of her fellow-creatures, I committed a positive and a cruel injury towards her. I was affianced to her by my own consent, by the desire of her father, and by the dying wishes of my own; her conduct towards me was tender, trusting, and generous; and yet, with scarcely an effort to resist the infatuation, I gave my heart to another; and not contented with my secret inconstancy, actually disclosed the state of my affections to the new object of them. When I think of the dazzling Claudine and the gentle Anna as I first beheld them; when I think that had I acted with consistency and self-control, they might still have been attached to each other, beloved by their friends, and ornaments to the society in which they moved, I seem to feel myself answerable for the death of both of them, as well as for the fearful crime which cut short the thread of life in one. "Tis true Claudine was vindictive, treacherous, cruel; but who first of all caused these evil passions to blaze forth in her heart? You will tell me the Spirit of Evil, and you will tell me right; but he had an instrument on earth. Oh! Walwyn, do I judge myself too severely in saying I was that instrument?" Walwyn attempted to speak comfort to him, but D'Arcy's feelings of deep penitence and self-reproach had been nurtured for twenty years in his bosom, and were not likely to yield to the kind sophistries of even an esteemed and valued friend. "Do not attempt to alter my opinion," he said," or to influence me to change my present plan of life. I am happier than I deserve to be: the events of my past days have rendered me a wiser although a sadder man. I retrace them with deep and solemn feelings; and I cannot but think that they possess a striking and a twofold moral. My own example testifies the fatal effects of inconstancy of the affections; had I set a due regard on the door of my heart and of my lips, these dreadful and trying afflictions would never have fallen on myself, or on those connected with me. The exposure of Claudine's crime proves that even when we imagine ourselves most securely fenced against detection, our sin will find us out.' It is true that crime is rarely betrayed by so wonderful and preternatural an intervention as that which I have related to you, but minute and trifling incidents will often furnish the keystone to discovery; an unguarded word, an overheard conversation, a phrase uttered in sleep or in sickness, will awaken in the minds of others that suspicion which will never slumber; and the words of Job will be awfully exemplified, There is not darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves."" AVELINE. (A Dramatic Sketch.) BY W. G. J. BARKER, ESQ. SCENE-A Chamber. AVELINE AND HER MOTHER. AVELINE. Come near me, mother-nearer : sit beside Yes, mother, yes; Such dreams were also mine. I looked to tend Your honour'd age, and as increase of years Brought added weakness, guide your failing steps. But long before that hour arrives, my form Will be reduc'd to dust, and these dark locksMy early pride-must moulder quite away! For me no Spring, no Summer! Storms may burst Above my bed, and July thunders roll Unheeded as unheard. The woodland birds May chaunt their gleesome carols o'er my clayRemain unconscious of the once-lov'd song. Lays that I priz'd so, but my deafen'd sense My friends, I know, will think of me with tears, Remembering only my first happiness, Ignorant of all that o'er my way of life Cast the dark shadow I have walked in long. Let them continue thus. I could not check Their weeping, lest such kindly sorrow chang'd To anger against HIM whom I forgive. So confident, we did not fancy time MOTHER. Forget him, Aveline. And having gained, after three little months, AVELINE. That cannot be ! I know few days are left me, and I fain But mast'ring all, around my heart there cling To blend with murmurs from the breeze and stream, MOTHER. Dear child, such tantalizing memories AVELINE. Mother, I have no tears. What now is life to me?-an ended dream, Beautiful truly in its memory, But sad withal—a day perplex'd with change, MOTHER. Illness, my love, has made you thus, and grief- Already peep young snowdrops from the glade, AVELINE. Mother, they wake, indeed, to grace my bier, glare; But let the evening sunlight freely in, And the fresh radiance of the autumn moon. A hopeful joy. Methinks I hear a voice, Once sweet and blooming-scentless now, and dry? I kept it like some relic, and with it Restore, before I die, his plighted faith. Banks of the Yore. APHORISMS. (FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.)-He who seeks happiness must practise self-denial, and eschew selfgratification; he must strive beyond all not to deserve punishment—even from self-conviction. The aim, the end, of a GOOD LIFE should be JUSTICE-first to strangers, next to your neighbour, and lastly to yourself. (FROM RABELAIS.)-Perform your appointed task but mediocrely well, never speak anything detrimental of your superiors, and let the lunatic world go as it will; for, depend on it, it will go its own way.