road which connects the neighbouring state of Connecticut as, in the cold winters of the country, stoves are univerwith the great river thoroughfare, it became the tem- sally used, a founder in the town, who saw the merits of porary halting-place of travellers bound either to the the invention, gave him a handsome sum in dollars for east or west, among whom may be found every variety the design. His contrivances for abridging labour in his of character, from the steady-going citizen of Mas- trade were, many of them, most ingenious and effectual; sachusetts, to the strutting and slouching Kentuckian. enabling him, as he said, to "snake his work along real Sometimes it happened that a promising opening for slick." And, as he made no secret of his inventions, business, or the attraction of a pretty face, converted the always announcing them with the whistle, and "that's transient visitor into a permanent resident. Among those Sam;" there was much to be learned from his restless so circumstanced, was the individual whose name stands ingenuity. Hiram had once started suddenly on a at the head of the present paper. Although, as his journey to Washington, some said to take out a patent name and features indicated, Hiram was of Dutch ex- for a new discovery, the model of which was placed in traction, he had yet been born sufficiently near to the the "Patent Office," along with the vast assemblage of borders of New England to be imbued with the Yankee machines, of one half of which the inventors themselves acuteness. Our acquaintance began in a cabinet-maker's cannot tell the use; but, as he maintained a profound workshop; Cronk worked on the upper floor, while the silence on the subject, the particulars were never known. ground-floor was occupied by myself and four Americans. There is a popular standing joke in the States about a I was a new hand, and had been somewhat at a loss to wily Yankee who deluded a New York merchant into account for singular remarks uttered by my comrades the purchase of a cargo of wooden nutmegs, and decamped from time to time, as a shrill whistle was heard in the before the fraud was discovered. This piece of knavery upper room, followed by a heavy blow on the bench with seemed to afford great pleasure to Hiram, who, though a mallet, and an exclamation, "That's Sam." On such not dishonest at heart, as will afterwards appear, could occasions my companions observed, "There's Hi again; not think upon it without many a merry chuckle over something new's cooked;" and in the course of a few "them nutmegs." One day, when seated, as usual, weeks, when I became better acquainted with the hands upon a chest, he suddenly broke out: "I'll tell you what in the "top shop," I found that the whistle, with its at- it is, boys, I know a dodge that's equal to the nutmegs tendant blow and ejaculation, was the means by which a any way." We expressed a desire to hear it, when he broad-shouldered, flat-faced, and sandy-haired workman continued: "It's near about thirty years ago, and I was was accustomed to testify his satisfaction at having somewhere between fifteen and sixteen, and living with mentally completed the details of some new project. It uncle Bigbee, along shore there in the Bay State-name's was difficult to associate the idea of inventive genius with immaterial. Well, it was uncommon bad times; uncle Cronk's stolid look, and angular and ungraceful out- took his sloop everywhere, but couldn't get a freight. lines; yet, there was a certain intelligent expression 'This won't do,' he says to me one day, as we were about his eye that compensated for all other defects, and, steering across Sound for home, 'dollars must be realized as time wore on, my shopmates communicated to me before the winter somehow or other, that's sartin.' He various portions of his history. Hi himself, when a little didn't say anything else, but I could see something was excited, found it difficult to continue his work; he would, a brewing. The next day he sharped the axes, and with at such times, often come below, and, taking a seat on a me to help, chopped down half a dozen big button-wood tool-chest or sawing-horse, proceed to enlighten us with trees that growed in his wood lot. We sawed them his new ideas, or relate fragments of his autobiography. up into short lengths, and then split them into On one occasion, as he informed us, his head was full of chunks, I wondering all the time whatever the old fellow a working-model of a machine for making mahogany was driving at. Well, after a bit, he took one of the dining-tables; the rough plank was to go in at one end, chunks, and chopped away at it till it looked something and come out at the other with turned legs, and hinged- like a pig's hind leg. What in mischief's that for?" flaps complete. "There's only one hitch," he added, says I. 'Never mind,' says he, 'just you chop a few "or I should make a fortin by it: I can't scheme the hundred after the same pattern.' I rather liked chopfixin' of the brass castors to the bottom of the legs no-ping; the wood was soft and full of sap, so we had a how, and if the thing won't do that, I guess it's as well considerable heap of the curious things at the end of to wait a bit." Hiram's next discovery was a new kind a week or so. Then we carried them into the barn, of glue, that could be kept fluid and in working condition and, while I was a speckilating about what was to be without the aid of fire. He immediately set to work and done next, uncle fetched a heap of old sail cloth out of made a chest of drawers to test its quality; but, unfor- the loft, along with his big shears and needles. Well, he tunately for the inventor, the article fell all to pieces on sews up one of the wooden things snug and tight in a bit the first damp day after it was finished. Hiram would of the canvass, and then we both kept on until they was never tell what the ingredients were. Another time he all covered, with a loop left at the little end. No sooner had a contrivance for setting down and taking up railway was this done, than the old man starts me for two passengers without the necessity for stopping the trains, bushels of lime, and made a considerable sample of and this he realized in the shape of a model, with a whitewash; then we soused all the canvass dummies till number of rotund two-legged little figures, which he they was all smooth-coated with white. We hung them begged us to consider as passengers, and with the sliding up to drain all round the barn, and I couldn't think what platforms by which their rapid transference was to be made the old fellow so uneasy about keeping the door effected. It was a proud day for Hiram when he invited fastened, when all at once I found out the how of it. us to witness the first trial of his model; the passengers to stop, and those to go on, were duly placed on their respective platforms,-whiz went the little train, and at the same instant the whole of the little corpulent bodies went rolling in one direction, while their legs flew in the other. We all burst into a loud laugh. "I guess t'aint Sam," said the imperturbable inventor, as he walked off with his model, which was never heard of afterwards. Some of Cronk's inventions were, however, useful: the year before I knew him he had contrived a stove, which, with great economy of space and fuel, would roast, boil, and bake, and warm an apartment at the same time; and

