I know my own sweet mignonette
Is neither strange nor rare,

Your garden flaunters burn with hues
That it may never wear;

Yet on your garden's rarest blooms
No eyes were ever set

With more delight than mine on yours,
My box of mignonette.

Why do I prize my mignonette
That lights my window there?
It adds a pleasure to delight-
It steals a weight from care-

What happy daylight dreams it brings-
Can I not half forget

My long long hours of weary work
With you, my mignonette.

It tells of May, my mignonette,
And as I see it blooom,

I think the green bright pleasant Spring
Comes freshly through my room;

Our narrow court is dark and close,

Yet when my eyes you met,

Wide fields lay stretching from my sight,

My box of mignonette.

What talks it of, my mignonette,

To me it babbles still

Of woodland banks of primroses,

Of heath and breezy hill

Through country lanes and daisied fields—

Through paths with morning wet

Again I trip as when a girl,

Through you, my mignonette.

For this I love my mignonette,

My window garden small,

That country thoughts and scents and sounds
Around me loves to call-

For this though low in rich men's thoughts

Your worth and love be set,

I bless you, pleasure of the poor,

My own sweet mignonette.

I add "Ariadne" to show how Mr. Bennett can strike the

classic lyre.

ARIADNE.

Morn rose on Naxos,-golden dewy morn,
Climbing its eastern cliffs with gleaming light,
Purpling each inland peak and dusky gorge
Of the gray distance,-morn, on lowland slopes,
Of olive-ground and vines and yellowing corn,
Orchard and flowery pasture, white with kine,

On forest-hill-side cot, and rounding sea,
And the still tent of Theseus by the shore.

Morn rose on Naxos-chill and freshening morn,
Nor yet the unbreathing air a twitter heard
From eave or bough,-nor yet a blue smoke rose
From glade or misty vale, or far-off town;
One only sign of life, a dusky sail,
Stole dark afar across the distant sea
Flying; all else unmoved in stillness lay
Beneath the silence of the brightening heavens,
Nor sound was heard to break the slumbrous calm,
Save the soft lapse of waves along the strand.

A white form from the tent,-a glance,- a cry.
Where art thou, Theseus?-Theseus! Theseus! where?
Why hast thou stolen thus with earliest dawn,

Forth from thy couch-forth from these faithless arms,
That even in slumber should have clasped thee still?
Truant! ah me! and hast thou learned to fly
So early from thy Ariadne's love?

Where art thou? Is it well to fright me thus,-
To scare me for a moment with the dread

Of one abandon'd? Art thou in the woods

With all that could have told me where thou art?
Cruel and could'st thou not have left me one,
Ere this to have laughed away my idle fears?
He could have told thee all-the start-the shriek-
The pallid face, with which I found thee gone,
And furnished laughter for thy glad return;
But thus to leave me, cruel! thus alone!
There is no sound of horns among the hills,
No shouts that tell thy track or bay the boar.
O fearful stillness! O that one would speak!
O would that I were fronting wolf or pard
But by thy side this moment! so strange fear
Possesses me, O love! apart from thee.
The galley gone! Ye Gods! it is not gone!
Here, by this rock it lay but yesternight!

Gone! through this track its keel slid down the shore;

And I slept calmly as it cleft the sea!

Gone! gone! where gone?-that sail! 'tis his! 't is his !

Return, O Theseus! Theseus, love! return!

Thou wilt return! Thou dost but try my love!

Thou wilt return to make my foolish fears

Thy jest! Return, and I will laugh with thee!
Return! return! And canst thou hear my shrieks,
Nor heed my cry? And wouldst thou have me weep?
Weep! I that wept-white with wild fear-the while
Thou slew'st the abhorred monster! If it be
Thou takest pleasure in these bitter tears,
Come back, and I will weep myself away-

A streaming Niobe-to win thy smiles!

O stony heart! why wilt thou wring me thus?
O heart more cold unto my shrilling cries
Than these wild hills that wail to thee, return,
Than all these island rocks that shriek, return.
Come back!-Thou seest me rend this blinding hair;
Hast thou not sworn each tress thou didst so prize,
That sight of home, and thy gray father's face,
Were less a joy to thee, and lightlier held?
Thy sail thy sail! O do my watery eyes

Take part with thee, so loved! to crush me down!
Gone! gone! and wilt thou-wilt thou not return?
Heartless, unfearing the just Gods, wilt thou,
Theseus! my lord! my love! desert me thus ?
Thus leave me, stranger in this strange wild land,
Friendless, afar from all I left for thee,

Crete, my old home, and my ancestral halls,
My father's love, and the remembered haunts
Of childhood,-all that knew me-all I knew—
All-all-woe! woe! that I shall know no more.
Why didst thou lure me, craftiest, from my home?
There if, thy love grown cold, thou thus hadst fled,
I had found comfort in fond words and smiles
Familiar, and the pity of my kin,

