nothing of that; it is no business of mine." "I beg -Madam run in debt-Monsieur gambled away her of you to tell me the person." "I cannot." "You jewels. They began with complaining, and ended will probably cause the happiness of my life." The with reproaches. At length one morning Maurice rode banker looked at him with surprize. "Will you tell away without taking leave, and was never heard of afme the truth," said Edward, "if I name the person ?" terward. "Yes." "Miss Pauline Weston." "You have guessed it."

Edward hurried out. In two minutes he was at Pauline's feet, and asked her hand. She was confused -she could not answer-she sighed. He put his arm around her-" Am I disagreeable to you?" "Oh no. I have long loved you; but how could I hope!" The first raptures of love flowed through two noble hearts. Pauline could not comprehend how Edward had taken such a sudden, violent resolution. She often asked the reason he smiled but did not answer.

Poor and helpless, Jeannette was forced to seek an asylum with her sister. She was kindly received and treated with the most tender forbearance; but her conscience was not at ease; a violent cough enfeebled her frame, and in her twenty-eighth year, no trace of her former beauty remained. Her mind was soured and embittered, so that she was rendered unfit for any domestic joys. The servants of the family trembled before her. If the nurse wished to hush the infant she had only to say "Aunt is coming." The larger children, when at play, if they heard her cough at a distance, slipped into one corner, and whispered to one another "Aunt is coming."

HORRIBLE ADVENTURE.

Her nuptials with the poor Edward were fixed for the same day, on which Jeannete was to marry the rich Maurice. Pauline made disposition for strict frugality in her future domestic affairs; her white, plain bridal dress contrasted powerfully with the silver lace of her sister. Edward pressed her to his heart and AT the period when Murat was about to invade smiled. "To-morrow," said he, "I will inform my Sicily, the Chevalier R paymaster general of mother of the choice I have made, you must also add the Neapolitan forces, was traveling through Calabria a letter." Pauline promised it, not without some em- for the purpose of joining the army, having been to barrassment, and Edward smiled again. On the next Naples to make arrangements for the transmission of day she handed him the letter, but showed him at the a quantity of specie. He had sent on his servant besame time her finger bound up, which had compelled fore him, to prepare his quarters at the town of her to get her sister to write the letter. Edward kiss- expecting to arrive there by night fall; but the day beed her finger, cast a look of love upon her, and a tearing very sultry, he had loitered on the road, and, at stood in his sparkling eye. She blushed and thought something was not right; but he said "very well," and smiled.

nine o'clock in the evening, found that he was at a considerable distance from the proposed end of his journey. He was so much harrassed and fatigued The marriage day appeared. Edward came early in that he determined to put up for the night at the first the morning and laid a valuable necklace in his bride's convenient house. He at length entered an old rolap. Pauline was astonished, but Jeannette was more mantic building on the road side, inhabited by a man so, for the necklace was more valuable than her own. and his wife, the former a stout muscular figure with "I have been practising usury," said Edward, jestingly. a swarthy countenance almost wholly shrouded in a "A little sum advanced by a noble lady, a friend of mass of bushy whiskers and mustachios. The traveler mine, has doubled itself a thousand fold." "By a no- was received with civility; and, after partaking of a ble lady?" said Pauline. "The necklace is very fine," hearty supper, was conducted up a crazy old staircase continued Edward "but what adorns it most, and will to his apartment for the night. Not much fancying make me the happiest of men, is concealed in this pa- the appearance of the place, and finding no lock on his per," She opened it confusedly. It was the wedding-door, he fixed a chair against it; and, after priming his ring folded in the bill of exchange. Pauline recognized it at the first glance, and cast down her eyes blushing. Edward fell at her feet. She sunk down. "To deceive me so!" whispered she.

When all was explained, Pauline's mother embraced her, while Jeannette tossed her pretty head. She endeavored to conceal her vexation; but her marriage day was the commencement of her matrimonial ill hu

mor.

pistols put them carefully under his pillow. He had not been long in bed before he heard a noise below, and of persons entering the house; and sometime afterward was alarmed by the sound of a man's footstep on the staircase. He then perceived a light through the crevice of the door, against which the man gently pressed for admittance, but finding some resistance, he thrust it open sufficiently to admit his hand, and with extreme caution removed the chair and entered the apartment. The Chevalier then saw his host, with a

