to draw the rings from its finger; but what was his horror when the dead returned his grasp !-his hand was clutched, aye firmly clutched, though that rigid face and form lay there as motionless as ever. With a cry of horror he burst away, not retaining so much presence of mind as to think of the light, which he left burning by the coffin. This, however, was of little consequence; fear can find its way in the dark, and he rushed through the vaulted passage, up the steps, through the choir, and would have found his way out, had he not, in bis hurry, forgotten the stone, called the Devil's Stone, which lies in the middle of the church, and which, according to the legend, was cast there by the Devil. Thus much is certain,-it has fallen from the arch, and they still show a hole above, through which it is said to have been hurled. it was that disturbed him at such an unseasonable hour?" It is only I, Mr. Burgomaster," was the answer. "And who are you?" again asked Adolph.-"Bolt, the sexton of St. Peter's, Mr. Burgomaster ; I have a thing of the utmost importance to discover to you."-Naturally associating the idea of Adelaide with the sexton of the church where she was buried, Adolph was immediately anxious to know something more of the matter, and, taking up a waxlight, he hastened down stairs, and himself opened the door to Bolt. "What have you to say to me?" he exclaimed." Not here, Mr. Burgomaster," replied the anxious sexton ;-"not here; we may be overheard." Adolph, though wondering at this affectation of mystery, motioned him in, and closed the door; when Bolt, throwing himself at his feet, confessed all that had happened. The an He Against this stone the unlucky sexton stumbled, just as the turret-ger of Adolph was mixed with comclock struck twelve, and immediate ly he fell to the earth in a deathlike Swoon. The cold, however, soon brought him to himself, and on recovering his senses he again fled, winged by terror, and fully convinced that he had no hope of escaping the vengeance of the dead, except by the confession of his crime, and gaining the forgiveness of her family. With this view he hurried across the market-place to the Burgomaster's house, where he had to knock long before he could attract any notice. The whole household lay in a profound sleep, with the exception of the unhappy Adolph, who was sitting alone on the same sofa where he had so of ten sat with his Adelaide. Her picture hung on the wall opposite to him, though it might rather be said to feed his grief than to afford him any 'consolation. And yet, as most would do under such circumstances, he dwelt upon it the more intently even from the pain it gave him, and it was not till the sexton had knocked repeatedly that he awoke from his melancholy dreams. Roused at last he opened the window and inquired who passion as he listened to the strange fluence of a delusion which he was utterly unable to subdue. The poor fellow trembled all over, as if shaken by an ague fit, and painted the situation of his wife and his pressing poverty with such a pale face and such despair in his eyes, that he might himself have passed for a churchyard spectre. The Burgomaster again admonished him to be silent for fear of the consequences, and, giving him a couple of dollars to relieve his immediate wants, sent him home to his wife and family. Being thus deprived of his most natural ally on this occasion, Adolph summoned an old and confidential servant, of whose secrecy he could have no doubt. To his question of "Do you fear the dead ?"-Hans stoutly replied, "They are not half so dangerous as the living." "Indeed!" said the Burgomaster. "Do you think, then, that you have courage enough to go into the church at night ?"" In the way of my duty, yes," replied Hans; "not otherwise. It is not right to trifle with holy matters." "Do you believe in ghosts, Hans?" continued Adolph.-"Yes, Mr. Burgomaster." "Do you fear them ?"-" No, Mr. Burgomaster.-I hold by God, and he holds up me; and God is the strongest.' "Will you go with me to the cathedral, Hans? I have had a strange dream to-night: it seemed to me as if my deceased wife called to me from the steeple-window."—"I see how it is," auswered Hans: "the sexton has been with you, and put this whim into your head, Mr. Burgomaster. These grave-diggers are always seeing ghosts." "Put a light into your lantern," said Adolph, avoiding a direct reply to this observation of the old man. "Be silent, and follow me."-"If you bid me," said Hans, "I must of course obey; for you are my magistrate as well as my master." دو Herewith he lit the candle in the lantern, and followed his master without farther opposition. 