resolutely, holily, and his spirit would not even whisper, 'Return, and bless me.' She had blessed him in that very act of departing. So were his hands made free, and his heart purified; so was his soul in its entireness drawn upward in adoration, and between heaven and earth it vibrated, in every movement worshipping, and rendering service acceptable to God.

Years went by before he answered that letter of farewell; and he had not meanwhile heard from Florence, save through others. When he did write to her, he also was on the eve of a departure: he had 'set his house in order;' he was going 'home.' And he knew, for friends had told him, that her feet had entered the same path, that she too would soon enter her FATHER's house. Percy died in the very prime of life and usefulness; he was cut down in the midst of apparent vigor, and energy, and watchful labor; he had fought a good fight; he had kept the faith. Then, as he had desired, his letter was sent over the great oceans, to the land whose darkness Florence had striven to enlighten, whose people she had toiled to bless, with a patience, and hope, and ardor too, which, if individually exhausting and destroying, were, as an example, life-giving and glorious. And that letter she read for the first time on her deathday. Had she not reason to fold it THEN, as she did, closely upon her breast? Had she not cause, when her heart was groping no longer 'blindly in the dark' for an earthly father's love and benediction, to say, triumphantly as she did, while her spirit was being caught up to meet HIM: 'My SAVIOUR, not deserted!'

ASHUELOT

RIVER: A SONG.

AIR: AFTON WATER.

SING on, Ash-u-é-lot, sing till thou shalt fail
To join the bright stream of my own native vale;
I list to thy murmurs, I hear thee deplore

The nation that named thee - they see thee no more.

How sweet in the Autumn to stray by thy side,
Beneath the smooth beeches that drink of thy tide;
To hear the wind sigh for the wild sylvan chief,
And faint, dreamy tinkle, as slow falls the leaf!

Here came the dark maiden, in days that are flown,
When, painted for battle, her warrior had gone;
To muse o'er thy waters, to hear in their flow
The accents of pleasure or sobbings of woe.

When bright shone the moon, and the bough scarcely stirr'd,
And the wolf's lonely howl from Monadnock was heard,
She saw in thy mantle of mist, chill and gray,

The ghost of her warrior rise wreathing away.

Still plays in the breeze, as of yore, thy light wave,
But on thy green banks all unknown is her grave;
The plough-boy turns, whistling, some mouldering bone:
Here still flow thy waters - her grave is unknown.

Sing on, Ash-u-é-lot, sing till thou shalt fail

To join the bright flood of my own native vale;
I list to thy murmurs, I hear thee deplore
The nation that loved thee - they see thee no more!

VOL. XXXVIII.

28

LINES WRITTEN ON THE PRAIRIES.

BY WASHINGTON CHILTON.

Scoop'D vales and swelling hills with verdure clad,
Far-reaching plains and forests dark and vast,
And wild ravines in whose deep shades the deer,
Sore pressed on open plain, finds shelter safe
From hungry hunter and relentless wolf,

And laves her panting sides in their cool streams,
Or in the tangled thickets rests secure.

The unrestricted sight finds nothing here

Save Nature's beauties spread with lavish hand:
No village bright, nor cultivated fields;

No human habitation, nor the house

Of GOD. The ceaseless hum of industry,
The jarring sounds that make the city's noise,
The winds waft not to these far solitudes.
This mound so green was virgin all, till now,
To human foot-steps and to human eyes,
Unless, perchance, some roving savage band,
Camanche wild, or wilder Witchita,
From war's pursuit, or from the eager chase,
Sought in its tempting shades a welcome rest.
The hiding quail and silent wooing dove
Quit their green trysting place at my approach,
But soon in neighboring thickets reunite,
And there, from interruption safe, resume
Their blissful meetings, rudely broken up.
The hawk, slow-sailing, seems awhile to pause
And scrutinize with keener gaze the strange
Intruder. The wary sentinel-crow,
High perched on yon dead elm, distrustfully
Looks down, and to his feeding comrades near
Croaks timely warning to prepare for flight.
As in the waving wilderness I lie,

Harmonious sounds swell up from yonder vale,
And distant woods, and westward-stretching plains,
The groves are filled with music; songsters gay
And murmuring insects join their varied notes
With swaying branches and the streamlet's voice.
The yellow-breasted lark, shunning the woods,
Skims the broad meadow, and from weed to weed
Sends forth his short and oft-repeated lay.
The breeze that now with gentle freshness fans
My temples, throbbing with the noon-day sun,
Full-freighted comes with odors sweet of flowers,
That hide their faces in the verdure rank,
And in their grassy prisons lost to view,
Challenge remembrance with their perfumed breath.
Few years shall pass ere these untrodden wilds
With noise of toiling multitudes are filled.

