valley of the Sweet Waters. When she wore it round her waist, allowing the borders to depend down her left side, each fold was so disposed as to exhibit in succession a rose, a tulip, a narcissus, enveloped in a galaxy of buds, especially of the moss-rose, which seemed to project from the surface of the fabric fresh and steeped in the dews of morning. The wild and froward beauty who owned it sometimes took it from her waist and twined it round the head of a favorite, in order to behold the splendor of the flowers set off by contrast with his black beard. Along the sides of the scarf ran a border of about four or five inches in depth, resembling in richness of colors the most gorgeous painted windows in an old cathedral; and through what may be called the field there ran long stems or wreaths of fanciful blossoms, fading away toward the centre into an opal tinge, which surrounded, like a halo, the circle of a damask It may well be doubted whether the shawls manufactured for the Russian and Persian ambassadors, which cost twelve thousand rupees, exceeded in magnificence and loveliness that of the Turkish lady we have described. To suggest more completely the idea of a garden, parts of the scarf had been steeped in one perfume, and parts in another, so that, as she moved along, the scent of jasmines, roses, or violets, fell upon the senses alternately. rose. SOME are prone to see misfortune in every thing around and before them, and the most out-of-the-way things are tortured to become direct attacks on their happiness. A new reading has been found for the oftquoted and truthful saying, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." A miserable friend of ours, who finds that everything goes wrong, and nothing turns up to suit him, says that in his copy of the Bard of Avon it reads, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends rough — hew them how we will." Johnny was of a different disposition, and we will warrant the world looked bright to him. "Well, Johnny, what kind of cake do you like?" "Why, I like sponge-cake, and pound-cake, and plum-cake, and any kind of cake but stomach-ache,that I don't like at all, I don't." THE article in the last number entitled "A Record for Friends," will be recognized as being from the pen of our associate, Mrs. Soule. By mistake the name was omitted. 10 those who are interested in the mental equality of the sexes, and the claims of women to political power, the character of Zenobia will appeal with peculiar interest. Although few women care to transcend the joys and cares of that heartlife in which nature has placed the blessing or bane of her fairer creatures, yet, when we raise the question of the mental ability of women to transact public affairs, or embrace a wide class of interests, I think we must accredit her with a capacity that mere housekeeping does not exhaust nor exercise. Zenobia was, unquestionably, the most enlightened, liberal and beneficent sovereign of her age. Amid her ignorant, sanguinary, and tyrannical contemporaries, she shone as a solitary star from the turbulent sky. If her reign was brief, it was much longer than that of the emperors who ruled the western department of the empire; and if she failed to defend her monarchy in the final struggle, it was not until she had seen many crowns dashed from the heads of stalwart men, in that convulsive epoch; and it was poverty of resources, and not want of genius or merit, that caused her ruin. But the Queen of Palmyra was an educated woman, and in her the powers of nature were sharpened and directed by the culture of art. We can do justice to no woman's mental ability, until we admit her to the best educational privileges, and taught and the use of her faculties. We justly stigmatize barbarism as having degraded the female sex; but no civilization has yet been honorable in its estimate and just in its treatment of women. The laws of all states regard her as inferior, and the prejudices of society are designed to keep her in that condition. In our country, woman is honored with higher esteem, treated with more generous courtesy, and allowed more freedom for the spontaneous development of her nature, than in any other land. But even here she is depressed by that tyrannic trinity, Fashion, Prejudice, and Ignorance. Her education, in the vast majority of instances, is of the most superficial and illusive description. It does not touch the deeper springs of her unsounded being, strengthen her mind, or develop her judg ment. It does not prevent her falling in love with her dancing-master, or vowing to "love, honor, and obey" a coxcomb without merit or brains. And so we pronounce her inferior. Her training has certainly been inferior; but what do we know of her NATURE, that we majesterially pronounce upon that? Her feet have been taught to step to music, her fingers to explore the mazes of embroidery, her voice to skim the scale; but, in Heaven's name, what has the woman been taught? By and by we find her the embarrassed and jaded mistress of a home, rapidly sliding from a superficial elegance to a crumpled decency. She is annoyed and irritated by the fast-coming cares of wifehood and maternity; and the very creature who had been worshipped as an idol is in danger of sinking into a drudge. If she has won the potent love that feeds a hungry heart, and rallies with a brave resolution to cope with her cares, she can hope only to be an appendage to her husband, and have her tastes and feelings translated into his sonorous