gleesome words to the bursting joyousness of her little heart. It was scarcely strange that Minie felt no painful anticipations with regard to Walter ; but it certainly was, that Mrs. Leslie should have been so completely unconscious of his danger. Yet so it was, he suffered apparently so little, his mind was so bright, so strong, so unfailing, that though he regained no strength, his mother could not believe the near vicinity of death. She had been so many years hovering herself on the threshold of that awful bourne, and still she passed it not, that she could not realize it with regard to her cherished, her gifted boy. To Florence alone, the whole extent of calamity hanging over them appeared revealed; she could not shake off the conviction that her beloved brother was in truth" passing away," that the summer would return with all lovely things, but find not the poet there. One day, about the middle of February, Florence returning some hours earlier from her daily avocations than usual, prevailed on her mother and Minie to accept the invitation of a friend residing further in the country, and remained alone with her brother; several manuscripts were lying on a table near him, but, as was sometimes the case, he had sunk into a sort of dose, and fearing to disturb him, she sat down to continue Minie's work, which lay on a table in the recess of a window, half hidden by the curtains; for nearly an hour she heard no movement, but then aroused by the rustling of paper, she turned towards the couch. Walter was glancing over his manuscripts, and there was a deep flush on his cheek, a sparkle in his eye, giving eloquent answer to the thoughts he read. "And will ye, too, perish?" she heard him murmur, as if wholly unconscious of her presence; "Will ye, too, fade away and be forgotten, when the mind that has framed, the hand that has traced ye, shall lie mouldering in the grave? will no kindly spirit throb and bound beneath your spell; no gentle heart find in ye an answer? Oh, blessed, indeed, is that poet's lot, who wins the applause of a world, the love, the reverence, the blessing of the gifted and the good! who feels he has not lived, nor loved, nor sorrowed in vain! But the poet, to whom these things are all denied; who passeth from this beauteous earth, unknown, unloved, his name with his body buried in the cold, shrouding folds of death. Father! oh, my father, have mercy on thy child !" and covering his face with his spread hands, Florence beheld him give way to a burst of such irrepressible agony, that the hot tears made their way between his transparent hands, and his attenuated frame shook with sobs. Trembling with sympathising emotion, Florence sank back in the chair she had quitted; she longed to throw herself on his neck, to beseech him to be comforted, to breathe of hope, but she felt she dared not; at length, and unable to resist the impulse, she glided forward and knelt beside him. "Florence, my beloved sister! oh, I have terrified you, I forgot your presence, imagined myself alone; dearest, heed it not, I am better now, it was bodily weakness, only weakness, which will overpower me sometimes; you must not mind me." It was several minutes ere Florence could reply; but as quickly as she could, she reverted to those treasured manuscripts, beseeching him to let her read them, it was so long since she had done so. With a faint smile he acceded. Florence, herself, was surprised; never had it seemed to her that such beautiful imagery, such glowing thought, such touching pathos had breathed so powerfully in his compositions before. A new spirit appeared to have lighted on them; they were mostly detached pieces, forming, indeed, a treasured volume. He showed her, too, the beautiful designs with which it was to be illustrated; and Florence no longer marvelled at the burst of agony wrung from him by the thought, that these emanations, of no common genius, must pass away and be forgotten; but even she guessed not the real reason of his longing, and the poet betrayed it not. "I dreamed," he said mournfully, "when in all the glow and heat of composition, that I was bequeathing a glorious gift to my country, wreathing my name with immortality. I seemed to forget all the difficulties, the impossibilities, which prevented the attainment of my darling wish; but now dearest, now I feel it is a shadow that I have sought, a vain, shapeless shadow; it needs influence, wealth, or, to say the least, a name, and I have neither-no, no, they must die with me." "Die !" murmured Florence, almost inaudibly, and she paused in deep and mournful thought; "but if you were strong and well, Walter, would you not make some effort yourself? at least ask the opinion of