last arrived. Hans strolled about in the gloom; all the village houses were lighted up; fear seemed to be forgotten, and watchfulness too. Hans was glad not to be disturbed by the careless remarks of the patrolling youths, who, on other evenings, performed their usual exercises on the green, but now all were within doors; families and friends had met, and children were merry and happy. Hans came to the dwelling of a comfortable proprietor-one who in our land would be termed a rich farmer. The supper table was prepared; in its center a small fir-tree was planted in a bucket filled with earth; little tapers were fastened in its branches, and a variety of glittering objects, suspended around it, were intended for presents to the younger ones of the family. Some of the little children, who had already secured theirs, were playing at a small table placed in the open window. One of them had got a number of tin soldiers, and an elder brother, a lad about the age of our poor Hans, was amusing himself, apparently, by directing their movements, and arranging them in military order. Like all the youths of the Tyrol, he aspired to be thought expert in such matters, but he was of a more presuming and arrogant disposition than many of the others. Seeing that Hans, standing near the window, must become one of his auditors, he affected still more the tone of command, as if to impress the helpless boy with a higher opinion of his military knowledge. Almost immediately, how ever, the children, disputing for one of the tin soldiers, broke it in two. The young general was in the midst of a plan for the defense of the village in case of an attack. Displeased at the loss of one of his corps, he angrily seized the broken soldier, and threw it out of the window. felt for his mother. But Hans resolved not to grieve her with the recital of the fresh annoyance he had met with. The widow, not sorry to end a day which made their forlorn position more evident to themselves, proposed that they should avoid the expense of light, by going early to rest. Hans felt little inclined to sleep, but knowing his mother would sit up if he did so, he complied with her request. He had been early trained never to close his eyes in slumber without reverently bending the knee, and asking the care of a divine protector. On the present occasion he did not omit that duty, but breathed the wish with earnest fervor that the Father of all mercies would, in his good time, present him with some opportunity of being useful to others. Almost immediately after doing this he dropped into a deep slumber, being fatigued with his rambles during the day. How long his slumbers lasted poor Hans never knew; he only related afterward that he had awoke as if from a dream, but still under a strong impression that the French and Bavarian army was approaching him. He could not persuade himself but that the soldiers were close to him. He thought he saw their distinct uniform, the gleam of their arms, and even felt as if their bayonets were presented at him. He awoke in fear, but even when awake could scarcely persuade himself it was a dream. It was, however, a natural one; it would be by no means surprising if every one of the villagers, and himself also, had dreamed much the same whenever they slept. Hans recollected this; but unwilling to remain under an impression so unpleasant, he rose, and hastily dressing himself, he went to the door and looked forth. The night was calm, and even warm; "Why throw it away?" said the the moon was beginning faintly to rise; children. "Because it is as useless now as Hans himself would be if the enemy came," was his answer. Hans heard the words, whether it was intended he should do so or not. He turned away, and went home to his mother. The widow had shared her son's sentiments that day; she was quite sensible that on this day of general festivity they were overlooked and forgotten. The mother and son knew they had sympathy one with the other, but neither expressed it. The widow felt for her son. The son and thinking that illness had perhaps caused his troubled dream, Hans walked out, believing the night air would relieve the headache from which he had been suffering. He strolled up the mountain path, on the side of which their cottage stood. Excitement and agitation had indeed heated his blood, and the cool air did him good. That sense of relief made him continue his walk, and as he went up the mountain path, he recollected that it led to the signal pile, which had been laid ready for igniting when the advance of the Bavarian garrisons from their winter posts should com mence-a movement which the combined Tyrolese had determined to resist. An impulse he felt little inclination even to question, seemed still to lead him on, and prompt him to mount the rugged path that conducted to that important spot. Perhaps it was some feeling that a surprise on this night was not impossible-some scarcely understood impression left by his dream-that, unconsciously to himself, led Hans thus upward and upward on his solitary way, until he came within view of the dark mass of firewood piled up on the cliff. Whatever was the feeling that influenced him, however, (and the result, the reader will remember, is a matter of history, not mere fiction,) the boy found himself, as we have said, at the signal post. Hans walked round the pile, as it lay there quiet and lonely. But the watchers, where were