Uncle,' says I, 'them's wooden hams.' 'Suppose they be,' says he, 't'aint a circumstance to make procla mation about: we must carry them all aboard the sloop to night; they'll be dry by that time.' We got them on board, slick enough, and were out of the bay afore any of the neighbours was up: there was a stiffish breeze, and next morning early we were alongside the dock at New York. Well it was just the time as the country traders bring their hams to the city, and ours was the first cargo in the market; seven hundred as sound-looking legs as were ever sliced. Uncle went ashore and called on six or seven provision merchants, who came

down to view the hams; they hefted them, tapped them with their knuckles, and pronounced them a fairish lot. Nobody ever thinks of cutting open the canvass ;* uncle wasn't over hard about price, so the bargain was soon struck, the hams cleared out and paid for in Boston notes before noon. As soon as the last one was pitched on to the dock, uncle says, 'Up with the jib, Hi!' I wasn't long about it, and as the tide was running up, we were soon clear of the city. By sun-down we were fifty miles away, and while I steered, uncle set about cleaning out below, for there was plenty of white dust and scraps of canvass got in, in our hurry to load two or three nights before, and he didn't want this to be found in case of any inquiries. He had sold the hams six cents a pound, and stuffed the notes into his jacket-pocket twisted up in an old canvass-bag. So he went to work lively enough and soon got all swept up below, and the rubbish pitched overboard, so that if we had been overhauled, it would have been hard to guess what was our cargo. He felt a little easier when this was done, and went below to count his notes; he struck a light, but a minute afterwards he was up on the deck again, and jumped like mad down the hatchway, where he had been a sweeping, and run up and down squinting into every hole and corner. At last, he stood still and yelled, as though he had got a knife between his ribs; he skeared me above a little, and I let go the tiller, and run for'ard to see what was the matter. By the time I got to the hatchway, he was up on deck again, jumping about like a cat with scalded feet, feeling in all his pockets, and raving all the time; thunder ain't a cir-down. Well he got sort of pleasant at this, and when I cumstance by the side of the noise he made. He whirled his hat overboard, tugged at his hair as though he wanted to pull it all out, called himself a thousand fools, and then searched about the deck with the lantern. While he was a bit quiet, I asked him what he was a hunting after? The notes!' he screamed, I've lost the notes!' Then he blazed up again, and told me to go about and find the place where he had pitched the rubbish overboard; of course it was no use, but I went about to quiet him. He couldn't see anything floating; it came on to blow, so we slanted away across the Sound for home. By the time we got ashore, uncle was a little cooler, but I didn't like to stop with him, he was so wrathy to think he should lose all his profit after doing the trick so clean; so a day after that I got up early one morning and walked back to father's. That was the first lesson I ever had in cheating, and if it hadn't been for uncle Bigbee may be I should never have tried my luck at circumventing."

