PHEDRA.

Wretch that I am--what headstrong words have burst
From my rapt spirit? what delusion curst--
What demon's ire--hath warped my mind's control,
And hurled me darkling to the abyss of wo?
Alas! alas! whither has strayed my soul?
Veil! veil my throbbing temples--round me throw
Thy mantle, nurse beloved,--for I have spoken
Sad words of fear and shame-mine eyelids burn
With glowing drops of anguish--down I turn
My bashful eyes--bitter it is to know
Returning consciousness-to feel the dark
And wavering struggles of our reason's spark,
Now sunk in utter gloom, now flashing high--
Better! far better were it so to die

Unconscious-senseless-frenzied and heart broken.

FROM THE PERSIANS OF ÆSCHYLUS, v. 389.
What time the morning on her steeds of light

Had climbed the heavens, and filled with radiance clear
The universal earth, a cheering shout

Of bold defiance from the Greeks arose

Hymning their battle anthems, and the voice
Of answering echo from the island rock

Sent back the thrilling clamor-deep dismay
Fell on the Persians in their hopes deceived;
For not as flying did the Grecians chant
Their sounding Pæans, but with souls unchanged
Careering to the fight, the trumpet's breath
Kindling all hearts to glory, as their oars
Cleft the rough billows in harmonious sweep.
Nor long the pause, e're seen distinct and near
Their navy led to battle--first the right
Hove into view, and close in firm array
The central squadrons followed. Long and loud
Was heard the summons-"Sons of Greece, arise!
Strike for your country's freedom, for your wives,
Your children, for the temples of your gods-
The graves of your forefathers-now! strike home!
The contest is for all." Nor pealed the while
In fainter accents from the Persian host

Their cry of battle-doubt nor dread were there-
But ship to ship with crash of brazen beaks
Was urged incessant--first a Grecian bark
Razed the tall bulwarks and the carved pride
Of a Phoenician galley, then the strife
Continuous raged and close through either host.
Awhile with lines unmoved the Persian fleet
Sustained the onset, but anon the crowd
Of their own numbers, in the strait confused,
Wrought tumult to themselves and disarray.
Nor each his neighbor aided, but their beaks
And arrowy prows against their shattered sides
Ungovernably drove and broke their oars.
Meantime the Grecian barks with constant charge
Thundered around them, that the foamy surge
Was covered by the broken hulls o'erset
Of sunken ships, and red with warriors slain.
The sea-beat shores, the reefs, were piled aloft
With armed carcasses; the barbarous host
No longer strove, but in disordered flight
Rowed wildly onward, while the avenging foe
Slew them, like fish within the meshy toils
Enveloped and with broken oars, and spars
From shattered gallies, beat the flyers down,
And smote, and slaughtered. Terror and despair
And lamentation o'er the deep prevailed,
Till the dead hour of night by darkness checked
The victor's triumph and the captive's doom.

THE EXILE.

CHAP. III.

A young unmarried man, with a good name
And fortune, has an awkward part to play:
For good society is but a game,

"The royal game of goose," as I may say,
Where every body has some separate aim,
An end to answer, or a plan to lay.

DON JUAN.

THE morning which had brought to pass events, certain to leave upon the minds of a tender and affectionate family, traces of grief far beyond the reach of human consolation, far beyond the influence of years, was, in truth, but the keystone in the arch of time; the crash of the exploding mine which had no less existed, while slumbering in its untrodden caves, than when waking with the voice of an earthquake, to the dismay and destruction of men. Long before had the seed been sown, long had it blossomed in rank luxuriance, and now, when the crop was to be gathered into the garner, wo to the sower as to the reaper, for the fruit of that seed was sorrow, and shame, and repentance now too late.

Lindley Harlande was the second son of a gentleman of noble and almost titled birth, and of considerable, though not unencumbered property. The estates were tied up by a deed of entail so strict, that the paternal inheritance of the younger children was, in fact, a mere bagatelle. The eldest son, a wild and thoughtless boy, had resided for years, as he had also married, (married, contrary to the wishes of all who loved him, a Sicilian lady, not more famous for the beauty of her person, than for the cold and heartless levity of her nature,) amidst the poisonous allurements of Neapolitan luxury. Lindley had passed through the regular routine of Eton and Cambridge; nor had he departed from either, uncelebrated for his talents, or unadmired for his social qualities. At the former, he had been as much distinguished by the facility and flow of his versification, as by his skill and strength when captain of the boats, and first cricketer in the upper club. At the university, if he had not borne away the highest honors, or earned the reputation of most correct scholarship, it was, that he had turned his mind to the elegancies, rather than to the critical acumen of literature; that he had quaffed the living waters of poetry, whether from the deep springs of classic lore, or from the lighter and more sparkling streams of Italian genius; that he had mused over Pindar, and Dante, and Shakspeare, to the exclusion of the drier studies of geometric or ethical philosophy. Here also had he shone in another light, for his laugh was the gayest, and his heart the most open, among the votaries of pleasure. Harlande's hunters were the best, and no man could ride them like their owner; Harlande's dinners were the most agreeable in the university, and last, not least, all that belonged to him, belonged to his friends also.

