* * * * *

THE VETERAN ITALIAN GENERAL PEPE, known in the book-world heretofore by his Personal Memoirs, has just published a Narrative of Scenes and Events in Italy, from 1847 to 1849. It comprises the most interesting particulars respecting the Revolutions in Naples, Sicily, and Rome; the Military Operations of Charles Albert; and the Siege of Venice, of which city General Pepe held the command. It also includes the details of the General's confidential communications and interviews with the Italian Sovereigns, &c. &c.

* * * * *

MR. MAYNE REID, who in sundry letters published in this city last year, claimed that he was the real hero of the Mexican war—in which he served as a lieutenant of the New York volunteers—has recently published in London a brace of volumes under the title of The Rifle Rangers. In his preface he alleges that all his statements offered as facts are strictly true, though at times highly colored for the sake of effect. This will be obvious to every reader, for the book is full of adventures of all sorts—perils by sword, fire, rivals, wild animals, bloodhounds, &c.—which are related in a lively, dashing style, varied at times with descriptions of the scenery, plants, and inhabitants of Central America. One of the London journals, in a review of it, observes, "We would not wish a more lively or interesting companion than Captain Reid,—a thorough Yankee soldier, combining humor, imagination, and dashing bravery in the highest degree." The thorough Yankee, like many others much quoted abroad, is a clever Irish adventurer, who was in the United States altogether some four or five years, engaged chiefly as a writer for the journals in New York and Philadelphia.

* * * * *

Among our frequent foreign correspondents the reader will be pleased to recognize the accomplished and adventurous traveler Mr. JOHN E. WARREN, whose work on South America, Para, or Scenes and Adventures on the Banks of the Amazon, has just been published, in two octavo volumes, by Bentley, of London. We present the first of a series from him in our initial number.

* * * * *

The Rev. FRANCIS L. HAWKS, LL.D. will publish in the autumn a collection of very rare and curious tracts, illustrative of our early Colonial History, with copious notes, &c. Dr. Hawks may be safely regarded as an authority of the very highest value, upon whatever relates to the religious and social history of the country. He adds to persevering and well-directed research the soundest discrimination, and a judicial fairness; and we trust an impression which has obtained within a few years, that he is engaged upon an extensive work that will illustrate his abilities in this field, is not without foundation.

* * * * *

The celebrated Princess BELGIOSO, whose achievements in the tented field, as in the showy salons of fashion, have long been familiar, has, as is well known in the gay world of Europe, been a successful cultivator of letters, and has frequently delighted the readers of French and Italian with brilliant sketches of society and manners. She is now traveling in Greece, whence she will proceed into the romantic and picturesque regions of Asia, and the proprietors of the New York Tribune have engaged her as one of the regular foreign correspondents of that journal.

* * * * *

M. EUGENE SCRIBE, the writer of the libretto of Tempesta, just brought out in London, at the age of eighteen years, was placed under the care of M. Dupin, now the President of the French Legislative Assembly, to study the Roman law. Shortly after reaching his majority he began his dramatic career by writing a vaudeville for the Gymnase. His success here led to an engagement to write for the Theatre Francais, and to the establishment of his reputation as a dramatic author. He has composed ten comedies in five acts, and twenty in one, two, or three acts, for the Francais. He has written one hundred and fifty vaudevilles for the Gymnase. As a lyrical poet he stands unequalled for the number of his libretti, having written the poetry of forty grand operas and of one hundred comic operas. His works, exclusive of novels, are three hundred and forty in number.

* * * * *

The Literature of the Western States has not yet furnished any name that shines with a fairer and serener lustre than that of ALICE CAREY, several of whose poems, of "imagination all compact," and faultless in rhythmical art, will live among the contributions which this age offers to the permanent in literary creation. Her younger sister, PH[OE]BE CAREY, is also a woman of genius, and has written almost as largely as Alice, in a similar vein of thought and feeling. They are now on a visit to New York, and will pass the summer among the resorts in the vicinity of the city.

* * * * *

MRS. OAKSMITH, we are pleased to be advised, is engaged upon an epic poem, which has been meditated several years. The Jacob Leisler of Mrs. Oaksmith is probably the finest specimen of dramatic writing of which we can boast. Her other tragedy, The Roman Tribute, is in rehearsal in Philadelphia, where it will be produced with a strong cast and the utmost scenic magnificence. Mrs. Oaksmith will pass the summer among the seaside retreats of Maine, with Fredrika Bremer.

* * * * *

PROFESSOR NICHOL'S sometime expected work upon the United States has just appeared, from the press of Parker, the publisher of Fraser's Magazine. It is about two years since Professor Nichol returned to Scotland, after giving his astronomical lectures in our principal cities, and traveling widely in the agricultural portions of the country. His book, we understood him to state, was to be addressed to the middling classes, and to treat principally of points connected with emigration.

* * * * *

BAYARD TAYLOR'S "El Dorado" is praised in all the English journals as the best book that has been written upon California. Bohn has published it in his "Shilling Series," and it is also issued by Bentley.

* * * * *

MR. CYRUS EATON, of Warren, Me. has in preparation a complete History of St. George's River, from its first discovery; of the early transactions, Indian wars, and especially the events at St. George's Fort and other military posts in the neighborhood; an account of the several settlements commenced under the Waldo Patent, up to the time of their incorporation as towns; and a full history of the town of Warren to the present time. The work to consist of about 400 pages octavo.

* * * * *

Among the American Books reprinted by Bentley in the last month are Bayard Taylor's "El Dorado," and "Letters of a Traveler," by "Bryant, the American novelist." His original books from this country, for the same period, are "Life in the Forest and the Frontier," by Alfred B. Street, and a very charming book by a daughter of Fenimore Cooper, entitled "Rural Hours in the United States."

* * * * *

The REV. DR. CROLY ON BAPTISM.—The Rev. Dr. Croly has again left poetry and romantic fiction for religious controversy. On the 13th June he published in London—we suppose in reply to the late work of Baptist Noel—a volume entitled, "The Theory of Baptism, or the Regeneration of Infants in Baptism vindicated on the testimony of Holy Scripture, Christian Antiquity, and the Church of England."

* * * * *

MAJOR HERBERT EDWARDES, the son of a vicar in one of the midland counties, who went to the East Indies a few years ago, and rose rapidly by military prowess, diplomatic skill, and learning, has lately returned to England, and Bentley announces for publication in the month of June, in two octavos from his pen, a "Narrative of Service and Adventure on the Punjaub Frontier during 1848 and 1849."

* * * * *

SIR JAMES ALEXANDER, who is well known in New York for his residence here during a considerable portion of the period described in his work on the United States, has just published in London, in two volumes, with illustrations, "Acadie, or Seven Years' Explorations in British America."

* * * * *

A Second Series of Coleridge's "Friend" has been published in London, in three volumes, 8vo., under the title of "Essays on his own Times," by S. T. Coleridge; edited by his daughter. It is made up mostly of his political contributions to the Post and Courier.

* * * * *

A Complete Edition of the philosophical works of J. F. Herbart is announced for publication by Voss, of Leipzig. It will be completed in twelve volumes, 8vo., edited by Prof. Hartenstein, of Leipzig, and will be finished in about two years.

* * * * *

MR. BAIRD, of Philadelphia, has in press a richly illustrated edition of Gray's Poems.



From the London Times.

THE HISTORY OF GREECE

BY GEORGE GROTE.

Mr. Grote's history has yet arrived only at the close of the fourth century B.C., and the fall of the Thirty Tyrants. Two of the six compartments in which he proposes, to use his own quaint phrase, "to exhaust the free life of collective Hellas," still remain to be accomplished. But the history of Greece is written. Stirring events and great names are still to come; the romantic enterprise of Cyrus and the retreat of the Ten Thousand, the elective trust of Thebes, and the chivalrous glories of her one great man. Demosthenes has yet to prove how vain is the divinest eloquence when poured to degenerate hearts. Agis and Cleomenes have yet to exhibit the spectacle, ever fraught with melancholy interest, of noble natures out of harmony with the present, and spending their energies in the vain attempt to turn back the stream of time and call again into existence the feelings and the institutions of an irrevocable past. The monarchy of Philip is yet due to fate. Macedon is still to Greece what Russia, before Peter the Great, was to Europe—a half-unknown and barbarous land, full of latent energy and power, and waiting for the rise of a master mind to discern its embryo greatness and turn its peasants into the unconquerable phalanx. Alexander must arise to carry forth with his victorious arms the seeds of Greek civilization over the Eastern world. Aristotle must arise to gather up in one boundless mind the vast results of Greek philosophy, and found an empire vaster and more enduring than that of his great pupil in the subjugated intellect of man. But the history of Greece is finished. Athens and Sparta, the two great antagonistic types of Greek society, politics, and education, have attained their full development, passed their allotted hour of trial, and touched upon their doom. The shades of night are gathering on the bright day of Hellas. The momentous work of that wonderful people is accomplished; the interest of the great intellectual and moral contest has centred in one man; the last scene of the Phaedo has been enacted, and Socrates has died.