Several years passed: Edward found to his astonishment that he had been blind, that his wife was real-lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, approaching ly handsome; and his domestic happiness increased every day. Domestic happiness never made its home with Jeannette. Pauline was surrounded with blooming children. The sisters seldom saw each other: for Pauline lived only for her husband and children-Jeannette only for the great world. Here she found sufficient amends for the only true happiness of marriage, as long as her beauty daily attracted new admirers, and as long as her husband's riches afforded the means of expensive luxuries. But alas! her charms began to vanish-she grew sickly-the affection of her husband became deadened--his coffers were emptied-powerty introduced discord. They avoided one another

the bed on tiptoe. The Chevalier cocked his pistols beneath the bed cloths, that the noise of the spring might not be heard. When the man reached the side of his bed, he held the light to the Chevalier's face, who pretended to be in a profound sleep, but contrived nevertheless, to steal an occasional glance at his fearful host. The man soon turned from him, and after hanging the lamp on the bed post went to the other end of the room and brought to the bed side a chair, on which he immediately mounted, with the tremendous knife still in his hand. At the very moment that the Chevalier was about to start up from the bed and shoot him, the man, in a hurried manner, cut several

WHALING.

heavy purse into her lap, passed on, running with great
speed. Mrs. Annesley, thinking this very mysterious,
'When my
hastily slipped the purse into her pocket.
husband comes,' said she to herself, 'we will see what
is the meaning of this.'

"It was already more than half an hour, and she was beginning to be somewhat anxious, when Mr. Annesley ran up the street, and with a face pale as ashes, approached his wife. 'My dearest Sarah,' said he, 'you are doubtless alarmed at my appearance, but you will cease to wonder, when I tell you that, in all probability, I am a ruined man. My purse has been stolen from me, and it is very doubtful if I ever recover it.'

"Calm yourself, my dear husband,' said Mrs. Annesley; 'Providence has ever kindly watched over us, and I am sure will not forsake us now. Do you know this purse?' said she, taking it from her pocket.

"Merciful heaven! it is my own. But how, my dearest Sarah, did you come in possession of it?' Mrs. Annesley related her adventure with the woman, and it seemed evident that this person had been stationed on the door-step with her child, in order to receive any -stolen goods from her accomplice.

some years, even till the old man's death. Of this
pastor the uncle knew nothing, but that he was a very
good man.
With great difficulty, and after much
search, our young medical philosopher discovered a
niece of the pastor's who had lived with him as a house-
keeper and had inherited his effects. She remembered
the gil; related that her venerable uncle had been too
indulgent, and could not bear to hear the girl scolded;
that she was willing to have kept her, but that, after
her patron's death, the girl herself refusea to stay.

Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made, concerning the pastor's habits, and the solution of the phenomenon was soon obtained. For it appeared, that it had been the old man's custom for years, to walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door opened, and read to himself, with a loud voice, out of his favorite books. A considerable number of these were still in the niece's possession. She added that he was a learned man, and a great Hebraist. Among the books were found a collection of rabinieal writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers; and the physician succeeded in identifying so many passages with those taken down at the young woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain in any rational mind, concerning the true origin of the impressions made on her nervous system.

This authentical case furnishes both proof and instance, that relics of sensation may exist, for an indefinite time, in a latent state, in the very same order in which they were originally impressed; and as we cannot rationally suppose the feverish state of the brain to act in any other way than as a stimulus; this fact, and it would not be difficult to adduce several of the same

"So, my dear children," said Uncle Clement, in finIshing his story, "you see from this incident that all things are overruled for our good, and how kindly a gracious Providence stepped in to save from ruin an honest man and his family, and to frustrate the wicked designs of the guilty."

E. B.

A.

WONDERFUL INSTANCE OF MEMORY.

THOUGHTS OR IDEAS IMPERISHABLE.

THE following remarkable case is related in the biog- kind, contribute to make it even probable, that all thoughts are, in themselves imperishable; and that, if raphy of Coleridge. the intelligent faculty should be rendered more comprehensive, it would require only a different and appor tioned organization, the body celestial, instead of the body terrestrial, to bring before every human soul the collective experience of its whole past existence. And this-this, perchance, is the dread book of judgment, in whose mysterious hieroglyphics every idle word is recorded! Yea, in the very nature of a living spirit, it may be more possible that heaven and earth should pass away, than that a single act or a single thought, should be lost."

WHALING.

