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THE 
 
 COSMOPOLITAN: 
 
 t i 
 
 AN OCCASIONAti 
 
 No, 1 
 
 " For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a pros- 
 pect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it : nay, he doth, 
 as if your journey should lie through a lair vineyard, at the very first 
 give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you nfay long to pass 
 farther. He b^ginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur 
 the margin with interpretations, and load the mei ory with doubtful- 
 ness, but he Cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion. either 
 accompanied with, or prepared for th- v ell-enchanting skill of music ; 
 and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth 
 children from play, and old men from the chimne)' corner; and, pre- 
 tending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness 
 to virtue ; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome 
 things, by h ding them in such other ash ve a pleasant taste." 
 
 CHARLESTON. .J 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY WM. ESTILL, 
 
 212 King Street. 
 1833. 
 
rei. 
 
 
TO 
 
 THEMIS ST»IITH GRIMKK ESCl* 
 
 To one who, amidst the daily calls of a severe 
 and arduous profession, still, with no less ability 
 than enthusiasm, asserts the value and chanos 
 •f science and letters, this little mdange is most 
 respectfully inscribed by 
 
 ViaS AVTRORf. 
 
CONTENT^* 
 
 Le Debut, ^^"^ ^ 
 
 A Chat in the Symposium, * 
 
 OR 
 
 The Poet Caatelard, 
 
 Chat continued, ------' 
 
 The mad Pythagorean, ._.--- -47 
 
 ■ - - 69 
 Chat continued, ---•-" 
 
 The Outlaw's Daughter, - - ... - 75 
 
 A Fairy Tale. ,-.•--- -101 
 
liJS DEBUT. 
 
 " What thougli the Snail be slow, is he not a traveller )—( hough he span not a 
 square yard in ihe day, he has seen the world ; for the world adapts itself to th6 
 compass of the creaiure." 
 
 There is something", to most persons, excessively 
 awkward in an introduction of any kind, and the pre- 
 face to a book is a matter of scarcely less difficulty, 
 and certainly of not less importance, than an entry into 
 the circle of court and company. Society, not unfre- 
 quently, determines upon the pretensions of the new 
 comer by his manner of approach ; and the reader, 
 though generally apt to look upon a preface as a most 
 tedious and almost unnecessary performance, never- 
 theless, takes it largely into the account, when making 
 up his estimate of the work which follows. With 
 the fine gentleman and author, alike, it is matter of 
 paramount importance that they make their bow with 
 a due reference to the probable effect which it may 
 have, in ensuring them a favorable reception. 
 
 The difficulty is somewhat increased in the pre- 
 sent case, by the fact, that this little melange does not 
 properly come from the hands of aulhors by profession. 
 The writers — and there are more than one of them — 
 
6 LE DEBUT. 
 
 are not such with any view to emolument or dis- 
 tmction. They will be perfectly content, if, in the 
 pecuniary results which follow their undertaking, 
 their publisher is not dissatisfied ; and so indifferent 
 are they to the " columns " that, even that worthy 
 personage has been prudently left in the dark, as to 
 the who and what, they respectively and properly are. 
 They will not complain, if the reader looks gently and 
 approvingly on their labours, though the sterner critic 
 deny them all the honors and all the laurels of the 
 periodical press. 
 
 It is perhaps essential to our full or even partial 
 success, that a more frank spirit should preside over 
 our intercourse with the public. The manly and the 
 gentle — the generous and the fair — to whom, alone, 
 our humble pages are addressed, deserve better treat- 
 ment at our hands, and a more unhesitating confi- 
 dence. To them, we may lay ourselves open ; and, 
 though we still keep something in reserve, which, iti 
 the language of Burns, " we never tell to ony" — we 
 may not with propriety, hug ourselves up in the folds 
 of a selfish secrecy, tantalizing the curiosity, which, 
 by the way — our humility has already suggested — we 
 may not so readily provoke. This would be a mortify^ 
 ing consideration were we vainly solicitous of the pop- 
 ular applause — -it will be mortifying, indeed, however 
 humble our ambition, since the very act of writing and 
 publishing, proves a desire for its acquaintance and re- 
 gard, which shows our high respect for, and large de- 
 pendence upon, its general opinion. 
 
LE DEBUT. *? 
 
 There are three of us, and our college is limited to 
 this number; not because of any consciousness of our 
 own equality to the self-imposed labours of our project, 
 but because we perfectly understand, and have a full^ 
 confidence in, one another. Much travel and travail, 
 on the highways, the byways, and all the stages of life, 
 in company, has developed all our several peculiar- 
 ities, while it has prepared each of us, not merely 
 to recognize, but to provide for them. We can 
 neither of us complain of having been deceived by our 
 fellows, since our own experience would then be set 
 at nought, and the acknowledgement would be, to our 
 pride, of the most mortifying description. We disa- 
 gree enough in our general estimate of things to make 
 discussion piquant and inviting. Our tastes and tem- 
 pers are sufficiently discursive and contradictory, to af- 
 ford us variety in the choice of our comforts and plea- 
 sures; and it will not therefore surprise the reader, if, 
 thus constituted, we have resolved ourselves into a 
 community isole, not actually excluding the world 
 around us, but, in most respects, absolutely indepen- 
 dent of its care or consideration. 
 
 Having thus piemised, it may scarcely be held 
 necessary to say that we have few if any incum- 
 brances. We have neither wives nor children to pro- 
 vide for ; and one, and, perhaps, the only, evil, arising 
 from our mutual regard for each other, is the want of 
 other friendships to triumph in our successes, and to 
 condole with us under our defeats. We are thus free, 
 however, from the unneccidsary sympathies of those, 
 
 J 
 
8 LE DEBUT. 
 
 whose language is always free and fluent when it is 
 devoted to regrets ; and we hear not the clamours of 
 that spirit, which having a right to call for, has not 
 readily won, our consolations. There is, we grant, 
 something of selfishness in such characteristics ; and 
 the reader, if a fair lady, may set us down with that 
 rude and rank assemblage, whose name is legion — 
 and whom we would not otherwise name — and whose 
 isolated condition, if not always ungrateful, is, at 
 least, not always self-imposed. The life of a bachelor, 
 we are free to confess, is not exactly that which a wise 
 man should readily adopt ; and, in our own defence, 
 we might suggest that fate rather than free will, had 
 made us what she finds us; but, that, such an admis- 
 sion, might only do us the worse service of subtract- 
 ing, in her eyes, something from the pretension of the 
 humble volume, for which we have dared ask her 
 attentive consideration. 
 
 Sometimes — further to win the regards of the 
 fair, — there have been one or more of us to whom the 
 little junto of our community has proved terribly irk- 
 some ; and in one instance the triune college has been 
 greatly perilled, in the weakness of one of our body, 
 Avho, to this day, has never entirely lost sight of cer- 
 tain eyes, which were of the most attractive blue, lips 
 like twin roses, fined with pearl, and a cheek, whose 
 delicate carnation, might, we are sad to say, have 
 worked quite as much injury to an old Saint, in 'the 
 odour and freshness of recent sanctity, as to a young 
 bachelor, in the first or second year of his noviciate. 
 
LE DEBUT. y 
 
 The event, here referred to, has kept us sensibly ahve 
 to thedoabtful tenure by which our common existence 
 is maintained ; and we look forward to the time, when 
 in a moment of most unhappy and ill advised deliri- 
 um, there shall occur a blank in our history, and a 
 vacant fauteuil in our sanctum, shall attest the influ- 
 ence of some one of that fatal sex, to whom the pro- 
 verb has more than once ascribed the overthrow of 
 empires, and the relaxed vigour and delayed enter- 
 prises of the most generous r.ud elevated ambition. 
 
 In the mean time, however, we pass our days in 
 that even condition of calm, which, if denied to the 
 more subtle enjo5^ments, is, at least, free from the 
 storms and lightnings of human passion. If our hearts 
 are never inflamed with love, they are, we may glad- 
 ly and honestly assert, equally secure from the chil- 
 ling prostrations of despair. We pass the hours, merri- 
 ly, as fortune's fools, if not her favourites; and though 
 we sometimes yawn listlessly in the quiet shade of 
 the sanctum,we seldom envy the extacies of the thou- 
 sand 'motes that people the sunbeams.' Still, how- 
 ever, w^e are far from denying ourselves the charms, 
 such as they are, which society affords us. Our rule 
 is not to value them too highly — not to place ourselves 
 in their power, and at their mercy. Secure in the per- 
 petual presence of this dictum of our College, we flit 
 with the butterflies through the crowded assembly; 
 sometimes musing and moralizing upon, and nof al- 
 ways denying ourselves, the pleasure of its sweets. 
 We have an ear for th^ music, an eye for the beauty, 
 
10 LE DEBUT. 
 
 and a spirit for the animation and glow of the courtly 
 sphere into which we are now and then permitted to 
 penetrate ; and though, as yet, we have never ventur- 
 ed to bear away any of its roses, our memories serve 
 as a choice vase in which to garner up their several 
 odours, when they themselves shall have forever fa- 
 ded from the contemplation of our senses. 
 
 Our chief amusement and employ, — and to this 
 species of exercise we may say in this place, our read- 
 er is now indebted for the work in his hands — con- 
 gists in the occasional contribution, of sketch or story, 
 to the records, in which we minute down our diurnal 
 history. They appear confusedly, and are taken down 
 by our secretary along with innumerable memoranda; 
 such as may be readily supposed to belong to the ac- 
 count book of a set of bachelors. In one place, ap- 
 pears a note of the weather, and the depression^ or 
 the elevation of the thermometer — directly beneath it, 
 borrowed from the Sporting Magazine or Southern 
 Agriculturalist, is duly treasured up, a prime recipe for 
 curing the Botts in Horses, or a new mode of culti- 
 vating pease or potatoes. The younger of our frater- 
 nity, has, probably, in close juxtaposition with these 
 matters, penned an embryo sonnet on love, considered 
 as an abstraction, and as one of those unhappy mala- 
 dies, which, some few centuries back, contributed to 
 vex the people of Europe and other barbarous sections 
 of the globe. Then come our occasional contributions 
 of tale and trifle, in odd connection with the daily 
 expenditure of the household, in the noting down of 
 
LE DEBUT. 11 
 
 which we are singularly exact and particular. It is 
 from the mass, thus heterogeneously constituted — 
 grown, as it has, to a mountain — that the contents of 
 our Cosmopolitan shall principally be taken. If, there- 
 fore, we may not be able to promise the reader much 
 that is new in combination or invention, we may safely 
 pledge ourselves for the production of a various volume. 
 Thmgs will appear in our pages oddly contrasted; for 
 as we write, one of our trio is pensively and un- 
 conciously humming an old stanza of Sucklings 
 another preparing his fishing tackle for the ensuing 
 day while the third seems busily employed in turning 
 over a huge volume of the most antique and druidical 
 black-letter. Our several amusements, equally va- 
 rious at all times with our present occupations, will 
 no doubt serve still to keep up and continue this diver- 
 sity; and, if we have any apprehensions at all, in 
 reference to our present experiment, that of a monot- 
 onous repetition of the sentiments and opinions of 
 one another, has but httle share in their existence. 
 
 Our dwelling it is scarcely necessary that we 
 should dwell upon. Its arrangem.ents, and our gen- 
 eral domestic economy, call for as little reference. It 
 is sufficient to know that a close analysis of our sever- 
 al habits and desires led to its selection ; and, in our 
 choice, we have been in no respect unhappy. It stands 
 prettily upon the Ashley — a broad and sweet stream, 
 not yet sufficiently, though, we believe, sometimes, 
 sung. A pleasant esplanade fills up the space be- 
 tween our walls and its blue waters, while the situa- 
 
12 LE DEBUT. 
 
 tion is secluded sufficiently from the busy hum of the 
 popular employ, to give it that kind of quiet which 
 the dreamiest romancer would desire. We have few 
 Servants, and, of consequence, few disquietudes from 
 this infinite source of disquiet. An old servant 
 cooks, and a 5^oung one mends and washes for us ; 
 and an occasional scold, like the winding up of the 
 clock, keeps them going duly for the next twenty- 
 four hours at least. 
 
 With a doubt — ^highly becoming in modest men, 
 as we certainly are, — whether we shall be able or not 
 to win the favor of that goodly, though not always 
 gracious,reader, to whom we address ourselves, it will 
 depend purely upon himself whether .we again trouble 
 him with a visitation. We make no pledges of re- 
 appearance — we are bound to no conditions, and shall 
 only " soothe, as humour prompts, our idle vein.*' 
 Shoidd our publisher crave the continuation of the 
 " Cosmopolitan," we shall take it for granted that he 
 knows something about his ovv^n business, and at once 
 infer that the reader entertams a similar desire. In 
 this event, should the materiel upon our hands have 
 sufficiently accumulated to warrant a re-appearance, 
 we shall not indecorously and selfishly withhold our 
 lucubrations. Indeed, though not over-well assured 
 that laborers, so humble as we confessedly are, can 
 contribute much to the amusement or instruction o^ 
 that multifarious and most monstrously contrarient 
 creation, the popular mind — ve% as the pioneer for 
 Other and more experienced adventurers, we may do 
 
LE DfiBUt'. i^ 
 
 some little towards the exercise of that spirit Of iiitelli^ 
 gence, which, for so long a time, has been manifesting 
 a righteous discontent at its owii supine apathies, 
 trom this spirit of intelhgence— vexed at its own un- 
 performing 6ndeavours-^-there is great hope of future 
 performance. Nor^ do we estimate incorrectly, the 
 magnitude of its existence; Looking about us, With 
 a due reference to the mental employments of our peo- 
 ple, who have done little only because of the unhappy 
 direction of their labours, we may employ the lan^ 
 guage of Milton : " Behold now this vast city ; a city 
 of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, ehcoinpassed 
 and surrounded with his protection ; — the shop of war 
 hath not there more hammers and anvils waking, to 
 fashion out the plates and instruments of armed jus- 
 tice in defence of beleagured truth, than there be pens 
 and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, 
 musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas 
 wherewith to present, as with their homage and 
 fealty, the approaching reformation : others as fast 
 reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of 
 reading and convincement. What could a man re- 
 quire more from a nation so pliant and so prone to 
 seek after knowledge ? What Wants there to such a 
 towardly and pregnant soil, but Wise and faithful la^ 
 )3orers, to make a knowing people, a nation of proph-- 
 ets, of sages and worthies ?'— " Where there is much 
 desire to learn, there, of necessity, will be much argii^ 
 
14 LE DEBUT. 
 
 ing, much writing, many opinions ; for opinion in 
 good men is but knowledge iii the making." 
 
 We have not hesitated for an instant in making 
 the above quotation, and in applying it to the com- 
 munity in which we live. We may safely and confi- 
 dently affirm that such is their condition, though, 
 perhaps, their knowledge, now "in the making," has 
 not yet gone much beyond unsettled and diversified 
 opinion. Should it be suffered to rest here 1 Should 
 the talents of our country — our city — only find an 
 outlet and direction in the turbulent and temporary 
 notoriety of a partisan harangue, or a political and 
 vexing controversy ] Should it not be given a higher 
 employ, and be won to those finer exercises of the 
 mind, for the due preservation of which, the column 
 rises in the desert, and the gorgeous and time-defying 
 temple soars gloriously from the plain, around which 
 the city gathers in due season, and to which the world 
 comes, as to a place holy by universal consent ? That 
 our people are rich in all those qualities of mind and 
 ambition, which constitute individual as well as na- 
 tional greatness, it will be no extravagance to assert. 
 South Carolina is literally overflowing with talent. 
 It is because of its excess and want of legitimate exer- 
 cise, that its fields have been neglected for the forum, 
 and all its people have been driven, for the last few 
 years, by the collision of restless intellects, into the 
 wars of fierce and powerful disputation which have 
 racked and wrung, not her alone, but our common 
 
LE DEBUT. 15 
 
 country. And, in the language of the same great 
 man from whom our former quotation has been made, 
 " should we suppress all this flowery crop of know- 
 ledge and new light sprung up, and yet springing 
 daily in this city '?" The answer is at hand : the duty 
 and difficulty, alike, is in giving it the direction which 
 would make it available and worthy. Let care be 
 taken in this respect, and to that sweet land, now in 
 affliction, rent with her own struggles, and, probably, 
 her own errors, ihere shall come a glorious resurrec- 
 tion — an advent of peace and grateful prosperity. 
 We shall see this 'crop' bringing forth fruits the most 
 generous and golden; and each one of us shall be well 
 justified by the results, in exclaiming with Milton, in 
 his vision of true liberty, so eloquently written, in the 
 same admirable paper from which we have already 
 drawn largely — " Methinks, I see in my mind a noble 
 and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man 
 after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Me- 
 thinks, I see her as an eagle muing her mighty 
 youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full 
 mid-day beam ; purging and unsealing her long 
 abused sight, at the fountain itself of heavenly radi- 
 ance ; while the whole noise of timorous and flock- 
 ing birds, with those also that love the twilight, flut- 
 ter about amazed at what she means, and in their 
 envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects 
 ^nd schisms," 
 
A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSIUBI. 
 
 The sun had made his final set, upon a quiet 
 and bland evening in June, — and the members of our 
 Uttle fraternity, were gathered around the table from 
 which our supper had been but just removed. A few 
 books of a light and lively character had taken the. 
 place of cups and saucers; and a silence, broken, at 
 remote intervals, only by an occasional remark from 
 one or the other of us, had fairly assumed dominion 
 in our secluded symposium. A wandering glance 
 upward from the pages of the book, over which he 
 rambled rather than read, indicated the erring thought 
 of one, the oldest of our college, who, at length, as 
 if assured that our attention had been no less excur- 
 sive than his own, introduced the materials of con- 
 versation, and thus put an end to the half suppressed 
 yawn, and the listless and drowsy mood that was ra- 
 pidly coming over us all. 
 
 G. — " These works," said he, referring to a se- 
 ries, which, of late days, had become excessively 
 popular, " are well entitled to the name they bear. 
 The title is felicitously chosen, and, at some future 
 period, the * Romance of History ' will become the 
 
18 A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 generic for a body of volumes, as comprehensive in 
 attraction and number, as all other species of writing 
 put together. 
 
 B. — You are reading the collection of English 
 story, by Neele 1 
 
 G. — Yes — the first, and without exception the 
 very best of the series. Neele was not a man of 
 power — he wrote with far less energy than hundreds 
 of those who have followed in the path which he, in 
 great part, designated ; but he wrote with far more 
 skill and adroitness than any of them. His manage- 
 ment of a story is very fine. The parts fit admirably, 
 and there is a concert, if I may so speak, betvvxen the 
 characters, each to do his best, to bring about the,de- 
 donouement handsomely. I know not any better 
 mode of summing up Neele's excellencies as a writer* 
 than to say, he tells his stories with all the grace and 
 dignity of an accomplished gentleman in an evening- 
 coterie, made up of the intelligent, the gentle and 
 the beautiful. There is nothing gross in his design. 
 He does not aim at strength, and therefore does not 
 fall into coarseness, whether of phrase or fancy. His 
 style is neat, inartificial and unpretending — an ami- 
 able and smiling spirit appears to have looked over his 
 shoulder as he wrote, rebuking all ruffianism and ex- 
 travagance; and prompting, by her sympathies, the 
 utterance only of thoughts which were pure and pro- 
 per, and fancies, which, while they were always free, 
 were always delicate. 
 