— GEORGE J. O, ALLMAN. If April is constantly celebrated for alternate smiles and tears, May is no less renowned as one of the loveliest months in Europe's year. Poets and sages, philosophers and orators, have with one consent united in declaring its praises; and their encomiums have found an echo on nearly every other lip. From the time when the ancients offered sacrifices to their goddess Maia on the first day of this month, down to our own most iron era of steam and railways, it has been studiously set apart to the service of Youth and Love. In the consecration of song, pre-eminent above all others; in the pure heart, united with a thousand dear associations; bright of beauty, because uncontaminated-cheerfully do we greet thy coming, with fervent zeal bidding thee glad welcome, golden May! Now indeed Nature assumes a resplendent appearance, and whilst rejoicing in the freshness imparted by her annual birth, abundantly are her glorious treasures displayed. The store-house is set open. That vast repository-earth's ca pacious bosom-sends forth prolific riches, to increase from this vernal hour till gathered back in full autumn perfection. The marks of Winter's storms are wholly obliterated in the valley meadows: green grows the luscious herbage, and luxuriant are the odorous blooms; and even upon high hills-giant-like sentinels of a rock-girt land-few traces remain; except it Poetry. be in some of those recesses, seldom if ever seen; dreary, invisible solitudes, whose stony barriers almost exclude the foot of man; spots like that described by WORDSWORTH, where "the rainbow comes, the cloud, And mists that spread the flying shroud, And sunbeams; and the sounding blast." POETRY. BY MRS. EDWIN HANCOCK. -A thing of love and kindness! shedding sweets Creative pow'r its glories to renew. Yet is life astir on the mountains-life and beauty, grace and grandeur, and the music-voice of mirth-for the golden plovers are on the wing, and the brown moorbirds are not silent, calling to each other without ceasing. All these-A thing of life and beauty! bearing on have a speech and a language unsyllabled, which, nevertheless, he who seeks constantly may understand. Neither is there any sameness among the lofty wildernesses; for flowers, delicate in tints and pencilling, adorn smooth sunny slopes, or cling about the many-hued cliffs, or stream from grey crags like army banners in the playful wind. At this bright season it seems truly a crying sin against Heaven to abstain from visiting scenes of such wild majesty, where we may admiringly view the mighty works of our Divine Creator's omnipotent hand, contemplate the vastness of his beneficence towards us, and silently worship him in the very temples He has raised. How delightful it is to wander amid such rarely trodden expanses, knee-deep among fresh fragrant heather, and to search with curious eyes for the living wonders that are around us— wonders which wordlings scornfully pass unnoticed, albeit more marvellous than warmest fancy could devise; then, when the shortened shadows declare mid-day, to seek out some flashing cataract-whose untiring voice proclaims it afar off, though all the moorland seems equally level-and seating ourselves on the time-splintered crags, watch a never-ending strife of waters hurrying onwards incessantly; and listen to their wild melody, which has not ceased since the deep sea, at God's bidding, receded to its appointed place, to return again no more. Aye, May is sweet on the plains, and dear to the lowland youth and village damsel; but it is still more delicious in the hill country, and still dearer to the stout mountaineer and his brighteyed maid. They who have once seen it smiling along the banks of the sparkling Yore, or of the winding Wharfe, would scarcely wish to exchange the glorious prospects presented by those districts for the subdued beauties of better cultivated, and therefore richer regions; and they who-though now "in populous cities pent,' surrounded by the busy hum of congregated toiling men--were born among the highlands, and inhaled their infant breath where the bracken grows greenest, and the harebell and purple heath wave beneath each breeze, will gladly fly in thought to their native rocks and streams when the calendar and the flower-girls' baskets announce the return of MAY. Banks of the Yore, Ages to earth's wide realm have come and gone, In pristine strength fresh glory shall disclose, -A thing all flow'rs and sunshine! that the heart A -A thing of might and grandeur ! trumpet-ton'd, Oh! ye whose favour'd hands at times have known 'Tis yours amid the world's vast host to raise That, when in Nature's course from earth thou'rt ITALIANS AND THE NATIONAL GUARD.