Alas for the bloom of the soul which flies even sooner than its rival of the cheek! Alas for the generous, the noble, the unsuspecting confidence of the boy! Alas for the warmth of heart, embracing every trivial kindness as a manifestation of sincere love, and hailing the every day acquaintance with the rapturous affection of friendship! Alas for the tear, gushing from its secret fount at the first whispered breath of pity! Alas, for the noble inVOL. I.

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dignation, kindling with no selfish blaze, at the very name of injustice or wrong! Alas for human nature! That all these must be changed and debased, must be paralized and deadened, before the very name of boy is abandoned for the more dignified, as it is termed, the more dignified appellation of man! Alas, that the confidence which dreams no ill of others, must be pinched and chilled into doubtful, debasing suspicion! That the feelings, warm as life, must be alloyed into the hypocrisy of politeness! that the tongue must be forbidden to obey the dictates of the mind! that the brow must be veiled by the iron mask of indifference, and the heart bound down to the narrowing, and despicable regulations of policy and interest!

Lindley was naturally expensive in his habits, and lavish from the very generosity of his soul. The allowance which he received from his father, liberal beyond prudence, was proportioned rather to the style of the establishment at home, than to the future prospects of the boy; although for a younger son, these prospects were so brilliant as to excuse, if not justify, the profuse expenses of his education. His father's family, distinguished for talent, wealth, and birth, all to which the rank world bows the knee, ambition young had the power of advancing him in any line, to which his might direct its energies. Politics, the sword, the gown, were all within his reach! Nay, more than all this, a distant relation had, years before Lindley's majority, entrusted to one, noted by the voice of the many as honest and honorable above the mass of mankind, a large property, to be ultimately divided between him and that dear sister, from whom this very morning had seen him depart as a lonely and heart-stricken exile. Among his college acquaintances, Lindley Harlande was constantly thrown into the society of the eldest son of the Duke of Rochester; several years younger than himself, gay, clever, and handsome, Mertoun soon advanced to that degree of intimacy with our hero, which, by very young men, is called, and supposed to be, friendship. They were companions in the hunting field, and at the dinner table; their rooms were in the same court at Mertoun Trinity, and their pursuits were, to a certain degree, the same. had, however, one favorite occupation in which his friend had no share; he was already a professed and calculating gambler; his gaiety was constitutional, his good humor, as much as his cold heart, and unfathomed depth of guile, was a part of his nature: nor was it wonderful that the unsuspecting warmth of Lindley's disposition should be deceived by the deep-laid hypocrisy of one whose youthful cunning, was more than a match for the of this premature youth were headed men. The expenses sagacity of gray not less excessive, than his expectations were enormous; still a minor when the term of his studies had come to its conclusion, he was reduced to the necessity of raising a considerable sum of money, at a large rate of interest, for the liquidation of his debts. In his difficulties he applied for assistance to Harlande, who implicitly trusting to the honor of his friend, signed his name without hesitation to bonds for ten thousand pounds, the whole of which was handed over to the thoughtless prodigality of the noble spendthrift. In becoming thus liable for the debt of the young lord, it had never even occurred to Harlande, that he ran any risk beyond that to which all mortal changes and chances are liable, the risk of death; against this he was secured by a policy of insurance, executed and actually paid up to the

period, when his friend should arrive at that age which is deemed by the wisdom of the law to confer discretion on the indiscrete; and as the usurer, who advanced the money, was as well aware for whose benefit the loan was raised, as the borrower himself, it never once occurred to Lindley, that the obligation could be thrown on his shoulders, even if Mertoun should be guilty of such unparalleled audacity of baseness as to conceive the idea of so black a fraud.