In the next adventure which Hiram related, he figures as the principal actor. One hot afternoon he came in with a prodigious water melon, and after sitting some time sucking its juicy pulp, he began in reply to our request for another chapter of his history:-"Well, chummies, 'twas about ten years after that business of the wooden hams, I'd been at home working with father on the farm, when I felt a mighty inclination to go and see the western country. Money was plaguey low in my pockets, and father wasn't willing to shell out the dollars; so after considering for a time, a thought struck me; "that's Sam," says I; and away I went to a sneaking chap as traded in bogus,† and bought a thousand pewter dollars. There was an old grease jar in one corner of father's stable, so I made it look considerably older, and then put the dollars into it, and bunged it down close. You would have qualified it was a hundred years old at the very smallest. I said good-by to the folk at home, and went up the river as far as Catskill, taking the jar with me in a bag. There was a good few of old Dutch

settlers living thereabouts, so one night I went and buried the jar, bogus and all, in the green right in front of one old fellow's house, taking care to make everything look as natural and old as possible. I waited a day or two for the ground to get firm, and then set out bright and early one morning with a couple of hazel rods in my hand. I tied these together at the point, and walked up and down the green, as though I was fishing with both hands, and looking for something that wasn't easy to find. After a while the old farmer got up, and looking out of his window for a sniff of the morning air, saw me a surveying up and down the dewy grass. He hollered at me, but 'twasn't any part of my plan to hear him, and as soon as he could get his big carcase into his clothes, down he came demanding Vat you make dere?' 'Morning boss,' I answered, I'm just hunting for a fortin.' He kept on questioning me, and at last I made him understand that I was working with the divining rods in search of treasure. At first he said 'twas all a 'hampug,' but when I told him that a good many people buried their money in the revolutionary war for fear of being plundered, he began to see some sense in it, but couldn't make out what the rods was for. So I explained that wherever there was a spring, or any gold and silver buried under ground, the rods always kind of dragged towards the spot, and anybody who knew how to use them could always tell when he had hit the place. I persuaded him to take the sticks into his own hands just for a try, and the old fellow actually believed that he felt them pull now and then as we were walking up and took the rods again he kept close to me; I guessed what he was thinking about, and told him that as the ground was his he should have half whatever I found. Then he laughed right out, and took me into breakfast; we went at it again till dinner time, and after that to sundown. The old knickerbocker was afraid I should give him the slip in the night, so he gave me a bed, and got up first the next morning, when we began again. I didn't want to seem in a hurry, but the old farmer began to ask questions that showed he was doubtful and uneasy, so after about an hour I stopped and told him we was on the place, the rods pulled straight down. He waddled off as fast as he could go for a spade, and while he was fetching his breath, I dug down three or four feet, making believe that the ground was unnaturally hard. At last we came to the pot; old enough it looked, that's a fact, and the trouble we had to get out the bung, there's no telling; but after a hoist with the corner of the spade we got it open: how the old sinner chuckled at the sight of the dollars. He tried to jump as I carried the jar along to the house, but he couldn't. We counted the money out into two heaps of five hundred, 'twas the real old currency,— pillar dollars-and then sat down to breakfast. While we was eating I told the Dutchman that I was going west; specie being heavy to carry, if he liked I'd rather have notes. He was too glad to grab all the silver, and went to his old bureau and brought out ten fifty dollar bills on the bank at Albany. It wasn't long after that before I bid him good-by, in a quiet way, not seeming at all in a hurry; but when I was out of his sight, I made tracks anything but slow across the country for Buffalo. After trading for a spell there and at Pittsburgh, I found myself at Cincinnati, where I bought a lot of horses, and put them on board a steamer for New Orleans, calculating on a handsome profit. I didn't feel quite easy at times when I thought of the old Dutchman, but whistled away the feeling as we streaked it down the river. We were about half way when the boat went slap on to a snag; she began to fill, and went down directly, hardly giving us time to scramble ashore. My trade in horses was all over, for they were all drowned. I had about 20 dollars left, and made my way across to Virginy, work