A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSIUM. 19 
 
 M.— This is certainly the character of his wri- 
 tings, and, it is to be regretted that the melancholy 
 madness of his last days, should have left it to less 
 worthy, and, for such a labour, less admirably constitu- 
 ted minds, to continue the scheme, so happily begun. 
 The tales, now, for example, which I have in hand, 
 devoted to Spanish History, by Don Somebody, 
 though embodying the most dehghtful materiel, and 
 of most abundant fertility, are poorly put together, 
 and as poorly written. The style is clums}^ and awk- 
 ward ; and, coming after Neele, is actually fatiguing 
 in the perusal. 
 
 B. — The same may be said, in great part, of 
 both the other collections — devoted to French and 
 Italian History. The authors of these two latter have 
 the ability to do better ; and can, if they please to 
 make the effort, put their fables into more compact 
 and satisfactory form. They have not done so, how- 
 ever; and their omission may be fairly attributable 16 
 the rapidity, with which — under the present extrava- 
 gant demand, the printer is compelled to cry out for 
 copy, and the author, depending upon him for his 
 bread, — to supply it. This circumstance will be fatal 
 to the fame of many a fine mind of the day. Eveti 
 "Walter Scott will have lost, in a few centuries, some 
 fair wreaths of that immortality, which, if he had writ- 
 ten with less facility, he might boldly have ensured 
 himself to the very "crack of doom;" and Cooper, a 
 spirit of a most ethereal and fine temper, in his thirst 
 
20 A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 for the bringing forth of his two volumes semi-annu- 
 ally, will fritter away the solid materials of his genius, 
 in abortive and puny labours, that will not survive^ 
 even if they live as long as himself. His late work 
 the Heidenmauer, is absolutely unreadable. 
 
 M. — Cooper wants profundity — he may be said to 
 want heart — one of the very first essentials of genius. 
 I know nothing, about him, but should take him to be a 
 vain man ; a creature of concentrated selfishness and 
 conceit. The flippant confidence and complaisancy 
 of many of his uttered opinions — themselves of little 
 real import or valuc'^-unavoidably awaken this im- 
 pression. 
 
 G. — i would not venture thus far in my esti- 
 inate, but I fully agree with you, that he lacks many 
 of the higher essentials of a great Genius. He takes 
 no strong or striking view, either of his subject or his 
 character. He is lamentably deficient in his eflforts 
 at the desc) iption of the female character, and this 
 may aflford some sanction for your idea of his selfish- 
 ness ; since, I take it for granted, that a defect of this 
 kind is most usually identified with the spirit which 
 is least open to the influences of the gentler sex. 
 He is quite too fond of unimportant naiTation and tri- 
 fling detail ; and, it would seem from the opening of 
 the " Bravo," that the flowered vest of a noble- 
 man's lacquey, had been for a long season, an object 
 of prime and paramount consideration in the mind of 
 its author* 
 
A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSIUM. 21 
 
 B. — You are even more severe than I should 
 have felt altogether justified in my utterance, though, 
 perhaps, entertaining, in some respects, a like opinion. 
 The miserable fondness which he perpetuall}? exhibits 
 for trifling minutiae, is certainly a leading feature and 
 a leading fault of his writings ; and this is but an- 
 other consequence of the improper rapidity with which 
 the modern writer is called upon by the public or the 
 publisher ; since invention grows jaded from the ab- 
 sence of repose, and the necessity of providing a cer- 
 tain number of pages, to give his work the true ven- 
 dible dimensions, renders unavoidnble the resort to 
 petty and unimportant details, of which we have spo- 
 ken in reproof. But, you do far less than justice to « 
 our Novelist. His powers are far greater than you 
 imagine ; and, if, at any time, he exhibits a want of 
 profundity in the arcana of romance, it is not because 
 of his inability to explore, but because he is required 
 to be perpetually exploring. There is surely no defi- 
 ciency of daring and invention in his Indian legends. 
 There is no deficiency of adventure, and no paucity 
 of event in his sea stories. The very scene into which 
 he has penetraied, lacking, as it certainly does, to 
 most other minds, of all material, imphes a degree of 
 confidence in his own resources, and a reliance upon 
 his own powers — not deceptive or unsanctioned by the 
 results, — which, to my mind, is conclusive in favour 
 of his genius — of a genius too of «he most unequivo- 
 cal, if not of the very highest, order. His great error, in 
 4 
 
%^ A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 latter days, has been in his desire to occupy ground 
 like that over which Scott has travelled with the 
 strength and tread of the giant and the wing of the 
 eagle. I make no question, that, with a noviciate as 
 long, and a study as laborious as that of the grea^ 
 man whom he has presumed to rival. Cooper would 
 do much towards the attainment of a like, though not 
 as lasting, a fame. But his misfortune, in the story of 
 the Heidenmauer, was in the choice of a tVieme be- 
 foie he had provided himself with material. He has 
 gone into a foreign land w^ithout having been to his 
 banker, and who shall wonder at the exhaustion of his 
 resources. Irving, with not one tenth part of the 
 genius of Cooper, goes to work more providently. 
 He has no invention, and contents himself with 
 sketches racher ►han stories; and these, with a prime 
 and praiseworthy industry, he sets about to collect 
 long before he puts pen to paper. Thus, we are told, 
 that having taken a trip recently among the Indians, 
 he has in preparation a new series of the Sketch Book» 
 drawn from materials thus realized. 
 
 G. — Cooper was certainly more at home, and 
 therefore more successful, in his early productions. 
 Long and famihar contemplation of his own country 
 and its associations, admirably prepared him for their 
 illustration ; and I am somewhat surprised that hi« 
 judgment should so far have run wanton, as to have 
 led him away from regions of such extensive and fine 
 fertihty. 
 
A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSIUM. 28 
 
 B. — He will return to them, I predict, in a new 
 form, and with powers renovated from his range. The 
 romantic resources of the West, are not only incom- 
 putable, but cannot be said to have been touched. 
 Let the vein once be hit upon, and there will be more 
 laborers, and with not less success, than in any one na- 
 tion of the civilized globe. We must first acquire the 
 habit of estimating our resources — a habit, which a 
 young nation, dependant, as it is in most cases, upon 
 others, is always excessively slow to acquire. 
 
 M. — Talking of the national materials for the 
 purposes of romance, it is matter of surprise, that the 
 great success attending the Romance of English, 
 French, Spanish, and Italian, should not have promp- 
 ted a like series devoted to Scottish History — a prov- 
 ince, I am bold to say, as prolific of this material, 
 and of the very best kind, as any of the nations 
 which have already yielded it. Sir Waiter Scott, him- 
 self, has shewn as much; and though it was not pos- 
 sible for him to accommodate the free flow of his 
 great invention, to the narrow limits insisted upon in 
 the class of writings here spoken of, yet, in some of his 
 smaller efforts, the Bride of Lammermoor, Black 
 D\varf, Legend of Montrose, &c. he has given a sanc- 
 tion for the enterprise, which, it is surprising, has ne- 
 ver led to its attempt. Looking recently over the his- 
 tory of that countr}?^, its wild and various supersti- 
 tions alone — some of them already but poorly and im- 
 perfectly developed by Hogg, ami other* — possess an 
 interest of the highest order, susceptible of romantic 
 
24 A CHAT IN THE SYMPOSItfltf. 
 
 illustration, aDci adapted to arrangement, in fictions, 
 of a tliousaiid various kinds. A few chaptejs w hich 
 came under my eye but this evening, at the per od of 
 Maty Siuart's ascent of ihe Scottish throne, have all 
 the air of romance, and are not only pleasmg but pa- 
 thetic. 
 
 G. — Let us have them. Negus ! [calUng our 
 servant, wlio chooe his own name,] hand the Sherry ! 
 
•lyHE POET CHATfiLARD. 
 
 The account which history gives us of this 
 daring and unhappy adventurer, is of as much interest 
 and quite as sadly romantic as that of Rizzio — who, 
 with far less pretension, suffered martyrdom for a hke 
 error. The first notice we have of Chatelard places 
 him on board the vessel which bore Mary of Scot- 
 land to her unstable empire. The events of that 
 voyage need here no recital. We are told by the^his- 
 torians, who have dwelt upon this particular in the 
 fortunes of Mary with far more precision than distin- 
 guishes their narrative throughout, that, with a mea- 
 sure of grief, which, to most persons, would appear 
 highly exaggerated and artificial, " la Reine Blanche^^ 
 — as, from her white mourning, the French had at 
 tha! time designated her — took her departure from 
 the shores of that fair country, in which her educa- 
 tion had been acquired, and which her heart could 
 never, at any period in her life, entirely leave. Nor 
 was this feeiing at all abated, by the other circumstan- 
 ces attending her deparVare. Various and striking wera 
 the omens of ill, which marked her sail'ng, and filled 
 her melancholy spirit with apprehensions not unwar- 
 
26 THE POET CHATELARD. 
 
 ranted by the result ; and when advised of the Eng- 
 lish fleet, sent b}^ her bitter enemy and rival, Eliza- 
 beth, to intercept her, not even the pledges of true 
 faith from her gallant but small retinue, could materi- 
 ally diminish or alter the countenance of despair, with 
 which, uttering a thousand exclamations of ' farewell' 
 she kept looking back upon the land whicli her eyes 
 were so rapidly losing. The strains of the young 
 Chatelardjserved up to her senses, with a spirit of cor- 
 responding tone with hers, soothed, however, the 
 gloomy temper of the princess, and possibly prevent- 
 ed those wild and violent paroxysms, which usually 
 mark the more extravagant sorrows of the sex. In 
 nature's exhaustion, at last, weeping herself to slum- 
 ber, she sunk down upon the couch, prepared for her 
 upon the deck of her vessel; while, with a spirit more 
 and more enamoured from the subject of his contem- 
 plation, the daring boy who sung above her, filled 
 with hopes as delightful as they were illusory, fell 
 into dreams not less cheering than those of his mis- 
 tress were sorrowful. 
 
 The dawn of the morning found them in the 
 most perilous situation. They were surrounded by 
 the English fleet, and no possible chances appeared 
 for their escape. In that hour, the devotion of those 
 about the beleagured Princess, was fljiely tried ; and 
 none were more ready in their wiUingness to die in 
 her defence, than the young and accomplished Poet. 
 Indeed, as the nephew of the celebrated Bayard, the 
 knight, sans pewy sans reproche — educated in France, 
 
THE POET CHATELARD. 27 
 
 skilled in arts, arms and the required duties of a 
 court, the most refined of Europe — ^less than devotion 
 to death and firmness amidst torture, could not have 
 been expected from the youth. His eyes flashed de- 
 fiance, as the tall masts of the approaching- and over- 
 whelming force, loomed out upon the horizon; and, 
 throwing aside the harp, to the strains of which, 
 through the night, his fine voice had formed, at in- 
 tervals, a fitting accompaniment; he drew hi^' sword, 
 and bending on his knee to his Queen, proffered it 
 in gallant language, and begged to use it in her ser- 
 vice. Mary smiled through her tears upon the boy, 
 and with a compliment which came with added 
 sweetness from her lips, gave him permission — a per- 
 mission which made him happy — to die in her de- 
 fence. But the watchful providence had them in 
 charge, and at the moment of their discovery, a thick 
 fog overspread the seas. A bold hand was upon the 
 helm, and guided unwavering and silently on their 
 course, they escaped, by passing fearlessly through 
 the gathering prows of their enemy. 
 
 Chatelard was a favorite, and had the power of 
 maintaining that ground in the estimation of the 
 Queen, which his many accomplishments and warm 
 devotion to her service, had long before won. Amidst 
 opposing claims, he suffered nothing from rivalship, 
 and while other courtiers were exposed to the alter- 
 nations of a cloudy day, all was sunshine and smiles 
 for him. A poetess herself, Mary delighted in all 
 those professing the gay science ; and though we have 
 
28 
 
 THE POET CKATELARD. 
 
 no remains of Cliate ard, by which his pretensions 
 might be estimated, it appears, from her regard, that 
 his claims were at once agreeable and peculiar. He 
 wrote in all living languages. He read with a voice 
 and manner that improved w^hat he read. He was 
 ready and fluent in composition, and her smiles so 
 encoutaged him, that, at length, she herself became 
 his muse, and he learned in a little time to forget all 
 others. Nor was his daring unsanctic ned by the cir- 
 cumstances attending it. She seemed — perhaps un- 
 consciously — to encourage his madness. She replied 
 to his verses, in a strain equally amatory ; and the 
 rapt Bard forgot entirely his poetical existence in the 
 feelings of the man. Accustomed to every species of 
 adulation, the tender verses of Chatelard did not of- 
 fend the young Princess; and slie smiled at his more 
 extravagant flights, as at the flatteries peculiar to, and 
 pardonable in, the Poet. But her condescension ^vas 
 fatal to the lover. "Her smiles tempted him," says 
 Brantome, " to aspire, like Phaeton, at ascending the 
 chariot of the sun." He grew mad in his hope, and 
 thinking of little beside, and caiii g for nothing else, 
 the youth had no life but in the wild love which he 
 entertained for his sovereign. 
 
 It w^as at the close of one of those evenings 
 which Mary — freeing herself from the council and the 
 Gounsellors alike — usually reserved to herself, her 
 " four Maries," and such other of her household, as 
 were classed with the especial favorites — that Chatel- 
 ard, while performing to the Queen, had drunk in his 
 
THE POET CHATEtARD* S9 
 
 i-ichest draughts of delicious enjoyment. Though al- 
 waj^s gentle and indulgent, she had been to the young 
 Poet, on this occasion, particularly so; and there waa 
 that in his heart which could not and would not be 
 controlled. He had just sung the words of a new Poem, 
 in which, as usual, her praises had been embodied; the 
 conceits of which, borrowed in part from the Italian, 
 had won largely of her admiration. The "four Ma- 
 ries," not so fond as their mistress of the divine art, had 
 one by one, fallen into that species of torpor, which, 
 if not sleep is wonderfully like it, and which is not 
 unusual to those kept long in attendance Upon a 
 superior. The Queen had not ceased irx her admira- 
 tion, when the fertile genius of the Poet suggested a 
 still richer conceit which his lips had carried into 
 song, and which at once called for another acknow- 
 ledgement from the gratified and royal listener. She, 
 at length, roused by his inspiration, catching a portion 
 of its influence, struck the harp which she bade him 
 place beside her, and sung with great tenderness and 
 much effect, a little response to his strains, in which, 
 with a like conceit, she requited him. The words 
 Were those of love, of deep feehngj and though most 
 probably, they were dictated only in that spirit of 
 compliment and gallantry which distinguished the 
 age, in that country in which both of them had been 
 educated, the adventurous Poet, regarded them as 
 reciprocating in every essential the mad passion of hie 
 6wn spirit. Falling upon his knee, therefore, he 
 5 
 
30 THE POET CHATELARD. 
 
 Seized her hand, and fervently carrying it to his lips, 
 pe cei ved with renewed delight that she did not rebuke 
 him — that she allowed him to retain it for a seco; d, 
 and only djd not permit a repetition of his offence. 
 He spoke to' her with a soul which infused itself into 
 every syllable which gatheied upon his Ips. What 
 he said, he, himself, knew not. His heart was wild, 
 and all his senses in rebellion against his reason. He 
 breathed forth fhe adoration which he felt, and only 
 offended, when, in the simplicity of his spirit, he dared 
 to hope. The Queen rose, and for a moment she 
 spoke not. There w^as something of a sweet confu- 
 sion in her eye, which gave a moment's encourage- 
 ment to the rash and enamoured minstrel. It is not 
 impossible, indeed, that young, ardent, gentle, highly 
 intellectual, having a spirit attuned like his who ad- 
 dl'essed her, to the high converse of the muse, and 
 warmed to corresponding sympathies, the pretension 
 of the Bard had been far less heinous in her eye than, 
 under other circumstances, it might have appeared. 
 Her manner was not stern, though grave ; and her 
 accenis, though not encouragiiig, were neither severe 
 nrr frigid. Lorkiiig around upon her attendants — v ho 
 had, without much diffic-ulty, worked themselves into 
 the profoundest sleep — with resumed calmness, she 
 spoke to the still kneeling and still entreating youth. 
 His fine and graceful figu;e — his wild, penetrating 
 and impassioned eye — the free and bold gesture of his 
 action — the eloquence of his language — the waimth 
 of his love — were all so many advocates, not merely 
 
THE POET CHATELARD. 31 
 
 for forgiveness, but for a corresponding love. That, 
 in a less elevated station, Mary of Scotland, might 
 have nourished the flame t^he had enl^indled, may not 
 so well be denied, and is far from improbable. But 
 she was a woman of strong good sense — a moment's 
 reflection convinced her of the madness of any 
 thought on the subject, and pitying the youth, with 
 a gentleness of spirit, not unwarmed by a due esti- 
 mate, and a proper admiration of his pretensions, she 
 found it necessary to silence them. 
 
 " This must not be, Chatelard — this must not be. 
 You forget yourself — you forget me, and presume 
 upon that favor, already a subject of complaint in 
 my court, which I have been fain, and it seems, fool- 
 ish, to bestow upon you. What take you me for, 
 young man? Think you I am a child, and Would you 
 teach me to forget the vast difference and distance 
 between us, as you yourself have forgotten 4t. Be 
 advised in time, ere the lesson comes too harshly and 
 from another tutor than I, who have been, and am, 
 quite too indulgent to you now." 
 
 " There can be no sterner tutor to my heart, 
 sweet Sovere:gn," was the unhesitating response of 
 the Poet, " than your own brow thus frowning upon 
 me ; and the only death which I dare not encoiuiter 
 is that which comes with your anger. Say then, 
 that jou forgive me — that you grow not again wroth 
 with me, or I care not to leave this spot, though now 
 so g oomy with your frown I am ready to perish 
 here, and now — now, at your feet." 
 