These forests old, that have withstood so long

The wrathful tempest in its wintry might,

To man's supremacy shall bow at last.

The earth, tormented, shall supply his wants,

And from these bright flowers' graves will soon arise

The luscious fruit and life-sustaining grain.

The cabin rude shall be the city's germ;

And towers and domes from these broad plains may spring,
And heaven-pointing spires o'ertop this height.

Some weary denizen may then, like me,
Seek out this cool retreat, to while an hour
In musing on the glories of the scene.

Sketch-Book of Alr, Meister Karl.

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

'I HAVE another dear friend who is a sexagenary bachelor. The heyday of life is over with him, but his old age is still sunny and chirping. He is a professed squire of dames; the rustle of a silk gown is music in his ears. In his devotion to the fair sex-the muslin, as he calls it he is the gentle flower of chivalry. He loves to bask in the sunshine of a smile; when he can breathe the sweet atmosphere of kid gloves and cambric handkerchiefs, his soul is in its element; and his supreme delight is to pass the morning, to use his own quaint language, in making dodging calls, and wiggling round among the ladies.''

HYPERION.

ONE glorious autumnal afternoon, our entire party had the luck to find themselves comfortably quartered in a handsome old-fashioned suite of apartments in Vienna. Dropping into the Wolf's room, I found it tenanted for the nonce by nearly all the gentlemen of our company, who certainly appeared quite as much at home as if all right and title to its occupancy had devolved upon them. An intense atmosphere of fragrant tobacco-smoke, mingled with the fumes of coffee and liqueurs, and the dégagée air of the visitors, at once evinced that Wolf was the man (and there is always one such in every establishment) in whose room every one felt perfectly at liberty to 'loaf,' drop in, or stay a week, without the slightest fear of causing annoyance.

Extended on a sofa lay fast asleep the fat, testy, sentimental little old gentleman already introduced to the reader at Venice. A most unlikely person he seemed at first sight to ever win his way to the affections of our company; but he had done it irrevocably - and was now fixed, fast as a nail, in the hearts of every one, more particularly in those of the ladies, who would all to a man have rather burnt their fans than send him adrift.

In good faith Mr. William Dumble, (or Uncle Bill, as young C. insisted on calling him,) though what the French call a 'FAT,' id est, a man of impenetrable self-conceit and obstinacy, was bristled all over with as many good points as a candy pyramid or the Confession of Faith. Irritable as an old mud-wasp, he still continually showed himself brave as a lion, and that far oftener for his friends than himself. But though so chivalric, peppery and fiery, the little old gentleman had a soft heart- very soft; softer than Charlotte Russe, and could be melted almost to tears by any moving tale of love, distress, or sentiment. He was in fact not a little credulous, but it was that creditable variety of credulity which originates not so much in a want of knowledge of the world, as from a continued association with that better class of mortals who give us but little reason for distrust. And that there are many such- far more than we at first

ever suspected-is generally the last and truest lesson of life learned by the citizen of the world or roué. But Uncle Bill's forte was the ladies, to whom he devoted himself with that honorable assiduity manifested by an industrious hen toward a brood of remarkably promising chickens. And as there were, fortunately for him, none among the latter at all disposed to rid cule his weak points, or overtask for the sake of jest his ever-ready services, it may be imagined with what zeal this gallant squire gave himself up in all honor and respect to the dames and demoiselles.

But I must return to the Wolf's room. There lay Uncle Bill, fast asleep, still holding in his hand Moore's Loves of the Angels. On the bed, one up, the other with his head toward the feet, were young C. and Adrian the artist, each puffing away for dear life at a mighty meerschaum, and varying its uniformity by a pull at their coffee or the Mareschino; while at the table, encumbered by guide-books, maps, cigar-cases, whips, weapons and foils, sat the Chevalier, deep in dominoes with Count de Egerlyn. Von Schwartz was mildly strumming a guitar and humming airs from 'Lucia;' while in one corner were picturesquely grouped several gentlemen seated on chairs, trunks, and the window-sill, earnestly occupied in debating the relative advantages which would accrue from a visit that evening either to Sperls Garden or the Opera.