The history of Greece is written, and the character of the historian is decided. Mr. Grote has achieved a noble work—a work which, unless the glory of classical literature is a dream, will well repay, in usefulness and in renown, the devotion of a scholars life. His book will be called great while Grecian story retains its interest. Even making allowance for the wonderful labors of the Germans and the extraordinary addition which their learned toils have made to our knowledge of the subject, we should say that the work before us has almost disentombed many portions of Greek life. We cannot sufficiently extol the wonderful knowledge of all the feelings, habits, associations, and institutions of an extinct people which every page exhibits, and the familiar mastery with which a mind steeped in Grecian lore analyzes, combines, criticizes, and unfolds the mass of heterogeneous and often conjectural materials on which it has to work. Not only have we been enabled to read Greek history with new eyes and a new understanding, but light has been poured upon its literature; and, to apply to Mr. Grote the compliment he pays to others, "the poets, historians, orators, and philosophers of Greece have been all rendered both more intelligible and more instructive to the student, and the general picture of the Grecian world may now be conceived with a degree of fidelity which, considering our imperfect materials, it is curious to contemplate." Two volumes more at least must be yet to come, but Mr. Grote's pedestal is sure; and nothing can diminish the satisfaction he must now feel at his decided and proclaimed success but the consciousness that the moment is approaching when he must part with the companion of many a sweet though toilsome hour, and experience the mingled feelings which Gibbon has so well portrayed in writing "the last page of the last chapter" of the history of Greece.

It is pity that such high intrinsic merits should be marred, both as regards the pleasure and the instruction of the reader, by a fatal deficiency of style. It is pity, but it is true. Mr. Grote seems to have lived in the works of the Greek writers till he has almost forgotten the forms and cadence of his mother tongue. It is not only that he so frequently has resort to an uncouth Greek compound when he might easily express the same idea in two or three English words, if not one; there is a perpetual clumsiness in his construction of common sentences and his use of common words. Clarendon himself is not harder or more tortuous. Even in purely narrative parts, which ought to flow most easily, the understanding of the reader can seldom keep pace with his eye. Cyclopean epithets are piled together almost at random on any substantive which will have the complaisance to receive them. The choice of expression and metaphor is sometimes such as almost to rival the achievements of Castlereagh in his happiest hour. We have people existing, "not as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate,"—Thucydides "reserving his flowers to strew on the grave of Nicias,"—the Athenians "sailing out" to action, having "left their sails at Teichiassa," and their "sailing back" to Teichiassa for their sails,—Athens, "the mistress and successor of the Ionian Confederacy,"—inestimable stepping-stones toward a goal, and oligarchical conspirators against popular liberty "tying down the patient while the process of emasculation was being consummated." We are sorry to say that these instances are taken from the last two volumes, so that Mr. Grote does not improve as he advances. In the first volume, when relating the legends of early Greece, we are glad he does not imitate the forced simplicity with which Dr. Arnold tells the legends of early Rome; but it is too flat to describe Atalanta as "beautiful and matchless for swiftness of foot, but living in the forest as a huntress, and unacceptable to Aphrodite." The redeeming point, and a great redeeming point it is, is the total absence of anything like affectation. All the peculiarities are genuine, and everything that is genuine in composition, though it cannot be admired, may be borne. But for this we should be compelled to class one of the best of English books among the very worst of English writings. Mr. Grote must remember that no man who writes for posterity can afford to neglect the art of composition. The trimmer bark, though less richly laden, will float further down the stream of time, and when so many authors of real ability and learning are competing for every niche in the temple of fame, the coveted place will certainly be won by style.

It is this deficiency of art which can alone prevent Mr. Grote's history from completely superseding both the works already existing of the same magnitude. Neither the spirit of Mitford nor the solid sense of Thirlwall could long preserve them from eclipse. The light of the former indeed has long grown dim. He is always blundering, and his blunders are always on the Tory side. Arnold's good word has kept him a few years longer on our bookshelves. Dr. Thirlwall has higher qualities, but, not to mention that he has damaged himself by writing against Mitford instead of ignoring him, he is terribly dry, and Mr. Grote leaves him far behind in appreciation of all that belongs to Greece, in loving industry, in warmth of sympathy, and, well read scholars as they both are, in deep knowledge of his subject. The cheaper and more compendious histories of course are not affected. The light and credulous Goldsmith is still left to contend with the more correct but duller Keightley for the patronage of ingenuous youth. Perhaps both yield to the meritorious little work published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But a place, and an honorable place, is still left for any one who can tell the story of Greece in a succinct and lively form, availing himself of the light which Mr. Grote has shed upon the subject, cultivating candor and right sympathies, cutting short the ante-historical period, bringing strongly out the great states and the great men, limiting himself to two moderate volumes, and addressing himself especially to the unlearned and the young.

* * * * *

UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK.—At a recent meeting of the trustees and faculty, the Rev. George W. Bethune, D.D., was unanimously elected Chancellor of the University, in the place of the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen. At the same meeting Mr. G. C. Anthon, formerly of the College of Louisiana, son of the Rev. Dr. Anthon of this city, was chosen professor of Greek language and literature.

* * * * *

NINEVEH

By Edwin Atherstone.

Of NINEVEH, the mighty city of old; The queen of all the nations. At her throne Kings worshipp'd; and from her their subject crowns, Humbly obedient, held; and on her state Submiss attended; nor such servitude Opprobrious named. From that great eminence How, like a star, she fell, and passed away; Such the high matter of my song shall be

The vision comes upon me! To my soul The days of old return: I breathe the air Of the young world: I see her giant sons. Like to a gorgeous pageant in the sky Of summer's evening, cloud on fiery cloud Thronging upheaped, before me rise the walls Of the Titanic city: brazen gates, Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled; Imperial NINEVEH, the earthly queen! In all her golden pomp I see her now; Her swarming streets; her splendid festivals; Her sprightly damsels to the timbrel's sound Airily bounding, and their anklets' chime; Her lusty sons, like summer morning gay; Her warriors stern; her rich-robed rulers grave: I see her halls sunbright at midnight shine; I hear the music of her banquetings; I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh. A sound of stately treading toward me comes; A silken wafting on the cedar floor: As from Arabia's flowering groves, an air Delicious breathes around. Tall, lofty browed, Pale, and majestically beautiful; In vesture gorgeous as the clouds of morn; With slow proud step her glorious dames sweep by

And I look; and lo! before the walls, Unnumbered hosts in flaming panoply; Chariots like fire, and thunder-bearing steeds! I hear the shouts of battle: like the waves Of a tumultuous sea they roll and dash! In flame and smoke the imperial city sinks! Her walls are gone: her palaces are dust: The desert is around her, and within: Like shadows have the mighty passed away!

Whence and how came the ruin? By the hand Of the oppressor were the nations bowed; They rose against him, and prevailed: for he The haughty monarch who the earth could rule, By his own furious passions was o'er-ruled: With pride his understanding was made dark, That he the truth knew not; and, by his lusts; The crushing burthen of his despotism; And by the fierceness of his wrath, the hearts Of men he turned from him. So to kings Be he example, that the tyrannous And iron rod breaks down at length the hand That wields it strongest: that by virtue alone And justice monarchs sway the hearts of men: For there hath God implanted love of these, And hatred of oppression; which, unseen And noiseless though it work; yet in the end, Even like the viewless elements of the storm, Brooding in silence, will in thunder burst! So let the nations learn, that not in wealth; Nor in the grosser pleasures of the sense; Nor in the glare of conquest; nor the pomp Of vassal kings, and tributary lands; Do happiness and lasting power abide: That virtue unto man best glory is; His strength and truest wisdom; and that vice, Though for a season it the heart delight; Or to worse deeds the bad man do make strong; Brings misery yet, and terror, and remorse, And weakness and destruction in the end. So if the nations learn, then not in vain, The mighty one hath been; and is no more!

* * * * *

The British Association will meet at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 31st of July, under the presidency of its founder, Sir David Brewster.

* * * * *

A lover gazed on the eyes of his mistress till she blushed. He pressed her hand to his heart and said—"My looks have planted roses on thy cheeks; he who sows the seed should reap the harvest."

* * * * *

IF I WERE A VOICE.

If I were a voice, a persuasive voice, That could travel the wide world through. I would fly on the beams of the morning light, And speak to men with a gentle might, And tell them to be true. I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er land and sea, Wherever a human heart might be, Telling a tale, or singing a song, In praise of the right—in blame of the wrong.

If I were a voice, a consoling voice, I'd fly on the wings of air. The homes of sorrow and guilt I'd seek, And calm and truthful words I'd speak To save them from despair. I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er the crowded town, And drop, like the happy sunlight, down Into the hearts of suffering men, And teach them to rejoice again.

If I were a voice, a convincing voice, I'd travel with the wind, And whenever I saw the nations torn By warfare, jealousy, or scorn, Or hatred of their kind, I'd fly, I'd fly, on the thunder crash, And into their blinded bosoms flash; And, all their evil thoughts subdued, I'd teach them Christian brotherhood.

If I were a voice, a pervading voice, I'd seek the kings of earth; I'd find them alone on their beds at night, And whisper words that should guide them right— Lessons of priceless worth; I'd fly more swift than the swiftest bird, And tell them things they never heard— Truths which the ages for aye repeat— Unknown to the statesmen at their feet.

If I were a voice, an immortal voice, I'd speak in the people's ear; And whenever they shouted "Liberty," Without deserving to be free, I'd make their error clear. I'd fly, I'd fly, on the wings of day, Rebuking wrong on my world-wide way, And making all the world rejoice— If I were a voice—an immortal voice.—C. Mackay.



From Blackwood's Magazine.

THE GREEN HAND.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOM CRINGLE'S LOG."

PART I.