32 THE POET CHATELARD. 
 
 *' The vain flattery of your speech, does not 
 blind me, Chatelatd, to the presumption of your 
 spirit ; but I forgive and pity your delusion, believing 
 as I do, that you do not feign, and seek not dishon- 
 estly to practice upon me. Still, this kind of lan- 
 guage must be foreborne. You must not be permit- 
 ted to indulge in thoughts so far above your coiidition, 
 and 90 mjurious to me. You should remember that 
 I am the Sovereign, to whom your allegiance is due, 
 not the fellow subject, with whose fortunes your own 
 might couple, and suffer neither rebuke nor contami- 
 nation, 
 
 <* And are you less my sovereign, sweet Princess, 
 because I love as well as obey ] Does the passion 
 which now speaks in my spirit, and warms it into de- 
 votion for thine, make me lose sight of the homage 
 which it thq^ doubly secures to thee 1 I know you 
 for my Queen — one graciously forgiving for my faults 
 —one too indulgent to my merits. But, not merely 
 as my sovereign do I know you. It is not as the 
 painted authority alone, whom the voice of a people, 
 or the rights of inheritance, have invested with pow- 
 er, that the soul of Chatelard regards the person of 
 Mary Stuart. It is not the bauble of sovereignty and 
 vain sway which I have adored— it is not these which 
 have dazzled my eyes and misled my spirit. I have 
 not been won away from my homage by sTich as 
 these; and I regarded you, my Princess, as too far 
 above the sex to which you by nature belong, to have 
 much regarded them yourself. 1 know that you es- 
 
THE POET CHATELARD. S3 
 
 teem not royalty as the silly crowd who gather in its 
 blaze. I have not watched and lingered when all 
 were gone, and loved devotedly when all were hollow 
 and insincere, to doubt, that your soul was as much 
 above the vain trappings of your state, as mine that 
 dared, and still dares, to despise them. And how shall 
 we regard those toj-^ of human arrangement wdiich 
 make the free spirit a reined and fettered thing, and 
 would enslave and bind affections and high passions, 
 according to chartered limits 1 I have not cared — I 
 shall not care for such restraints, and well 1 am as- 
 sured that you are beyond their dictation and con- 
 trol. If you aie not — if, with that frailty, which the 
 familiar speech of old time, hath laid to your sex, 
 you have deceived me in this, — I have, indeed, and 
 deeply, offended. But I will not thus imagine. I 
 dare not think, my Princess, that a spirit, so finely 
 wrought as yours, can find a difference in the state 
 with which human laws hedge around authority, 
 .giving it superiority over a mind and affections, hav- 
 ing no consciousness of ought, by which it might 
 suffer in a comparison with authority of the highest." 
 "And granting, young man, that I thought as 
 you suppose. Granting, that in my mind, there was 
 nothing in the state itself which should prevent a 
 Queen from bestowing herself on the meanest of her 
 subjects who had found favor in her sight — by what 
 art come you to know that such an one are you. 
 What divination provides you with this goodly assur- 
 ance] Why hast thou taken it for true, that, having 
 
34 THE POET CHATELARD. 
 
 such a free doctrine as that thou hast so plainly 
 imagined, I have chosen to illustrate it to my sub- 
 jects, with your a^d, in especial." 
 
 The mortification of the Poet, he did not seek 
 to suppress. As the Queen spoke, the color came 
 and went on his cheeks, and as his w^oids were utter- 
 ed in reply, they came from his lips tremulously and 
 only with great effort. 
 
 "Sharply, my Sovereign, have you rebuked my 
 folly, but my pride in this, suffers far less than the 
 poor heart in which it abides. It has been my thought, 
 that there were some spirits as sovereign by nature, 
 as they were made so by human creation ; and my 
 further thought has been, that such a spirit was thine. 
 Nor can I yet think olherwise, though thou hast chosen 
 to reprove me fo* my wild love, not as it offends thy 
 own nature, but as it ill accords with the wonted usage 
 of that vain state with which the pageantry of an- 
 cient folly has girt thee in. I love thee not less, 
 however, even now, hopeless as thou hast declared 
 my passion to be, and all humbled as thou hast en- 
 deavored to make that pride, which, ti[l this hour — 
 assured as it has been of no semblance of aughi that 
 was not high and honorable — was never humbled be- 
 fore man — nor, whatever be my fate, can I cease to 
 make the same bold, and, as it appears to thee, most 
 audacious and offensive avowal. I cannot school the 
 nature which I have from heaven, to its own violation, 
 because of any earth' y dictation. If it be criminal to 
 love thee, I am thus criminal; and fear me, if I know 
 
THE POET CHATELARD. S^5 
 
 myself rightly, that each future hour of my life, will 
 somewhat increase the crime for which the heavy 
 penalty of your stern frown and bitter speech is now 
 gathering in its reproof." 
 
 "You are bold, Chatelard — ovev bold, to your 
 Queen, and, but that I deem you the honest subject, 
 that you have always appeared, and now avow your- 
 self, I should be something more than offended. I 
 forgive you this boldness, and think not when I warn 
 you to greater prudence, and chide you for the for- 
 wardness of present speech, that I overlook and am 
 insensib'eto those gifts of nature and of art, which 
 so present themselves in you, and make you, as I have 
 often said and thought, one of the fairest gentlemen 
 of my court. lam well delighted with your skill in 
 the divine art of poetry, and would be loth to lose 
 that sweet minstrelsy which hath soothed so many 
 of my saddest hours, and which thy skill so cunning- 
 ly awakens. But thou must be chary of thy speech 
 and thoughts in this foolish matter of which thou 
 hast permitted thy lips to prattle something too freely. 
 Thou hast matrked the jealous scrutiny of those, who 
 calling themselves my subjects, are yet my sovereigns, 
 and whom I dare not offend. Thou hast seen for 
 thyself the malignant spirit with w^hich this gross 
 zealot, whom they call Knox, inveterately watches 
 over and vapours at all that concerns me. Pursue 
 not, the efore, this madness, for, whatever my woman 
 heart might teach, my calm reason assures me it is 
 nothing less, — and be as thou hast heretofore been, 
 
36 THE POET CHATELARi). 
 
 and I have been gsad to see thee, the noble friend 
 rather than subject, and make me not less, by thy 
 future bearing, than thine, as I would be.'* 
 
 The manner of the Queen, was even more gentle 
 than her words, but the parental character of both 
 was thrown away upon the infatuated youth. He 
 was mad enough to conceive this speech a. full sanc- 
 tion for, rather than rebuke of, his passion, and under 
 an impulse, the consequence of that unregulated 
 play of the passions which had him for some time 
 before in mastery, he dared to embrace the now ter- 
 rified and retreating Mary, while imprinting a fervent 
 kiss upon her lips. The Maids of Honour, awaken- 
 ed at her cries, came to her rescue. The Queen 
 retired to her chamber, and Chatelard was about 
 to leave the little ante-room in which this scene 
 had taken place, when a strong arm was laid upon 
 his shoulder, and the Regent Murray stood before 
 him. The Poet, was as fearless in strife, as he was 
 daring in love ; but resistance was hopeless. A score 
 of serving men were at the back of the Earl, by 
 whom he was immediately taken into custody, and 
 that very night committed to a close prison. 
 
 The trial of Chatelard, by the proper legal 
 authorities, followed in due and rapid course, under 
 the direction of the regal council. The great 
 favor which the poet had enjoyed, had procured for 
 him not a few enemies ; and the jealous hate of Mur- 
 ray, against all and every thing, that stood for an in- 
 stant between himself and the supreme rule, which 
 
THE POET CHATELARD. 37 
 
 he always desired, and, at that time, almost affected, 
 furnished a spur, on this occasion, to the active mea- 
 sures which were adopted. The trial was had, and 
 the misguided youth was condemned to death. The 
 gentle spirit of Mary revolted when this sentence was 
 delivered. She labored, though vainly, for its com- 
 mutation; and the stern temper of that stern people, or 
 many among them, over whom she reigned, set down 
 that interest and sympathy which she now exhibited 
 to f he worst of al I criminal attachments. As, with tears 
 in her eyes, and an eloquence, not often surpassed, even 
 among men, she rose in the council, if possible, to 
 affect the decision by her own entreaties, and the 
 unhesitating forgiveness which she offered to the cap- 
 tive, the rigid reformer, Knox, throwing aside all 
 sense of propriety, presumed to insinuate a guilty in- 
 terest in her prayer, which did not exist, and never had 
 existed. It was then, that — as the Queen disdaining 
 all reply, sunk back pained and exhausted upon the 
 cushions from which she had risen — the victim, for the 
 first time, rose to address the council. 
 
 " I do not speak," said he, "that I may not per- 
 ish. I am guilty of all that you alledge, and, since I 
 may not dare to live, why should I scruple to die 1 I 
 have no fears of death, and, at this snoment, but little 
 love of life. But for that malignant slanderer, who, 
 not daring to speak out his malice, yet meanly leaves 
 it to the sense of conjecture, — I would speak to his 
 shame. It is false as he affirms it. I am the crimi- 
 6 
 
38 THE POET CHATELAED. 
 
 nal in this — tbe only crimijtal — if it be a crime to. 
 love, and with adoration, not less warn ly, though 
 perhaps less acceptably, offered, than that which I 
 have entertained for heaven. Let me," said he, 
 turning to the Queen, "let me, oh, most beautiful 
 and well beloved Princess, do th'-s poor atonement for 
 my offence to you. It is but meager justice to your 
 heavenly innocence, that I say to this people wiio now 
 sit over me in justice, that my rash passion was no 
 less ungracious in your eyes than it has proved crim- 
 inal in theirs. This, indeed, is my sorrow ^-si nee the 
 chains with which they have loaded these once free 
 and undishonoved limbs, and the insolent speech nnd 
 suspicion which they have poured within these ears, 
 that had hitherto refused to hearken to any sounds 
 that were not noble and sweet — and the ignominious 
 death which is in reserve for me — would have all been 
 as nothing — ay, would have been sought for earnestly 
 and anxiously, as a rich boon and blessing, so that 
 thou hadst felt some of that wild passion in thy breast 
 which thou hast so fatally awakened in mine." 
 
 With a refinement of cruelty, which seems to 
 have attended Mary through life, she was ccmpelled 
 to sit in a latticed chamber, overlooking the place of 
 the Poet's execu|ion. This measure was deen»ed 
 necessary, in order the more fully to exonerate her 
 from the suspicion urged by her enemies, that hav- 
 ing first tempted, she had afterwards betrayed, the 
 crimiTial. It was thought necessary that she should 
 seem to rejoice in his just punishment. The unfortu^ 
 
THE POET CHATELARD. 39 
 
 Bate youth was brought to execution on the 22d Feb- 
 ruary, 1653. His conduct on the altar of deaih and 
 degradation, was marked by the most enthusiastic 
 bravery. He rejected the aid of the Confessor ; and, 
 having first read aloud Ronsard's celebrated hymn on 
 death, he turned to the chamber, through the lattice 
 of which, the outline of the Queen's form might be 
 seen imperfectly, and after a moment's pause, ex- 
 claiming, " Farewell, loveliest and most cruel Prin- 
 cess that the world contains" — knelt firmly and grace- 
 fully down before the block. A single shriek from 
 the window announced the moment of execution ; 
 and the Queen fell into a swooning fit, as the dismem- 
 bered head rolled from the gory trunk along the scaf- 
 fold. 
 
 [JsTote. — Some difficulty appears in one passage of the preceding 
 narrative, which may not so readily be explained. How came Knox 
 in the Council? And how, unless with most insolent audacity, if not 
 a member, could he have proceeded to remark in the manner stated at 
 page 37? He was, doubtless, a spectator, and being a divine, it is 
 possible that he presumed upon, and was permitted, some little license; 
 though it would be difficult to conceive that he should have gone so 
 far as this. It is certain, however, that he did say in his account of the 
 transaction, what is here ascribed to him. — Printer's DeviL^ 
 
CHAT CONTINUED, 
 
 B. — Of this singular and romantic story, I have 
 read before. The history of the times to which it 
 refers, and the events themselves, are, however, so 
 faintly touched upon in the works with Avhich I have 
 been famihar, that I had always regarded this narra- 
 tive as merely suppositious, or at least, true, only in 
 part. 
 
 M. — The facts are set beyond question, by re- 
 cent and modern writers. Mr. Bell more than sub* 
 stantiates it as here given, by the introduction of nu- 
 merous details which could not well have been in- 
 vented, and the authority of John Knox, the great 
 reformer of that section, settles the controversy. 
 
 B. — The latter personage does not hold a very 
 favorable position in the narrative you have given us. 
 Is it certain that he took the part which you there 
 assign him] 
 
 G. — Unquestionably. In this affair, and with 
 reference to its particulars, he was, alike, busy and 
 malevolent. The language of some of his writings 
 on the subject, is marked with the most disingenuous 
 mahgnity ; and he clearly insinuates that the Queen 
 
42 GHAT CONTINUED. 
 
 encouraged the passion oi Chatelard, and afterwards 
 wantonly sacr ficed him ; though, it was knrwn to 
 the Historian, that the Poet, on the scaffold, and in 
 the presence of thousands, wholly acquitted her of 
 either imprudence or impropriety, and spoke of her 
 stern rejection of his suit as the w^orst sorrow he had 
 yet known, or could yet undergo. 
 
 B. — You must not dweil too harshly, however, 
 on the offence of Knox in this particular. It is un- 
 reasonable to look lo the contemporaneous hsstoi ian 
 for a just narration of facts, since the medium through 
 wh ch the knowledge of them is acquired, is, of ne- 
 cessity, discoloured by partizanship, and those preju- 
 dices, which, alike, precede and follow it. From 
 whom — where he, himself, was ignorant of the mat- 
 ter — could he procure his information? To whom 
 would he apply 1 Certainly not to those with whom 
 he was at war; and, if he did, would he be will ng to 
 receive, as Gospel, their statements, strained and dis- 
 guised, as w^ell as those emanating with his own fac- 
 tion, without shaping them to that feature, which, in 
 his maid, he considered the true one ? Apart from 
 the consideratif^n of what is merely the fact, in refer- 
 ence to action, who, of what party, could well deter- 
 mine upon the causes which have produced it. How 
 would effects be traced bv ihose who have learned to 
 regard — and with reason, if we may judge of their 
 choice of ground — the opposition as unwise in design 
 and direction, and unworthy in intention. The great 
 difficulty, at all times, in the way of the historian, and 
 
CHAT CONTINUED. 43 
 
 particularly of hiiri who is a contemporary and possi- 
 bly all ac; or aiong wi(h the actors, is in determining 
 upon their motives. What kind of justice, for exam- 
 ple, coujd either of the parties of this country and 
 time, anticipate, from the hands of one who was him- 
 self actively engaged in the strife] 
 
 G. — We are perfectly agreed on this point ; and 
 the relative value of Hume, Lingard, Charles Butler 
 and Robert Southey, as wniters of authority upon the 
 times and principles, in the examination of which 
 they have been so much engaged and so deeply in- 
 terested, may readily be adduced to show the difficul- 
 ty in the way of the writer, who, though coming after, 
 partakes still somewhat too largely, of the spirit pre- 
 valent or predominant at the periods of w^hich he 
 has written. Nobody, w^ho thinks at all, can look 
 for a full measure of justice, for people or party, to the 
 Historian who writes for pay or pastime; and who 
 would assert the principles, the philosophy, or the 
 claims of a sect, having himself any bias in the mat- 
 ter. Tim.e must have not only taken the edge from 
 the temper of partizanship, but the fabric must have 
 mouldered, in which its secret plans may have been 
 engendered. The vaults and caverns which have 
 concealed its mysteries, must be overthrown ; and 
 with no other spirit than that which is the stimulus 
 of antiquarian research, the Historian must grope 
 among its ruins Its records are only gathera- 
 ble in its entire decay — and like the scrolls some- 
 times found m the bony grasp of the Egyptian mum- 
 
44 CHAT CONTINUED. 
 
 my, death alone must place the memorials of the past, 
 in the possession of the present. 
 
 There is one point, however, upon which we are 
 not agreed. You say, in a ref(;rence to these una- 
 voidable difficuUies of history, that we must not dwell 
 too harshly upon the offence of Knox. Here we are 
 at issue. The offence of Knox arose from an error 
 almost as serious as the offence which produced it. 
 What had he, a Christian prelate, to do with the 
 strifes and dissentions of parties, save with a single 
 spirit, and a reference that could not discriminate be- 
 tween them. The plea may be readily urged in be- 
 half of a layman, but is not available in the case of a 
 minister of God. His province forbade his connection 
 with the struggles of worldly power, and having min- 
 gled with them at all, he could only have found ex- 
 oneration in the benevolent motive which governed, 
 and the strict justice which followed his interference. 
 So far, however, from this having been the case, his 
 whole history seems marked with the busiest and 
 blackest malignity. His spite is tangible at every 
 sentence, and the fire and fury of the penal dooms 
 which he squanders about at a rate the most profuse 
 and imp ovident, is directed indiscriminatingly at the 
 highest and the humblest of offenders. The spirit 
 sickens as it surveys the industry of a teacher, not 
 working in his piovince — not saving souls, and sooth- 
 ing the sinned against and sinning, but ministering 
 to bad passions, provoking strife — stimulating, and 
 
CHAT CONTINUED. 45 
 
 furnishinor that very material of sin and suffering, 
 which his self-assumed mission proposes to diminishv 
 ■R,. — Somelhing too much of this discussion — the 
 subject of which may have had his faults, but un- 
 questionably rendered eminent service to the country 
 in which he taught, and confessedly exercised a 
 wholesome influence upon the licentiousness of a no- 
 bility, the most turbulent of Europe. Your illustra- 
 tion, a few minutes ago, borrowed from the papyrus 
 of the Egyptian, reminds me of a manuscript of a 
 " most ancient and fishlike smell," which was hand- 
 ed me while on a tour through one of the mad houses 
 
 of , by a young Student contained in its 
 
 walls, whom too much learning had driven mad. He 
 was actually a victim to the Pythagorean philosophy, 
 which had taken such firm hold upon his imagina- 
 tion, that, in a little while, his friends were compelled 
 by his manifold improprieties to place him under the 
 severest constraints. He was a fine looking youth, 
 with a broad, comprehensive forehead ; an eye, the 
 occasional vacancy of which, did not entirely overcast 
 its once brilliant acuteness; and a lip, made exces- 
 sively beautiful, and which smiled sweetly and pout- 
 ingly, like that of a fine woman. Under the influence, 
 however, of his philosophical fancies, he had degraded 
 these attractions in the most unhappy manner. In 
 his snudry supposed transmigrations, he mewed 
 with the cat, howled with the wolf, barked with the 
 'dog, and endeavored, with strange contortions, to 
 7 
 
46 CHAT CONTINUED. 
 
 scream and fly with the eagle. The narrative, as he 
 called it, of his various stages of existence, which he 
 put into my hands, he begged me, at once, for him, to 
 deliver to the world; occupying, as, at that moment 
 in his speculations, he did, no concentrated or embo- 
 died form of life, but diffused evenly throughout a vast 
 body of the atmosphere, was his only reason for troubling 
 me with the duty, and for not doing it himself. It is 
 a strange and gothic performance — rather abrupt in 
 its transitions — but will doubtless keep us awake for 
 the rest of the evening, by its wild absurdities. 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 ]^002 to the World: Prosperity. 
 
 Oh, world ! that certainty of which your learned 
 ones boast, is like the fancies of those voyagers, who, 
 in the days of Columbus, took the mocking shapes of 
 clouds for islands, far in the sea. It may gratify your 
 pride to think different^, or rather not to know, that 
 nearly all your pleasures are derived from imagining the 
 existence of things, which may or may not be; but rest 
 assured, when death comes upon you, as it has upon 
 me, you will have then to confess, that what you 
 have honored with the ijame of wisdom, is mere fic- 
 tion ; and that to say it seems is the only perception 
 you can have of human certainty while on the earth 
 What have been all your notions of things; your mag- 
 nificent speculations, to prove which, some of your 
 finest scholars have fretted away their lives ; your 
 shadowy systems of philosophy that ravished the sen- 
 ses of men — what, but so many dreams'? Which of 
 you can say, this is, or that is not, whether it come 
 up from the Tub or the Porticoes, from Stagy ra or 
 the arched walks of Academe '? Nature to you is a 
 mystery ; you may guess of it — never know it,. It 
 
48 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 bears on its face the inscription to tiie Egyptian Isis — 
 " I am whatever is, has been, or shall be ; and no 
 mortal has ever yet taken off the veil that covers me." 
 