* (In a Letter to a Friend.) Florence. MY DEAR FRIEND, Do not be afraid of my date; I am not going to be classical; no, nor political, nor sentimental; only matter of fact, and as such I hold it that you must be almost as interested as myself in the present state of Italy. But you can only learn from the papers, you cannot feel as I do the trembling of excitement through the whole land. One cannot help distrusting the duration of any sentiment in so impulsive a nation; but for the present, to me as a mere looker-on, the fervour seems quite universal. It is a good time to be here, a time of awakening; it alters entirely the tone of one's impressions. Instead of mourning, with Childe Harold, over the ruins of past glory, your heart beats responsive to the ardour which now flushes the long-pallid cheek of Italy. You stand by the gloomy tower of the Guelphs, and see the citizens in the voluntary exercise of municipal watchfulness, and the proud palace of the Medici resounds with the rapturous chorus of " Viva Pio Nono." Once more the national flag of Italy waves over the people's heads, and at its colours fluttering in the sunshine the whole air is one deafening shout. This may be but a temporary effervescence; but to me, who have almost an Italian excitability, it gives an unexpected vitality to my outhern wanderings; I came full of old associations, and I am constantly reminded of new wishes and new hopes-I might add new hates -for one is not long permitted to forget the present animosity against the Austrians; silence had been ordained in Milan while we were there, and the attempts at disturbance, which accompanied the installation of the liberal archbishop, had been put down by the strong arm of authority; but the feeling was still there: it found a harmless vent in prints of the Pope and the aforesaid archbishop on all sorts of surfaces, coloured in all sorts of colours. I particularly noticed these victims of popularity flaring on crimson and blue cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, exactly as I remember in London seeing Mr. and Mrs. Caudle. This may be considered the last and lowest step in the downward roll of celebrity. Fame can do no more; she has fathomed the bottom of the gulf when she is applied to the nose of the canaille in a cotton pocket handkerchief. We were in an unfavourable situation for ascertaining the state of Italian feeling, having located ourselves in a German hotel; but in the course of sight-seeing we had many evidences of the truth. In a confused sort of lumberroom of antiquities, in the vast building of the Brera, we got, after some difficulty, a sight of Canova's magnificent statue of Napoleon: it is of colossal size, in bronze-naked, like a Greek warrior, with the mantle falling at his back: in one hand he holds a sceptre, in the other a winged victory poised upon a globe. The figure is simple and majestic, almost warranting Byron's extravagant eulogium— "Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day." It is not generally shown; it lies neglected in this dark lumber-room, and gave me a painful sense of incompleteness, in the contrast between its intended destination (the beautiful arch of the Simplon) and its dreary, dingy tomb. We asked the cicerone if it had never been proposed to place it in any of the public squares, as its beauty so richly merits. "What can you expect?" said he, in an accent of ineffable scorn from "quei Tedeschi? They not know what to do with it!" And his sneering tone had a world of meaning. At Pavia, so near the frontier of the Austrians, the voice of the grumblers grew louder; yet still was it under breath, for the grim old palace of the Viscontis has not ceased to be the habitation of despots. "Look at quella Brutta quete!" was the remark of an Italian tradesman; "they are never sent here unless mischief is intended; they are as barbarous as their own wilds!" He pointed as he spoke to a body of Croatian cavalry, with rough beards and bristling red moustache, who were slowly defiling through the town. In my eyes they bore a different aspect; it was a drizzling day, and each man wore over his uniform an ample cloak of white duffle, that trailed in long folds behind him on his horse. Silent, impassive, gloomy, they made me think of a band of armed monks bound on some stern religious warfare. Their white garments reminded me of the Carthusian friars, whom I had seen at the Certosa, or rather outside of it, for it is sacred from the levity of female feet. * In presenting the first of a series of letters from should like to give you a sketch of the good Were it not an unpardonable digression, I one of our most valued contributors, we need hardly monk who did the honours of that splendid allude to the stirring events which have taken place even while they were on their way to England. If edifice. He was as completely a lady's man as political changes affect them at all, it must surely be if bred in a drawing-room instead of a cloister; to lend an additional interest to the outpourings of a and if love and marriage were forbidden to him, discriminating mind on the eve of the irruption. he made the utmost of "les petits soins." He was full of compassion for me, very naïvely ex ED. N. M. B. A. |