ELISA MERCŒUR. POETRY, like all divine things, has not only devoted votaries, but also enthusiastic martyrs. Few and far be-it with elegance and purity. When she read Byron she tween, they may not leave us the most lofty and inspiring strains, but they hallow the cause of their passion and their death. They appear amongst us for a few moments only; too frail, too exquisitely sensitive, not to be doomed to premature decay. Consumed by a quenchless longing for the beautiful, they soon pass away from earth: their destiny to sing and die.

tragedy was rejected by the French theatre. This proved the death-blow of Elisa Mercœur. She had been nine years before the public, and she had not yet been able to earn her daily bread. A pension of £48, poetry paid at d. a line-when it was paid-were her resources for the future; she attempted prose, and succeeded indifferently; generous friends came to her assistance, but she was too proud for dependence; her heart failed her; she saw herself circumscribed within the narrow circle she had vainly striven to pass; she lost faith in her success, and with it the courage to struggle on. No doubt it would have been better for Elisa Mercœur not to have yielded to despondency. It would have been more noble in her to brave the difficulties of her lot, as so many have done before her, but we must make allowances for the veloped. From the moment that her tragedy was refused, Elisa Mercoeur sank into a declining state. M. Guizot, then minister, granted her a small sum, which enabled her to spend a few months in the country; but her disease was past remedy, and, after an illness of thirteen months, she died on the 7th of January, 1835, in the twenty-sixth year of her age.

ceived that, even with her undoubted talents and her reputation (for she was well known by this time), she could not procure a livelihood. Her mortification was great, for Elisa Mercoeur was by nature proud, sensitive, and ambitious. It is too much the fashion to quarrel with these peculiarities of the poetical character. Is it not, moreover, requiring impossibilities, to ask of human beings to be self-confident, without pride; alive to all that is beautiful and good, and not sensitive to evil? Is it not folly to think that those who behold within their reach a fame so glorious as that of the poet, will never fall into the error of loving it too fervently and too well? It is also fitting to remark, that even amongst poets, there are great differences of character, chiefly displayed in their endurance of evil fortune. Those in whom intellect and imagination predominate-and they are un-sensitiveness of a poetical temperament, prematurely dedoubtedly the greatest poets-know how to suffer with courageous patience. Men like Milton can live disregarded; they can dispense with the present; the future is their own. But those poets, who are such chiefly through the exquisite sensitiveness of their temperament, do not possess the same power to resist the storms of life; that excess of feeling which invests their poetry with so great a charm, seldom fails to embitter their existence. It was to the latter class that Elisa Mercoeur belonged.