Tears wept with mine-tears wept by loving eyes,
That had washed out thy traces from my heart,
Perchance, in years, had given me back to joy.
O that thy steps had never trodden Crete!
O that these eyes had never on thee fed !
O that, weak heart! I ne'er had looked my love,
Or, looking, thou hadst thrust it back with hate!
Did I not save thee? I? Was it for this,
Despite Crete's hate-despite my father's wrath,
Perchance to slay me, that I ventured all
For thee-for thee-forgetting all for thee!
Thou know'st it all,-who knows it if not thou,
Save the just Gods-the Gods who hear my cry,
And mutter vengeance o'er thy flying head,
Forsworn! And, lo! on thy accursed track
Rush the dread furies; lo! afar I see
The hoary Ægeus, watching for his son,

His son that nears him still with hastening oars,
Unknown, that nears him but to dash him down,
Moaning, to darkness and the dreadful shades,
The while, thy grief wails after him in vain;
And, lo, again the good Gods glad my sight
With vengeance: blood again, thy blood, I see
Streaming;-who bids Hyppolytus depart
But thou-thou, sword of lustful Phædra's hate
Against thy boy-thy son-thy fair-haired boy;
I see the ivory chariot whirl him on-
The maddened horses down the rocky way
Dashing-the roaring monster in their path;

And plates and ivory splinters of the car,

And blood and limbs, sprung from thee, crushed and torn,
Poseidon scatters down the shrieking shores;
And thou too late-too late, bewail'st, in vain,
Thy blindness and thy hapless darling's fate,
And think'st of me, abandoned, and my woe;
Thou who didst show no pity, to the Gods
Shrieking for pity, that my vengeful cries
Drag thee not down unto the nether gloom,
To endless tortures and undying woe.
Dread Gods! I know these things shall surely be !
But other, wilder whispers throng my ears,
And in my thought a fountain of sweet hope
Mingles its gladness with my lorn despair.
Lo! wild flushed faces reel before mine eyes.
And furious revels, dances, and fierce glee,
Are round me,-tossing arms and leaping forms,
Skin-clad and horny-hoofed, and hands that clash
Shrill cymbals, and the stormy joy of flutes
And horns, and blare of trumpets, and all hues
Of Iris' watery bow, on bounding nymphs,
Vine-crowned and Thyrsus-sceptred, and one form,
God of the roaring triumph, on a car

Golden and jewel-lustred, carved and bossed,

As by Hephaestus, shouting, rolls along,

Jocund and panther-drawn, and through the sun,

Down, through the glaring splendour, with wild bound,
Leaps, as he nears me, and a mighty cup,

Dripping with odorous nectar, to my lips

Is raised, and mad sweet mirth-frenzy divine

Is in my veins,-hot love burns through mine eyes,

And o'er the roar and rout I roll along,

Throned by the God, and lifted by his love

Unto forgetfulness of mortal pains,

Up to the prayers and praise and awe of earth.

Much may be expected from a young poet who has already done so well; all the more that he is a man of business, and that literature is with him a staff and not a crutch.

To return a moment to Ufton Court.

I am indebted to my admirable friend Mrs. Hughes for the account of another hiding-place, in which the interest is insured by that charm of charms—an unsolved and insoluble mystery.

On some alterations being projected in a large mansion in Scotland, belonging to the late Sir George Warrender, the architect, after examining, and, so to say, studying the house, declared that there was a space in the centre for which there was no accounting, and that there must certainly be a con

cealed chamber. Neither master nor servant had ever heard of such a thing, and the assertion was treated with some scorn. The architect, however, persisted, and at last proved, by the sure test of measurement and by comparison with the rooms in an upper story, that the space he had spoken of did exist; and as no entrance of any sort could be discovered from the surrounding chambers, it was resolved to make an incision in the wall. The experiment proved the architect to have been correct in his calculations. A large and lofty apartment was disclosed, richly and completely furnished as a bedchamber; a large four-post bed, spread with blankets, counterpanes, and the finest sheets, was prepared for instant occupation. The very wax-lights in the candlesticks stood ready for lighting. The room was heavily hung and carpeted as if to deaden sound, and was, of course, perfectly dark. No token was found to indicate the intended occupant, for it did not appear to have been used, and the general conjecture was that the refuge had been prepared for some unfortunate Jacobite in the '15, who had either fallen into the hands of the Government or had escaped from the kingdom; while the few persons to whom the secret had necessarily been intrusted had died off without taking any one into their confidence-a discretion and fidelity which correspond with many known traits of Scottish character in both rebellions, and were eminently displayed during the escape of Charles Edward.

XXXV.

IRISH AUTHORS.

GERALD GRIFFIN.

BIOGRAPHY, although to me the most delightful reading in the world, is too frequently synonymous with tragedy, especially the biography of poets. What else are the last two volumes of "Lockhart's Life of Scott"? What else, all the more for its wild and whirling gaiety, the entire "Life of Byron"? But the book that, above any other, speaks to me of the trials, the sufferings, the broken heart of a man of genius is that "Life of Gerald Griffin," written by a brother worthy of him, which precedes the only edition of his col