 Listen then, oh world ! to one in the tomb I — • 
 in life mimortal, while he takes off that veil which 
 conceals nature from your wondering eyes ! 
 
 I, too, when among you, have had my vain con- 
 ceits — have filed my sonl with burning thouo^hfs of a 
 divine inielligence — have locked on nature, as if it 
 were myself, felt and known — have built up theoi'ks 
 to scale I he heavens — have pried into the secrets of 
 hidden things, to comprehend the laws of matter and 
 the soul — have s]ept upon the mountains, to be nigh- 
 er the Great One, to whom the instinct of every eye 
 turns up — have lent my ear to the delicate flower, and 
 watched it as it perished, to catch some idea of that 
 decay, when the spirit is released : and well do I re- 
 member having strangled an innocent dove, and 
 as Its life oozed out, I pressed my lips to its gasping 
 mouth, and felt nothing pass away. I did not be- 
 lieve then, as I know at this time, it possessed a soul. 
 I did not believe then, as thou hast left us to infer, oh 
 d. vine Plato! — ihou whom Tully hath called " Deus 
 ille noster" — that in the body of this meek bird, was, 
 perhaps, the anima of one whose lust of power had 
 shaken the wo; Id to its centre — perhaps the soul of 
 Pythagoras himself ! This, this is the tale of wonder 
 I would unfold — this the metempsychosis — this the 
 transmigration of souls — others have conceived it dim- 
 ly : I have seen it, felt it — know it. 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 49 
 
 As I write not for piaise, but to benefit mankind, 
 it is unnecessjiry tliat I shouid give mj' memoirs in 
 full. What 1 shall relate of myself then will be, 
 moie for the purpose of verifying a wonder that 
 men dream not of, than to call forth their admi- 
 ration. 
 
 I was born a naturalist, in the original acceptation 
 of the word ; that is, a lover of nature with her wild 
 diversions, her fixed and massive foims, The nicety 
 of my senses, at an early age, was strikingly alive to 
 impressions of the grand and delicate, the defoi med 
 and beautiful, so that my pastimes were enjoyed of- 
 tener by the river side, or in the forest, than amidst 
 the racket of the school yard. My father encouraged 
 this loneliness of temper. He was one of those se- 
 date personages, who believed there was nothing like 
 thinking ; and 1 am certain would not have regretted 
 the loss of my eyes, if by this means I could have be- 
 come as famous as Democritus, to whom report gives 
 the credit of having shut himself up in dark caves, to 
 meditate the more profoundly. He loved learning 
 with the admiration of a Greek — his soul was quick- 
 ened with the graces of an attic taste, and deeply and 
 glowingly imbued with them. Under such an atiec- 
 tionate tutor, my opportunities of intellectual culture 
 were great ; while he, regarding me as his image, 
 was in no way sparing of the time he devoted to my 
 instruction. 
 
 I was educated after the old fashion — that is, so 
 many hours were allotted me to exercise in the gym- 
 
50 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 nasium ; so many to learn music; so many to rheto- 
 ric and logic, and so many to mathematics and natu- 
 ral philosophy. I grew up in the midst of huge tomes 
 of classical lore, more an ancient than a modern ; 
 versed in the quirks of the schoolmen and the con- 
 ceits of that time which preceded "the inductive phi- 
 losophy," when, to borrow the remark of my Lord 
 Bacon, " men were every where cheated with idols 
 of the mind.". At the age of nineteen years, I enter- 
 ed a celebrated University, where the very sort of 
 learning I had been storing up at home, was chiefly 
 in vogue, I soon took the lead of my contemporaries 
 heie ; and to display myself, frequently maintained 
 paradoxes, which I knew to be unfounded in fact, 
 nay, which were stranger than any of "the infalli- 
 bles" of Thomas Aquinas. I now turned over Plato 
 and Aristotle, Lucretius and Seneca, and all the hosts 
 of eminent moralists, who succeeded them in the Gre- 
 cian and Italian schools, and in this way increased 
 the bent of a mind, decidedly metaphysical. I was 
 also familiar with the modern schoolmen ; and after 
 comparing their works with those of the ancients, I 
 concluded, that the former had quitted the right paths 
 of philosophy. I felt, that between the disagreements 
 of so many learned men, the truth was to be found ; 
 and with this intent I may say I shut myself up I 
 observed in my study the same rigid silence which 
 the Samian prescribed to his disciples at the Ko»v6- 
 €jov. I refrained from all sorts of recreation — I be- 
 came a stranger to every thing but my own 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 51 
 
 fe£ections — conversing with nature as she looked, not 
 as she spoke. I now studied myself — turned my ob- 
 servation within — shut my eyes to shut out things — 
 traced each idea to its "archetype" — ran with it 
 through its inlSnite links of association : tried to con- 
 ceive, to guess at the form, in which it may have pre- 
 existed — paused — doubted — endeavored to recollect — 
 dwelt on what Plato calls reminiscences; but could 
 not discover any identity as to where, or in what pla- 
 ces, my soul resided since it emanated from the self- 
 existent one. 1 redoubled my meditations — slept — 
 awoke — asked myself where my soul had been all 
 that time 1 — Did it fly back to the "^^x^ '^ou xorffxeu, or 
 did it return to those bodies in which it once ex- 
 isted, there to disport in its old haunts, or to meditate 
 like a long absented traveller over the ruins of some 
 homestead, where in the spring time of youth dwelt a 
 being fresh and beautiful and gay — or was it dead, or 
 was there another soul animating my body in its 
 place? Alas! the more I thought, the more did I be- 
 come a mystery to myself. Such feverish agitations 
 could not last long — I felt my health stealing from 
 me, but with him of old, " I would not live upon the 
 top of Mount Athos, to linger away life in pleasure." I 
 preferred rather to wear it out, than waste it in pursuits 
 unworthy its "divine original." To die was an event I 
 now longed for, as the moment when, my worried 
 spirit would penetrate those mysteries it could not un- 
 ravel: and I shall never forget that moment, what- 
 
52 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 ever be my fate, whether my soul hereafter be in the 
 air or in the sea, in an insect or an angel ! 
 
 The night of my death is fresh in my memory : 
 I was fatigued, dejected, nervous from intense study* 
 I felt a closeness in my room, and seated myself be- 
 side a window to breathe the air. I looked upon na- 
 ture, and thought how Rousseau died. I watched un- 
 til the moon went down. Every thing about me look- 
 ed like waking youth, sturdy and strong, contented 
 and joyous ; but in me there was an indefinable, a 
 feverish aspiration that fixed my eye upon a speck of 
 light, which broke out in the east. It looked like a 
 blinking star, then grew into the size of a globe. I 
 bent my eyes upon it, and thought I could discern the 
 shadows of living beings in it ; but then it shot out 
 its glare full in my face, and proved to be the sun. 
 I longed to be where it was, in the centre of worldSj 
 to stand upon its top and cverlock all created things — 
 to see light come to me and go from me — to see the 
 universe move round me and hear he music of the 
 spheres! Sudden y, something seemed to draw^ me 
 towards the sun, to press and push me forward. 
 There was a twisting and turning in my heart, as if 
 it were a coil of shivering snakes — it enlarged, and 
 shortened my breath — it rolled slowly up my throat- 
 and while expanding, absorbed the vital principle 
 from every part oi my system. My mouth now open- 
 ed of itself, when, wonderful to relate, I beheld my 
 soi^l, finer than a spider's web, wound out by an in- 
 visible hand m the sun ] 1 looked at it — that portioa 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 5B 
 
 which denoted passion, choked me^ it was so thick- 
 volition was too fine to be perceived ; and memory 
 was knotted, and pricked me as it passed out, with a 
 velocity greater than that of light. This was the last 
 faculty I could observe — a lethargy covered my body 
 —a tingling noise rang in my ears — something snap- 
 ped within like the break of a fiddle string, and in 
 an instant I was dead ! 
 
 My soul was now disembodied-^cut short of 
 the luortal weight that kept it down to earth ; ready 
 to explore all that I had imagined of the world to 
 come. I was bursting with joy — a rapturous joy^ 
 without one throb, one blush of sense, but intellec- 
 tual all. Now, thought I, for the blue skies in the 
 distance — now for the stars and the worlds- — now for 
 the silent retreats in heaven, for etlierial affections 
 and the Eternal One !— These shall be mine to exult 
 among, to see, to enjoy ! But alas ! how delusive is 
 hope, even in death ! I, who had been " the lord a- 
 mong wits," the idol of the schools, with fortune and 
 power at my beck, found my soul in a fly that buz- 
 zed about me at the moment of my death ; and was 
 now committing improprieties on that body which it 
 ever had been my pride to decorate, and to embalm 
 with the scents of Araby. For, think not, oh world, 
 when the body dies, the spirit flies directly to the self- 
 existent one ; it ranges through the universe until it 
 is purified and fitted by the acquisition of a compre- 
 hensive knowledge, to commune with the TO EN xa< 
 8 
 
54 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 TO ON — still possessing an intelligence, in whatever 
 thing it may for the time have its being, that aspires 
 to imitate the perfections of the source, from whence 
 it came. 
 
 The moment I found my soul in this fly, I noted 
 every thing about me. There was my bcdy remain- 
 ing in the position in which it died ; here was my 
 confidential servant picking my pocket; there was my 
 heir rudely tearing open my will : and here my faith- 
 ful dog looked wistfully in my face, to catch a smile 
 from eyes, that had shut forever. Of all present, he 
 alone grieved for m}^ untimely end. He wagged his 
 tail, and watched those who carelessly infested my 
 corpse, to recognize a master's sympathy ; but no one 
 said " Poor Tray." Aye, thought I, poor brute, I'll 
 fly to thee— thee that art not of my blood or kin — 
 thee that welcomed me in the door way, when the 
 night was wet — thee that never murmured when I 
 was vexed, and ever wert the same to me — to thee I'll 
 fly. But oh, melancholy ! he swallowed me, hke one 
 of those scraps I had so often thrown him from my 
 own table !— and now was I in the body of my dog, 
 scolded by the cook, neglected by m}^ heir, and starv- 
 ed in my own house in the midst of the utmost lav- 
 ishment. 
 
 This was not all — my study was converted in- 
 to a den of wassailers — the wines sent me from Pom- 
 peii, as a precious taste of antiquity, and which my 
 imagination often dehghted to regard, as the very 
 Falernian the elder Pliny would have sipped, had he 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. OO 
 
 survived the destruction of that ill fated city, were 
 consumed as so much water. My black letter, my 
 books, my venerable classics, now rotted in damp cel- 
 lars—my rare and curious paintings comprising not a 
 few of the chefs d'ceuvres of the great masters, were 
 thrust into corners, or under the table — the landscapes 
 of Lorraine were used as fire skreens, and my beauti- 
 ful Etruscan vases as so inany spit basins — an Apollo 
 Belvidere that cost me much money and entreaty to 
 procure, was without a nose, which one of the sots 
 who now frequented my house, had knocked off with 
 an empty rummer, in the height of an electioneering 
 revel. This I could not endure — the sight sickened 
 me — I left the house — I ran in the streets — I sneaked 
 into the dwelhrig places of those who w^ere my fast 
 friends in earl}^ life — I barked — I tried to tell them 
 who I was — how could they, understand me 1 I 
 was beaten out ; teased ; driven before the winds, and 
 went raving mad. I now felt an inordinate desire to 
 tear every thing to pieces ; to run from the world ; to 
 lenp from my own shadow. I was frantic, wild as 
 the tempest, and hurried every where by a lurking 
 devil within, until cruel fate carried me to tlie abode 
 of a fair lady, of whose affections, I had at one time 
 entertained hopes. She was meditating in a parterre, 
 where I had often plucked roses for her, unconscious 
 of danger, and pure as the garment that concealed 
 her white bosom. A fury controlled me — I rushed, 
 I sprung upon her — what were her tears, her cries 
 her beauty to me 1 — I bit her — I bit her with the edge 
 
56 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 of hate. And yet, oh world ! I loved her once with 
 a timidity, thai thrilled me in her presence— that made 
 me feverish when I looked her in the eyes — twas an 
 awe, a devotion, an idolatry, that bent me to her, as 
 the centre from which my every thought took its 
 brightness, so that her life to me was dearer than 
 my own. But, ah me, I was a dog, and she the queen 
 of love — I, a brute; she the light of enamoured eyes — 
 I, a four-legged thing ; she of exquisite grace, and 
 rare intelligence ! 
 
 Poor Tray was killed at her feet, and immedi- 
 ately after my soul entered the system of this 
 charming, this fresh and budding, beautiful girl — 
 glancing in her eyes ; mingling in the music of her 
 voice ; animating her cheeks ; intimate with her se- 
 cret thoughts, her pleasant arts, her concealed emo- 
 tions, and absolutely dispensing smiles on the very 
 rivals [ was wont to detest. Oh, how delicate were 
 the impulses of her nature ! — how gentle, how lively 
 the hopes of her tender heart, instinct with emotions 
 of love and piety. Life came to her like an Eastern 
 fairy, to scatter her walks with flowers ; to soften the 
 sky tints for her eyes — perfuming the air that kissed 
 her jetty tresses — wreathing shades for her deep re- 
 pose, and making her, all in all, a being of smiles, of 
 sensibihty and innocence. But all these attractions 
 could not save her-.^the lurking poison of Tray's teeth 
 crept to her heart, long after he had been forgotten. 
 
 She was in a gay saloon, in the midst of joy, and 
 love, and laughter. Many were there to whisper 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 57 
 
 eompliments in her ear — many to gaze in rapture on 
 her airy motions through the mazes of the dance — 
 many to wonder and wonder at her ravishing beauty, 
 before which the old and young bowed down, as if 
 she were mdeed the Cyprian Queen. This, to her, 
 was a night of charms, of sway, of pride. She walked 
 — the crowd shrunk back to let her pass. She 
 stood — they kept apart that she might breathe the 
 freshened air. All eyes were on her — all tongues 
 spoke in her praise — all hearts beat with love for one, 
 who was that night the star — the winning magic of 
 the hall ! A youth of peering elegance stood beside 
 her — he was charmed by her eyes, and looked in 
 them as in a mirror, where he thought to divine his 
 hopes — he beheld there visions of melting love, and 
 timid wishes, and burning passion — he looked^ he 
 looked. Suddenly her eyes lost their softness, and 
 glared and rolled. — 
 
 " Water," she cried in a shivering voice — the as- 
 sembly paused. 
 
 " Water," she screamed in accents guttural and 
 wild the music ceased, the dance, and all. 
 
 The youth now went and came, bearing a goblet 
 in his hand. Her lips quivered, her bosom heaved — 
 she stretched out her pale fingers to receive it, and 
 started back as from a serpent — then looked around 
 in vacancy — then tried to smile — then seemed abash- 
 ed at the mute surprise of those about her — then paus- 
 ed — then trembled : and with an effort that almost 
 burst her temples, she snatched the glass ; eyed it 
 
58 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN* 
 
 with horror, and convulsively dashing it from her,, 
 exclaimed, " the dog, the dog — I'm mad !" 
 
 Yes, sweet girl ! in the midst of life thou wert 
 mad indeed ; and I that loved thee, God knows how 
 much, was the involuntary cause ! Go, beautiful one, 
 and live ! — Take thy flight into the heavens, and fear 
 not ; for thou shalt meet in thy way no storms, nor 
 rains, nor biting chills. Fly to him that made thee, 
 and on the great day of account, should any one dare 
 question thy purity, call on me who dwelt in thy fair 
 body, and I will testify that thy young heart had no 
 wish, nor thought, at which an angel could have 
 blushed ! 
 
 :^ 2k. ^ ^ :^ ik. :iL 2k. 
 
 Here, oh world, I should stop. I have said enough 
 to convince you of the immortality of the spirit, and 
 its transmigration after death ; but it remains for me 
 to inform you that it exists also in inanimate objects, 
 — in the rose and in the shrub, — in the sands upon 
 the sea shore, the pearl and the oyster. After abid- 
 ing in every animal from man to the moth, I found 
 myself at last, in a Golden Eagle — "the Bird of th© 
 Gods," — a mighty bird. The sensations, the econcm}', 
 the habits of every living thing on the earth were 
 familiar to me ; and I new wished to explore the 
 world above ! I stretched my broad wings in the 
 air. I darted at the stars as if they were my game ; 
 and gazed on the sun with an eye that never winked. 
 I would sail in spiral motions to the highest p(h,t in 
 the Heavens, and,comUig down like a meteor towarde 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 59 
 
 the earth, instead of dashing out my life, would stop 
 short ; and flutter and fly away to some shaggy peak, 
 that looked like a speck of cloud in the skies. I 
 would rush against the whirlwind, enveloped in its 
 blackened furies, its peals of mumbling thunder, and 
 its electric lights;" and, bearing myself more proudly 
 than a God above its rage, see it devastate fair villages 
 and cities adorned with every art — scattering them 
 before its wrath — tearing up tall forests by the roots, 
 and tumbling down the massy pyramid ! I have sat 
 upon the castle wall, when the night was azured 
 over, and watched the moonbeams breaking on the 
 placid lake, where a gentle gondolier sung to " eyes 
 brighter far than day ;" and merely for sport, would 
 throw the shadow of my wings upon their enamored 
 looks, vvhile they, in very consciousness of guilt, 
 would start and tremble and take all this, for some 
 blighting omen to their stolen loves. I have circled 
 the broad hghts of the milky way, that seemed a 
 spangled veil to those on earth ; and from this bright 
 abode have seen beneath me a stupendous planet of 
 solid ice, on which, nor bud, nor grain would thrive, 
 whirling with a crushing noise, through vapours itself 
 had congealed ; and chiUing the eyes that looked 
 upon it, from the far off altars in the sun. This 
 was the Hell of those who have no heat of love or 
 friendship in them — who nip the hopes of modest men 
 and freeze them with a sneer — who pass by genius 
 starving in the streets, without one smile of syn;pathy ! 
 " O'er many, a frozen, many a fiery Alp" I would 
 
60 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 glide, and look into the gorged pit of a volcano, 
 where I beheld boiling surges of flame, fiercely leap- 
 ing over their stony barriers, and in cataracts of fire, 
 deluging the country around — driving the ocean back 
 upon itself, and raising mountains of glowing lava 
 in the sea. I have sat, securely, on the eve of a cas- 
 cade, while other birds from fright would fall into 
 the raging eddies below ; and thence have darted like 
 an arrow on the wind, and rested over the water spout, 
 and watched its sweeping whirl, break and bury in 
 the sea, a graceful ship, which, the moment before, 
 had floated as lightly as a swallow in the air! 
 