some good publisher; it might not then be so impossible, as it now seems." "If I were well, oh! Florence, I should do many things, and this would be one of them, I own; but I dare not think of this," he added hurriedly, and evidently with pain; "the struggle for submission has been mine only too lately. I know not how to trace, to love, the mandate that chaineth me, a useless burden, to my couch, when every exertion is needed to support my beloved mother, and my helpless sisters; and yet, oh, Florence! morning, noon, and night, I pray to see and feel this; for my better spirit tells me that good it must be, or it would not come from an all-loving God." "And He will grant us both this blessed trust, in his own good time, my brother; but in this case, dearest Walter, let me act for you, trust the MSS. to me, and let me endeavour to do with it as you would yourself." Her brother looked at her with affection and astonishment. "You know not the difficulties you undertake, my Florence," he said; "how many hopes will be raised, only to be disappointed; how much fatigue encountered "I care not," was her instant answer; “I am so accustomed now to independent wanderings, that even the crowded streets of London have lost their terrors: do not fear for me; and if I should succeed, Walter, dear Walter, what would previous disappointments, previous anxiety be then?" The beaming countenance of the young poet was her truest answer, and once the precious MSS. deposited in her hands, Florence permitted no difficulty to deter her; weary, and often exhausted as she felt from seven, sometimes eight successive hours passed in teaching, she would not return home, till she had accomplished something in the furtherance of her trust. Conquering even her extreme repugnance to walking about the metropolis after the lamps were lighted, it was often near eight in the evening before she returned home. Even there, every nerve was tightly strung, that she might not evince the least fatigue, or appear desponding; for the anxious glance of her brother awaited her; the hope she had excited lighting up his pale cheek and beautiful eye with the seeming glow of health. Yet both mutually avoided the subject. Florence dreading to impart all the disappointments, which she did, in truth, encounter; and Walter, from physical weakness, absolutely failing in courage to ask a single question, well knowing that were there hope to give, Florence would not continue silent. It would be useless to linger on the disheartening task which the devoted sister so cheerfully undertook; but at length her perseverance seemed about to be rewarded. (To be continued.) STANZAS FOR MUSIC. BY DAVID LESTER RICHARDSON. Oh, lady, in that voice of thine Oh, lady, cease those liquid notes, THE CHILD'S INQUIRY. "Oh, tell me, mother-" THE OLD MAN'S SONG. BY CHARLES SWAIN, ESQ. "What is't, my child? The blighted flower in its summer bloom? Though my youth hath fled by like a dream of Which the rod of oppression ne'er waveth o'er ?" the night, Whose beauty may greet me no more; The seasons may change, and the springtide decay, But the band that hath saved me through many a day Is the hand to console me in age. And at last, when the steps of my life totter slow, And calm and resign'd to its destiny go, "Oh, tell me, mother—” "What is't, my child?" "Mother, last night to my bed there came" Angels' forms in a shining flame; Their voices were shrill, their robes were bright; I fearfully gazed on the beings of light. And, when they closer came to my view, I shudder'd, alas! for one form I knew; It resembled that which thou dost wear In thy bosom, bound with thy own dark hair. It spoke, and to me these words did say, 'My child, I bless thee,' and vanished away; Oh, mother, why dost thou linger here, And furrow thy cheek with the constant tear? Why dost thou not seek that spot of rest, Where thou mayest be with beings so blest? Thou'lt find one amid that heavenly throng Like the miniature worn in thy bosom so long. Oh, tell me, mother-" "Stay, stay, my child. The forms that gladden that radiant sphere Have dwelt awhile in sadness here. Do thou (like they have done) seek thy God; But with faith in the promise of Him who hath Tread thou, my child, in the paths they trod. said Thy frailties on earth be forgiven ; And when thy spirit would take its flight, The angel who came in thy dream last night, May my spirit yet trust, through that hope of Who to thee has its guardian blessing given, the dead, To meet with its loved ones in heaven! Will bear thee, my child, with joy to heaven!" GEORGE BAYLEY. THE CHAPERON'S COMPLAINT. BY MRS. ABDY. My early friend, three months ago, To London came--a law-suit brought her, And much she wished