30 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d series, Adolph hurried into the church with hasty steps; but the old man, who went before him to show the way, delayed him with his reflections-so that their progress was but slow. Even at the threshold he stopped, and flung the light of his lantern upon the gilded rods over the door, to which it is a custom to add a fresh one every year, that people may know how long the reigning elector has lived. "That is an excellent custom," said Hans; 66 one has only to count those staves, and one learns immediately how long the gracious elector has governed us simple men.' 99 Not a monument would he pass without first stopping to examine it by the lantern-light, and requesting the Burgomaster to explain its inscription,, although he had spent his three-andsixty years in Cologne, and, during that period, had been in the habit of frequenting it almost daily. Adolph, who well knew that no representations would avail hím, submitted patiently to the humors of his old servant, contenting himself with answering his questions as briefly as possible; and in this way they at last got to the high altar. Here Hans made a sudden stop, and was not to be brought any farther. "Quick!"'exclaimed the Burgomaster, who was beginning to lose his patience; for his heart throbbed with expectation. "Heaven and all good angels defend us!" murmured Hans through his chattering teeth, while he in vain felt for his rosary, which yet hung as usual at his girdle. "What is the matter now?" cried Adolph. “Do you see who sits there?" replied Hans. "Where?" exclaimed his master; "I see nothing; hold up the lantern." "Heaven shield us!" cried the old man ; "there sits our deceased lady, on the altar, in a long, white veil, and drinks out of the sacramental cup! !" With a trembling hand he help up the lantern in the direction to which 86 TO MRS. HEMANS, ON HER INTENDED PUBLICATION, ENTITLED RECORDS OF WOMAN." By Fancy's pencil traced, in hues of light, Upon the clear cerulean skies that shed Shall not their source be deep-when every thought "Twill be as when the eye entranced explores OH! 'tis not for her lovely face, With youth and rapture teeming, SONG. Oh no! 'tis for her happy mind, IT LIFE AND VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.* T was about the year 1435 or 1436, that Christopher Columbus was born at Genoa, the sagacious and heroic discoverer of the New World: a man whose exploits must always command a nearly equal interest, whether we look to them as the sources of so many important changes in the condition as well of Europe as of America, or for the attractions they impart to history itself. The difficulties which Columbus surmounted before he obtained from the Spanish sovereigns the means of commencing his enterprise; the perseverance by means of which alone he accomplished his first and most important voyage; the lands he discovered; the appearance, manners, and traditions of the natives; the persecutions which he subsequently underwent; the court intrigues and malevolent machinations of which he was the victim; and the comparative affliction and penury amid which he died-all these are particulars of his history well known. Mr. Irving, in his first four Chapters, has developed many of the sources of that spirit of geographical discovery which took possession of the mind of Columbus, and which was fostered by the restless spirit of the age in which he lived. In the fifth Chapter our author presents, upon the authority of Columbus's son Fernando," the precise data upon which his father's plan of discovery was founded." To other observations, Mr. Irving subjoins refutations of the pretended debt of Columbus to the discoveries of a pilot who died in his house, or to those of Martin Behem. With respect to the latter he tells us : "The land visited by Behem, was the coast of Africa beyond the equator; the globe he projected was finished in 1492, while Columbus was absent on his first voyage: it contains no trace of the New World, and thus furnishes conclusive proof, that its existence was yet unknown to Behem.' The renown and triumph of Columbus's success, when first achieved, is thus narrated by Mr. Irving, "The joy occasioned by this great discovery was not confined to Spain. The tidings were spread far and wide by embassies, by the correspondence of the learned, by the negotiations of merchants, and the reports of travellers. Sebastian Cabot mentioned that he was in London when news was brought there of the discovery, and that it caused great talk and admiration in the court of Henry VII. being affirmed to be a thing more divine than human.' "The whole civilized world, in fact, was filled with wonder and delight. Every one rejoiced in it as an event in which he was more or less interested, and as opening a new and