personality. the And yet, with all the disadvantages under which our women exist, petted and perverted in girlhood, and led over rosy threshold of love into homes they have so little fitness to govern, it is surprising how many rise from the ordeal of marriage, ripened into vigorous capability, and glorified with unsuspected wisdom. Send an inexperienced man into trade, and he drops into bankruptcy as a stone falls toward the centre; but send an inexperienced girl into matrimony, and after some failures and perturbations, she is very liable to achieve signal success, and come in time to wear her matronly honors with the dignity of an empress. And yet we protest that woman is inferior. I doubt it. Let any person of discriminating powers of observation compare the relative success of the young men and women who have been left to their own resources, and he will find that the advantage is decidedly with the latter. A young man, subjected to depressing circumstances, is infinitely more liable to sink into a vagabond, than a young woman is to compromise her independence by any weakness of will, or culpability of conduct. Wherever industry is honored, and intelligence appreciated, you will see women who have risen against their fate and triumphed in the unequal conflict, women whose diligence has raised a bulwark against pov erty, whose fortitude has defied disappointment and sorrow, whose learning, taste, and genius have ornamented society and augmented its glories. When women shall be allowed the same freedom that men enjoy for the development of their powers, they will give us little occasion to charge them with inferiority. And the only mischief liable to to result from so simple an act of justice, would be the possible accumulation of a large stock of unmarketable men, with no stupid women left to contract for them on Cupid's Exchange. VI.-SUNSET SPLENDOR of the MONARCHY. Zenobia had now reigned, as an inde pendent sovereign, for the term of five years. She had retained the loyal admiration of her own people, and her honorable fame had become diffused among the neighboring nations. She was everywhere known as the patron of letters, and the friend and companion of genius. Her reputation was unblemished, her august womanhood in the meridian of its splendor. The frontiers of her kingdom were untroubled by invasion, and its internal elements prosperous and peaceful. Her power was understood to rival that of Rome itself, of which she now appeared, in point of fact, independent. According to Gibbon, "She blended, with the popular manners of Roman princes, the stately pomp of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to the suc cessors of Cyrus. She bestowed upon her three sons a Latin education, and often showed them to the troops adorned with the imperial purple." If I were portraying the life of some imaginary personage, whom I desired to commend to your favor, I should probably omit such statements as are liable to of fend republican simplicity; but Zenobia is an historic character, and we must behold her as she is, with the peculiarities of her country, and the desires of her rank. Divested of the purple pomp and pictorial manners of her court, she would not be recognized as an oriental princess, and need I say it? - divested of her motherly pride and ambition, she must part with the leading attributes of her womanhood. genius that raised him from the ranksa common soldier - to the throne of the empire. The qualities that won most the admiration of his legions, and which had contributed most to the power he now possessed, were qualities strictly and preeminently brutal. He enjoyed the reputation of having killed, in a single day, tians, and in several subsequent engagements, nine hundred and fifty." This mighty capability of killing men had raised Aurelian to the sovereignty of the Roman Empire, just as the fame of having burned enormous quantities of gunpowder, and the glitter of an epaulet, has secured to more than one modern man the presidency of a republic. While yet Zenobia remains in the completeness of her regal fortune, let us remember that she stands associated with the latest exhibition of ancient learning, and makes her throne the focus of a dying civilization. The ancient order of things was dissolving; the circle of soci-"with his own hands, forty-eight Sarmaety was contracting; the barbarians were pressing in on every side; the oracles and altars of the old religions were desecrated; and over all the face of the world hang the shadow of the coming eclipse. In that isolated city of the desert, the princely pomp, the social prosperity, and the scholastic glories of antiquity, survived, unsullied and unspent. There the surviving splendors of Greece were gathered, and poured on the world from Zenobia's palace. Lonely pilgrims of science, fleeing from the wrath of destiny and the wreck of a departing era, came to the genial shelter of that brilliant court, rehearsed their glowing thoughts, and fell asleep. And when the trump of war dissolved that illustrious assembly, and the silent palms became the sole watchers of the desolated capital, the classic luminaries had set in flood and gloom, and the civilization of antiquity was nev-chers and of heavy cavalry clothed in er kindled more. VII. AURELIAN APPEARS. The Romans had never forgiven Zenobia her defeat of the imperial army; and the growth of her political importance was the source of incessant jealousy. For five years, however, they were obliged to endure the spectacle