some way to know To introduce her pretty daughter. I took the hint, I hoped to gain The girl a brilliant match, but never So failed my plans; I cannot train This stubborn, wilful Constance Trevor. True she has parts, but what avails In that best science-Calculation? Jointure and dower, with due precision; Alas! she cannot understand The principle of plain addition. Wordsworth and Moore she doats upon, Worthy remembrance or quotation ; Of dazzling eyes, and tresses sunny, But says "the worth of any thing Is just what it will bring in money." Titles enrapture not her ear, She does not shrink from detrimentals, Scarcely she seems my words to hear When I discuss estates and rentals: Their owners I present, and then She shows a preference for others, Chats sociably with married men, And sings duets with younger brothers. She does not manage well her shawl, The witching waltz she never dances, She does not comprehend at all The system of half words and glances. In attitudes she cannot stand, Whene'er an 66 eligible" gazes, Within her album, General Grey Wrote lines of love-fraught lamentation, Which any court of law would say Amounted to a declaration : They wanted metre, sense, and rhyme, But could she not some favour show 'em? Why need she in a moment's time Extol Montgomery's new poem? Long in our opera-box, last night, Thought only of her favourite singer; "Hush, the Polacca is not finish'd!" My protégées, I say with pride, And four united to a carriage; Some, handsome settlements possess, And some expect them in reversion, And all were wedded in full dress, And took a honey-moon excursion. While she, my patience really fails, Must hope no nuptial celebration, Or else, when she returns to Wales, Must marry in a middling station, Look o'er her weekly bills, direct Her servants in their household labours, Iler children's copy-books inspect, And gossip with her rustic neighbours. A note, 'tis from her mother, stay- Dear Constance to his suit acceded." Amazement-what, the rich young peer, No titled belle would have refused him, Dear Constance-she recalls, no doubt, With gratitude my well-meant chidings; The chariot I must order out, And spread abroad the happy tidings; And I shall lay no trivial stress On my own skilful tact, maintaining That half my sweet young friend's success Was owing to my careful training. I shall declare that hearts resist All forward efforts to subdue them, And say, with some old dramatist, "Men should be coy when women woo them;" Deplore the wiles of vain coquettes, And wonder what such arts are taught for, And hint that girls, like violets, Should only be displayed when sought for. Customs will alter, I expect, And every chaperon and mother And flirts abjure their trade for ever, THE DAUGHTER OF PERICLES. of shades. Amid the confusion and terror which reigned at Athens, the friends of many of the BY N. MICHELL, AUTHOR OF "THE TRADUCED," &c. deceased had neglected to supply them with the The notions of the ancients, as regarded the immaterial world, and the abodes of happy or condemned souls, may appear to us preposterous; yet it must be granted that their fables are eminently beautiful, and some of their conceptions the most grand and striking that the mind, unassisted by revelation, ever gave birth to. piece of money 串 necessary to secure a passage over the Tartarean river; consequently Charon refused to admit these unfortunates into his boat. Among the children of the renowned Pericles, victims as well as himself to the dreadful malady above alluded to, was one daughter, a girl of surpassing beauty. She had caught the plague while ministering to her stricken lover, who, creeping to the banks of the Ilissus to die, had been forsaken by all but her. The young man was a soldier, but dissipated in his habits, and a scoffer at the gods of Greece. Clymene, however, while aware of his culpable conduct, had loved him with a devotedness known only to woman; with the trustfulness of her sex, and the hope of youth, she felt confident she could work a reform in his nature. Conon returned the girl's pure and exalted passion; he loved her as the good genius of his destiny; and this amiable and softened feeling oasis, so to speak, in the desert of his character. The Athenian had breathed his last in the arms of his betrothed, and Clymene sickened and died the same day. It may be too generally imagined that the story of Tartarus and its fiery streams, with the rivers Styx and Acheron, over which the souls of the departed were conveyed, originated with the Greek writers; the idea was Egyptian; but it was amplified and improved by the lively people of Attica, and invested with all the fascinations of poetry. Long ages before Athens or