Is this a cafe or estaminet?' said I, struck with astonishment and delight at the after-dinner paradise of tobacco and liqueurs so unexpectedly revealed to me.

No, old fellow, it was n't born one, but it's a devilish good substitute,' cried C., thinking of New-York. Come in, take a cigar, and don't be proud, but help yourself to coffee and fixins.'

I was just about to comply with the invitation, when a burst of laughlady laughter-from the adjoining parlor caused me to start and inquire, Who's there?'

ter

Le Loup dans la bergerie-the Wolf in the sheep-cote,' replied Count Egerlyn, laughing.

Quitting the cafe, I quietly entered the parlor.

Reader, did you ever see a pretty French engraving entitled, 'How girls pick up their wit'? It is an illustration of the scene I beheld. Seated at the table was Wolf, while around him were assembled the ladies, all apparently in the best humor in the world with him, themselves, and each other. You see them in the picture: Coralie, Mrs. C., the Countess Egerlyn, Julie, Gertrude Du Val, and Bel—the IDOL BEL, as Wolf called her, and the IDLE BEL, as she called herself. There was LA CAMPEADOR with her talking eyes, and Bel's sister with her black ones, not to mention many others, nearly all of whom are omitted by the artist on account of his inability to do justice to their charms. And there, directly in the midst, sat Wolf, snug as a bug in a rug, and happy as a young pumpkin in the sun. He was evidently in his old element of varnspinning, flirting, and 'coutant fleurettes,' or saying pretty things; and to judge by the intense happiness and fun that prevailed, the ladies were quite of a piece with him.

'And that, I suppose, Mr. Wolf, is also true?' cried Coralie, as I entered. 'Fact -true as a lover's vow, every word of it. But talking of the instinct of animals, it's nothing to what occurred within the experience of

an intimate friend of mine, an officer in an American vessel. One day while in the East, on coming up after a noon-day nap, he was astonished to find that an enormous tiger had been brought in a cage on board; and he accordingly seated himself not far from the animal and began observing it. Now it happened that at the same time three young monkeys had also been received and sent for the nonce down below; and the said monkeys, beginning to feel themselves more at home, had resolved on a promenade tour of inspection round their new domicile, and accordingly ascended the companion-way, arm-in-arm, in an elegant leisurely manner. 'Arm-in-arm?' cried the ladies.

'Yes, arm-in-arm, the outside monkeys swinging their tails gracefully for canes. So well indeed did one conduct himself, that my friend began to fear that the sailors had by mistake brought off some native of rank, supposing him to be a connection or relative of the rest. Well, no sooner had they fairly ascended, than they found themselves directly before the cage of their natural enemy the tiger. Struck with terror, each uttered a piercing scream, and in a touching attitude of despair fell fainting on the deck.'

'Dreadful!' exclaimed Coralie.

'How awfully the tiger must have felt,' said BEL, 'to think of the suffering he had caused. I wouldn't have had his feelings for an acre of Cashmere shawl.'

And what became of the poor young gentlem asked the Countess Egerlyn.

-I mean monkeys?'

The youngest was the first to recover and endeavor to arouse his friends, by pinching and shaking, to a sense of their condition. But all such exertions were in vain. Finally, observing not far off a very large wooden bowl full of water, near which lay two pewter spoons, he carried his friends thither, and by dint of splashing and pouring water with a spoon into their mouths restored them to consciousness.'

'Noble creature!' cried Coralie.

'No sooner had they fairly recovered, when, apparently by the advice of the one whom my friend took for a native, they at once rolled the bowl overboard, and springing into it rowed themselves ashore with the spoons, evidently preferring the risk of a watery grave to the recurral of such shocks to their nerves as that which they had just experienced.'

'But,' said Bel, 'it do n't seem to me natural that a creature which had acted so much like a fool in coming up stairs should have shown so much sense when his friends fainted.'

'Both monkeys and elephants,' replied Wolf, 'have intelligence enough to supply their sick or wounded companions with water. Even cats lick their dead kittens. Beside,' continued Short, sinking his voice to a confidential whisper, my friend informed me that he had good reason to suspect that this last monkey was the lady of the party!"

Here a general burst of laughter, giggling and tittering took place, broken by Gertrude Du Val's remarking:

Your friend, I presume, was thinking of the remark made in Marmion, when Clare brings water to the wounded knight:

"O WOMAN! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!'