So far as appearances were concerned, she had no reason to complain of the reception she met in Paris. Her presence was courted in the most distinguished circles, and everywhere she heard her productions spoken of with the most flattering praise. Elisa Mercœur became the wonder of the day; she was then in her nineteenth year, and the personal attractions of the woman gave a new charm to the gifted poetess. She was tall, elegant in figure, with dark hair and eyes, and features of a Grecian cast. The portrait prefixed to her works, and said to be a striking likeness, would do well for a Sappho or a Corinna. There may not be perfect beauty in that expressive countenance, but there is genius and inspiration in those large dark eyes, that seem to be gazing on futurity; in those smiling and parted lips, that look in the act of pouring forth some glorious song. It was rot long ere Elisa Mercoeur perceived the emptiness of her drawing-room fame. She was praised and admired, but she never received any remuneration for her labours; the periodicals, who willingly inserted her poems, declined to pay the poetess. Disheartened by her want of success, she sank into a bitter despondency, and for a time ceased to write. Once, however, she was induced to compose a charming little piece, destined to a publication that did, for a wonder, pay its poets. She took the verses herself to the editor; he read them, was warm in his praise, readily agreed to have them inserted, and handed Mademoiselle Mercoeur the magnificent amount of 28 sous (fourteen-pence) as the price of her labour. She looked up with much surprise

"Am I to understand," she said at length, "that you pay poetry a sou a line?"

"we

"No, Mademoiselle," he courteously replied, only give two liards (‡d.) a line habitually; but I doubled the price for you."

Elisa coloured, she put back the twenty-eight sous, tore up the verses, and left the place, indignant at the insult offered in her person to an art she held divine.

The ill-success of her fugitive pieces, in a pecuniary point of view, induced Elisa Mercœur to devote herself more assiduously to the tragedy projected in her childhood, and of which the thought had never ceased to haunt her mind. This tragedy abounds in dramatic incidents and in fine verses, but it is not equal to her other efforts; her genius was always more lyrical than tragic. The merits of "Boabdil, King of Grenada," were, however, sufficiently great for the actors who heard it to pronounce in its favour; but Baron Taylor interposed, and the

Her premature death excited an interest her obscure and struggling life had failed to create. She was no sooner in the grave than it was perceived her genius only needed encouragement; verses were written in her praise, and a tomb was erected to her memory. It still stands in the Père la Chaise, covered with inscriptions and regrets for her who lived forgotten, and won her fame in death. Poor Elisa Mercoeur had foreseen this, her poet's destiny. In several of her pieces we find the mournful conviction that glory is not for the living; that, during life, slights and neglect await those for whom "the tombstone becomes the first altar of fame."

And how passionately she thirsted for that fame! How eloquently she defines her longing as "the forgetfulness of present sorrow; a glorious light amidst surrounding gloom; a divine glance in dim futurity." The consciousness that she died with powers undeveloped, and with a task unfulfilled, embittered her last moments. She was never deceived with regard to the real value of her writings; she knew the imperfection of all she had produced, but she also knew that it bore the tokens of a glorious promise,-a knowledge that made her feel more keenly the indifference of the surrounding world. Through all her sorrow she, however, remained faithful to the divinity of her art. In her eloquent piece, Glory and Indigence," she defies the storm so long as her minstrel's harp remains. Whatever her fate may be, she glories in this-that she also was a poet. She proudly exclaims, "I have conquered, I have sung;" and there was joy for her in this thought,-joy even to the last.

We have already alluded sufficiently to the characteristics of Elisa Mercœur's poetry; but great as are its merits, it will never prove so popular as her name is now in France. A few of her best pieces will live, but only a few. In the words of Mrs. Hemans, we may however observe of her, and of those who, like her, perish in their youth

"Oh! judge in thoughtful tenderness of those,

Who, richly dowered for life, are called to die
Ere the soul's flame, through storms, hath won repose
In truth's divinest ether, still and high!
Let their mind's riches claim a trustful sigh!
Deem them but sad sweet fragments of a strain,
First notes of some yet struggling harmony,
By the strong rush, the crowding joy and pain
Of many inspirations met, and held

From its true sphere :-Oh! soon it might have swell'd
Majestically forth !-Nor doubt that He,

Whose touch mysterious may on earth dissolve
Those links of music, elsewhere will evolve

Their grand consummate hymn, from passion gusts made
free!""

JULIA KAVANAGH.