"Come, old ship, give us a yarn!" said the younger forecastle-men to an old one, on board of an Indiaman then swiftly cleaving the waves of the western Atlantic before the trade-wind, and outward-bound, with a hearty crew and a number of passengers. It was the second of the two dog-watches, and the ship being still in the region of evening twilights, her men in a good humor, and with leisure, were then usually disposed, as on this occasion, to make fast their roaming thoughts by help of a good yarn, when it could be got. There were plenty of individuals, amongst a crew of forty, calculated by their experience, or else by their flow of spirits, and fancy, to spin it. Each watch into which they were divided had its especial story-teller, with whose merits it twitted the other, and on opportunity of a general reunion, they were pitted against one another like two fighting-cocks, or a couple of rival novelists in more polished literary society at home. The one was a grave, solemn old North-Sea whaler with one eye, who professed to look down with contempt upon all raw head-work, on navigation compared with seamanship, and fiction against fact. As for himself, he rested all his fame upon actual experience, and told long dry narratives of old shipmates, of his voyages and adventures, and sometimes of the most incredible incidents, with a genuine briny gusto which pleased the veteran stagers beyond expression. They were full of points of seamanship—expedients for nice emergencies, tacks, knots, and splices. He gave the very conversation of his characters, with all the "says he" and "says I;" and one long recital of the old fellow's turned upon the question between himself and a newfangled second mate about the right way to set up back-stays, in which he, the sailor, was proved correct by the loss of the ship.

The other story-teller, again, was a Wapping man; a lively, impudent young Cockney, who had the most miraculous faculty of telling lies—not only palpable lies, but lies absolutely impossible: yet they were so sublimely told often, and he contrived to lug into them such a quantity of gorgeous tinsel ornament, as, in his happier efforts, decidedly to carry the day against his opponent. The London hand had seen life too, of which, with respect to what is called the world, his competitor was as ignorant as a child. He had his sentimental vein, accordingly, in which he took the last love-tale out of some "Penny Story-Teller" or fashionable novel he had spelled over below, and turned it over into a parody that would have thrown its unfortunate author into convulsions of horror, and his critics into shrieks of laughter. The fine language of lords and ladies, of romantic heroines, or of foreign counts and bandits, was gravely retailed and gravely listened to by a throng of admiring jacktars; while the old whaler smoked his pipe sulkily apart, gave now and then a scornful glance out of his weather-eye, and called it "all 'high-dic' and soger's gammon."

On this occasion, however, the group forward did not solicit the services of either candidate, as they happened to have present among them a shipmate, who, by general confession, "took the shine" out of both, although it was rarely they could get hold of him. "Old Jack," the captain's private steward, was the oldest seaman on board, and having known the captain when the latter went to sea, had sailed with him almost ever since he commanded a ship, as well as lived in his house on shore. He did not now keep his watch, nor take his "trick at the helm," except when he chose, and was altogether a privileged sort of a person, or one of the "idlers." His name was Jacobs, which afforded a pretext for calling him "Old Jack," with the sailor's fondness for that Christian cognomen, which it is difficult to account for, unless because Jonah and St. John were seafaring characters, and the Roman Catholic holy clerk St. Nicholas was baptized "Davy Jones," with sundry other reasons good at sea. But Old Jack was, at any rate, the best hand for a yarn in the Gloucester Indiaman, and had been once or twice called upon to spin one to the ladies and gentlemen in the cuddy. It was partly because of his inexhaustible fund of good humor, and partly from that love of the sea which looked out through all that the old tar had seen and undergone, and which made him still follow the bowsprit, although able to live comfortably ashore. In his blue jacket, white canvas trowsers edged with blue, and glazed hat, coming forward to the galley to light his pipe, after serving the captain's tea of an evening, Old Jack looked out over the bulwarks, sniffed the sharp sea-air, and stood with his shirt-sleeve fluttering as he put his finger in his pipe, the very embodiment of the scene—the model of a prime old salt who had ceased to "rough it," but could do so yet if needful.

"Come, old ship!" said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack came forward, "give us a yarn, will ye?"

"Yarn!" said Jack, smiling, "what yarn, mates? 'Tis a fine night, though, for that same—the clouds fly high, and she's balling off a good ten knots sin' eight bells."

"That she is, bo'—so give us a yarn now, like a reg'lar old A 1 as you are!" said one.

"'Vast there, mate," said a man-o'-wars-man, winking to the rest,—"you're always a-cargo-puddling, Bill! D'ye think Old Jack answers to any other hail nor the Queen's? I say, old three-decker in or'nary, we all wants one o' your close-laid yarns this good night. Whaling Jim here rubs his down with a thought over much o' the tar, an' young Joe dips 'em in yallow varnish—so if you says Nay, why, we'll all save our grog, and get drunk as soon as may be."

"Well, well, mates," said Jack, endeavoring to conceal his flattered, feelings, "what is it to be, though?"

"Let's see," said the man-o'-war's-man—"aye, give us the Green Hand!"

"Aye, aye, the Green Hand!" exclaimed one and all. This "Green Hand" was a story Old Jack had already related several times, but always with such amusing variations, that it seemed on each repetition a new one—the listeners testifying their satisfaction by growls of rough laughter, and by the emphatic way in which, during a pause, they squirted their tobacco-juice on the deck. What gave additional zest to this particular yarn, too, was the fact of its hero being no less than the captain himself, who was at this moment on the poop quarter-deck of the ship, pointing out something to a group of ladies by the round-house—a tall, handsome-looking man of about forty, with all the mingled gravity and frank good humor of a sailor in his firm, weather-tinted countenance. To have the power of secretly contrasting his present condition and manners with those delineated by Old Jack's episode from the "skipper's" previous biography, was the acme of comic delight to these rude sons of Neptune, and the narrator just hit this point.

"Ye see," began he, "tis about six an' twenty years gone since I was an able seaman before the mast, in a small Indyman they called the Chester Castle, lying at that time behind the Isle of Dogs, in sight of Grenidge Hospital. She was full laden, but there was a strong breeze blowing up that wouldn't let us get under weigh; and, besides, we waited for the most part of our hands. I had sailed with the same ship two voyages before; so," says the captain to me one day, "Jacobs, there's a lady over at Greenwich yonder wants to send her boy to sea in the ship—for a sickening I s'pose. I am a going up to town myself," says he, "so take the quarter-boat and two of the boys and go ashore with this letter, and see the young fool. From what I've heard," says the skipper, "he's a jackanapes as will give us more trouble than thanks. However, if you find the lady's bent on it, why, she may send him aboard to-morrow if she likes. Only we don't carry no young gentlemen; and if he slings his hammock here, you must lick him into shape. I'll make a sailor of him or a cabin-boy." "Ay, ay, sir," says I, shoving the letter into my hat; so in half an hour's time I knocks at the door of the lady's house, rigged out in my best, and hands over the screed to a fat fellow with red breeches and yallow swabs on his shoulders, like a captain of marines, that looked frightened at my hail, for I thou't he'd been deaf by the long spell he took before he opened the door. In five minutes I heard a woman's voice ask at the footman if there was a sailor awaiting below. "Yes, marm," says he; and "show him up," says she. Well, I gives a scrape with my larboard foot, and a tug to my hair, when I gets to the door of such a fine room above decks, all full o' tables, an' chairs, an' sofers, an' piangers, an' them sort o' highflying consarns. There was a lady all in silks and satins on one of the sofers, dressed out like a widow, with a pretty little girl as was playing music out of a large book—and a picter of a man upon the wall, which I at once logged it down for him she'd parted company from. "Sarvint, ma'am," says I. "Come in, my good man," says the lady. "You're a sailor?" says she—asking, like, to be sure if I warn't the cook's mate in dish-guise, I fancy. "Well, marm," I raps out, "I make bould to say as I hopes I am!"—an' I catches a sight o' myself in a big looking-glass behind the lady, as large as our sky-sail,—and, being a young fellow in them days, thinks I, "Blow me, if Betsy Brown asked me that now, I'd ask her if she was a woman!" "Well," says she, "Captain Steel tells me in this here letter, he's agoing to take my son." Now," says she, "I'm sore against it—couldn't you say some'at to turn his mind?" "The best way for that, yer ladyship," says I, "is to let him go, if it was only the length of the Nore. The sea'll turn his stomack for him, marm," I says, "an' then we can send him home by a pilot." "He wanted for to go into the navy," says the lady again, "but I couldn't think on that for a moment, on account of this fearful war; an', after all, he'll be safer in sailing at sea nor in the army or navy—don't you think so, my good man?" "It's all you knows about it," thinks I; hows'ever, I said there wasn't a doubt on it. "Is Captain Steel a rash man?" says she. "How so, marm?" says I, some'at taken aback. "I hope he does not sail at night, or in storms, like too many of his profession, I'm afeard," says she; "I hope he always weighs the anchor in such cases, very careful." "Oh, in course," says I, not knowin', for the life of me, what she meant. I didn't like to come the rig over the poor lady, seein' her so anxious like; but it was no use, we was on such different tacks, ye see. "O yes, marm," I says, "Captain Steel al'ays reefs taups'ls at sight of a squall brewing to wind'rd; and we're as safe as a church, then, ye know, with a man at the wheel as knows his duty." "This relieves my mind," the lady says, "very much; but I couldn't think why she kept sniffing all the time at her smelling bottle, as she wor agoin to faint. "Don't take it to heart so, yer ladyship," I says at last; "I'll look after the young gentleman till he finds his sea-legs." "Thank you," says she; "but, I beg your pardon, would you be kind enough for to open the winder, and look out if you see Edward? I think he's in the garding. I feel sich a smell of pitch and tar!" I hears her say to the girl; and says she to me again, "Do you see Edward there?—call to him, please." Accordingly, I couldn't miss sight of three or four young slips alongside, for they made plenty of noise—one of 'em on top of a water-barrel smoking a cigar; another singing out inside of it for mercy; and the rest roaring round about it, like so many Bedlamites. "No wonder the young scamp wants to go to sea," thinks I, "he's got nothin' arthly to do but mischief." "Which is the young gentleman, marm?" says I, lookin' back into the room—"Is it him with the cigar and the red skull-cap?" "Yes," says the lady—"call him up, please." "Hallo!" I sings out, and all runs off but him on the barrel, and "Hallo!" says he. "You're wanted on deck, sir," I says; and in five minutes in comes my young gemman, as grave as you please. "Edward," says the mother, "this is one of Captain Steel's men." "Is he going to take me?" says the young fellow, with his hands in his pockets. "Well, sir," I says, "'tis a very bad look-out, is the sea, for them as don't like it. You'll be sorry ten times over you've left sich a berth as this here afore you're down Channel." The young chap looks me all over from clue to earing, and says he, "My mother told you to say that!" "No sir," says I, "I says it on my own hook." "Why did you go yourself then?" says he. "I couldn't help it," answers I. "Oh," says the impertinent little devil, "but you're only one of the common sailors, ain't you?" "Split me, you little beggar?" thinks I, "if I doesn't show you the odds betwixt a common sailor, as ye call it, and a lubber of a boy, before long!" But I wasn't goin' to let him take the jaw out o' me, so I only laughed, an' says I, "Why, I'm captain of the foretop at sea, any how." "Where's your huniform, then?" says the boy, lowering his tone a bit. "O," I says, "we doesn't al'ays wear huniform, ye know, sir. This here's what we call on-dress." "I'm sorry, sir," says the lady, "I didn't ax you to sit down." "No offence at all, marm," I says, but I took a couple o' glasses of brandy as was brought in. I saw 'twas no use goin' against the young chap; so, when he asked what he'd have to do aboard, I told him nothing to speak of, except count the sails now and then, look over the bows to see how the ship went, and go aloft with a spy-glass. "Oh," says his mother, at this, "I hope Captain Steel won't never allow Edward to go up those dangerous ladders! It is my partic'lar request he should be punished if he does." "Sartainly, marm, I'll mention it to the captain," I says, "an' no doubt he'll give them orders as you speak on." "The captain desired me to say the young gentleman could come aboard as soon as he likes," says I, before goin' out of the door. "Very well, sir," says the lady, "I shall see the tailor this same afternoon, and get his clothes, if so be it must." The last word I said was, putting my head half in again to tell 'em, "There was no use gettin' any huniforms at present, seein' the ship's sail-maker could do all as was wanted afterwards, when we got to sea."