unbounded field for inquiry and enterprise.' "Notwithstanding all this triumph, however, no one as yet was aware of the real importance of this discovery. No one had an idea that this was a totally distinct portion of the globe, separated by oceans from the ancient world. The opinion of Columbus was universally adopted, that Cuba was the end of the Asiatic continent, and that the adjacent islands were in the Indian seas." The mind of Columbus was constantly obliged to grope amid the twilight of his age, here obscured through the defect of scientific principles, there by the dogmas of false learning, and there, again, by the absence of that acquaintance with fact which nothing but experience. can bestow. "The singular speculation of Co * A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.. By Washington Irving. 4 vols. 8vo. 1828. lumbus, which he details at full length in a letter to the Castilian sovereigns, citing various authorities for his opinions, among which were St. Augustine, St. Isidor, and St. Ambrosius, and fortifying his theory with much of that curious and speculative erudition in which he was deeply versed, shows how his ardent mind was heated by the magnificence of his discoveries. Shrewd men, in the coolness and quietude of ordinary life, and in these modern days of cautious and sober fact, may smile at such a reverie, but it was countenanced by the speculations of the most sage and learned of those times, and if this had not been, could we wonder at any sally of the imagination in a man placed in the situation of Columbus ? He beheld a vast world, rising, as it were, into existence before him, its nature and extent unknown and undefined, as yet a mere region for conjecture. Every day displayed some new feature of beauty and sublimity; island after island, whose rocks, he was told, were veined with gold, whose groves teemed with spices, or whose shores abounded with pearls. Interminable ranges of coast, promontory beyond promontory, stretching as far as the eye could reach; luxuriant valleys sweeping away into a vast interior, whose distant mountains, he was told, concealed still happier lands, and realms of still greater opulence, When he looked upon all this region of golden promise, it was with the glorious conviction that his genius had called it into existence; he regarded it with the triumphant eye of a discoverer. Had not Columbus been capable of these enthusiastic soarings of the imagination, he might, with other sages, have reasoned calmly and coldly about the probability of a continent existing in the west, but he would never have had the daring enterprise to adventure in search of it into the unknown realms of ocean," It would have been easy to swell this notice of Mr. Irving's work, by adverting to many of the numerous passages which, among other things, relate to Columbus's unmerited misfortunes, to the coldness of Ferdinand, possibly occasioned, as suggested by Las Casas, by the injurious reports industriously forced upon the royal ear, or to the praise of the amiable, the wise, and the magnanimous Isabella; but the design conceived, of devoting these remarks to parts of the work more immediately illustrative of the personal character of Columbus, as well as more immediately originating with Mr. Irving's pen, induces us to pass almost in silence over these, and to bestow the greater part of our remaining space upon the eloquent "Observations on the Character of Columbus," with which our author concludes his work :— "Columbus was a man of great and inventive genius. The operarions of his mind were energetic, but irregular; bursting forth at times with that irresistible force which characterises intellects of such an order. His mind had grasped all kinds of knowledge connected with his pursuits; and though his information may appear limited at the present day, and some of his errors palpable, it is because that knowledge, in his peculiar department of science, was but scantily developed in his time. His own discoveries enlightened the ignorance of that age; guided conjecture to certainty; and dispelled numerous errors with which he himself had been obliged to struggle. "His ambition was lofty and noble. He was full of high thoughts, and anxious to distinguish himself by great achievements. It has been said that a mercenary feeling mingled with his views, and that his stipulations with the Spanish court were selfish and avaricious. The charge is inconsiderate and unjust. He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same lofty spirit in which he sought renown; but they were to arise from the territories he should discover, and be commensurate in importance. No condition could be more just. He asked nothing of the sovereigns but |