"A case occurred in a catholic town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Gottingen and had not then ceased to be a frequent subject of conversation. A young woman of four or five and twenty, who could neither read or write, was seized with a nervous fever; during which, according to the asseverations of all the priests and monks of the neighborhood, she became possessed; as it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek and Hebrew, in very pompous tones, and with most distinct enunciation. The case had attracted the particular attention of a young physician, and, by his statement, many eminent physiologists and psychologists visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot. Sheets THE man at the mast head upon the look-out, havfull of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences co-ing discovered whales, vociferates with all his might: "There she blows!" The captain immediately exherent and intelligible each for itself, but with little or no connexion with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small claims: "Where away?" and "How far off?" and beproportion only could be traced to the Bible; the re-ing answered as to their being to windward, to leward, mainder seemed to be rabbinical dialect. All trick or right ahead or astern, he now goes aloft himself to deconspiracy was out of the question. Not only had the termine that they are sperm whale, and which way young woman ever been an harmless, simple creature, bound. We will now suppose that they are three but she was laboring under a nervous fever. In the points off the larboard bow, distant about three miles, town in which she had been resident for many years and heading along the same course as the ship. Now as a servant in different families, no solution presented the captain cries: "Keep her off two points;" which itself. The young physician, however determined to being done, his next order is: "Steady-steady she trace her past life step by step; for the patient herself goes." "The weather braces a small pull." "Loose He at top-gallant sails, there, bear-a-hand." Scarcely a hand was incapable of returning a rational answer. length succeeded in discovering the place where her is to be found on deck, after these orders are executed, parents had lived; traveled thither, found them dead, except the helmsman; all are eagerly jumping aloft to but an uncle surviving; and from him learnt, that the catch a sight of the whales, previous to their going patient had been charitably taken by an old protestant down-and hope and fear are alternately expressed in pastor at nine years old, and had remained with him the faces of all as the fish are seen to glide through the

ANECDOTE OF MICHAEL ANGELO.

water rapidly, and in a straight course, or occasionally CURING A HYPOCHONDRIAC.
to play upon the surface-to lob-tail it, is the technical
A GENTLEMAN who had for a long time fancied him-
term. The ship nearing the whales, the next order is: self dying of a liver complaint, was advised by Dr.
"See the lines in the boat!" "Swing the cranes!" Crawford, of Baltimore, to make an excursion into the
The after oarsman now fills his boat keg with water, State of Ohio. After traveling about three months he
puts some bread under the stern sheets, and sees that returned home apparently in good health; but upon
a bucket is in the boat. We will suppose the whales receiving information of the death of a twin brother,
are now sounding, and the captain having run down who had actually died of a schirous liver, he immedi-
with the ship as near as he thinks advisable, orders the ately staggered, and falling down, cried out that he
main-top-sails to be backed; all hands are now strain-
was dead, and had, as he always expected, died of a
ing their optics to discover the whales when they first liver complaint. Dr. Crawford being sent for, imme-
blow. They are at length seen some distance from the diately attended, and on being informed of the notion
ship. "Stand by the boats, there," cries the captain, which had seized the hypocondriac, immediately ex-
and each man knowing his station, is sure to be claimed, "O yes, the gentleman is certainly dead, and
found always at his respective boat, eager for the it is more than probable his liver was the death of him.
chase. "Lower away," the boats are precipitated into However to ascertain the fact, I will hasten to cut him
the water, and the crews are at their oars in a twink-
open before putrefaction takes place." He called for a
ling. After pushing from the ship, it takes some two carving knife, and whetting it as a butcher would to
or three minutes for the harpooner to adjust his craft, open a calf, he stepped up to him, and began to open
he then seats him on his thwart, and takes his oar; his waistcoat. The hypochondriac became so horribly
now the officer who heads the boat, cries: "Line your frightened, that he leaped up with the agility of a rab-
oars, boys-pull ahead-(a lapse of two or three min- bit, and crying out "Murder! murder! murder!" ran off
utes)—pull ahead, I tell you, why don't ye?-long and with a speed that would have defied a score of doctors to
strong, head boat, I say. (An interval of about fifty catch him. After running a considerable distance, un-
seconds.) Every man do his best; lay back, I tell ye, til he was almost exhausted, he halted, and not finding
(fiercely)-why, don't let that boat pass ye; spring, I the doctor at his heels, soon became composed. From
tell ye, (authoritatively;)—there they be-round and that period this gentleman was never known to com-
round with 'em-for God's sake, pull ahead, (entreat-plain of his liver, nor had he for more than twenty
ingly-lapse of a few seconds.) Everything-every-
thing I've got in my chest I'll give you-do spring,

years afterward, any symptoms of this disease.