Well, two or three days after, the captain sent word to say the ship would drop down with the morning tide, and Master Collins had better be aboard by six o'clock. I went ashore with the boat, but the young gemman's clothes warn't ready yet; so it was made up he was to come aboard from Gravesend the day after. But his mother and an old lady, a friend of theirs, would have it they'd go and see his bed-room, and take a look at the ship. There was a bit of breeze with the tide, and the old Indiaman bobbed up and down on it in the cold morning; you could hear the wash of water poppling on to her rudder, with her running gear blown out in a bend; and Missus Collins thought they'd never get up the dirty black sides of the vessel, as she called 'em. The other said her husband had been a captain, an' she laid claim to a snatch of knowledge. "Sailor," says she to me, as we got under the quarter, "that there tall mast is the main-bowsprit, ain't it? and that other is the gallant bowling you call it, don't you?" says she. "No doubt, marm," says I, winking to the boys not to laugh. "It's all right," I says. Howsoever, as to the bed-room, the captain showed 'em over the cabin, and put 'em off by saying the ship was so out of order he couldn't say which rooms was to be which yet, though they needn't fear Master Ned would get all comfortable; so ashore the poor woman went, pretty well pleased, considerin' her heart was against the whole consarn.

Well, the next afternoon, lying off Gravesend, out comes a wherry with young master. One of the men said there was a midshipman in it. "Midshipman be blowed!" says I; "did ye ever see a reefer in a wherry, or sitting out 'o the starn-sheets? It's neither more nor less nor the greenhorn we've got." "Why don't the bo'sun pipe to man sideropes for him!" says th' other; "but, my eye, Bob," says he to me; "what a sight of traps the chap's got in the boat! 'twill be enough to heel the Chester Castle to the side he berths upon, on an even keel. Do he mean to have the captain's cabin, I wonder!" Up the side he scrambles, with the help of a side-ladder, all togged out to the nines in a span-new blue jacket and anchor buttons, a cap with a gould band, and white ducks made to fit—as jemmy-jessamy a looking fellow as you'd see of a cruise along London parks, with the waterman singing out alongside to send down a tackle for the dunnage, which it took a pair of purchase-blocks to hoist them out on board. "What's all this?" says the mate, coming for'ard from the quarter-deck. "'Tis the young gemman's traps, sir," I says. "What the devil!" says the mate, "d'ye think we've room to stow all this lumber? Strike it down into the forehold, Jacobs—but get out a blue shirt or two, and a Scotch cap for the young whelp first, if he wants to save that smooth toggery of his for his mammy. You're as green as cabbage, I'm feared, my lad!" says he. By this time the boy was struck all of a heap, an' didn't know what to say when he saw the boat pulling for shore, except he wanted to have a sight of his bed-room. "Jacobs," says the mate, laughing like an old bear, "take him below, and show him his bed-room, as he calls it!" So down we went to the half-deck, where the carpenter, bo'sun, and three or four of the 'prentices, had their hammocks slung. There I left him to overhaul his big donkey of a chest, which his mother had stowed it with clothes enough for a lord ambassador, but not a blessed thing fit to use—I wouldn't 'a given my bit of a black box for the whole on it, ten times over. There was another chockful of gingerbread, pots o' presarves, pickles, and bottles; and, thinks I, "The old lady didn't know what shares is at sea, I reckon. 'Twill all be gone for footing, my boy, before you've seen blue water, or I'm a Dutchman."

In a short time we was up anchor, going down with a fast breeze for the Nore; and we stood out to sea that night, havin' to join a convoy off Spithead. My gentleman was turned in all standing, on top o' some sails below; and next day he was as sick as a greenhorn could be, cleaning out his land-ballast where he lay, nor I didn't see him till he'd got better. 'Twas blowing a strong breeze, with light canvas all in aloft, and a single reef in the tops'ls; but fine enough for the Channel, except the rain—when what does I see but the "Green Hand" on the weather quarter-deck, holding on by the belaying-pins, with a yumbrella over his head. The men for'ard was all in a roar, but none of the officers was on deck save the third mate, The mate goes up to him, and looks in his face. "Why," says he, "you confounded long-shore picked-up son of a green-grocer, what are you after?" an' he takes the article a slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff of smoke. "Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber," says he, giving him a wheel down into the lee-scuppers—"it's well the captain didn't catch ye!" "Come aft here, some of ye," sings out the third mate again, "to brace up the main yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment and pull!" At this the greenhorn takes out a pair o' gloves, shoves his fingers into 'em, and tails on to the rope behind. "Well, dammit!" says the mate, "if I ever see the likes o' that! Jacobs, get a tarbucket and dip his fists in it; larn him what his hands was made for! I never could bear to see a fellow ashore with his flippers shoed like his feet; but at sea, confound me, it would make a man green-sick over again!" If you'd only seen how Master Collins looked when shoved his missy fingers into the tar, and chucked the gloves o' board! The next moment he ups fists and made slap at me, when in goes the brush in his mouth; the mate gives him a kick astarn; the young chap went sprawling down into the half-deck ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to crop his chin—and there he gets another clip across the jaws from Chips. "Now," says the mate, "the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow. He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my lad," says he: "that fellow 'll either catch the cat or spoil the monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad," says the third mate; "he's in my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the ropes, and let him taste an end now an' then. Ha! ha! ha!" says he again, laughing, "'tis the first time I ever see a embreller loosed out at sea, and but the second I've seen brought aboard even! He's the greenest hand, sure enough, it's been my luck to come across! But green they say's nigh to blue, so look out if I don't try to make a sailor of the young spark!"

Well, for the next three or four days the poor fellow was knocked about on all hands; he'd got to go aloft to the 'gallant cross-trees, and out on the yard foot-ropes the next morning, before breakfast; and, coming down, the men made him fast till he sent down the key of his bottle-chest to pay his footing. If he closed his eyes a moment in the watch, slash comes a bucket full o' Channel water over him; the third mate would keep him two hours on end, larnin' to rig out a sternsail boom, or grease a royal mast. He led a dog's life of it too, in the half-deck: last come, in course, has al'ays to go and fill the bread barge, scrub the planks, an' do all the dirty jobs. Them owners' 'prentices, sich as he had for messmates, is always worse to their own kind by far nor the "common sailors," as the long-shore folks calls a foremast-man. I couldn't help takin' pity on the poor lad, being the only one as had seen the way of his up-bringing, and I felt a sort of a charge of him like; so one night I had a quiet spell with him in the watch, an' as soon as I fell to speak kind-ways, there I seed the water stand i' the boy's eyes. "It's a good thing," says he, tryin' to gulp it down—"it's a good thing mother don't see all this!" "Ho, ho," says I, "my lad, 'tis all but another way of bein' sea-sick! You doesn't get the land cleared out, and snuff the sea blue breeze nat'ral like, all at once! Hows'ever, my lad," says I, "take my advice—bring your hammock an' chest into the fok'sle; swap half your fine clothes for blue shirts and canvas trowsers; turn-to ready and willing, an' do all that's asked you—you'll soon find the differ 'twixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men 'll soon make a sailor of you: you'll soon see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous on!"