 Scenes like these I daily dwelt among. And, 
 after having visited every corner of the earth, and 
 lived in its solitudes, deep in the forest shades, or high 
 upon the mountain top wrapped in eternal snows ; 
 or amidst the damps of aged towers, that cast their 
 lengthened shadows over the broken memorials of far 
 famed nations, now covered with the dust of time — 
 after I had lived with nature, and learned her ways 
 and loved her select influences, and exulted amidst 
 her grand and beautiful creations, — in fine, after my 
 soul had been purified and exalted, and "assimilated 
 to the Divine mind, in that wisdom, justice and holi- 
 ness, which constitute the perfections of his nature" — 
 I aspired to be nigher his immaculate presence. 
 The earth had nothing more for me to see or know, 
 and to the sun I now determined to take my flight — 
 to its altars, where the phoenix of old bore its parent, 
 to be consumed in " flames of fragrance." I knew 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 61 
 
 4liat my time was come — to go into far regions — to live 
 in the midst of new elements and distant worlds, shut 
 t|p in the mystery of the clouds — perhaps on my way 
 to suffocate in thin airs, or perish in climes of eternal 
 saiow — to burn in blasts of tartarean fire, or be crush- 
 ed by some frantic comet, rushing through the 
 heavens ; or drowned in a mighty ocean, suspended 
 in the upper air by Him who keeps each planet in 
 its place — perhaps to look the great one in the eye, 
 and die beneath his frown ! — These doubts and fears 
 opened my heart to the most solemn reflections. The 
 undertaking before me was perilous and grand — 
 enough to alarm the bravest soul ; but He " whose 
 centre is every where, and circumference no where," 
 inspired me with confidence, and to him I addressed 
 the lines of the great Florentine before I departed. 
 
 " Father 'Supreme ! O let me climb 
 
 That sacred seat, and mark sublime 
 
 Th' essential fount of life and love. 
 
 Fount, whence each good, each pleasure flows, 
 
 Oh, to my view thyself disclose ! 
 
 The radiant heaven thy presence throws ! 
 
 O, lose me in the Hght above ! 
 
 Flee, flee ye mists ! let earth depart. 
 
 Raise me and show me what thou art, 
 
 Great sun and centre of the soul ! 
 
 To thee each thought, in silence, tends ; 
 
 To thee the saint, in prayer ascends ; 
 
 Thou art the source, the guide, the goal ; 
 
 The whole is thine, and thou the whole." 
 
 9 
 
62 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 After casting- one long, last, lingering look behindj 
 I stretched my wings upon the breeze, and soon rose 
 above the dingy vapors which cover the earth. I 
 could see storms gathering and stealing like angry 
 assassins in the dark, upon the abodes of men ,while 
 they were at their revels and least expecting the sud- 
 den fury that awhile would break upon their heads. 
 I flew up higher and higher — the earth was diminish- 
 ing in size, until it looked like a white spot in the 
 centre of a pall, extensive as my vision. I passed 
 through airs, sometimes hght and sometimes thick— » 
 thiough sleet and sheets ofsnow^, that glittered like 
 so much silver in the lightning's flash — through skies 
 of amber scattered over with grotesque shades of em- 
 erald hues— through regions of airy nothing, whiter 
 than alabaster, with heie a flush of pink, and there 
 black forms in faintness like the hieroglyphics of 
 ruined Thebes. 
 
 I continued in my lonely track — no hving crea- 
 ture near me — no voice — no noise, save the buzzing 
 of the planets in their whirls. I felt desolate, and 
 screamed to hear myself. I feared to look below, lest 
 the dizzy sight might make me fall. I would have 
 turned back ; but the same impulse that pressed me 
 towards the sun when I first died, bore me up. I shut 
 my eyes in desperation — I flew, 1 darted on bewil- 
 dered, and almost dead with fright. I know not 
 whither, or how long I cleaved the elements about me, 
 for I was unconscious— It may have been for days or 
 months— when at las^ I found myself panting o» 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. mi 
 
 something' smooth and firm. It was a crystal sphere, 
 set in an atmosphere of gold, around which zephyrs, 
 scented with the odours of every clime, sported in 
 graceful eddies. I looked through its polished sur- 
 face, and lost my sight for a time. I looked again-*- 
 how rich ! how rare ! how beautiful ! I beheld plea- 
 sant shades arched over with evergreens, from which 
 purple grapes and yellow apples vibrated in the balmy 
 air — waterfalls, at whose feet little children laved 
 themselves — rills of liquid pearl, on which the grace^^ 
 ful swans circled their snow white necks, and sung 
 that music, which the world hath lost — Parian grot- 
 toes, half concealed in drooping willows, where old 
 men, with beards whiter than his of Scio, opened the 
 book of life and read aloud — Temples, grander than 
 the Parthenon, fresh from the touch of Phidias, where 
 the choice minds of every world, Homer, Tully, Mil- 
 ton, and all communed together, and spoke the lan^ 
 guage of the gods ; the fall expressive Greek of Pla- 
 to : while youthful genius, who died beside the 
 LAMP, heard each sage recount the many intellectual 
 fevers that led him away, into strange conceits of 
 things, so uncongenial to the immortal soul i and 
 here were angels too^-^blue eyed girls with blushes in 
 their cheeks, not of mortal desire, but holy love !-^ 
 some knelt in prayer with clasped hands; others listen- 
 ed with charmed ears to a gentle one^ whoi, with the 
 Jewish harp in hand, reclined on the velvet swartl 
 imder boWers of perpetual bloom, and uttered 
 
64 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAPf. 
 
 through her ruby hps, the glories of the OmNipo* 
 
 TENT 
 
 I saw there too, oh yes ! in silent prayer, the 
 young one of my heart — she who grew up with me, 
 and died ; leaving a precious bud of life in her cold 
 body — she, my sister ! who loved me so much ! — 
 Believe it, friends, I saw her there — I shook my wings 
 — I screamed — I tried to call her name — I beat my 
 head to break in to her ; to clasp her to my bosom ; 
 to hear her speak and laugh, and make me happy ! — 
 Alas ! she thought of God, and never looked at me ! 
 
 Suddenly, music, the most ravishing, streamed 
 on high, which was echoed back by each star of 
 the universe, and ended in one grand diapason of ce- 
 lestial harmony. And now every living thing bowed 
 down in prayer — the trees bent their tops — the waters 
 of the cascades stood still, forming arches of a thou- 
 sand orient hues — the birds were fixed in their dizzy 
 heights, with outstretched wings, and all within 
 seemed nature without breath or life, chiseled out in 
 attitudes of silent devotion — The atmosphere colored 
 with the cerulean tints of eve, and threw its mellow 
 shade on the kneeling crowd. How soft — how beau- 
 tiful the picture ! — Like the children of old who fled 
 the scourge of Eg)^pt, and knelt and prayed in the 
 moonlight forest, to him that spake the law-and now 
 the sweetest notes mingled with the floating air, and 
 stole along jn melody soft and mournful, as an ^o- 
 leon harp trilhng from the high window of some 
 monkish dome ; like a zephyr it moved o'er the war 
 
THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 65 
 
 ters, while the ravished ear, as if unwilling to let such 
 xnusic die, followed its playful echoes through the 
 heavens, until they melted away into silence. All 
 was breathless rapture — ^nothing stirred-— not a being 
 spoke. 
 
 Another blast of harmony pealed along, and en- 
 ded as before — and then a dazzling light pervaded 
 every place — each thing now seemed like glass illu- 
 mined through, in which the smallest speck or mote — 
 the motions of the heart — the blood in its tiny vessels 
 — the tinted fluids in the petals of the rose — the min- 
 ute crystals in the diamond's core — the greenish ani- 
 malcule in the limpid stream — the fairy fry of gorge- 
 ous insects in the waving airs, were perceptible as 
 day. I turned to the East from whence this magic 
 came. I beheld a massy rock of polished whiteness 
 higher than heaven from earth, rising in lonely gran- 
 deur Out of an ocean of sapphire — Its top was circled 
 with a crown of stars, larger and brighter than the 
 planets — within beamed an eye of broad and glorious 
 light, that enlivened each thing it gazed upon, and 
 looked it through and through. — It was the great Eye 
 of the Universe, which sees through space, through 
 matter and through time — which shoots its rays into 
 the centre of distant spheres, and looks within itself — 
 which hath no night, no sleep, no earthly rest — but 
 looks and looks forever! 
 
 Presumptuous fool ! burst thine eyes to see !! then 
 feel what thou art — a speck in creation still. Vain 
 daring thing ! ! ! Look the Almighty in the eye ?-^ 
 
66 THE MAD PYTHAGOREAN. 
 
 Wither into nothing — and know that his single glance 
 can burn up systems, and animate them again— 
 Look ! ! ! Yes — that one look was my life — my exis- 
 tence was but a moment — I reeled and fell and flick- 
 ered into air. 
 
 And here I am, oh world ! in the winds, the 
 skies, any and every where, at one and the same 
 time — murmuring in the breeze that plays in the tan- 
 gles of your hair; or dwelling on the cloud that 
 spreads its robes over the bright disk of the moon — 
 low in the mortal vapor of the dank cavern, or high 
 in the rolling azure above you^-pervading space as 
 heat does the particles of matter, which constitute the 
 earth. How long I may have to remain where I am, 
 is not for me to know ; but now that I am about you, 
 noting your every look, and act and speech, however 
 they may be hidden from other eyes, let me entreat 
 you, before I return forever, to " the soul of the 
 WORLD," to treasure up what I have wiitten — to rev- 
 erence it and believe it as a scroll from heaven. 
 Remember that all things, all space, all nature, is 
 quickened with an eternal essence, and refrain from 
 doing violence to the paltriest atom, since it feels 
 and lives. The very atmosphere you breathe con- 
 tains an immortal principle, that sees into the wind- 
 ings of your heart. The mother who nursed you, 
 ma)^ hover about yoiir couch ; and the friend to whom 
 you have proved unkind, may lurk m the vapour that 
 poisons your lungs. " The great eye" not only sees, 
 but there are those about you who fathom your 
 
THE M4.D PYTHAGOREAN. 67 
 
 thoughts with a consciousness, which no earthly trick 
 or cunning can deceive— to whom your secret vices 
 are palpable. 
 
 Love nature, then, oh world ! as you would your- 
 self — it is yourself — your body of sense and passion ia 
 which the soul must exist, and be purified, before it 
 lives forever ! 
 
 And now I will say to that dear friend, whom I 
 see yonder bending o'er his books, that I am often 
 nigh him — in the winds that cool his temples, in the 
 odors that sport upon his bed, in the soft shadows 
 that skreen him from the sun, or in the blue tinge of 
 morn so grateful to his eyes. And here I am, my 
 friend, in this high cloud — look up to me. Ask what 
 thou wouldst have ; and if the Great One wills it, I'll 
 come to thee, in shape delightful, whether thy mood 
 be one of weal or woe ; or, if thou hast no need of aid, 
 when thou wouldst have it, look up here and call on 
 me !— I'll come ! 
 
CHAT CONTINUED. 
 
 B. — This is a strange fragment, and well wor- 
 thy the wildest moment of mental hallucinalion. 
 Still, there is something coherent, and occasionally 
 methodical, about it; and, but that we have your as- 
 surance that it is bona fide from the hands of one un- 
 der wardship, we might be almost free to suspect you 
 of some device of your own in the matter. 
 
 M — Surely not : — the gothic and outre taste 
 which appears to have prompted the style of expres- 
 sion, might well be adduced to save me from any 
 suspicion of this nature. I received it, as I tell you; 
 and see no difficulty in the matter, if you will only 
 remember, that it comes from one, insane only on this 
 topic, who is well read in this, as in most other res- 
 pects ; and, who has set himself down to the task of 
 imitating the simple and majestic diction of the an- 
 cient philosophers. 
 
 B. — Which, by the way, he has most egregious- 
 ly mistaken ! 
 10 
 
70 CHAT CONTINUED. 
 
 G. — If I understand rightly, the Pythagorean^ 
 or, rather, the Platonic philosophy, he has shot wide 
 of his design, if we are to understand that to have 
 been, a carrying out of the systems of these Philoso- 
 phers to their proper consequences in the person of 
 some possible instance. They contend, simpl}^, for 
 the passage of the freed soul into the form of one just 
 created, or about to be created, and not already im- 
 bued with the immortal spirit. He, on the other 
 hand, with a wilder flight, assumes that it may en- 
 ter and embody itself in communion with another 
 already in the occupation of the tenement. In this 
 matter, the philosophy is purely his own ; and, wild 
 as are the dreams of the ancients, they should not be 
 burdened with one so very extravagant, and so utter- 
 ly foreign to all reason as this. 
 
 M.— Yet even this notion, wild and novel as you 
 think it, does not belong to the madman w^ho makes 
 use of it here. It appears to be httle else than the 
 popular belief of most primitive nations, and the Indi- 
 ans, from whom the Pythagorists and Egyptians 
 borrowed their more improved doctrine, seem to have 
 held a very similar persuasion. Nor, indeed, believ- 
 ing as they seem generally to have done, that the 
 souls which impregnated the several forms of men, 
 were, alike, all emanations from the one centre and 
 returnable to it, — do I see any thing so absurd in the 
 notion of a commingling between two or more of these 
 distinct particles. It appears to me that such an idea 
 
CHAT CONTINUED. 71 
 
 is not a whit more groundless or extravagant than 
 the other. 
 
 B. — The subject is one perfectly unmootable. 
 The mDnetit you rake it up, you get upon a wide sea 
 of speculation and controversy, in which all barks are 
 rudderless, and to the shores of which no planet can 
 point. This union of souls, if it is ever known, must 
 simply be the union of sympathies ; and marriage 
 may be held the only possible approach which we 
 can ever make to any such conjunction. 
 
 G. — And heaven keep us, say I, from any such 
 approach. The quiet of our studio is quite too whole- 
 some, happy and exhilarating, to permit of any de- 
 sire on my part for that particular music, of which 
 Socrates appears to have had a surfeit ; and which, 
 if this Pythagorean philosophy have any foundation, 
 might bring us a rough sort of bed-fellow, in a resus- 
 citated and re-invigorated Zantippe. Keep me, ye 
 benign spirits, from all such hazard. 
 
 Omnes. Amen ! 
 
 G. — But let us speak revently, and with due 
 caution. Who knows that the soul of that renowned 
 virago, is not even now hovering over us, in the ill 
 favouied gnat w^hich has been buzzing about us for 
 the last hour, and which we have all been so solicit- 
 ous to demolish. I should be sorry to provoke any 
 extra degree of malignity; and, if you please, we shall 
 avoid a topic which involves, if not so much danger, 
 at least so much doubt. Let us change our subject 
 
ii CHAT CONTINUED. 
 
 to one less likely to prove of injurious result ; and not 
 to be too curious, who was that old country codger with 
 whom you were so gravely chatting all the morn- 
 ing. I could not help remarking the singular vio- 
 lence of his action, and more than once was seriously 
 disposed to think your nose in danger from the un- 
 measured swing of his arm. Was he inflicting his 
 politics upon you 1 
 
 B. — No — any thing but politics. I had meant 
 to have given you the benefit of his speech, and some- 
 thing more, and may do so now. The old man was 
 well known to my parents in my childhood, and at 
 
 that period knew me well. He is a Planter of 
 
 Parish, and this, his first visit to the city for many 
 years. By the merest accident he found me out, and 
 renewed his acquaintance. He comes to town now, 
 would you believe it, with the view of becoming an 
 author ; and, with the accumulated labour of forty 
 years, in criticism, biogiaphy, tale and anecdote, la- 
 den, he has been to all the Booksellers, Pdnters and 
 Publishers in the city, in the hope to find some one 
 willing to adventure a small capital upon his propo- 
 sed publication. 
 
 G. — But, of course, without success 1 
 B. — Can you doubt 1 He has acquired some 
 experience by this time, and, accordingly, his violent 
 action, as you witnessed it, was devoted to the whole- 
 sale denunciation of every thing in our city, which 
 bore the aspect of print or pubhcation shop. He is 
 now bent on Europe, as he is determined that the 
 
CHAT CONTINUED. 73 
 
 world shall not longer live in that abject condition of 
 ignorance, consequent upon his apathy and obscured 
 glory. He gave me some specimens of his perform- 
 ance, one of which, yet unread, I have in my posses- 
 sion, and, with your leave, after a glass of wine, the 
 better to bear the infliction, I will give you an oppor- 
 tunity to judge of his pretension. 
 
 Omnes. Negus ! Negus ! Negus ! 
 
 JVeg-ws. Sir — Sir — Sir ! 
 
 Omnes. Sherry ! Sherry ! Sherry I 
 
THE OUTLAIV'S DAUGHTER* 
 
 Sometime before the beginning of our war of 
 Independence, there settled in one of the middle Dis- 
 tricts of this State, a small family of emigrants from 
 the Mother Country. It consisted of a tall, dark, 
 and rather melancholy looking man, who introduced 
 himself into the community, with the name of Rogers, 
 leading along with him, a young and interesting 
 wife, who seemed a being too fair and fiail, to bear 
 the hardships and rigours of a life, in a country so 
 rude and uncultivated. Nor did she languish long, 
 after her settlement in the place, under the fervour 
 of our Southern sun. She had scarcely been a year 
 in the neighbourhood, and her beauty and benevo- 
 lence had but just wound themselves around the 
 hearts of those who knew her, circling them within 
 a magic influence, when premature death destroyed 
 the spell, blighting and blasting the hopes of the hus- 
 band, and the fond affections of those she had alrea- 
 dy made her friends. She hved only to leave behind 
 her an infant daughter, who might keep alive those 
 sweet sympathies which she had excited, but the re- 
 
76 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 suit of our story will shew whether her anticipations 
 were realized. 
 
 Rogers was stricken to the soul by this event. 
 He had mingled his spirit too intimately with hers to 
 think they could ever be separated ; and when it 
 winged itself away, he could hardly believe it. Her 
 influence over him was felt and acknowledged ; and 
 had it lasted a little longer, might have reclaimed 
 and restored t& usefulness, a disposition wild and wil- 
 ful, but not naturally wicked. But those chords of 
 character which had been attuned and harmonized 
 by the touch of so sweet a temper, were snapped — 
 too violently snapped asunder, and relapsed into their 
 usual harshness and dissonance. Those dark quali- 
 ties which had been so long suppressed and hidden 
 from his own consciousness, by his affections, were 
 at once brought to light. The veil which covered 
 them was rent, and he recoiled back at first, when he 
 recollected to what they had before reduced him. 
 He bhuddered when he looked, but he could not re- 
 sist the course of fate into which he was impelled. 
 
 In this uncertain and erratic state of mind, had 
 Rogers met with some object, around which he might 
 rally and recall his bitter and bewildered feelings; 
 had heaven but granted some being, with whom he 
 might share those sympathies he had now began to 
 taste and to love, even here he might have been 
 saved from the cruel consequences which ensued. 
 ThjBre is, however, no accounting for probabilities ; 
 for there is a waywardness in the affairs of men. 
 
THE OUTLAW S DAUGHTER. 77 
 
 which is ever leading them into misery and misfor- 
 tune. 
 
 Rogers turned his thoughts now on his daugh- 
 ter. She was too young at th s time to afford him 
 any of thofee consolations he coveted. Yet, as she 
 g-rew up, she every day developed many of the pecu- 
 liarities of his character, which, if they were not cal- 
 culated to recover and recall his lost affections, were 
 at least sufficient to excite a paternal interest in his 
 breast. Unfortunately, she resembled him in all 
 things too much, to turn and direct his disposition in- 
 to a different channel from that in whxh it was nat- 
 urally bent ; but following the same incHnations and 
 enticements, she soon made herself, to him, a com- 
 panion, whom he could not easily do without. She 
 was already of a high and haughty temper, passion- 
 ate, proud, and impatient of controul. Wild and ad- 
 venturous in her long and frequent rambles : fond of 
 sohtude, or of the society of her Father alone, and 
 listening with eager attention to his strange and se- 
 cret stories of perilous, but profitable, adventures, by 
 flood and field. 
 