Sparta rose, or Homer wove his Mythic fancies, across the lake Acherusia, in Egypt, the bodies of the dead were borne; the boat was termed Baris, and the ferry-was the solitary redeeming virtue, the only green man, Charon. On the banks of this lake was established a tribunal of forty-two judges, who examined the past actions of the deceased, and pronounced the sentence that justice seemed to demand. This was an actual ceremony, and witnessed by the living. The more poetic, or perhaps metaphysical, Greeks carried the solemn rite beyond the grave. Over their Acheron passed the spirit, in its new and immortal tenement; their Charon was invisible to human eyes; and their judges were beings of another world. The Tartar of the Egyptian (a ditch into which the body of the condemned was thrown, without the privilege of burial), was converted by the Greek into a region of suffering, where the spirits of such culprits as Tantalus, Ixion, the Danaides, and others were tormented for ever. Nevertheless, the idea of that blissful region for the virtuous, termed Elysium, seems purely referable to Greek invention.. The sombre Egyptian could not revel in dreams of happy and sun-bright islands, with flowers that never faded, and music in every breeze. His notion of an hereafter, if he possessed any, was as melancholy and dark, as his religion was full of gloom, and entirely confined in its symbolical and hieroglyphical mysteries to the knowledge of the priests. The following sketch may have been transcribed from a scroll of parchment lately found in an obscure corner of the Parthenon at Athens, where, for an unknown number of centuries, it escaped the notice of the several conquerors of that city. It was the time of the great plague which devastated Athens, in the days of Pericles, that most brilliant of Greek orators himself fell a victim; and each day the young and the old, the freed man and the slave, were sent in crowds to Hades. Never since the slaughter at Thermopylæ, or the desperate battles of Marathon, Mycale, and Platæa, had such multitudes stood on the shores of Acheron waiting to be ferried over to the land The two met on the shores of Acheron. Ah! how different that black strand, and foul sluggish stream from the bright-glancing river, and flower-crowned banks they had left! They entered Charon's boat in company with several others, and were ferried over to the opposite shore. There sat, on their solemn thrones, the judges of Hades. They were men who never smiled, yet who themselves had been once subjected to human frailty, and had known human passions; and this experience rendered them the more capable of passing judgment on the late inhabitants of the earth. And the ministers of solemn aspect proceeded with their task. Some were condemned to the pains of Tartarus, whose adamantine walls, as far as the eye could reach, stretched away, engirdled by the burning Phlegathon. Others were to be borne to the Elysian fields, there to revel for eternity in innocent pleasures, and luxuries that should never pall. Conon and Clymene, in their turn, stood before the thrones; the former with head erect, and proud mien; the latter with downcast looks, and trembling at the anticipated sentence. The beauty of Clymene, refined from all the dross of earth, attracted many eyes; her golden hair floating in rich masses over her polished shoulders; her cheek suffused with the hue of immortality, and the very air around her appearing to gain light from her faultless, glowing form, she looked more like a young goddess who had just glided thither from Olympus, than a being whose home had been the dim and perishing earth. And the actions of the two lovers were laid bare *This piece of money was the obolus usually placed by the Greeks in the mouths of their departed relatives. to those immortal eyes that read the souls of men. And thus the judges of Hades spoke: "Proud Athenian! thou hast lived on earth to gratify thy own senses rather than benefit thy fellow men. Thou hast done grievous wrong to the divinities of Greece, inasmuch as thou hast refused to bend thy knee in the temple of Minerva, the tutelary goddess of thy city; and hast derided the sacred oracle at Delphi. Thy abode must be within yon burning walls; and a million years of torment may scarcely expiate thy crimes!" The haughty Conon spoke not, still gazing in calm defiance on his judges; but a shriek broke from the lips of Clymene. "Fear not, gentle maiden; thou hast loved blindly, but not with a criminal love. The sacrifice thou didst make in tending that plague-stricken man, evil though he be, was pleasing to the gods; thy many virtuous deeds have won thee grace. Behold, the car waits to waft thee to the