Well, next night, what does he do but follows what I said, and afore long most of his troubles was over; nor there wasn't a willin'er nor a readier hand aboard, and every man was glad to put Ned through anything he'd got to do. The mates began to take note on him; and though the 'prentices never left off callin' him the Green Hand, before we rounded the Cape he could take his wheel with the best of them, and clear away a sternsail out of the top in handsome style. We were out ten months, and Ned Collins stuck to the fork'sle throughout. When we got up the Thames, he went ashore to see his mother in a check shirt, and canvas trowsers made out of an old royal, with a tarpaulin hat I built for him myself. He would have me to come the next day over to the house for a supper; so, having took a kindness to the young chap, why, I couldn't say nay. There I finds him in the midst of a lot o' soft-faced chaps and young ladies, a spinning the wonderfullest yarns about the sea and the East Ingees, makin' 'em swallow all sorts of horse-marines' nonsense, about marmaids, sea-sarpents, and sich like. "Hallo, my hearty!" says he, as soon as he saw me, "heave a-head here and come to an anchor in this here blessed chair." "Young ladies," says he, "this is Bob Jacobs, as I told you kissed a marmaid hisself. He's a wonderful hand, is Bob, for the fair!" You may fancy how flabbergasted I was at this, though the young scamp was as cool as you please, and wouldn't ha' needed much to make him kiss 'em all round; but I was al'ays milk-an'-water along side of women, if they topped at all above my rating. "Well," thinks I, "my lad, I wouldn't ha' said five minutes agone there was anything of the green about ye yet, but I see it will take another voy'ge to wash it all out." For to my thinkin', mates, 'tis more of a land-lubber to come the rig over a few poor creatures that never saw blue water, than not to know the ropes you warn't told. "O Mister Jacobs!" says Missus Collins to me that night, before I went off, "d'ye think Edward's tired of that ere horridsome sea yet?" "Well, marm," I says, "I'm afeard not. But I'll tell ye, marm," says I, "if you want's to make him cut the consarn, the only thing ye can do is to get him bound apprentice to it. From what I've seen of him, he's a lad that won't bear aught again his liberty; an' I do believe, if he thought he couldn't get free, he'd run the next day!" Well, after that, ye see, I didn't know what more turned up of it; for I went myself round to Hull, and ships in a timber-craft for the Baltic, just to see some'at new.

One day, the third voy'ge from that time, on getting the length of Blackwall, we heared of a strong press from the men-o'-war; and as I'd got a dreadful dislike to the sarvice, there was a lot of us marchant-men kept stowed away close in holes an' corners till we could suit ourselves. At last we got well tired, and a shipmate o' mine and I wanted to go and see our sweethearts over in the town. So we hired the slops from a Jew, and makes ourselves out to be a couple o' watermen, with badges to suit, a carrying off a large parcel and a ticket on it. In the arternoon we came back again within sight of the Tower, where we saw the coast was clear, and made a fair wind along Rosemary Lane and Cable Street. Just then we saw a tall young fellow, in a brown coat, an' a broad-brim hat, standing in the door of a shop, with a paper under his arm, on the look out for some one. "Twig the Quaker, Bob!" my shipmate says to me. As soon as he saw us, out the Quaker steps, and says he to Bill, in a sleepy sort of a v'ice, "Friend, thou'rt a waterman, I b'lieve?" "D—— it, yes," says Bill, pretty short like, "that's what we hails for! D'ye want a boat, master?" "Swear not, friend," says the broad-brim; "but what I want is this, you see. We have a large vessel, belonging to our house, to send to Havannah, and willin' to give double wages, but we can't find any mariners at this present for to navigate. Now," says he, "I s'pose this onfortunate state o' things is on account of the sinful war as is goin' on—they're afraid of the risk. Hows'ever, my friends," says he, "perhaps, as you knows the river, ye could put us upon a way of engagin' twenty or more bold mariners, as is not afeard of ventering for good pay?" and with this he looks into his papers; and says Bill, "Well, sir, I don't know any myself—do you, Bob?" and he gives me a shove, and says under the rose, "no fear, mate," says Bill, "he's all over green—don't slip the chance for all hands of us at Jobson's." "Why, master," I says, "what ud you give them mariners you speaks on, now?" "Six pounds a month, friend," says he, looking up; "but we gives tea in place of spirits, and we must have steady men. We can't wait, neither," says he, "more nor three days, or the vessel won't sail at all." "My eye!" says Bill, "'twont do to lose, Bob!—stick to him, that's all." "Well, sir," I says, "I thinks I does have a notion of some't of the sort. If you sends your papers to Jobson's Tavern to-night, in the second lane 'twixt Barnaby Street and the Blue Anchor Road, over the water, why, I'll get ye as many hands to sign as you wants!" "Thanks, friend," says the young broad-brim, "I will attend to thine advice,"—so he bids us good day, and stepped into his door again. "Bill," says I, as he went off, "now I think on it, I can't help a notion I've seen that chap's face afore!" "Very like," says Bill, "for the matter o' that 'tis the same with me—them broad-brims is so much of a piece! But that 'ere fellow don't know nothing of ships, sure enough, or he wouldn't offer what he did, and the crimps' houses all of a swarm with hands!"

"Take my word, mate," says I, "it's a paying trip, or he wouldn't do it—leave a Quaker alone for that! Why, the chap's a parfit youngster, but I am blessed if he don't look as starched as if he'd sat over a desk for twenty year!"

Well, strike me lucky, mates all, if the whole affair warn't a complete trap! Down comes a clerk with the papers, sure enough—but in ten minutes more the whole blessed lot of us was puckalowed, and hard an' fast, by a strong press-gang. They put us into a cutter off Redriff Stairs, an' the next noon all hands was aboard of the Pandora frigate at Sheerness. The first time of being mustered on deck, says Bill to me, "Cuss my eyes, Bob, if there isn't the 'farnal Quaker!" I looked, and sees a midshipman in uniform like the rest, and so it was. "The sly soft-sauderin' beggar!" says I. "All fair in war, and a press-mate!" says one o' the frigate's men. All the while I kept looking and looking at the midshipman; and at last I says to Bill when we got below, giving a slap to my thigh, "Blessed if it ain't! it's the Green Hand himself!" "Green Hand!" says Bill, sulky enough, "who's the Green Hand? Blow me Bob, if I don't think we're the green hands ourselves, if that's what you're upon!" So I told him the story about Ned Collins. "Well," says he, "if a fellow was green as China rice, cuss me if the reefers' mess wouldn't take it all out on him in a dozen watches. The softest thing I know, as you say, Bob, just now, it's to come the smart hand when you're a lubber; but to sham green after that style, ye know, why, 'tis a mark or two above either you or I, messmate. So for my part, I forgives the young scamp, 'cause I ought to ha' known better!"

By the time the frigate got to sea, the story was blown over the whole maindeck; many a good laugh it gave the different messes; and Bill, the midshipman, and I, got the name of the "Three Green Hands."

One middle-watch, Mister Ned comes for'ard by the booms to me, and says he, "Well, Bob Jacobs, you don't bear a grudge, I hope!" "Why," says I, "Mister Collins, 'twould be mutiny now, I fancy, you bein' my officer!" so I gave a laugh; but I couldn't help feeling' hurt a little, 'twas so like a son turnin' against his father, as 'twere. "Why Bob," says he, "did ye think me so green as not to know a seaman when I saw him? I was afeared you'd know me that time." "Not I, sir," I answers: "why, if we hadn't sailed so long in company, I wouldn't know ye now!" so master Ned gave me to understand it was all for old times he wanted to ship me in the same craft; but he knew my misliking to the sarvice, though he said he'd rather ha' lost the whole haul of 'em nor myself. So many a yarn we had together of a dark night, and for a couple of years we saw no small service in the Pandora. But if ye'd seen Ned the smartest reefer aboard, and the best liked by the men, in the fore-taups'l bunt in a gale, or over the maindeck hatch, with an enemy's frigate to leeward, or on a spree ashore at Lisbon or Naples, you wouldn't ha' said there was anything green in his eye, I warrant ye! He was made acting lieutenant of a prize he cut out near Chairboorg, before he passed examination; so he got me for prize bo'sun, and took her into Plymouth. Soon after that the war was ended, and all hands of the Pandora paid off. Master Ned got passed with flying colors, and confirmed lieutenant besides, but he had to wait for a ship. He made me say where I'd be found, and we parted company for about a year.

Well, I was come home from a short trip, and one day Leftenant Collins hunts me up at Wapping Docks, where I'd had myself spliced, six years before, to Betsy Brown, an' was laid up for a spell, havin' seen a good deal of the sea. Ye must know the young leftenant was fell deep in love with a rich Indy Naboob's daughter, which had come over to take her back to' the East Indgees. The old fellow was hard close-hauled against the match, notwithstanding of the young folks makin' it all up; so he'd taken out berths aboard of a large Company's ship, and bought over the captain on no account to let any king's navy man within the gangways, nor not a shoulder with a swab upon it, red or blue, beyond the ship's company. But, above all, the old tyrant wouldn't have a blue-jacket, from stem to starn, if so be he'd got nothing ado but talk sweet; I s'pose he fancied his girl was mad after the whole blessed cloth. The leftenant turns over this here log to me, and, says he, "I'll follow her to the world's end, if need be, Bob, and cheat the old villain?" "Quite right too, sir," says I. "Bob," says he, "I'll tell ye what I wants you to do. Go you and enter for the Seringpatam at Blackwall, if you're for sea just now; I'm goin' for to s'cure my passage myself, an' no doubt doorin' the voy'ge something'll turn up to set all square; at any rate, I'll stand by for a rope to pull!" "Why here's a go!" thinks I to myself: "is Ned Collins got so green again, spite of all that's come an' gone, for to think the waves is agoin' to work wonders, or ould Neptune under the line's to play the parson and splice all!" "Well, sir," I says, "but don't you think the skipper will smoke your weather-roll, sir, at sea, as you did Bill Pikes an' me, you know, sir?" says I. "Oh, Bob, my lad," says the leftenant, "leave you that to me. The fellow most onlikest to a sailor on the Indyman's poop will be me, and that's the way you'll know me!"