 In these moments of undisguised confidence, 
 would Rogers unfold to his daughter the most hidden 
 secrets of his soul ; relate to her the troubled and tur- 
 bulent course of his life, and mention dark, dreadful, 
 and deathlike deeds, which would raise at once her 
 admiration and her horror. He told her his whole 
 history — his origin — his education — his mad manner 
 11 
 
78 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 of life — his acts of violence and vice — the wild nature 
 of his love for her mother — her equally enthusiastic 
 adoration of him — their midnight meetings in her fa- 
 ther's halls — the discover y of their loves — the rage 
 and revenge of the proud baron — his outlawry — the 
 secluded imprisonment of her mother — the birth of 
 her son — the violent way by which he effected her 
 escape — with the death of the p.iest who had secretly 
 married them— and how the priest, as he had heard, 
 upon his death-bed, gave the grand father a letter, 
 which he made him promise never to open, until the 
 child arrived at the age of manhood. He likewise 
 related the correspondence he had kept up w4th the 
 priest, until his death, and that he had since heard 
 nothing of his son, w^ho had got a commission in the 
 army from his grand father — in a word, as soon as 
 she had arrived at the age of confidential discretion, 
 he let her at once into the whole, the awful secret. 
 —She was the Outlaw^s daughter. 
 
 When Ellen Rogers, now arrived at the age of 
 eighteen, was hstening to the recital of her father's 
 history, she w^as seated beside him, on the uprooted 
 trunk of an old oak, in the deep recesses of a forest. 
 He had led her to that secluded spot, as well to avoid 
 the observation of listeners, as to heighten the effect 
 of his tale, by the solemnity of the surrounding scenes 
 ry. While he spoke, he marked every movement of 
 her mind, every shadow of thought, that flitted across 
 her anxious countenance. When he came at last to 
 the dreadful word — Outlaw, he fixed his keen eye 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. 79 
 
 upon her, and read her very soul. As the terrible 
 truth flashed upon her mind, her spirit was startled 
 for an instant, but not a feature of her face expressed 
 its perturbation. She looked around her cautiously, 
 as if appiehensive seme one was near ; then darting 
 her piercing black eye upon him, while yet his last 
 words seemed to hai g heav:'y Ujcn the silent ear, 
 with a smile of haughty defiance upon her hp, she 
 exclaimed, " Then, Father, I am the Outlaw'is 
 Daughter." 
 
 From this moment Ellen felt a new spirit stirring 
 within her. She moved, she acted, she thought dif- 
 ferently. Her Father's crimes were, in her enthusi- 
 astic adoration, raised into heroic exploits ; his vices 
 were softened by her affection, into trivial peculiari- 
 ties of character, and those misfortunes which his own 
 impixiprieties had pjt)duced, were wrongs — wrongs 
 which his ei^mies had heaped upcn him, and which 
 she hoped one day to avenge. 
 
 Inspired with such feelings, and closely connec- 
 ted with all his sentiments and thoughts, she became 
 his constant companion. Delighting only in those 
 pleasures which pleased him, she became the partner 
 of every sport in which he took any interest. In his 
 long hunts in the forest, in his ex[ editions to distant 
 parts of the district, and in his journies to the city, 
 she always accompanied him on horseback. And 
 frequently, disguised in ma'e attire, w<»uld she ride 
 at midnight alone, to carry some secret message to 
 an old confederate, who lived more than ten miles 
 
8d THE outlaw's DAUGHTE^L. 
 
 across the forest. She soon became a proficient iri 
 the uses of warlike weapons, and handled fire-arms 
 with a dexterity and skill, which few persons of more 
 masculine spirit and strength could attain. 
 
 This sort of life was lo the taste of Ellen Rogers. 
 Of a bold and romantic disposition, she was emulous 
 in time of equalling the deeds of her parent : and 
 forgetting the delicac}?^ and retiring weakness of her 
 sex, she aimed only at attaining the adventurrus 
 daring of his. Her partiality to the Rcbbei-'s profes- 
 sion, and her proficiency in its first rudiments, far 
 from being discouraged and checked, were cherished 
 and increased by every opportunity her delighted Fa- 
 ther could aflTord ; so that, it was not long before he 
 discovered in his daughter, with evident pride and 
 satisfaction, the full developement of all those wild 
 qualities, which had been the ruin of his youth. • 
 
 About this time the war of the Revolution broke 
 out, and we date the commencement of our story 
 from this period. 
 
 In the struggle for liberty, the ill-fated province 
 of Carolina was destined to acquire her share of the 
 birthright, with much misery and bloodshed. Troopb* 
 infuriated wilh the resistance they had met with at 
 the North, poured into her fertile fields, pillaging and 
 plundering as they went, both friends and foes. Re- 
 sistance was made, and overcome. Armies met, 
 fought, and fled, ralhed and re- conquered. The dis- 
 persion, the flight, the pursuit, filled the country with 
 scattered partisan baiids, who made war on their own 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. 81 
 
 account. Robbery and n« pine were matters of com- 
 mon occurrence, and of very little moment to any, 
 but those concerned. The armies of the Royalists 
 and Republicans were too- busily engaged in acts of 
 public hostility, to trouble themselves much about 
 suppressing and .punishing offences against private 
 persons and property. It is not to be wondered at 
 then, that men of depraved and predatory habit Sj' 
 having full liberty for the exercise of their calling, 
 should seize with alacrity the occasions and opportu- 
 nities thus offered. There are indeed, in every com- 
 munity, characters enough, whose natural vicious- 
 ness is only veiled until circumstance calls it into 
 view. 
 
 Of this class of men was Rogers, and he quickly 
 became one of its most prominent personages. Upon 
 the breaking out of the war, he immediately devised 
 his mode of action. The recollections of his youth 
 were revived, in the exploits which he saw every day 
 performed. And he could not resist the propensities^ 
 which early habit had engrafted so deeply in his 
 mind. Accordmgly, he immediately changed his 
 course of life ; threw aside the mask he had so long 
 worn, and appeared in his real character. He be- 
 came at once more sociable in his habits, and mixed 
 freely with those around him, Of a quick and acute 
 penetration, he soon discovered and selected those 
 men whom he thought proper for his purpose. He 
 sounded their secret dispositions, and took advantage 
 of their wants and wishes, and so moulded them t6 
 
8% THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 his desig-n, that they were soon ripe and ready to exe- 
 cute any enterprise he might lead. With his yet re- 
 maining means, he armed and equipped them, and 
 when he found the country, now in a fit state for his 
 operations, he rallied around him this band of kindred 
 spirits, and raised his flag against the community. 
 
 Before the inhabitants, in their divided and dis- 
 tracted state, could assemble into a body, numerous 
 and resolute enough to make any concerted effort of 
 resistance, this band of Black Riders (as they were 
 called from the colour of their deeds and dresses,) 
 swept over the whole district, exciting terroi* and con- 
 sternation wherever they went. The farmer fled at 
 their approach, leaving his plantation and houses to 
 wasteful and destructive plimder. Swamps and ex- 
 tensive forests were sought for sheher and protection. 
 While some favourite few were allowed to purchase 
 impunity of person and property, by paying large 
 sums of money to this collector of Black Mail ; others, 
 whose stubborn bravery prompted them to defend their 
 goods and treasures, either perished amid the flames 
 of I heir mansions, or, if escaping, after having caused 
 the death of any of his crew, were sure of meeting 
 with no mercy, should they afterwards be taken. 
 And more than one hanging appendage from the 
 limbs of trees and gate beams by the road side, served 
 to show the folly of resistance, by that horrible and 
 cruel commentary of the Robbers. 
 
 While all these acts of violence were alarming 
 the neighbourhood, no one knew the terrible Chief 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. 83 
 
 who caused their comm ssion. Rogers, with his 
 daui^htei, had sometime since deserted his residence, 
 and had gone, it was generally supposed, out of the 
 province, to avoid the inconveniences and dangers of 
 the war. And so completely did he disguise himself 
 and his deeds, that many had beheld him, and trem- 
 bled in his presence, but none had ever suspected his 
 identity. 
 
 Ellen Rogers had now attained the summit of 
 her ambition. Her Father v/as now where she had 
 long hoped to see him — at the head of men leady to 
 execute his commands. She felt herself now, what 
 before she had only fancied — the Robber's Dau_o:hter. 
 Her dreams of romance were now realized. Inspired 
 with an enthusiastic spirit, with a masculine strength 
 of mind, she rode by the side of her Parent, inspiriting 
 his men to desperate and dangerous exploits. N'>\v 
 in her twentieth year, her form, by exercise, had ac- 
 quired a symmetry and proportion to which few fe- 
 male figures ever attain. Her person was somev»^hat 
 above the middle height, and in the dress which she 
 wore, made a very re pectable appearance as a m mu 
 The features of her face were too strongly marked 
 with decision and firmness, to express much of 'he 
 softness and delicacy of female loveliness. There 
 rested upon her countenance at times, a certain medi- 
 tative and melancholy shade, which might excite in- 
 terest; but it was only the momentary mildness of the 
 woman. The predominating power of the wilder 
 spirit, she caught from her Father, would beam fort -i 
 
84 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 and liVhteii it into animation and life. It would 
 spread over her cheek, it would play in her scornful 
 smile, and kindle in her daik and piercing eye. But 
 when riding beside her Father — when managing her 
 steed with graceful firmness — when urging him for- 
 ward in the pursuit, or wheeling him round to the 
 rear in the flight, animating and encouraging the 
 men — when surrounded by the ruthless band interro- 
 gating the trembling victim — when dashing with 
 fearless defiance into the midst of danger and death — 
 then indeed she was truly beautiful, but beautiful on^ 
 ly as a supernatural being. 
 
 While affairs were in this condition in the neigh- 
 bourhood, there happened to be located, about twenty 
 miles distant, a body of Royal Troops, whose purpose 
 It was to recruit their numbers from those who were 
 willing to take arms in the King's cause. The in- 
 habitants of the place, wearied and worn down by the 
 continual exposure of their lives, sent a deputation to 
 the commander, requesting him to advance a small 
 detachment of soldiers, to aid them in suppressing the 
 banditti. This petition was immediately granted, to 
 gain the good will of the people, and a young lieu- 
 tenant, with thirty men, was detailed to effect the 
 object. A time and place were agreed on to meet the 
 neighbours in arms, and on the appointed day they 
 marched on their way with hearts eager for the anti- 
 cipated action. 
 
 It was about the close of a fair day in the latter 
 part of November, that Lieutenant Wade, for such 
 
THE outlaw's daughter 85 
 
 was the name of the young officer, mounted upon a 
 stately grey steed, was riding somewhat in advance 
 of his men, towards the close of the journey, for the 
 purpose of arriving at and arranging their quarters in 
 the little village where he intended to pass the night. 
 The day was cold, and the evening air severe and 
 nipping, and the young soldier, whose animal spirits 
 were raised into activity by the motion of his horse, 
 and tlie chill evening atmosphere, whistled, to the 
 time of his charger's amble, the remnant of some bro- 
 ken catch. He was just turning a bend of the road, 
 which hid him from the view of his men, who were 
 some hundred yards in the rear, and his appearance 
 then was strikingly prepossessing. The brilliant uni- 
 form of the British Army, showed to advantage a per- 
 son naturally neat and well made. He was not tall ; 
 but his limbs were strongly and well set, and the 
 firmness and ease with which he bestrode his steed, 
 gave him an air of courage and manliness, which 
 marked him for the soldier. It would have proved 
 almost impossible to determine his particular age 
 from his countenance, for a huge bear-skin cap was 
 pulled down over his ears, and the most prominent 
 member of his face just peered forth from the furred 
 collar of a military roquelaure ; yet from the youth- 
 fulness of his air, and the lively buoyancy of his spir- 
 its, one might judge him to be in the first years of 
 manhood. 
 
 12 
 
gg THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 Our Lieutenant had not ridden far, when he sud- 
 «lenly checked his not unwiiUng animal, at the turnr 
 ing ot a road which diverged to the left. And here, 
 placing both hands on the pommel of the saddle, and 
 raising himself up in (he stirrups, he first cast a seri- 
 pus and enquiring glance up the road which lay be- 
 foie him; another, with a look of satisfaction, at th^it 
 over which he had passed; a third, with a smile, into 
 that which diverged to the left; then adjusting his 
 great coat about his shoulders, pulling down his cap 
 and grasping his bridle, he applied his heels to his 
 horse's s.des, and went of at a brisk trot, whistling a 
 merrier tune than before, arwl slapping his thigh with 
 his dexter, hand, to get his half frozen blood into cir- 
 pulation. 
 
 He was riding carelessly on at this lively pace, 
 looking about him at the scenery of the forest, and 
 catching occasional glimpses of the village, through 
 the cleared land in the distance, when the sudden 
 discharge of a rifle, just on his right, rung sharply in 
 the air. His steed started in affrightrr-reared back 
 uoon his haunches, and fell upon his rider, taken by 
 S!!rp:jse, and precipitated to the earth. So unexpect- 
 ed was the explosion, and so sudden its effect, that 
 the contents of the gun seemed, at first, to have pro- 
 ved fatal both to man and borse. In a moment how- 
 cvaVy the steed regained his feet, and feeling himself 
 freed from restraint, dashed wildly forward, malting 
 \\\i} hnrd road ring with the sound of ids retiring hoofs. 
 But modonless, and apparently without iile, lay the 
 
TtlE OUtLAW'S DAUGttTfeR. ^1 
 
 prostrate Lieutenant, as if the bullet had passed 
 through his brain. 
 
 In this posture, he might havis retiiainfed for solnfe 
 minutes, when a figure, dressed in a strange b'ack 
 attire, half male, half female, in its fashion, leapfed 
 lightly into the road, holding a bloody knife, which 
 had just been crimsoned in the throat of a stag; It 
 was the person of Ellen Rogers. She gazed aroimd 
 her with surprise, until seeing the frightiened h(5rsg 
 standing at some distance where he had stopped, shie 
 immediately understood the nature of the accident. 
 Approaching slowly to the spot where the Lieutenant 
 Itiy, she looked for a moment with pity on his pros-i 
 irate form. He was now beginning to show some 
 signs of returning animation. Stunned only for ^ 
 moment by the fall, he soon raised himself oii one 
 arm, and seeing the figure of an individual of such 
 dubious intentions approaching him, with a \Veapoil 
 in her hand still reeking wilh blood, a suspi- 
 cion immediately flashed across his mind, that the 
 ball, which had only slain a deer, had been aimed ai 
 his life, and the approach of the assassin, foused lliiil 
 at once into a resolution of selling it as dearly rls pos- 
 sible. He started up and felt around him for his ariiis; 
 His sabie had fallen out of its scabbard — he grasped 
 it from the ground, atid sV6od prepared. But th6 
 Robljer's Daughter, with a smile more in mirth than 
 fecorri, only touched a pistol which studk in her gii^- 
 dlfe, then walking slowly into the bushes^ from wHencB 
 sh^ had issued) returned after a short time, leacl- 
 
88 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 ing out an active black charger, and springing into 
 the saddle with a bound, waived her hand with a laugh 
 to Wade, and set off at a fast gallop, leaving him ga- 
 zing in astonishment in the middle of the roadj stand- 
 ing in an attitude of defence, sword in hand. 
 
 He remained a long time in this posture of silent 
 surprise, following with his eyes the retreating figure 
 of the Robber Girl, as she rode swiftly and fearlessly 
 over an uncultivated old field, through which the road 
 led to the village ; and as the white feather she wore 
 in her hat flitted across his sight, when she darted into 
 a dense copse of trees at some distance, he was awa- 
 kened out of his deep reveiie by an exclamation at 
 his elbow — " Och ! sure the Lieutenant is enchanted 
 
 by a wild Rattlesnake" ^Wade started, and found 
 
 himself in the midst of his men, headed by the faith- 
 ful Irish Corporal he had left in commiand, who hear- 
 ing the report of the rifle, had arrived in time to see 
 him in this strange attitude. 
 
 Before the hour of dark, on the next evening, 
 the soldiers were ready to leave the village where 
 they had rested and recreated themxselv^Sj and guided 
 by one of the neighbours, they marched towaids the 
 spot where they were to join their allies, and make 
 the midnight attack on the Robbers' encampnjent. 
 They followed the high road which issued out of the 
 village, for some four or five miles ; then diverging 
 off, and pursuing in single file a narrow and sinuous 
 horse path, which led them more into the bosom of 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. 89 
 
 the forest, they came, after the course of a few miles, 
 to an opening or cleared space, in which stood a large, 
 but somewhat dilapidated log house. This was the 
 place of meeting ; and strange to say, they had selec- 
 ted for the purpose the now untenanted dwelling of 
 Rogers. Before its door were assembled a picturesque 
 group of men, strangely seen by the dim shadow of 
 twilight. Some were leaning upon their rifles ; oth- 
 ers reclining lazily upon the ground, with their guns 
 thrown across their arms. Not a few sallow and sun- 
 burnt visages were seen in the doors, looking over 
 each others shoulders at the martial approach of the 
 military : while here and there peered through the 
 broken windows, an occasional haggard looking face^ 
 with weather-worn whiskers and beard, and a head 
 half covered with the ragged remnant of an old hat. 
 Their appearance was truly ludicrous, and the odd 
 assortment of weapons with which they had hastily 
 armed themselves, from the musket to the mattock, 
 from the pistol to the pitchfork, could not but excite 
 the risible propensities of many of the Regulars, whd 
 were only brought to order by a stern command froni 
 their officer. 
 
 A moment served the soldiers to mix familiarly 
 with the motley crowd ; but the Lieutenant strolling 
 abide, entered into close conversation with one, who 
 appeared to be of some influence with the rest. From 
 him, he made all inquiries relative to the attack, and 
 after arranging matters, he proceeded to make some 
 remarks of a more private nature. Happening to hear 
 
90 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 the name of Rogers mentioned, he eagerly begalfi to 
 ask particular questions concerning him. He was 
 told that he once inhabited the very house in which 
 they were then assembled, but that he had left the 
 neighbourhood some two years before, and gone, no 
 one knew whither. "Was his wife yet alive," trem- 
 blingly inquired the Lieutenant ; and when an an- 
 swer was returned in the negative, a melancholy sha- 
 dow overcast his countenance, aud he was silent for 
 the rest of the evening. 
 
 It was about ten o'clock at night, when the 
 whole party, amounting to sonie ninety or a hundred 
 men, marched off in profound silence for the secret 
 encampment of the Robbers — -which one of the num- 
 ber had that day accidentally discovered. The moon 
 was just rising above the tree tops, and cast a broken^ 
 but mellow light, upon the persons of the men as they 
 defiled through a narrow pathway which led into the 
 swamp. The dusky outlines of the hardy farmers 
 might be seen gliding in moody silence by the tall 
 bodies of the pine trees, like a succession of spectres, 
 with their arms in their hands, led on by a gaunt> 
 ghost-like look ng person, who glanced his eyes cau- 
 tiously from side to side, as fearful of a surprise ; 
 while the Regulars, in their red uniform and buttons 
 gleaming in the moonshine, followed with a heavier 
 step and less circumspect cauiion^ The path which 
 they now pursued, was circuitous and long. After 
 winding through an extensive forest, becoming at 
 every step fainter and fainter, it suddenly ceased, and 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. ^1 
 
 was lost in the course of a little branch or running 
 stream. This the guide directed them to follow 
 through its centre, as the branches on both sides were 
 too thickly tangled wiih briars and brushwood, to ad- 
 mit of their progress in any other way. 
 