they? Forgetful, perhaps, of their duty, they had, amidst the festivities of Easter, omitted their important office on this occasion; at all events, they were nowhere to be seen. The village, far beneath, was in as great security as if no dreadful war-signal was likely to be needed, and all in the neighborhood was calm. A dark old pine-tree stood near it; in its hollow stem the tinder was laid ready, with the other means for raising a speedy conflagration. Hans paused in his circuit by the hollow tree, and seemed to listen to the silence. There is something in the feeling of utter silence that impels the ear to listen for its interruption. As he so listened, a singular sound, that seemed to be reverberated along the ground, caught his eager attention. It was slow and quiet, but so measured and equal as to be distinct. He listened with painful intensity for about a minute: it stopped. Hans was just about to leave the spot, when another sound was heard, it was the click of muskets; then a distinct but stealthy tread; then a pale ray of moonshine glanced on the fixed bayonets of two soldiers, who cautiously crept along the edge of the cliff at the opposite side of the pile. They mounted the eminence, looked round, and seeing no one there for poor Hans was hidden by the old tree-gave the signal apparently to some comrades in the distance. Then the measured tread of marching men was heard again, but Hans did not wait to listen to it. Like a flash of inspiration, the whole circumstance was visible to his mind. The secret had been discovered by, or treacherously revealed to, the enemy; a party had been sent forward from the enemy's troops to destroy it; the body from which they were detached was then marching up the pass that led to his village; the fears he had heard the old and timid express would be realized; and the plans of the others, which he had heard so much talked of, would be of no avail. It is singular, that though naturally, as most infirm persons are, of a timid disposition, no thought of his own perilous situation occurred to Hans. All that has here taken some time to state on paper, flashed on his mind with the rapidity of a vision, and perhaps it was followed by one equally rapid selfrecollection. "God has his plan For every man," might the youth have mentally said, as, quick as thought, he seized the tinder, struck the light, and flung the flaring turpentine brand into the pile. The two scouts, who had advanced first, had then their backs turned to it, waiting the arrival of some comrades, whose arms just glittered above the edge of the cliff at the moment when the sudden blaze towered up, and flashed upon them. A cry of astonishment, we might say of fear, burst from the foremost; but in the light of that mountain blaze they soon perceived no ambushed foes were there; a single youth was seen hastily retreating down the mountain path. They fired-cruelly fired. A shriek of agony told them one bullet, at least, though fired at random, had found its mark. The light was too indistinct for an aim, but a bullet had lodged in the boy's shoulder. Yet the signal fire was blazing high, and the whole country would be shortly aroused. Already, before their surprise was over, or their retreat effected, the signal was answered from a second mountain top, and another and another began to repeat it. The advancing party, seeing their plan for a surprise thus rendered abortive, effected a hasty escape. Hans, meantime, was not killed; faint and bleeding, he contrived to reach the village, where already the greatest consternation prevailed. Trembling old people stood at the door demanding intelligence; and the peasantry, with their arms, were mustering thick and fast. At the door of the proprietor's house, where Hans had stood to witness the Easter party on the previous evening, an anxious group was gathered; among them was the lad who had made so good and brave a general of the tin soldiers, and who had so unfeelingly, we would hope thoughtlessly, declared the broken one to be as useless as Hans in the defense he was planning of the village. He was now aroused from sleep with the cry that the enemy was come. Pale, confused, uncertain what to do, he was anxiously joining in the inquiry which no one could answer,—“Who lighted the pile?" "It was I!" said at last a faint, almost expiring voice. They turned and saw the crippled Hans tottering toward them. "Thou?" exclaimed many voices; but the proprietor's son gazed in stupefied silence. "The enemy-the French-were there," Hans faltered, and sank upon the ground. "Take me to my mother. At last I have not been useless." They stooped to lift him; but drew back, for their hands were full of blood. "What is this?" they cried. "He has been shot! It is true! Hans the cripple has saved us." They carried Hans to his mother's house. Some ran before him and told her the alarming news; of the danger that had approached them, and who had been, for that time at least, their preserver. Then they carried the wounded youth in, and laid him before her. As the mother bowed in anguish over his pale face, Hans opened his eyes-for he had fainted from loss of blood and pain-and looking at her, he made an effort to speak. "It is not now, dear mother, you should weep for me; I am happy now. Yes, mother, it is true "God has his plan For every man." A MONG the strange varieties to be found in this inexhaustible world, descriptive