Well, I did ship with the Seringpatam for Bombay. Plenty of passengers she had, but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o' Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel. I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy-yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of a collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After a while there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from—mizen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as "Rule Britannia," "Bay of Biscay," "Britannia's Bulwarks," and "All in the Downs." The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and "Well I'm blessed, mates," says he on the fok'sle, "but that chap aft yonder with the lady—he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across! What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallowchops an hour agone?" "What was it, mate?" I says. Says he, "'Do ye know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reely green at the line—green ye know, Sar Chawls, reely green?' 'No, sir,' says the old naboob, ''tis blue.' 'Whoy, ye don't sa—ay so!' says the young chap, pullin' a long face." "Why, Jim," another hand drops in, "that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night! I seed him myself come out o' the mizen-chains!" "Hallo!" says another at this, "then there's some'at queer i' the wind!" I thought he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning! I'll bet a week's grog the chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates! Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands not to blow the gaff,[A] an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very day, about the Green Hand—for somehow or another, I was always a yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn, not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats when they went past.

[Footnote A: Let out the secret.]

Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But as for the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with him; though, as the naboob had never clapt eyes on him to know him like, 'twain't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the Indyman was a rum old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old ways—I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the old boy drawling out, "As 'twas in the beginning,"—then, in the one key, "Haul aft the mainsheet,"—"is now and ever shall be,"—"Small pull with the weather-brace,"—"Amen,"—"Well the mainyard,"—"The Lord be with you,—Taups'l yard well!" As for the first orficer, he was a dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own, except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may fancy the craft stood often a poor chance of being well handled.

'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day as I mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as it got down smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, to the south-east. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer on deck. I was at the wheel, and I hears him say to the second how the land-breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' begins to squint over the starn to nor'west'ard, "Jacobs, my lad," whispers he to me, "how d'ye like the looks o' things?" "Not overmuch, sir," says I; "small enough sea-room for the sky there!" Up goes he to the first officer, after a bit. "Sir," says he, "do ye notice how we've risen the land within the last hour and a half?" "No, sir," says the first mate; "what d'ye mean?" "Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point," says he. "Sir," says the Company's man, "if I didn't know what's what, d'ye think I'd larn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green? There's nothing of the sort," he says. "Look on the starboard quarter then," says the leftenant, "at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with its wings spread. Take three minutes' look," says he. Well, the mate did take a minute or two's look through the mizen-shroud, and pretty blue he got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time. "Now," says the leftenant, "d'ye think ye'd weather that there point two hours after this, if a gale come on from the nor'west, sir?" "Well," says the first mate, "I daresay we shouldn't—but what o' that?" "Why, if you'd cruised for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done," says the leftenant, "you'd think there was something ticklish about that white spot in the sky to nor'west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is fell a good bit since four bells." "Weather-glass!" the mate says, "why, that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy." Ye must understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time, except in the royal navy. "Sir," says the mate again, "mind your business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!" "If I was you," the leftenant says, "I'd call the captain." "Thank ye," says the mate—"call the captain for nothing!" Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins. The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. "Why, sir," says the mate, "I'd no notion you was a seaman at all! What would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?" "Well, sir," says Mr. Collins, "if you'll do it, I'll tell ye at once."

At this point of old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket-pocket, and got off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a short yarn?" "Can't help it, bo'," said Old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "what was the up-shot of it, if the yarn's been overhauled already? I didn't hear it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several—"Old Jack didn't get the length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o-war's-man; "'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!"



From Fraser's Magazine for June.

SOMETHING ABOUT A MURDER.

FOUNDED ON FACT.

A Fair and gentle girl was Barbara Comyn, the only daughter of one of the strictest and sternest old ministers that ever adhered to Calvin. Yet Mr. Comyn was thoroughly conscientious in all his views; and when he frowned, he did it not through love of frowning, but that he hoped, by gathering a cloud upon his brows, to bring down from those eyes upon which he frowned such showers of repentance as refresh and make green the soul sin-withered and sere from the harsh and hot suns of vice. He was, in truth, a worthy and good man; somewhat narrow of mind and bigoted of creed, it may be, but utterly incapable of committing an ungenerous or dishonorable action. Still, greatly as he loved his winsome daughter, much as he prized her for that dead woman's sake, who, as long as she lay in his bosom, had brought him comfort, and happiness, and honor, he was something over-harsh with her, niggardly in the bestowing of caresses, and liberal in the gift of unnecessary rebuke. Very severe, then, was his displeasure, when she confessed to him, with many blushes, that she loved her young Episcopalian kinsman, John Percival.

The cousins had not been reared together, nor had they even met before the youth had passed his twenty-fifth, the girl her nineteenth year. But we are not of the opinion that young people are the more prone to fall in love with each other for the being educated together in a sort of family domesticity. Such facts are contended for in fiction, but realities have convinced us that such things seldom happen; and if we ever have the fortune to possess children of our own, and wish a son or daughter to wed a particular individual, we shall take good care, not only to conceal our intentions from them, but to keep the pair apart from all brother-and-sister communism, until such time as each heart begins to have its natural craving for a congenial spirit,—when, in sooth, it looks for others than brothers and sisters to cling to. It is a very old, perhaps a very vulgar proverb, that "familiarity breeds contempt;" and we assuredly think, that the constant fireside association of young folks, trained up together in bread-and-butter ease, is more apt to generate calm friendship than warm affection.

But, as we have said, our cousins were brought up asunder; he in England, of which country his father was an eminent physician lately deceased, who had bequeathed to his only son his professional ability, with ample means of commencing his career in a handsome manner. When he first came to Scotland to visit his mother's sister, he found her a corpse; and there, in the house of mourning, the consoler of the motherless Barbara, he learnt to love her with a sincerity of affection to which she fully responded. Great was his vexation and surprise to receive a stern denial of his suit from the minister, who, although he had never testified any degree of partiality for his wife's nephew, had, nevertheless, evinced no dislike of him. But when respectfully called upon to assign a reason for so unexpected a rejection, he briefly said, that "no child of his should with his blessing wed any man who was not a strict Presbyterian; and that, moreover, he had other views for his daughter." Nor were the tears of his child, nor the intercession in their favor of his kindhearted but timid old maiden sister, of any effect. His obstinacy was not to be subdued, nor his will opposed; and the unrelenting preacher, who taught humility, love, and concord from his pulpit, and who could produce not one sensible reason for thwarting the attachment of two amiable creatures, concluded the scene by flying into a furious passion, in which he gave John Percival clearly to understand, that he was no longer an acceptable, or even permitted, guest.

The young man left the manse immediately, and was not slow in quitting Scotland; but love, which teaches many things, taught the kinsfolk means of keeping up, though at rare intervals, an epistolary communion—so frequently the one sustaining prop of two divided hearts!

A year or more passed, finding them true to each other. Barbara refused several excellent proposals of marriage, nor did her father persecute her with expressed wishes for her acceptance of any of them; until, at length, he introduced to her one Mr. Bruce, a wealthy cloth-merchant from Glasgow. He was a man of about fifty years of age, of a well-favored and portly presence, and accounted a sure and somewhat sour follower of Mr. Comyn's favorite creed. Barbara had frequently heard her father speak highly of his Glasgow friend, but as no warning had prepared her, she was very far from dreaming of the character he was about to perform in her presence; and, indeed, the wooing of the honest clothier was neither very active nor oppressive—but, alas, for all that, it was steadfast and resolute.

A wonderful deal of what they deemed "religious discussion" was carried on betwixt Mr. Bruce and the minister during the visit of the former at the manse, which, we have omitted to state, (though for certain reasons we do not intend to give it a name,) was situated out of the town of Aberdeen, in a retired strath or valley, full of hazels and sloe-bushes, with the Dee running through them like a huge silver snake. Although little more than half a mile from Aberdeen, and much nearer the church of which Mr. Comyn was minister, the manse seemed as lonely and quiet as if thirty miles lay between it and a busy, populous town. Now, though Mr. Bruce had hired a sleeping apartment in the cottage of Mr. Comyn's bell-man, or sexton, which stood hard by the kirk, he spent all his spare time with his friend at the manse, where his meals were invariably taken; and in addition to the wonderful amount of polemical palaver we have hinted at, a wonderful deal of whisky-toddy did the worthy minister and his guest contrive to swallow in the heat of their arguments. Many a time and oft did good, innocent Miss Henny Comyn declare, that when the shake-hands hour arrived, Mr. Bruce, "puir man, seemed to toddle aff to his cosie beddie at Davy Bain's marvellously fu' o' the spirit!" True it was; but the ancient virgin guessed not in her guilelessness, that the spirit was an evil one, and elicited by man and fire from the unsuspecting barleycorn.

At last, as we have said, Mr. Comyn spoke out his wish—nay, his commands—that Barbara should prepare to receive Mr. Bruce as a bridegroom in six months thereafter. And now Mr. Bruce himself, a shy and dour man at other times, found courage one day, after dinner, to express his—"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we, in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to which the feelings that actuated him belonged. Honest man! bigoted and selfish as he was, he was neither cruel by nature nor cross-grained; and he was even moved by the pathetic and frank avowal which Barbara made to him on the state of her heart. But, though touched by her tears, he understood them not, treated them but as the natural mawkishness of girlish sentimentality; nor had her assurance that she could never love any one but her cousin John, power to dissuade him from the prosecution of his suit. He was void of all delicacy of feeling, was neither hurt nor displeased with her confessed partiality for another, but satisfied himself by quoting, misquoting, and utterly perverting Scripture, and concluded by assuring her that it was her bounden duty to obey her father before marriage—her husband after. He had no doubt she would be very happy as his wife, for "he was rich, and a steady Presbyterian!" And with this declaration, threatening a return in six months to claim her hand—which he had the audacity to kiss—he left her for his Glasgow warehouses.