Time rolled onwards, but light and buoyant was his flight, and easily glided away the winged hours over the head of Harlande and his joyous contemporaries. To the regular routine of an university life, succeeded the broader whirl of the great world: the park, the opera, the ball, and the club, took place of hall and chapel; and still, in each and all, recommended by his talents, his handsome person, and the high fashion of his family, Lindley Harlande was the observed of all observers. No thoughts of responsibility troubled his enjoyment, no dew of rising bitterness was scattered from the fountain of his pleasures, to be a torment amidst the flowers of life. In the wider field of the world, he found associates more adapted to the impassioned warmth of his own feelings, than the self-styled friends of his boyhood; the inherent thirst after knowledge and fame, "that last infirmity of noble minds," which was still foremost in his thoughts, even while he seemed the most gay and careless idler of society, ever impelled him to seek out his acquaintances among men of riper age and more matured wisdom. Hence he acquired something of that perception of thoughts and motives in the human soul, which, although natural to the hoary front of wrinkled eld, startles and astonishes when it is found dwelling beneath the polished brow and unaltered curls of youth and beauty. Hence he had begun to distrust, even while he loved, the world; hence he had acquired the hardest lesson of heathen philosophy, that the sum of all earthly knowledge is but the consciousness of ignorance. Still it was not possible that one, so young, so glorious in the promise of his early manhood, so looked up to for his talents by his contemporaries, so courted by the eyes and tongues of earth's fairest creation, should be enabled to look into the hollowness and vanity of poor mortality, as those alone can, who have been taught wisdom in the bitter school of personal experience. It was not possible that he should do otherwise than love the variety of pleasures, which luxury offers to her votaries in lavish profusion. After long and dubious hesitation, he had determined on devoting himself to the pursuit of arms, and accordingly, by the exertions and influence of his family, the promise of a commission had been obtained for him, and at the period of his departure from home, his appointment was daily expected in the gazette. In the meantime his days were consumed in the usual routine of morning calls, and evening parties. Every afternoon his cab was still the centre of the gayest knot of riders under the trees at Grosvenor Gate; every evening it might be seen dropping its owner at the most recherche dinner of the night, and at a still later hour, whirling from ball to party in a ceaseless round of varying sameness. There was not a door opened, or a fete given in town, from which the absence of Lindley Harlande would not have been noted by all, and regretted by many of the loveliest and most fashionable of native and foreign beauties.

Not a few mothers were there capable of considering that Lindley,

though a younger brother, with his brilliant talents, high family influence, and forty thousand pounds, would be an exceedingly good match for any one of the three or four ringletted girls, who, though pinched and padded into the most approved pattern of female form, and stewed by hot room's and late hours, into the most delicate paleness, continued to hang heavily on hand, while another, and another, and another, were rising fast from nursery and schoolroom, eager aspirants for the pride, pomp, and circumstance of matrimonial conquest. Many a fair daughter, even of less facile dames, hesitated not to declare aloud, that Lindley was the most agreeable of her partners, and to dream in her inmost heart how great would be the happiness, and to calculate how probable the chances of his claiming her not unwilling hand, to the exclusion of some duller and richer rival. The London season was drawing to a close, when a rumor arose that the merchant, to whom had been entrusted the sum of Lindley's earthly wealth, was likely to fail. It was but a faint whisper, which he who first heard, dared not repeat to his neighbor, so high was the reputation, and so vast the supposed fortune of the anticipated bankrupt. But for one day did the whispered doubt continue: the second dawn came, and the doubt was such no longer,-the villain had fled. The man, who had professed to consider himself answerable to his God for every hour of his time, had fled to a foreign land, bearing with him the spoils of the widow and the orphan; betraying the trust of his departed friend; robbing even sacred funds of the provision laid up for the sick, and the aged, and for those who have no home; leaving to his widowed wife poverty and despair, and the grief that heedeth not the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. Heavy was the blow to Harlande, and heavier as concerning his sister's, than his own calamity; for to him it was but a change from wealth to mediocrity, and his mind, though cradled in the lap of ease, was yet of that stamp, which knoweth not its own strength till the hour of trial cometh; which stiffeneth itself against the storm with more enduring hardihood, as the blasts wax stronger, and the attacks of adversity more and more prevail. He left London, broke up his establishment, and retired to the quiet of his father's seat, amidst the real regrets of a few, and the cold pity of the multitude. The price of his carriages and horses more than paid all his personal debts; for when it was announced that the sale of Harlande's hunters would come on at Tattersal's on Monday, not even the settling day of Derby or Leger could show a more crowded court, or number a greater multitude of cabs, stanhopes, and hacks, than was gathered around the dingy archway, to the joy of the red coated pensioners, whose wooden legs and patch-covered eyes, no less than blazoned liveries of military service, earned for them the charge of horse or carriage, and the triffing reward of easy duty. And, in fact, more real sympathy was displayed among the needy veterans without, than among the wealthy and titled crowd within, who thronged to bid for the property, and profit by the losses of their late companion; for

kind smile and cheery notice of the young man, as he had flung the rein their grasp at the gardens, had sunk deeper into the hearts of the poor, than the alms dispensed with no niggard hand. Not a shadow of blame had attached to his character-not a human being could boast of obligation conferred, or money due,-and when Lindley appeared in the country with the solitary groom, (who had resolved to enlist in whatever