ANECDOTE OF MICHAEL ANGELO.

boys-let's go on first; now, then, back to the thwarts,
give her the touch, I tell ye, (encouragingly)—five seas
off, spring! thrée oar side best-pull all, every soul of MICHAEL ANGELO, indignant at the unjust preference,
you, (boisterously)—I'll give you all my tobacco-every- which the pretended connoisseurs of his time gave to
thing I've got-look at her-oh! what a hump-slow the works of the ancient sculptors, piqued, beside, at
as night; don't you look round, (passionately,) she what they had said of himself, that the most inferior
don't blow-she only whiffs it out-at the end pull, of the ancient statutes was a hundred times more
and we'll be on, this rising. She's an eighty barrel beautiful than anything he had wrought or ever could
whale; there she mills; she's heading to leward—a make, imagined a sure method of confounding them.
large fellow, separate from the school, (shoal)-why He wrought in secret a Cupid of marble, in which he
the harry don't you pull ?-now do, boys, wont you? put forth all his art and all his genius. When this
(soothingly.) I tell you we are jam on to her!-one charming statute was finished, he broke off an arm;
minute more! Oh, boys! if you want to see your and, after having given to the body of the statute, by
sweethearts-if you want to see Nantucket, pull ahead, the application of certain reddish tints, the venerable
blast ye! that whale will shorten our passage six color of the antique statutes, he buried it, during the
months. I tell you we gain fast-now's the time-night, where they were soon to lay the foundations of
mills still heading to the leward; lap on to her in a mo-
an edifice. The time came, and the workmen dis-
ment; harpooner stand-all my tobacco-all my clothes covered the Cupid. The curious multitude ran to ad-
-pull! Oh, what a whale! (softly) hove my soul out, mire. "They had never seen anything so beautiful.
harpooner-harpooner, one minute more-half a min- It is a chief de'œuvre of Phidias," said some. "It is
ute more; all my tobacco. We are in her wake, the work of Polycletes," said others. "How far are
(whispers,) make no noise with your oars, stand up, we," cried all, "from being able to producd anything
harpooner-pull the rest, give it her solid.
resembling at the present day! What a misfortune
Stern-stern, I tell you, (loudly)-stern all-stern like that it wants an arm!" "I have the arm, gentlemen,''
the devil-stern and get clear of the whale. Harpooner, said Michael Angelo, having listened to their stupid
come aft-wet the line-we are fast-now haul me on exaggerations. They cast on him looks of incredulous
-stern, I tell ye―lay to the leward of the whale; that's pity. What was their surprize when they saw the en-
a good one, (straightens his lance;) lay the head of tirely new arm join perfectly to the shoulder of the
the boat off; I've boned my lance, d--n her; statute: They were obliged to feel, that they possess-
give me a chance-do haul me on, will ye? there's the ed a Phidias and a Polycletes, capable of contesting the
flag; stern, I tell ye-lie-give us a set upon her palm of merit with the ancients; and if the envious
thick as tar, there she clotters-stern she's roing in prejudice was not destroyed, it was at least silenced.
her flurry; stern all; there, she's fin up-pass the
spade forward; let's haul up to her, get harness on,
and tow her along side."

*

250

Hold thou this precept: life being but a span,
Bear no ill will toward thy fellow man.

A YOUNG lady going into a barrack room at fort George, saw an officer toasting a slice of bread upon the point of his sword; on which she exclaimed: "I think, sir, you have got the staff of life upon the poin of death.

CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

SHE lived in the town of Caen, Normandy, in the hottest period of the revolution, when Marat, the infamous friend of Robespierre, was on the pinacle of power. This man, a native of Geneva, was originally of low origin, having been a hawker of toys about the streets of Paris. He afterward became the editor of a Revolutionary Journal; and at length by dint of talent and finesse, was appointed a deputy to the French convention. Here he distinguished himself by that sort of eloquence which takes among the vulgar, and Charlotte was apprehended, but she exhibited no sign still more by the ferocious nature of his propositions, of fear; and when told that death would assuredly folwhich made him noted for cruelty, even in the san-low the dead she had committed, she heard it with the guinary assembly. His deeds it were in vain to relate, utmost sovereign contempt. On being brought before They realized all that fiction has told us in its wildest the tribunal, and questioned as to her motives for killtales, and more than realized the barbarities attributed ing Marat, she showed the same unshaken firmness. by history to Antioches and the worst of the Roman She defended the deed on the grounds of justice and emperors. Suffice it to say, they aroused the spirit of necessity. Marat though not tried and condemned by Charlotte Corday; and with a perfect conviction of the an official tribunal, was already looked upon by his consequences of such an attempt, she formed the vast country as a criminal already deserving of death. She design of ridding her country of one whom she con- only did that which the laws ought to have done, and sidered its biterest foe. which future time would applaud her for doing. "I slew him," continued she, "because he was the oppressor of my country; I slew him that France might have rest from his cruelties; I slew him to save the lives of thousands, that would have perished by his decrees; and my sole regret is that I did no sooner rid the earth of such a monster."