In this dire dilemma the poor lassie knew not what course to pursue. Her aunt, although kind, indulgent, and pitying her, (for in youth she had had experience of a blighted affection, and no woman-heart, that is not naturally sour, passes through such trial without becoming sweeter)—was bound in complete serfdom to her brother, and was quite unable to suggest any means or likelihood of release; so Barbara wrote a full account of her predicament to her lover. Not long afterward, so cleverly disguised by dress as to deceive even herself, Percival was again at Aberdeen—determined, should all other methods fail, to carry off his kinswoman on the very eve of the bridal; and many a twilight evening, when the minister sat over books or took his after-dinner nap, did those two young creatures meet, unnoticed and unsuspected, on the banks of the Dee. But those meetings must soon end, for six months have passed, and Mr. Bruce—once more lodged in the house of Davy Bain—is come to wed and take home his reluctant bride.

One evening—it was cloudy and threatened foul weather, though the summer air was warm and surcharged with flower-scents—John Percival betook himself as usual to the customary trysting-place. It was a thick copse of hazel past which ran—heard but not seen—the river; which, where the shrubbery ended, formed a dark, deep pool, so garnished by overhanging nut-trees that it had acquired the name of the Nut-hole. Beyond this pool lay the road to the manse; but as the trees here ceased to offer concealment, the Nut-tree-hole became the limits to Percival's attendance on his cousin in her way homeward. The rustic seat in the centre of the coppice was still unoccupied, and he began to fear that something had transpired to prevent her from coming. It was no use to listen for the sounds of her light, advancing footsteps; for the Dee made so loud and incessant a sough as it tumbled from the steep bank that helped to form the Nut-hole, that it drowned all lesser sounds.

He was, however, soon made conscious that there were sounds which no sough of tumbling waters could drown; for, on a sudden, neither remote nor suppresed, a fierce, a pitiful cry, like that of one in some dread life-peril, struck upon his ears, succeeded by the breaking asunder of the boughs of trees, and then a plunge in the water—a heavy plunge, that made itself heard above the monotonous murmur of the falling flood. Astonished, almost alarmed, he rose, and was hastening through the thicket toward the Nut-hole, whence the noise had proceeded, when, as he was about to cross the track that led from the manse to the main road to Aberdeen, he beheld flying toward him a dark-mantled figure: he knew it at once. Her hands stretched toward him, her face ghastly with the death-white of intense horror, Barbara staggered toward him, and with a sharp, short gasp, as if she dreaded to give utterance to deep fear by a louder sound, she fainted at his very feet.

He thought no more of the Nut-hole, or of what might have happened there, absorbed in his solicitude for his beloved cousin, but his endeavors to restore her to animation were fruitless. The manse lay not two hundred yards distant; so at such a juncture, regardless of what the consequences might be to himself, he bore her in his arms; and not without some difficulty, for the track was narrow and broken up, and the night had darkened with falling rain. He reached the house. Fortunately, there was no one in the parlor but Miss Henny; and the startled maiden, seeing a stranger bearing the body of her niece, would have screamed, had he not at once whispered his own name, briefly explained what had happened, and entreated her to befriend them.

"Gae awa', gae awa', laddie," said she, as she quickly brought some vinegar from the sideboard and bathed her niece's brow with the refreshing liquid. "My brither maunna see you; nor, if I can help it, sall he know acht o' this. Gae awa', Johnny dear; he'll be back, belive. She's beginning to revive. I'll get her to bed, and tell him she's too ill to attend prayers. God bless you, my ain dawtie, what's a' this?" added she, kissing the brow of the girl, whose eyes opened to perceive the retiring form of her cousin.

If Barbara Comyn revealed to her good aunt the cause of her fright and consequent illness, it is very certain that Miss Henny kept the secret. Next morning, indeed, though with a wan face, Barbara appeared at prayers; and Mr. Comyn had concluded reading a portion of the Gospel, when a paper, falling out of the Bible, arrested his attention for a moment. Only for a moment, however; for, mentally supplicating forgiveness for that involuntary wandering of his thoughts from the act of worship in which he was engaged, the good man knelt and prayed with fervor. This sacred duty terminated, they sat down to the breakfast-table, and then the minister slowly opened the paper, glanced over it, turned deadly pale, and exclaimed,

"The great and good God be around us! Let not the delusions of Satan prevail, but keep from us the evil spirits that make us see things that are not!"

"What is the matter, brither?" cried the wondering Miss Henny, whilst, as though chained to the table, Barbara neither moved nor spoke.

"Take this, woman," said he, in a tremulous voice, "and read it to me, that I may be sure the same awful words that meet my sight also meet yours."

And the astonished Henrietta, taking the paper, read what follows:

Last night, after leaving you, I was stopped by your sexton, my landlord, David Bain, who led me out of the highroad to the Nut-hole, under pretence of showing me a large salmon which he had hooked but could not land. He there felled me to the earth, robbed me, and flung my body into the river Dee. Pray for the soul of

SIMON BRUCE.

When the awe-struck Henrietta ceased, she found that Barbara had fainted; and the minister, in a whirl of distracting thoughts to which he was unaccustomed, ascribing his child's swoon to terror, placed the ominous paper in the Bible, and determined to make known the whole mysterious case at once to Mr. Craigie, the chief magistrate of Aberdeen. Not for a single instant did Mr. Comyn suspect a hoax, or imagine the affair to be only the mischievous trick of some idler. Indeed, such was not likely; the times were superstitious, nor were there any persons connected or at variance with the family who were liable to be suspected of having played off such a foolish and wicked jest at the expense of the minister, even if any motive for doing so had existed. The minister, therefore, hastened up stairs to change his coat, leaving the Bible containing the document from the dead on the table; while his sister, finding her niece better, left her to see that her brother's best hat and gloves were ready.

We wonder what Barbara is about meanwhile.

Presently Mr. Comyn returned to the parlor, and putting the Bible in his pocket, (for he dared not again look at the horrible piece of writing,) set off at a quick pace for the town. Nor, as he hurried on, did he give a passing glance at the track which diverged from the highroad toward the Nut-tree-hole. The magistrate was at home, and great indeed was his amazement when he heard the minister's story; but lo! when Mr. Comyn, reverently taking the Bible from his pocket, opened it to show Mr. Craigie the note, written as he declared in the peculiar handwriting of his friend, he found nothing where he had deposited it but a piece of blank paper, folded up in the same form, but utterly void. And then in truth the worthy magistrate waxed somewhat wroth; at first accusing Mr. Comyn of being credulously duped by some pawkie servant who owed him a grudge, and ending by setting him down as "clean daft, doited, and dazed by too mickle study," (and in his ire he had very nearly added, "too much toddy.") But, as in no amicable frame of temper the gentlemen were about to quarrel downright, the magistrate asking the minister what proof he could adduce of Mr. Bruce's not being alive and merry, a seasonable and loud knocking at the street-door interrupted them; and presently a servant entered to announce that a drowned man had been found in the Dee, and that his body had been brought to the door!

With shaking limbs the minister followed Mr. Craigie down stairs to the lobby, now full of people. It appeared that some men employed in the salmon fisheries had, within the last hour, dragged their nets, in which they had discovered the corpse of a man whose skull had been literally smashed in twain by a violent blow.

It was, in fact, the body of Mr. Bruce. Here, indeed, was confirmation strange of the statement which the mysterious and missing document had contained; and both Mr. Craigie and the minister, exchanging looks that expressed their mutual dismay, were sorely perplexed in their own minds how to account for these singular events. The body was reverently laid out in the hall, whilst the magistrate, summoning some of his officials, and accompanied by the clergyman and one or two of the fishermen, proceeded to the cottage of David Bain.

The bell-man was not at home, having gone, they said, "to Mr. Comyn's, to inquire about his lodger, Mr. Bruce, who had not come home to his bed the night before, as was customary."

Strange glances passed between the auditors; but a sign from the magistrate imposed silence, and they departed, determining to survey the Nut-hole, near which, in the river, the body had been found in the nets, after which they had no doubt they would find the sexton at the manse. As they threaded the thicket of hazel, at some distance from the pool, one of the salmon-fishers declared, that from a plot of white-thorn and bramble-bushes he had seen the eyes of a foumart or polecat glare out upon him; and in a low voice, directing the attention of a comrade to the spot, they both imagined they could detect the figure of a man crouching among the trailing shrubs. Whispering their suspicion to Mr. Craigie, he ordered the whole party to join quietly in a search, and follow him and the minister to the Nut-hole. Thither, then, the magistrate, attended only by Mr. Comyn, proceeded; and who, think ye, found they there?

A young man, handsome and well-dressed, in the undisguised apparel of a gentleman, stood there, evidently unconscious of the advancing twain. He held a stout, club-like stick in his hand, which he was examining intently—for it was covered with blood, now dried, and amidst which stuck clots of hair! As the gentlemen came suddenly upon him he started, and dropped the stick; whilst Mr. Comyn, staring at him in wonder, for, as we have said, all disguise had been discarded, exclaimed—

"John Percival, is this you?"

A question which the young man could have answered in the affirmative with strict veracity, but for the assertion from the magistrate which followed it up.