of her prosperity, and hear the praises of her fame; for the invading Goths darkened Italy with their hostile banners, and gave ample employment to the valor of the legions, until the reign of Aurelian. This warlike and successful emperor, after putting an end to the Gothic war, and restoring tranquillity to the western provinces, prepared to effect the long-desired subjection of the Queen of the East. The man destined to execute the wrath of Rome upon Zenobia was the son of a peasant, of illiterate, rude, and sanguinary mind, yet endowed with a martial The fame of Aurelian preceded him as he passed into Asia; and a large part of Syria, dreading to tempt his vengeance, submitted to his arms without a blow. Thus, unresisted, he advanced within an hundred miles of Palmyra. But Zenobia had not imitated the timidity of her remoter subjects. On the first rumor of invasion, she had prepared to meet it as became the renown of her name. She had assembled a formidable army, composed, "for the most part, of light ar complete steel." A veteran and distinguished general, Zobdas, was appointed to lead the host, which the queen accompanied in person, that the troops might be animated by her presence. In The Roman and Palmyrean armies encountered on the plains of Antioch. the beginning of the engagement, the heavy steel-clad horsemen of Zenobia rode down all opposition. Their ponderous charges were irresistible. But in the sequel, fortune favored their antagonists. Aurelian possessed himself of the field, and the queen retreated with her broken forces to the town of Emesa. Here was fought the second battle, which proved equally disastrous to the Palmyrean cause. The splendid army of Zenobia was now ruined; and most of her provinces, as fickle in their allegiance as they were dastardly in spirit, declared for the imperial invader. The siege of Palmyra cost Aurelian vastly more time and anxiety than he had anticipated. He pressed the attacks in person, was wounded by an arrow from the walls, but made no perceptible impression upon the desperate valor of the city. He complains, in one of his letters, that the Roman people ridicule the war he is waging against a woman; and he tells them that they are ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia. "It is impossible," he says, "to enumerate her warlike preparations; and "the fear of punishment," he presumes, "has armed her with a desperate courage." "Yet," concludes this pious soldier, "I still trust in the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been favorable to all my undertakings." Notwithstanding his confidence in "the protecting deities of Rome," Aurelian, as if doubtful of the result of the siege, offered the queen advantageous terms of capitulation. He would guarantee to her 66 a splendid retreat, and to the citizens their ancient privileges." These terms being rejected, the siege was pressed with redoubled vigor. Zenobia had entertained herself with the reasonable but delusive hope" that in a very short time famine would compel the Roman army to repass the desert," and by the reasonable expectation that the kings of the east, and particularly the Persian monarch, would arm in defence of their most natural ally. But fortune, and the perseverance of Aurelian, "disappointed their hopes." The death of Sapor, which happened about this time, distracted the counsels of Persia; and the inconsiderable succors that attempted to relieve Palmyra were easily intercept ed by the vigilance of the foe. the beleaguered city itself was thus being reduced to extremity, and the hopes of its sovereign dissipated, one by one, "a regular succession of convoys" arrived, from various parts of Syria, to replenish and encourage the camp of the besiegers. Slowly and bitterly the queen yielded to the conviction that the fate of her city and kingdom was sealed. It was invincible Rome that thundered at the gates; and a deliberate glance at the posture of her affairs showed that hope could nurture valor no more. The proud and regal woman surveyed, for the last time, the wasting remnant of her power. For the last time, her mournful eye and breaking heart admired those faithful counsellors and steel-clad heroes who still offered unavailing support to her falling throne. What reflections occupied those bitter moments cannot be told; nor can we know what grand resolutions were formed, in a momentary ecstasy of heroism, to be resigned, as the tide of enthusiasm ebbed away. Perhaps she yielded to the persuasions of her counsellors; or it may be that she hoped to gain resources for the recovery of her power at some of the eastern courts. We know not her motives or expectations; it is only mine to relate that, a few hours hence, she had abandoned Palmyra, and was flying, a fugitive, from the wreck of her monarchy. As we reach this epoch in the history of Zenobia, we can scarcely suppress the romantic regret that she had not remained to die in defence of her favorite city. She was one of those rare women whose gorgeous richness of person adapts them to the splendor of a palace and the dig nity of a throne. The versatility of her genius, and the winning geniality of her temper, no less than her wondrous beauty and august surroundings, corresponded to the highest qualities of the oriental lands, and rendered her their most exact and lofty type. What a magnificent sacrifice she would have made, to sanctify the calamity of her kingdom and immortalize the vigor of her greatness. The flight of the queen availed her |