 They had pursued this li tie water course for 
 some distance, wlien their leader halted, and looked 
 with caution around ; then beckoning the Lieutenant 
 to the front, pointed out to him the situation of the 
 encampment. The stream had brought them here 
 to its source, and was now lost in a wide bnt shallow 
 sheet of water, completely overshaded with tall cy- 
 press trees, through the dense br mches of which, a 
 few faint moonbeams fell, and were ''reflected in the 
 mirror below. There was ifio underwood to interrupt 
 the view, but the large knotty roots of the tvees jutted 
 out of the soil, and rendeied marching somewhat fa- 
 tiguing and difficuU. In (be midst of this^ swamp, 
 which did not extend far, upon a little space of high 
 land which was raised above the waters, was situated 
 the strong hold of the dreaded Outlaws ; and prepa- 
 rations and precautions were soon made to attack this 
 point. 
 
 That portion of the party which composed the 
 militia, preferring tlieir own desultory mode of fight- 
 ing, were so disposed, as, by extending their line to 
 reach some hundred yards across the centre of the 
 swamp, guard to those outlets, through which, the 
 Robbers might attempt an escape. They were divided, 
 for the convenience of bush fighting, into squads of 
 
92 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 four or' five men, who approached at intervals of 
 twenty or thirty yards ; gradually contracting into a 
 half circle as they drew near the spot. The soldiers 
 united in compact order, and led on by the lieutenant 
 and the guide, moved with the slowest pace through 
 the w^ater, which was not more than three inches 
 deep, apprehensive less they should make any noise 
 which might alarm the camp. As ihey came near 
 the little island, and could plainly perceive the flicker- 
 ing fires, every bosom palpitated with anticipations of 
 the ensuing onslaught. The edge of the little high 
 land was reached without the least noise, and the 
 Regulars halted to allow their allies sufficient time to 
 take their positions. The Lieutenant ordering pro- 
 found silence to the men, crept cautiously forward 
 with the guide to view the encampment. Slowly 
 and with hushed breaths, they approached, scarcely 
 seemitlg to move, stepping with softest foot-fall on 
 the dry leaves and avoiding with the utmost circum- 
 spection the rotten branches and twigs which were 
 scattered around. They had now got some few 
 yards into the middle of the place and had both 
 gained the large trunk of a tree behind which they 
 were perfectly concealed. Here the whole interior of 
 the camp could be seen. It was in the midst of a 
 group of very large and tall cypresses, leaning a gainst 
 the trunks of w^hich the dark bodies of the outlaws 
 were stretched in deep repose — their rifles wdthin their 
 reach. Near each tree blazed the flame of an expi- 
 ring light-wood fire which cast a yellow glare on the 
 
TiiE outlaw's daughter 1^3 
 
 iun-burnt countenances of those wiio were sleeping 
 around. The very expression of their faces could be 
 perceived. There was a grim and savage ferocity 
 hiarked in the features of some, indicative of the 
 cruelty of their profession ; while others whose more 
 melancholy countenances assumed a placid compo- 
 sure Sieemed only misguided enthusiasts whose zeal 
 might as well have led them to the altar as the high- 
 way. But the figure which most attracted the at- 
 tention of the Lieutenant, was that of a tall aiid povv^- 
 erfully framed. man, who was sitting against an old 
 oak in a bending and thoughtful posture leaning with 
 one elbow upon his knee. His head was bare, and 
 a profusion of thick black hair fell over his hand which 
 was pressed upon his forehead. Within the bend of 
 his right arm reclined the neck of a person who was 
 wrapped in slfeep, and the profusion of jetty ringlets, 
 which fell about the shoulders, gave to the face a 
 feminine appearance It was indeed the form of 
 Ellen Rogers reposing on the lap of her father. He 
 was yet awake and lookiiig in a deep and dreamy 
 revery on the face of his sleeping child, whose female 
 lonehness surrounded by the strong and savage feroc- 
 ity of the dark group about her, seemed to overcast 
 his mind with nielancholy forebodings of her future 
 fate. His gaze was too intently fixed, in one sole; 
 tender and thrilling interest, to observe the approach 
 Of any unexpected friend or foe; 
 18 
 
94 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 The Lieutenant looked, but for a moment, losl ill 
 contemplation — the Robber chief was now befoie him 
 • — death was in his reach — he took the rifle from 
 the guide — he thought not of the danger — knew 
 not what he did — the instrument of destruction was 
 elevated to his shoulder, his eye glanced along the 
 barrel and fixed on the bosom of the outlaw — he 
 could see it heave with emotion — the messenger of 
 fate was ready to fly— his finger touched the trigger 
 — a scream — a death-like Scream pierced through the 
 swamp. In a moment every outlaw sprung upon 
 his feet — arms rattled from the ground — men struck 
 against each other in the confusion — dusky forms 
 started up, as from the flames of every fire — bright 
 knives gleamed in the torchlighi — and the sharp 
 click of forty rifles could be heard at the same moment. 
 ''Blood an'ouns! exclaimed a hoarse voice in the rear 
 — Murther ! Murther ! I'm kilt by a crocodile ! 
 Help me out, or I'll be smothered by the monstrous 
 baste !" These violent vociferations issued from the 
 Stentorean lungs of the Irish corporal of whom men- 
 tion has before been made. While the Lieutenant 
 was cautiously concealed, he could not restrain his 
 impatience to get nearer his officer, and placing his 
 foot very safely as he thought upon a short log which 
 was floating over one of those deep chasms called an 
 alligator's hole, he was unceremoniously soused over 
 head and ears, and his fears immediately magnified 
 the log into one of those reptiles so terrible to foreign- 
 ers. His outcry startled the Lieutenant just as his 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. 95 
 
 piece was discharged, and it probably shot wide of the 
 mark. 
 
 The situation of the two pioneers was now des- 
 perate. Had they moved from their conceahnent, a 
 dozen bullets would have pierced them — had they 
 rem<iined there any time, retreat would have been 
 impos?<ible. But the soldiers, knowing at the first 
 alarm, the danger of their leader, rushed without any 
 command to his rescue. Before the outlaws knew 
 the number of their foes, and while they were crowd- 
 ing around their chief a discharge from the Regulars 
 told fatally among them. It was returned only by 
 one or tv/o impatient spirits, but they were soon 
 silenced by a command from their chief, v.'ho putting 
 himself at the head of the band now in close compact, 
 grasped his rifle in his right hand and llourisliing it 
 over his head exclaimed aloud "Look oor foes in the 
 face before we fire." He sprung forward, but a light 
 and agile form leaped before him. His hand was on 
 her shoulder. 
 
 " Back Ellen ! Back to the rear — don't disobey 
 me : — and she fell back with evident unwillingness. 
 Bayonets ! Bayonets ! shouted the Ljeutcnant. — 
 Close, close to the trees ! exclaimed the guide. 
 
 This precaution had hardly been given and ob- 
 served, before the word — " Fire," from Rogeis, was 
 losi in the reports of many rifles. The two parties 
 now met, hand to hand — the fight became pell-mell — ■ 
 bayonets were pushed, but beaten down — arms were 
 clubbed, and clashed on both sides — swords and 
 
96 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 knives met hilt to hilt, and glistened in the encounter 
 Most of the outlaws wore side arms ; these gave them 
 a fearful advantage — and superiority in remaining 
 numbers, compelled the Regulars slowly to give 
 ground. This advantage over them Vv^as pressed and 
 pursued ; they were beaten hack from the Island— - 
 they retreated inio the swamp^hey were scattered, 
 and fought individually or in couples. Wade deter- 
 mined to retire no further. Placing himself against 
 a large cypress, he waved his sword acd shouted to 
 his meri — "Stand fast! for your lives standfast!" His 
 commanding appearance marked him out in a mo- 
 ment to the eye of Ellen Rogers. She hounded to 
 the assault— the blade of her rapier crossed his sabre 
 — vengeance darted from her look— her daik tresses 
 Vv^eJ e thrown back on her shoulders, and she appeared 
 to Wade, the woman, the same he had met with in 
 the road. At first h^ was astonished, and only par- 
 ried her thrusts, whil^ he gazed in her animated face; 
 but he soon grew provoked at her temerity — he threw 
 aside the point of her sword — his own was raised 
 above her head — she could riot avoid it-^she turned 
 pale for an instant — death was descending — but her 
 form was whirled awa}^ as by a supernatural power, 
 and the blow struck sparks oxi the blade of Rogers, as 
 he exclaimed, taking his daughter's place, "Retire 
 Gill! Retire!" 
 
 Fury now flashed from the eyes of both assail- 
 ants, and hate sharpened the edge of each sword. — 
 The arm of Rogers was nerved with a strong and 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. 97 
 
 steady courage— Wade's lunied a ad twisted about 
 with tfie suppleness of scientific skill. It was impos- 
 sible to determine the issue of the combat ; when 
 some eight or ten of Wade's remaining men, rallying 
 at the call of the Corporal, rushed t© his assistance. 
 They weie met by the Outlaws, who immediately 
 stood beside their Chief. A breathing pause was 
 scarcely allowed — -" Bayonets ! Bayonets !" shouted 
 the Lieutenant — " To horse ! to horse !" exclaimed 
 Rogers — " See ! we are surrounded ! Save yourself 
 Etien, before it be too late !"- — —The sharp reports of 
 rifles from behind the trees, rung to the right and left 
 — rThe shouts of their allies were heard, and gave 
 new vigor to the soldiers — they stepped forth from 
 behind every stump — they had completely encom- 
 passed the Outlaws. 
 
 *' Surrender ! surrender !" exclaimed Wade - 
 
 " Never !" replied Eilen, springing upon an ele- 
 vated root, and brandishing her sword — " Never ! 
 while we live !" 
 
 " Then fire !" shouted the enraged Lieutenant, 
 as he grasped the musket of one who stood by hi m> 
 and discharged it at random, followed by thirty others 
 on all sides. The bright moon streamed on the spot 
 where EUen stood. As the smoke of the volley cleared 
 away, her sword could be seen dropping from her 
 hand, and her stately figure tottering for a moment, 
 then falling from its elevated position. Before it 
 reached the water however, it was caught in the arms 
 
98 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 of a tall figure, who immediately disappeared out of 
 siglit with the inanimate body. 
 
 The evident intention of the Outlaws, now, was 
 to regain the camp, where they had left their horses. 
 But this design- was frustrated, in a measure, by their 
 enemies, who had interposed a line of men between 
 to prevent such an intention. This barrier proved a 
 feeble one to men urged on by desperation. It was 
 hroken through vv^ith the loss of few of their number, 
 while the bush-fighters were more careful of their 
 own persons, than anxious of assailing those of their 
 foes. The disappointment and despair of the Out- 
 laws was great, when, on gaining their encampment, 
 they found their horses broken loose, and dashing 
 wildly about the swamp. Flight was no longer 
 sought — they turned upon their enemies, determined 
 to d e as they had lived, without fear of man or God. 
 T.me was not allowed for deliberation, before their 
 foes were upon them. Volley af^er volley was poured 
 in upon them, and feebly and more feebly returned* 
 The order was now given to charge, and the Lieuten- 
 ant rushed into the coppice — he darted by every mean- 
 er foe — he looked only for one. Followed by the 
 faithful guide, amid the hurry and confusion of the 
 fight, he caught the glimpse of a dark figure retreating 
 slowly with something in his arms, into the swamp 
 behind the place of encampment. His companion 
 and himself sprang upon the pursuit, but the speed of 
 Wade soon left the guide in the rear. He gained 
 evidently on the fugitive, who seemed impeded by 
 
THE outlaw's daughter. 99 
 
 the water, and the burden he was bearing. The 
 swamp, as he advanced, was deeper and *more broken 
 with cypress knots and trees, and he could only see, 
 at intervals, the person of the retiring Outlaw. At 
 once he disappeared from sight — a heav)?^ splash was 
 heard in the Water — the Lieutejiant leaped wildly to 
 
 the spot from whence the sound came- — there he lay. 
 
 ********* 
 
 The place was open to the full streaming light 
 of the moon, and the countenance of the wounded 
 Outlaw could be seen. Wade rushed up with point- 
 ed sword— 'twas useless, for he had already received 
 his death wound. He paused to see him die — it was 
 the person of Rogers, the Outlaw Chief — he had fal' 
 len, and his blood crimsoned the water in which he 
 lay — he supported himself on one arm, while the other 
 encircled the waist of his expiring daughter, whom 
 he was striving with his declining strength to keep 
 from sinking into the water. Her life's blood was fast 
 ebbing from her bosom, and mingling with that which 
 flowed from his side. — There was the same haughty 
 smile upon her lip, which it had ever worn — and her 
 eye, dark, brilliant, beautiful in death, looked up int^ 
 his face. Life seemed concentred in the gaze- — her 
 father spoke not — felt not for himself — knew not he 
 had fallen — his whole soul was poured out in one 
 gush of deep, despairing, unutterable anguish, over 
 all his high hopes — his intense affections, melting away 
 and perishing with his dying daughter. His strength 
 failed him more and more — his arm yielded slowly to 
 
100 THE outlaw's daughter. 
 
 the pressure — and he was sinking gradually deeper 
 and deeper into the water, out of which he was stri- 
 ving to keep the body of his child. His eye caught 
 that of Wade, who was looking on with a feeling of 
 deep pity.— " Young man," said he, in a faltering 
 husky voice, raising himself for a moment, " help — 
 help my child — I ask not your mercy" — " Nor I" — 
 quivered on tiilen's dying lip. — ''Oh God, she dies ! 
 My child ! my child ! save my child !" Wade knelt 
 beside her — he lifted her from the arms of her parent 
 —her drooping head hung upon his breast — she still 
 breathed, — " In the name of heaven," he faultered 
 to the Outlaw, " who — who art thou 1" " I am — 
 name it not— I am Rogers, the Outlaw." The Lieu- 
 tenant still faltered out — "Arid she — and she" 
 
 Ellen raised her eye proudly, and while death issued 
 with the breath, replied — " The Outlaw's Daughter!*! 
 
 — " God of Heaven, spare them," cried Wade— 
 
 " My Father ! My Sister ! I am Wade — 1 am Wade 
 
 Rogers — thy Brother ! thy Son ! Oh Heaven \ 
 
 they hear me not — they are dead !" 
 
A FAIRT TALEJ. 
 
 "There be spirits that do lurk^ 
 Where the yellow bees do work. 
 In the wild grass, in the flowers, 
 . Now in sunshine, now in shoW'rs, 
 Ever in some sportive play, 
 They do while the time away / 
 Would your eyes, their follies see, 
 And their pleasures, come with me!" 
 
 I had been to the soiree of Isabel Beaiimcr>' 
 young Isabel, as her neighbours call her — sweet 1 
 bel, as she truly deserves to be called, t had sr : 
 tin evening most pleasantly, and though not extir •. 
 gantly impressed with the many blooms and beau: 
 scattered around me, I was not so much of the s' 
 as to reject entirely the influence of their sweet ; i 
 various associations. Besides, 1 had been fiatu * 
 and caressed. Isabel, herself a wit and a poetess, *: 
 freely bestowed her eulogies upon my own poc •; 
 forts in that way ; and tholigh affecting to be stub! '^; ■ 
 14 
 
102 A FAIRY TALE,> 
 
 ly indifferent to all the honours of popular renown, I 
 could not altogether resist the gratification, which its 
 applause, coming through the medium of such sweet 
 lips, necessarily, brought along with it. " Why do 
 you not come oftener," said she — "why shut yourself 
 up in that dim abode, with your brother sinners, as if 
 you were plotting against the State, as well as its 
 female sovereignty? Are you ,truly so insensible, as 
 you pretend ; and must we really believe that our 
 charms can do nothing to make you more civihzed — 
 more human. Be assured, unless you show signs, 
 and that shortly, of a better disposition, in sheer pique 
 and mortification, I shall quarter myself upon you. 
 I shall break the mystical silence of your old abode, 
 with all the various, real and imagined terrors, which 
 the proverb ascribes to the woman voice ; and make 
 your ears ring with a peal to which they have not 
 been much accustomed, and which, like other severe 
 specifics, warrantable only in desperate cases, will go 
 very far either to kill or cure you." 
 
 She shook her fan threateningly as she spoke^ 
 and, though trembling with apprehension lest she 
 should, at some period, and under the influence of 
 one of those whims that sometimes made away even 
 with hers, and have a large influence, at all times, 
 upon the female, understanding, I made large promi- 
 ses of amendment ; and even went so far as to utter 
 my satisfaction at the terms and tenor of the proposed 
 visit ; — but, I need not say to the reader, with how 
 much insincerity. What an awful event was this for 
 
A FAIRY TALE. 103 
 
 contemplation ; and how could the members of our 
 college, survive the shock of such an infliction. The 
 quiet Deities of our worship, frightened effectually 
 away by the unwonted din which such a creature 
 would bring along with her, would never look behind 
 them in their departure, and surely, never contem- 
 plate a return ; and all the repose and security to 
 which we have so completely given ourselves up, 
 would forever be lost in the advent of that terrible 
 power, which, clothed in petticoats, is any thing but 
 petty. The subject was quite too painful for con- 
 templation, and I did not stay long after this dialogue. 
 I found myself momently getting more and more 
 sick and stupid, and as the arrangements were pro- 
 gressing towards a country dance, I sidled along the 
 noisy array, and found the stairway pleasantly con- 
 tiguous. Be assured, I paused not to number the 
 steps. I got home as quickly as possible, and marvel- 
 lously long was the breath I drew, on entering the 
 sacred walls of the symposium. 
 
 Such had been the huiry in which my exit had 
 been taken, that I altogether forgot to cast from me, 
 on leaving the abode in which I had suffered so much 
 peril, a fine, full rosebud, given me at the commence- 
 ment of the evening by Isabel. I had, at the time, 
 placed it with an air of the most tragedy description 
 in the folds of my vest, from whence, with a most 
 lack-a-daisical expression, it peered forth upon the 
 compan}'. Such a foppery was not only unbecom- 
 ing, but particularly ungracious in my sight; and I 
 
^'J4 A. FAIRY TALE. 
 
 i.^Aj gave into it, to avoid that riiggedness of habit, in 
 ; ;pearance, which the vulgar are always apt to 
 iwiiple with the pursuits and temper of philosophy. 
 :lad I not been thoroughly troubled with the final 
 
 ecch of the fair hostess, its outre appearance in my 
 . jst would not, for so long a time, have distinguished 
 iKie to whom it did not yield much satisfaction. 
 