"And you, sir, are the murderer of Mr. Bruce!"

"Good God! what do you mean!" cried the horrified youth.

"That stick, which you have just dropped, is covered with blood," said Mr. Craigie; "a foul murder has been committed, and we find you with the supposed instrument of that murder, near the very spot where there is ground to believe the act was perpetrated."

A fearful pang shot through Percival's frame, but conscious innocence made it brief, and with a calmness of demeanor which guilt never could have assumed, and gravely smiling, he turned to his uncle saying—

"You cannot believe that I am guilty?"

"No, no, John!" answered the individual appealed to. "God forbid that I should judge you wrongfully, but—"

"But," interrupted the magistrate, "not only does it appear that you have slain a man, but that, desirous of fixing your guilt upon another, you have written a letter, falsely accusing an innocent person of that crime."

"Letter!" repeated Percival, "Sir, I do not even know what you mean."

"Mr. Comyn," asked the magistrate, "this young man—the nephew of my lamented friend, your late wife—paid court, as I understand, to your daughter, and was by her rejected?"

"By me, sir—by me, Mr. Craigie," answered the clergyman; "the lassie never rejected him, but I did."

"And the murdered man," slowly pronounced the magistrate, "was the betrothed husband of Miss Comyn?"

Percival started violently, uttering an ejaculation of horror and wonder, for at last he saw the inferences which Mr. Craigie seemed willing to draw from circumstances that certainly looked suspicious.

"As God is my judge, that is the truth," replied the minister, "and I had forgotten all about it. Oh! John Percival, as you are the nephew of my beloved Mary, answer me with truth, and say that you are innocent of this heinous deed!"

"I am indeed innocent, my dear uncle," said the young man; "nor did I know until this moment who the unfortunate man was, of whose untimely death I am accused."

"Here he is, gentlemen; we've got him safe and sound!" cried several voices; and dragging a wild and haggard-faced man, the fishers and officials of justice approached the trio who stood by the Nut-tree-hole.

"The Lord be our guide!" exclaimed Mr. Comyn, "it is really David Bain!" and as the wretched sexton struggled to free himself from the arms that pinioned him, the minister, prompted by a sudden impulse, advancing toward him, and looking steadily in his face, said—

"David Bain, look not to deny your crime, but confess it, and implore your Maker's pardon, even at this the eleventh hour. In my Bible, this morning, I found a paper, written by the spirit of him you murdered here last night, and charging you with the commission of the deed."

At these strange words, which in our modern times might have produced mirth, the guilty creature, losing all self-possession, uttered a loud cry, and pointing to the bloody cudgel which still lay at the magistrate's feet, exclaimed—

"I did it with that! I did it with that!" and fell back in a fit.

It would be easy to lengthen out our historiette into one of circumstantial evidence, trial, condemnation, and ultimate discovery; but we have preferred telling it as it really happened. On the person of David Bain were found a pocket-book and purse, recognized as the property of the late Mr. Bruce, and containing bank-notes and bills to a considerable amount; the sight of which, in the possession of his lodger, had evoked the cupidity of the bell-man. He made a full confession, and in due time suffered the penalty due to his offence. Meanwhile the minister, in the thankfulness of his soul to find his nephew guiltless, embraced him tenderly, and freely permitted that courtship to proceed between his daughter and him, which he had before so strenuously opposed.

One circumstance still remained a mystery, undeveloped to all save Barbara's aunt, Percival, and the worthy magistrate,—by whose advice, indeed, it was concealed from the minister; who, to his dying day, confidently believed that the paper he had found in his Bible had been placed there by supernatural interposition. But the hand of the dead had nothing to do with it, as we mean to explain.

On the evening of the murder, Barbara Comyn sallied forth to meet her cousin, leaving Mr. Bruce and her father discussing punch and polemics. She was later than usual, and as she sped along, she became aware of the approach from Aberdeen of an individual, whom she could not avoid meeting if she proceeded direct to the tryst. She therefore stole into a different track, thinking to make a circuit which would occupy the time the stranger might take in passing the copse of hazels; but, unfortunately (or fortunately, was it?), she met a poor woman, the wife of a neighboring peasant, who was on her way to the manse to implore some black currant jelly for a child suffering from sore throat. The call of distress was never disregarded by Barbara, and she flew back to the manse, procured the jelly, and giving it to the woman, hastened amidst falling rain to the trysting-place. As she was about to round the point which hid the Nut-hole from view, she heard the sounds of struggling feet and wrestling arms; and, regardless of danger to herself in her fears for Percival, she forced her way through some bushes, and beheld two men, in no friendly embrace, staggering on the very verge of the pool. Before she could look again the one had fallen on the earth; and the other, with a desperate blow of his stick on the head of the prostrate man, uttered an oath in a voice whose peculiar tones were well-known to Barbara, and in the twinkling of an eye shoved the wounded man over the bank into the Nut-tree hole!

Her blood curdling with horror, Barbara found no voice, no strength, to speak or stir; but she became, so to speak, all eye; and as the murderer, swiftly cramming into his hat and pockets something which she could not define, rose up, and forgetful of the cudgel, which lay blood-dabbled on the grass, rushed from the place where he had taken the burden of a deadly sin upon his soul, she saw his face, and recognized her father's sexton—David Bain.

In terror, that found no tongue, she reached her lover, and became insensible; nor was it till her recovery, when she found herself alone with her aunt, that she felt how important to her future life might be the events of that night. She resolved, ere yet she spoke one word in reply to the questions of her aunt, to ascribe her swoon to anything but the real cause; and it was, perhaps, well she so determined, for she remembered that, in her flight from the fatal spot where she had witnessed the perpetration of so foul a deed, she had picked up a letter, which she had hid in her bosom, scarcely conscious of what she did, yet, perhaps, imperceptibly aware—with the foresight of inexplicable convictions—that it might yet prove of essential service. When she retired to her chamber, and had got rid of Aunt Henny, she took the paper from its concealment, and saw that it was the empty cover of a letter addressed to "Mr. Bruce, at the house of David Bain, Sexton;" and then the certainty struck her of the murdered man being her affianced husband.

The character of David Bain was marked by extreme avarice, and Barbara's conclusions as to the instigating cause of the crime he had committed were easily formed. But what means could she pursue in order to convict guilt, without at the same time rendering her own appearance before a public court of justice necessary? from which she shrank nervously, since the cause of her presence in such a spot, and at such an hour, must of course be revealed. A sudden thought struck her—and, wild as it was, she put it into instant execution. She knew her father's belief in supernatural agency, and trusted strongly to the effect such a document as that which she now prepared would have upon him. She wrote the note which Mr. Comyn discovered in the Bible, imitating Mr. Bruce's hand, which was peculiar, as closely as she could; and then, when the minister left it there—a circumstance which, though she did not foresee, rejoiced her—she subtracted it thence, uninterrupted and unsuspected. But when it pleased the Almighty to make manifest the murderer by the means thus strangely suggested to her, she confessed the whole to the indulgent Henny and her lover, and by their advice took the magistrate also into her confidence.

We have nothing more to relate, but that Barbara Comyn and John Percival were soon after united by the worthy minister; whilst Miss Henny was as busy as a bee in preparations for the wedding, and as happy in witnessing the happiness of others as if she had never known a care of her own.

* * * * *

THIERS has abandoned politics and history for the summer to visit England.



Miscellanies.

[From Charles Mackay's New Volume of Poems, "Egeria," &c.]

THE GARDEN GATE.

"Stand back, bewildering politics! I've placed my fences round; Pass on, with all your party tricks, Nor tread my holy ground. Stand back—I'm weary of your talk, Your squabbles, and your hate: You cannot enter in this walk— I've closed my garden gate.

"Stand back, ye thoughts of trade and pelf! I have a refuge here; I wish to commune with myself— My mind is out of gear. These bowers are sacred to the page Of philosophic lore; Within these bounds no envies rage— I've shut my garden door.

"Stand back, Frivolity and Show. It is a day of Spring; I want to see my roses blow, And hear the blackbird sing. I wish to prune my apple-trees, And nail my peaches straight; Keep to the causeway, if you please— I've shut my garden gate.

"I have no room for such as you, My house is somewhat small: Let Love come here, and Friendships true I'll give them welcome all; They will not scorn my household stuff, Or criticize my store. Pass on—the world is wide enough— I've shut my garden door.

"Stand back, ye Pomps! and let me wear The liberty I feel. I have a coat at elbows bare— I love its dishabille. Within these precincts let me rove, With Nature, free from state; There is no tinsel in the grove— I've shut my garden gate.

"What boots continual glare and strife? I cannot always climb; I would not struggle all my life— I need a breathing time. Pass on—I've sanctified these grounds To friendship, love, and lore: Ye cannot come within the bounds— I've shut the garden door."

* * * * *

POETICAL COMPOSITION.—If metre and melody be worth anything at all, let them be polished to perfection; let an author "keep his piece nine years," or ninety and nine, till he has made it as musical as he can—at least, as musical as his other performances. Not that we counsel dilatory and piecemeal composition. The thought must be struck off in the passion of the moment; the sword-blade must go red-hot to the anvil, and be forged in a few seconds: true; but after the forging, long and weary polishing and grinding must follow, before your sword-blade will cut. And melody is what makes poetry cut; what gives it its life, its power, its magic influence, on the hearts of men. It must ring in their ears; it must have music in itself; it must appeal to the senses as well as to the feelings, the imagination, the intellect: then, when it seizes at once on the whole man, on body, soul, and spirit, will it "swell in the heart, and kindle in the eyes," and constrain him, he knows not why, to believe and to obey.—Fraser, for June.