and satirical writers have not failed to fix upon the man of versatile cleverness, who, after attempting everything, ends at last in nothing. I have such a character in my eye at this moment. Bob Multiform was one of my school acquaintances. He was a prompt, acute, ready-witted fellow, always bustling, though seldom really busy; a good-natured companion, possessed of much compliant humor, though accompanied by a self-esteeming conceit which disgusted others as much as it comforted himself. In fact, that same conceit is an admirable thing for enabling a man to get on easily for the time being, though it is not a little apt to leave him stranded in the issue. Did any one want help in some new project, Bob Multiform was just the boy to give it. He possessed a boundless variety You see he had it for me, though we did of shifts and expedients, and he now and not know what it was." Hans did not recover of his wound; but he was permitted to live long enough to know he had been of use; he lived to hear of the result of his timely warning, not to his village only, but to the country around; he lived to see grateful mothers embrace his mother; to hear that she should find a son in every brave youth in the village, a home for her age in every house; that she should be considered a then used them for bad causes as well as for good ones. The fox, with his thousand tricks, fared worse than if he had adhered to a single solid principle. On the whole, however, Bob managed to escape from school without actual disgrace, and came out upon the boards of the world with no settled character, except that he had some reputation for vivacity and gumption. It was one of Bob's peculiarities that he sacred and honored bequest to the commu- was peculiarly open to impressions of all kinds and from all quarters. He seemed ready to obey all impulses but his own. It was not, however, that he wanted firm- | ness on certain occasions, for no man was more obstinate when opposed; but he never could hear of celebrity in any line without an instant inclination to imitate it. Goldsmith is said to have been vexed when even the performer of a puppet-show was more admired than himself. It is surprising through what freaks and fantasies this daring disposition to seek for honors led our unfortunate wight. The first taste which I remember was that of dress. It was the day of dandyism, when frock-coats and Wellington-boots were in fashion, and those who never mounted a horse walked about in jingling spurs, or rattled along on those silly machines then called dandyhorses. I hardly know who was Bob's immediate prototype, but he was amazingly ambitious of being considered a welldressed man. There was not a calendar of fashions with which, for the time, he was not intimate. He could discourse most learnedly on the cut of a coat, or the precise fit of a waistcoat; was most punctilious about the whiteness of his linen, or the height of his stock; and wore his extraordinary beaver with an air which eclipsed most cotemporaries. He thought himself admired; and whenever a man so thinks, he is pretty sure to be laughed at. Many a lady hid her face when he appeared, to conceal her irrepressible emotions at his extraordinary figure. The thing at length became too flagrant, and it was time to stop it. Some good-natured fellow whispered the truth into Bob's ear, and lost him as a friend forever. After taking a little time to recover from this mortification, Bob fell into a contrary extreme. To escape from the ridiculous, he attempted the sublime. He sought seclusion, and began a course of reading, and soon persuaded himself that, except for a very young man, care about dress was contemptible littleness; and that as the mind made the man, it was an essential part of mental culture to neglect the body altogether. When next he appeared before his friends, he was therefore a totally different being. His talk was now of books and of their contents. It is true that he knew little more about most of them than what could have been gained from a few of the leading reviews of the day; but every one was not in the secret, and to them he was a prodigy. Bob now became a leader of a coterie, to which he was the giver of law; and though they were all but silly coxcombs, he flattered himself into the belief that he was some Johnson, or Parr, or Magliabecchi, or Mezzophanti, and had devoured more books than most around him had heard of. He established a debating-class; a desirable thing in itself, provided a man do not think it the British senate, and himself the first orator in it. From a dandy he now sank down into a sloven. He was sometimes unwashed; often unshaven; was not much concerned if a rent appeared in his clothes, and affected to treat all such trifles with derision and sarcasm. Matters went on thus, till having, in "his pride of place," directed some invective against a stranger who had demurred to one of his propositions, he was met by a rejoinder so direct and merciless as to send the peacock's feather which the jackdaw had worn into high air-to demonstrate him to be only an empty pretender-and to elicit the cheers of his former subjects, who, wearied with his arrogance, rejoiced to witness the overthrow of their tyrant. He slunk away in discomfiture and disgrace. His next fit was that with which he should have begun-attention to business. During two short months he was the very pattern of assiduousness