 I had hurried into our garden, immediately upon 
 \\)Y return home. I felt too much disquietude to take 
 : :y usual seat in the sanctum, and had no wish for 
 -;;pper, in the discussion of which my two companions 
 
 :re already lustily engaged. I threw myself upon 
 ,. bench that lay half buried in the long grass of our 
 j ibour, and gave myself up to meditation. While 
 ' .;cculating upon the subjects suggested by the man- 
 |;:'i in which my evening had been passed, I uncon- 
 . viously took the flower from my bosom, and proceeded 
 ' - pull it to pieces. It was a bud, but of the largest 
 i ;.:e3 swollen almost to bursting, and promising in a 
 i>\v hours to unfold itself and all its sweetness to the 
 .'.-•siring sense. At another moment^ and in another 
 I. ood, I should not have destroyed it. — I should have 
 
 • yarded the act as inhuman. But I was now fairly 
 I r.-sed and rufl^led, and with a malicious delight, in 
 i • ;•?, mingled with an abstract wandering of my 
 .;= light, I beheld leaf by leaf torn away rudely from 
 r.:^ purple mansion of its birth, and crumpled cruelly 
 ..;.,crmy unhesitating fingers. "Yes — her tongue 
 V. :;!'Id make a fine abode for the student ; we would 
 
 • s- vcr hear the end of it — there would be * no sleep 
 
A FAIRY TALE. 105 
 
 for iall the house,' as was the ciy in the ears of Mac- 
 beth. She would not only most effectually murder 
 sleep, but one would not be permitted a snore beyond 
 one^s breath. She would murder silence too ;" and 
 as I sohloquised sentence by sentence — the rose, leaf 
 by leaf, was undergoing demolition ; until, but the 
 last circlet, the inner vest of the poor flower was all 
 that survived in attestation of its own beauties, and 
 of the misplaced generosity of Isabel Beaumont. I 
 paused as I came to this last recess. I could not help 
 the thought which rebuked me for thus wantonly 
 destroying that which gave so much, though per- 
 haps, momentary gratification, and was, at the same 
 time, intrinsically, so sweet and beautiful. How 
 many senses had I defrauded of their proper solace ] 
 What life had I not wronged of its true subsistence ? 
 Though, possibly, not constituted myself to find de- 
 light or luxury in so humble a source, were there not 
 thousands, to whom the bud which 1 had blighted 
 and trampled upon, would have been cheering and 
 charming. Would not the waning life of the con- 
 sumptive have gathered something from its delicate 
 tints and odour, calculated to gladden senses attenu- 
 ated to kindred and like delicacy. I shuddered at 
 my own thoughtless selfishness, and was about to 
 restore the remnant of the dismembered flower to my 
 bosom, when a faint sigh rose from the still unbroken 
 petals which audibly commanded my attention. I 
 paused and listened. In a few seconds, something 
 that savoured of human tones struck my senses, and 
 
106 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 I bent my ear down to listen. The}' liad not deceived 
 me ; and, as a voice, syllabling forth distinct and 
 readily Dnderstood sounds, met my ears, I was al- 
 most tempted to dash the mysteiioiis blossom to 
 my feet, when, the prisoner, for such it was, as if 
 comprehending my design, appealed to me in terms of 
 energy and feeling, and called upon me to proceed, at 
 once, to the conclusion of the task I had assumed,and, 
 stiipping him of his present covering, release him from 
 captivity. 
 
 I did as desired. I tore away the few leaves 
 that had still adhered to the stem, and then for the 
 first time discovered the secret of its gieat size. A 
 tiny and golden form shaped like ourselves, but of 
 most diminutive dimensions, rose from the recumbent 
 position which the tightly drawn leaves had forced 
 upon it. It was slender and graceful — symmetri- 
 cally perfect in every feature, and with a face, whose 
 expression, though delineated in the most pigmy 
 compass, was that of manly and winning beauty. 
 Its dress seemed that of the first and freshest leaves 
 of the early shimmer, the green of which was gor- 
 geously adorned and developed by hues of gold, of 
 salTron and purple, curiously inlermingled and in- 
 wrought with the main texture. Golden wings 
 depended from its shoulders, the scams of whose 
 plumes were of the richest raven black, while the 
 down oflheir extremities vyas of a rich )'ellow. I 
 gazed with wonder, coupled with delight, and, for a 
 few moments, had no words to express either my 
 
A FAIRY TALE. 107 
 
 curiosity or astonishment. The littie creature in the 
 meanwhile, as if desiring to feel his freedom perfect- 
 ly, leapt into the air, making a dozen circuits with 
 whirls of enthusiastic rapture, suddenly stooping at 
 last, with an expression of confidence and gratitude in 
 his countenance, and perching himself upon a clump of 
 boxwood that grew beside me. 
 
 " And who and what are youf — was my inquiry 
 on his return. 
 
 "Who — I] lam a fairy — a prince among the' 
 fairies, and my name is Sweet-William. You mor- 
 tals have a beautiful flower which you call after me." 
 
 " And how came you in prison 1 — tell me your 
 story — tell me all about you. Where do you live- 
 where are your people — how came you in prison 1" 
 
 " You shall hear, but first let me thank you for 
 the prompt and kindly manner in which you extricated 
 me ; but never pull a flow^er to pieces so roughly 
 again. I was in terror lest you should take off one of 
 my wings which had never been so much jeoparded 
 before. As it is, I have sustained several bruises 
 which will call for a leech ; fortunately, for me, I ex- 
 pect to find our most skilful practitioner. Balm, in this 
 very garden. He will soon put things to right." 
 
 " Well, well, — I'm sorry I've hurt you ; but to 
 your story. I am impatient to know the history of 
 your concerns." 
 
 "Know then, that I belong to and form one of the 
 spring tribe of fairies — a tribe, which is more lively at' 
 that season than at any other. Indeed, we know no 
 
108 A FAIRY TALE; 
 
 Other season. All our marriag-es, and merriments, 
 while in your part of the world, take place in April 
 and May, and in June we begin to fly to other cli- 
 mates, where the season is less advanced. It is thus 
 we live, and thus, in the course of a year, we are in 
 possession of the whole globe. I am one of the heirs 
 to the chief rule of our tribe, and, but for my misfor- 
 tunes and the injustice which I have met with, would, 
 with my sister Mary-Gold, have been, even now, 
 upon the sun-flower throne of our fathers. But^ 
 adverse fortune and fate, with us, as with you and 
 your people, has had its effect; and instead of being d 
 Prince in authority, with a whole people obedient at 
 my feet, my legitimate sway has been usurped, my 
 feister forcibly made the wife of the usurper, in order 
 Ihus to obtain some sanction for his usurpation, and 
 myself cast into prison.'* 
 
 " And who is this usurper, and by what agency 
 Idid he effect so great an influence Avith your people^ 
 as to accomplish such a revolution 1" 
 
 " His name is John Quill, or rather that was the 
 only name by which our people knew him. He was 
 an obscure wretch^^an author — a paltry fellow, who 
 wrote histories and verses." 
 
 " The devil ! — and could a mere author aflfect so 
 much. The pursuits of literature, quite abstract, and 
 reserved, as they usually are, would seem to forbid ari 
 approach to the strifes and terrors of public life, par- 
 ticularly amidst the whirls of its wars and revolu- 
 tions." 
 
A FAIRY TALE. lOQ 
 
 " Why, so it is thought, but, I am persuaded, 
 Erroneously. Once aroused, and always a discon- 
 tented arid irritable race, 1 am satisfied these poets 
 are the most dangerous to deal with. The only 
 reason why they so unfrequently meddle with affairs 
 of state and government, is sirhply because they 
 affect to regard the prizes and honors of politics as 
 unworthy, and beneath the true dignity, of their aim. 
 Popularity is not sufficiently long-lived, for those who 
 jare perpetually clamouring for immortality." 
 
 " You may be right, and there is indeed some 
 authority in our experience for your notion ; but I am 
 anxious to hear your story in detail. Will it please 
 your Princeship to go on with it 1" 
 
 " It is long, and you may find it tedious, but that 
 is not my look out, since you desire it. You pluck 
 the trouble for yourself, and may not complain of its 
 thorns. Thus, then-^as I have told you, I am the 
 legitimate heir to the Sunflower empire. My father, 
 whose nanie I bear, having reached the allotted term 
 of one life on this, was transferred, in due season, to 
 another planet, and t was left in the peaceable pos- 
 session of his throne. At the period of his departure, 
 I was wandering up the Oronico, in company witH 
 tlie Star nation, for one of the daughters of which I 
 iiad taken a great fancy. The news was brought 
 me by our old servant. Will o' the Wisp ; and I was 
 hTimediately summoned to return. I did so, but the 
 evil had been done iri the brief delay which followed 
 15 
 
no A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 between his departure and my return* John Quill, 
 always a moody and somowhat a savage th«ng, who 
 had commenced his Hfe with writing eulogies upon 
 my father, but who, failing to obtain place and pen- 
 sion, had become his bitter satirist, now appealed to 
 the populace, and made a faction among the vulgar. 
 He talked of reform, and by referring to the imagined 
 interests of the herd, he did not long want for an at- 
 tentive auditory. He went about making speeches 
 like the most thorough paced demagogue. He called 
 my father a bloody tyrant, and me no better. All the 
 evils of the laws, and of the seasons, were laid to our 
 account respectively. If there came no rains to allay 
 the burning heats of the sands, on which we were to' 
 dance, it was all attributed to one or the other of us. 
 If our sunflowers happened to be deficient in number, 
 and our people were compelled to emigrate to other 
 sections of country, it was all our doing In short, every 
 thing evil or unfortunate, in our affairs, was laid to our 
 door, and you must know the nature of the unthink- 
 ing and ignorant populace to understand that he who 
 proposes to remedy their supposed or real grievances, 
 however extravagant his suggestions, however dis- 
 honorable his motives, vv^ill never want for considera- 
 tion among them, and can always most readily gather 
 his faction. When I came home, I was saluted by 
 an assault. Unsuspecting fraud or attack, I was 
 made a prisoner, and placed in the captivity in which 
 you found me, and for my release from which I am 
 indebted solely to yourself. John Quill, assuming to 
 
A FAIRY TALE, 111 
 
 himself the titular distinction of the family, seized 
 upon my sister, and compelled her to marry him. He 
 has seated himself most complacently uppn the 
 throne of my fathers — the golden sunflower of our 
 exclusive inheritance — and sways its sovereignty with 
 a despotism as wild and reckless as were his denun- 
 ciations of our rule. The tribe is ground down with 
 taxation the most villainous — their property, if they 
 dare complain, is wrested from them and appropriated 
 to the use of his creatures, and nothing can exceed 
 the gloom and misery which now overhang our 
 miserable nation. Nor, is there any apparent reme- 
 dy— -at least not for the present. The usurper has 
 surrounded himself with his guards and creatures — 
 he has expended the wealth of the country upon 
 them and the materials of warfare, merely to keep in 
 subjection the large portion of my father's friends and 
 followers, the fruits of whose labor are torn from them 
 as soon as realized, to satisfy the appetites of those 
 who find this an easier and cheaper mode than any 
 other, for the sustenance of life and the realization of 
 wealth." 
 
 " This is, indeed, a horrible state of things, but 
 why, let me ask, do the sufferers not unite in the 
 common cause, and resist this tyranny ?" 
 
 " They would do so, if they could at less disad- 
 vantage. The usurper is in power, and has all its 
 advantages at command. He holds the purse and 
 controls the armory of the nation. The idle, and 
 dissolute, and desperate, are considerable in number. 
 
112 A FAHiy TALEo 
 
 find are the merest mercenaries in his employ. A 
 rebellion would be rash and hopeless under these 
 circumstances." 
 
 " But did your friends and party make no effort 
 for you at the first] Did they suffer you quietly to 
 be put down ]" 
 
 "No— but taken by surprise, and unprepared, 
 they made head in vain. They were dispersed in a, 
 pitched battle, with considerable loss, and have not 
 had the spirit — having no leader to direct them — to 
 re-commence the conflict. Now that I am free, 
 though surrounded, I am induced to believe, by the 
 spies of the usurper, I shall proceed to rally and re^ 
 assemble them, as well for the recovery of their rights 
 as my own." 
 
 "What you have told me surprises me greatly : 
 I had been always taught to believe that you fairies 
 were the most sportive, pleasant and happy of all 
 God's creatures — that there was nothing pf sadness, 
 or strife, or suffering among you. That you lived 
 among sunbeams and zephyrs, with a life as subtle, 
 and as sweetly sinless, as theirs, and knew nothing 
 sayoring of malevolence, which was not, at least, 
 playfully and not injuriously so. I grieve to hear 
 that passions, and a pride like ours, disfigure your 
 lives, and blot up your fair existence." 
 
 " This has been the notion of your poets, but 
 they knew little about us, and their fancies did not go 
 very far in their better education, We have our wars 
 T-for have we not our women. We have our hates-- 
 
A FAIRY TALE. HS 
 
 for we also have our loves. We have fears — for we 
 are not without hope. We have our jealousies — for 
 we are not less ambitious of place and power and glo- 
 ry, than yourselves. You will judge how far, with such 
 characteristics, we should be free from the trials and 
 troubles of your humanity." 
 
 " There is one matter on which I should like to 
 be informed. How comes it, that, having superior 
 spiritual agencies to ourselves, it should be permitted 
 me to release you from a captivity imposed upon 
 you by your enemy ]" 
 
 " Did you not assume for our condition a destiny 
 far more grateful and elevated than it really is, you 
 might answer your own inquiry. Superior, though 
 we are to you in many things, the creator of both of 
 our tribes, has found it necessary to rebuke our pride, 
 as well as yours, and for this reason, a mortal is some- 
 times permitted to perform an act, which a fairy mav 
 not think of-— we, in turn, having a hke power. Do 
 you not see, that without some such arrangement of 
 the over-ruling Providence, your race would be en- 
 tirely at the mercy of ours. It is well that we are all 
 under the common protection, there being cases of 
 exception, only, in which nations, so decidedly dif- 
 fering from, and in some respects, adverse to, each 
 other, may mingle in common, and have control al- 
 ternately upon and over one another. It is thus, that 
 a fairy enthralled by a fairy, may be so spelled in his 
 prison, that fairy power may not effect his release 
 My prison, on this occasion, happened to be one. 
 
114 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 which, by our nature, we are not permitted to destroy. 
 The rose is sacred in our estimation, and utterly be- 
 yond our power. Jf we destroy a rose, we descend 
 from our grade, and pass into a lower condition of 
 life." 
 
 "I understand — but, let me ask — your enemy had 
 been malignantly disposed towards you, why did he 
 not destroy you ; why did he place you in a prison, 
 in which your chances of escape were so numerous?' 
 
 " You mistake again. His malignity was not 
 less than I describe it. He would have destroyed 
 me, had he dared. But it would have been a doubt- 
 ful policy for him to have done so, since even with the 
 most desperate of his faction, the blood of legitimacy 
 is held sacred to a certain degree. There might 
 have been a great reaction in my favor, and he knew 
 it. He chose a mode as likely as any other to bring 
 p,bout my destruction without having a direct hand in 
 it. He knew the fortunes of the flower to be in the hands 
 of mortals, and relied upon the chance of my being 
 torn to pieces or crushed under feet as soon as the 
 little perfume of my prison house had been exhausted. 
 Such would have been my fortune, most probably, 
 had it not suited your mood, to articulate a speech, as 
 leaf by leaf, you tore away the walls of my prison 
 house; nor, as you have already heard, have I entire- 
 ly escaped. You see by the rents in my wings, how 
 much I have suffered from the mode of my release." 
 
 The little Prince suddenly paused in his dis- 
 course, and his countenance exhibited the strongest 
 
A PAIRY TALE. 115 
 
 signs of mental agitation. He turned his eyes quick- 
 ly and searchingly around the garden, and suddenly 
 leaping to the rose bush which stood near, he tore 
 away several of its longest thorns, and put on an air, 
 and took an attitude of the most manly defiance. 
 
 " As I feared, my enemies are upon me. The 
 spies of the usurper have apprised him of my escape 
 from prison, and the whole garden is surrounded by 
 his myrmidons." 
 
 I looked, as he spoke, and to my surprise, beheld 
 a numerous array armed with long spears of pointed 
 cane, bows of yew, with arrows fitted to them of the 
 most pointed thorns of the forest. They approached 
 the Prince who stood firmly the assault. At their 
 head came one, whose fierce manner, gesture and 
 authority, at once determined him to be the usurper, 
 Jt>hn QuilJ, himself. Despising all humbler enemies, 
 the dethroned Prince singled him out, and not wait- 
 ing the attack, rushed fearlessly upon him, evidently 
 seeking a single handed combat; but the whole force 
 of the foe pressed around him; they girt him in with^ 
 their spears, he struggling, and raging gallantly, 
 striking down an enemy at every blow, and resolute- 
 ly rushing on towards their chief. But he struggled 
 in vain against the odds. He was overthrown — I 
 saw him upon the earth — his foe was over him — a 
 thousand spears were upon his heart, and I could 
 bear the sight no longer. I rushed into the sanctum 
 ■ — I seized the old sabre of my fathers, which had 
 hung, so long, rusting upon its walls — I dashed for- 
 
116 A FAIRY TALE, 
 
 ward into the array — I struck right and left. Al* 
 ready I had stricken the heads from two of the most 
 forward of the enemy,and a third was at the sovereign- 
 ty of Quill, when my arms were arrested by a gigan* 
 tic power, my sabre was taken from mCj and I strug-» 
 gled, though desperately, in vain. 'Why do you 
 hold me back,' I exclaimed to my two companions of 
 the Symposium, whom I now found to be the powers 
 which had so inopportunely arrested the stroke of 
 justice upon the tyrant. 
 
 " Why, what's the matter 1 Would you break 
 every thing in the house in your sleep ?' Was the 
 reply. 
 
 I remonstrated in vain wdth them. " Would 
 you then," I asked, " leave Prince Sweet William to 
 perish ? Will you permit that tyrannical usurper, 
 John Quill, to destroy him 1" 
 
 They laughed in my face, and pointed to the two 
 victims I had oveithrown. Alas ! they were not the 
 emissaries of the tyrant, but our two decanters of 
 sherry, from which the heads had been most adroitly 
 stricken, and through the rents of which the goodly 
 liquor was now streaming upon the floor. The demi* 
 John, well stored w'lih the same precious juice, which 
 to my dazed eyes had personified the usurping tyrant^ 
 had been but just preserved from a like fate by the 
 timely intervention of my comrades. 
 
 " What have you done — what have you dream- 
 ed ?" said they. 
 
A FAIRY TALE, lit 
 
 " I have been under the power of the incubi /" 
 I exclaimed, 
 
 " Hot Whiskey Punch, their name," was the 
 response. 
 
 Omnes. Negus — Negus — Negus ! — Lights — ^to 
 bed — to bed — to bed. 
 
 M. It is high time, after such a finale to the 
 evening. But let us not be uncivil. G has as- 
 sembled about him a goodly company, and if any of 
 Ihem be at hand, let us have the * Stirrup cup.' 
 
 Omnes. They will need the bon repos. In the 
 words of the great * Waverly'-^- 
 
 ' To all and each a fair g- od night, 
 And rosy dreams and slumbeis light.* 
 
 16 
 
f 
 
 THE 
 
 COSMOPOLITAN: 
 
 AN OCCASIOXAIi. 
 
 Xo. I 
 
 CHARI-ESTON. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBT.ISHET) BY WM, ESTIIX, 
 
 212. Kjug- Street. 
 
 1833. 
 
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