bowers of heaven !" Then a nymph approached, and placed a crown of flowers sparkling with the dews of Elysium upon Clymene's hair, and they beckoned her to enter the diamond car, to which were yoked winged horses of light. But the maiden moved not; no smile of joy broke over her face; she gazed silently on her judges, and then on her lover; she slowly approached the latter, and sank into his arms. "Daughter, let thy farewell be brief!" said the voices from the sombre thrones. "No, no," sobbed Clymene; "I cannot say farewell. I have loved in life, and must love through eternity. Elysium will scarcely be Elysium to me; one thought will poison all its joys the thought of Conon's torments here!" "Rash-speaking girl, know'st thou not that before entering the bowers of bliss, thou wilt obtain forgetfulness of the past-thou wilt drink of the stream of Lethe?" The daughter of Pericles started, and her face wore an expression of agony it had not betrayed before. "Oblivion? Forget all that made existence dear? Think no more-feel no more-my sweet sorrows, my long love passed away for ever? Oh! banish me from your Elysium! Talk to me of torture beyond that endured by the most afflicted in the regions of the suffering, but tell me not that I must forget!" "Poor child!" exclaimed the judges; "the gods pity, and forgive her; she speaks from the impulse of human passion. Thou must form other and purer ties than those which bind thee to that evil man. Mount the car!" But Clymene heeded not the command; the feelings of earth, and the faithfulness of woman swayed her devoted soul; and she clung to the doomed Athenian, whose features relaxed from their sternness, while he smiled upon her. "I reverence the gods," she cried; "and I will worship them unceasingly; but, oh! do not part me from him whose love is more to me than my own soul's welfare or bliss. If Conon cannot be admitted to Elysium-if he must suffer-I ask only to be near him." "What! accompany him to Tartarus? thou know'st not what thou sayest. Torments are there of which thy earthly nature can form no conception." "I will brave them to be near Conon." "Look at yon river, which rolls and boils in fire around the dreadful place! Behold those adamantine walls, sweeping away into infinity, their summits lost in clouds! Once within, even Jupiter himself could not deliver thee !” "If Conon is to remain there for ever, I would remain also." "Hark! on the infernal blast ye can hear the yells of Tityus, whom a serpent has been tormenting for a thousand years. Ye can hear the whir of Ixion's wheel, which carries him round and round with dizzy velocity, for ever and ever. That sharp cry is the voice of Tantalus, tortured without ceasing by burning thirst. Think of the miseries within those walls, and rejoice to ascend the chariot which will waft thee so soon to scenes which are as delightful as these are horrible." "I will not enter yon chariot without Conon." "Daughter, we love thee for thy august father, Pericles' sake, or thy impious obstinacy, and defiance of the gods, would constrain us even to take thee at thy wish, and send thee to the place of woe." Then Conon spoke : "Be merciful to her, ministers of Hades! Give her the draught of oblivion now, and she will no longer resist your will." "That may not be other hands than ours must administer to her the soothing waters." "Conon, dear Conon! I say again I will endure all torments rather than lose the memory of past happiness, the recollection of our love. Kind judges, hear me! If any poor deeds of mine have won me the favour of the gods, let my reward be, not the bowers of Elysium, but a place near Conon in Tartarus; where, if I may not embrace him like this, I may see him, hear him, pray for him, and by kind words mitigate his anguish.' "Thou canst not abide within the flaming walls, and not be tormented also." "Then let me be tormented! Give me all your tortures!" With increased energy and desperation, Clymene raised her clasped hands, and then she tore from her brow the chaplet of flowers which the nymph had placed there, symbolical of a happy, pardoned soul. "You_tempt the gods; you provoke their wrath. But enough we depart from our office in arguing thus with a being of earth. For the last time, daughter of Pericles, hear us. Abandon thy earthly love; go whither the gods invite, to a land of flowers and chrystal streams, of melody and joy; or cling to that man of crime, and in darkness and woe be content to pass the cycle of eternity. What say you? Answer!" Conon softly whispered to the agonised girl, " Abandon me-be happy, dear one; let me suffer alone." She raised her eyes imploringly to the judges, and then stretched her arms towards the far horizon, |