction, he at least could not complain of being disappointed of the other. Matters seemed to be in some little unbusiness-like confusion, and the clerks in a high state of gleeful excitement. Addressing himself to the chief among them, Mr. Schulemberg asked the pertinent question,—

"Is M. M. —— in?"

"No, Sir," was the answer, "he is not; and he will not be just at present."

"But when will he be in? for I must see him on some pressing business of importance."

"Not to-day, Sir," replied the clerk, smiling expressively; "he cannot be interrupted to-day on any business of any kind whatever."

"The deuce he can't!" returned Mr. Schulemberg. "I'll see about that very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty thousand dollars' worth of Holland linens a week ago; I have not seen the color of his money yet, and I mean to wait no longer. Where does he live? for if he be alive, I will see him and hear what he has to say for himself, and that speedily."

"Indeed, Sir," pleasantly expostulated the clerk, "I think when you understand the circumstances of the case, you will forbear disturbing M. M. —— this day of all others in his life."

"Why, what the devil ails this day above all others," said Mr. Schulemberg, somewhat testily, "that he can't see his creditors and pay his debts on it?"

"Why, Sir, the fact is," the clerk replied, with an air of interest and importance, "it is M. M. ——'s wedding-day. He marries this morning the Signorina G——, and I am sure you would not molest him with business on such an occasion as that."

"But my fifty thousand dollars!" persisted the consignee, "and why have they not been paid?"

"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness at all about that, Sir," replied the clerk, with the air of one to whom the handling of such trifles was a daily occurrence; "M. M. —— will, of course, attend to that matter the moment he is a little at leisure. In fact, I imagine, that, in the hurry and bustle inseparable from an event of this nature, the circumstance has entirely escaped his mind; but as soon as he returns to business again, I will recall it to his recollection, and you will hear from him without delay."

The clerk was right in his augury as to the effect his intelligence would have upon the creditor. It was not a clerical error on his part when he supposed that Mr. Schulemberg would not choose to enact the part of skeleton at the wedding breakfast of the young Prima Donna. There is something about the great events of life, which cannot happen a great many times to anybody,—

"A wedding or a funeral, A mourning or a festival,—"

that touches the strings of the one human heart of us all and makes it return no uncertain sound. Shylock himself would hardly have demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been Antonio that was to espouse the fair Portia. Even he would have allowed three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his bond. Now Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer of the lovely G——. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of marriage with that divine creature should forget every other consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness,—even if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his mind under the delay, that old G—— was by no means the kind of man to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the notes of the Signorina G—— as so much collateral security for his debt.