For this purpose she came to Paris, and on the morning of the 12th of July, 1793, wrote to Marat, informing him that she had matters of the deepest importance to communicate, and requesting an immediate audience. To this no answer was returned; and she again addressed a note the following words: "Have you read my letter? If you have received it, I rest on your politeness. It is enough that I am unfortunate to claim your attention."

251

"What do you wish with me!" were his first words, as he cast his lascivious eyes on the beautiful girl, who stood undauntedly before him. "I demand justice," was her reply. "I came to plead the cause of the unfortunate deputies who have taken refuge at Caen." She held a scroll in her hand; it professed to be their petition, and Marat took it from her and glanced it over. It was never known how this petition came into Charlotte's possession. It has been alleged that one of the unhappy deputies was her lover, and that he entrusted it to her hands for the purpose of being delivered to the tyrant. It has also been conjectured, that if he had granted its prayer, and extended mercy to those persecuted men, she might for the time have waved her fatal purpose. Another and a more probable opinion is, that it was framed by herself, to serve as an excuse for intruding upon Marat, and enabling her the more easily to carry her designs into execution. Be that as it may, it produced no effect on the savage heart. He read it with a sneer. "Young woman," said he, "you have come on an useless errand. The fate of these men is sealed. I have already given orders for their apprehension. Their death will soon follow," -Villian!" cried Charlotte; and drawing a poignard from her bosom, she plunged it into the heart of the monster. He reeled backward and fell upon a couch. His only words were "Traitress, you have murdered me-seize her, seize her!" She gave him but one look of disdain and horror, and dashed down the bloody weapon, strode with fearless grandeur out of the room.

She went home leisurely, nor made the least attempt to escape. Her mind had been made up as to the result of the dreadful tragedy she had just acted. Meanwhile, the report that Marat was killed spread like wild fire over Paris. A sort of dreadful anxiety pervaded this vast metropolis. Vice trembled at the loss of its most terrific minister, while all the nobler and more heroic passions were wrought into ecstacy at the reported destruction of one of the most execrable wretches that ever disgraced humanity.

She heard the sentence of death passed upon her with an unconcern which would have done honor even to stoicism itself. For a short time she conversed with

This was on the 18th of the month, and on the even-her counsel and some of her friends, and rising up ing of the same day she was admitted into his pre-walked quietly to the prison. During the interval between her condemnation and death, she wrote three sence. He had just stepped out of the bath and was only half clothed when Charlotte was announced. letters. Two of them to her friend Barbaroux, relating She would retire an instant till he had finished his her adventures from the time of her quitting Caen. toilet, but he ordered her straitway to enter his apart- The third to her father was couched in the most solemn and affectionate strain, and concluded with the celebrated line of Corneille :

ment.

"Tis crime which brings disgrace, and not the scaf"fold."

The front of the Tuilleries was the place selected for the execution. A multitude of people had assembled to witness the ceremony; among others were crowds of barbarous women who drew together for the purpose of insulting her last moments. However when she came forth from prison, she appeared so lovely and interesting, that their base purpose was instantly laid aside, and not a voice was raised against her. She was elegantly dressed, and appeared smiling on the scaffold. He dark and beautiful locks waving gracefully over her shoulders.

When the executioner removed the handkerchief from her neck and bosom, she blushed deeply; and when her head was held up after death, it was observed that the face still retained this mark of offended modesty. A deep feeling was produced among the spectators, all accustomed as they were to such scenes; and when the axe descended there was a shudder which showed that the death of this young heroine excited admiration and pity more than anything else. By an emotion of general respect, almost all the men uncovered themselves; those of her own sex who came to revile her, stood mute and abashed. Many of both sexes were observed to weep, and when the crowd separated, it was with a melancholy which proved even at this dreadful period that the kinder feelings were not unsusceptible of emotion.