in his father's warehouse. He made uncommon advances in a very short time, till some of those who had looked on him as a mere pragmatical saunterer, began to hope there was more in him than had hitherto met their eye. Fired with their applauses, Bob redoubled his zeal. So intently did he follow his new inspiration, that after the labors of the day were over for others, he was to be found arranging some unexplored corner of the warehouse, or carefully posting up his hitherto neglected books. His father's eye began to be fixed upon him with unusual favor, and to think that he might one day, with satisfaction, resign his business to a son who, now that he had sown his wild oats, was the model of punctuality and diligence. How long this fit of exemplariness might have lasted, had no sudden temptation intervened, I do not know; but at a musical party, Bob received a new impulse. Now Bob had never, up to this time, shown the slightest partiality for the harmony of sweet sounds. If the want of ruusic mark a traitor, he had seemed to be the veriest one: his voice was rough and dissonant, and he could not distinguish between the chord of the dominant seventh and the major. But he had unbounded confidence in himself, and thought that what others could do well, he could do much better. Alas for the warehouse and Multiform's career, it may be well for. them to remember that the scion which is grafted on to the stock of perseverance and the fear of God, though it may seem to shoot less vigorously than others around it, is that which will produce the best and surest fruit. Occupied by his five parallel W One its concerns! In vain did the anxious father protest, remonstrate, urge, and even threaten ! lines, Bob disregarded all besides. Music more dissonant than that which comes from the turning of "a brazen candlestick," disturbed his neighbors' repose. evening, he must needs adventure a part in some difficult performance, for which he had carefully prepared himself. To his consternation, he found his fellow-performers drop off from him one by one, till he was left to a solo, and a roar of laughter followed as a chorus. If our hero found some solace in remembering that, such as he was, he had great names to keep him in countenance, it was a poor resource. Little has been ever accomplished by those who resemble the Duke of Buckingham as painted by Dryden "A man so various that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by turns, but nothing long." Bob Multiform was not destined to reverse the usual fate of his class. His father saw his business, deprived of the care of his son, degenerate from day to day, till he died a broken-hearted insolvent. I have made many inquiries about Bob himself; but could never learn his whole history. I only know that he had once a project for making a new kind of soap, which would wash with salt water; that at another time he embarked in a plan for reviving the locomotive steam-engine. I suspect him to have had a hand in the aerial machine, which was to fly ; but of this I am not sure. Once he went to Australia, where he had a plan for civilizing the aborigines. The last time I saw him he told me he was on the eve of making a fortune by railway speculation; and he certainly looked as if he believed it. I heard that soon after this, however, he emigrated to California. Such are the destinies of cleverness without principle. A grain of industry is worth a bushel of mere impulse. If any of my readers be tempted to follow Bob THE YEZIDIS, OR DEVIL-WORSHIPERS. E meet in the East with many religious sects, which have existed from far distant ages, some entirely unaltered, others considerably modified by various changes; and it is often interesting to trace such sects to their source, if only for the information we obtain concerning the forms in which mind unfolded itself in ancient times, and the manner in which different religions were sometimes combined. Thus in the Sabæans or Mandaites of the present day, we find a sect whose origin is to be traced to the excitements of the first and second century consequent upon the preaching of John the Baptist, but whose character has been quite altered by the different elements it has taken up in its course. We have chosen for examination the enigmatical sect of the Yezidis,* in the hope of ascertaining whether any positive origin can be assigned them. We shall first describe the sect as far as the various accounts we have received enable us; and then, by comparing it with other ancient sects which are in some respects similar, determine, if possible, whether it is to be traced to any one in particular, or to a combination of several. Michael Febvre first mentions them, in the latter half of the seventeenth century. He speaks of them as a powerful race, easily contented, living in black tents, leading a nomad life, and mostly herdsmen. He commends their hospitality. They are friendly to Christians, but hate Mohammedans, who have been their greatest persecutors. The leading point in their religious doctrines is this, that they will never speak ill of the devil. Neither persuasion nor force can induce them, and some have been The flayed alive rather than consent. reasons they give are:-"That we cannot with a good conscience abuse any creature, for this right belongs to the Creator alone; A tribe in Asia Minor, having their settlements in the hills between the Tigris and Euphrates. |