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Yes, life may seem a moment bright, And rosy health may bloom awhile; But soon she spreads her wings for flight,

When joy and gladness cease to smile. And death must come, when we no more Can revel on 'neath pleasure's ray; And when it comes, oh, may you soar, A seraph, to the realms of day.

AMERICAN PASTIME IN

VACATION.

CHAPTER I.

On the edge of a June evening, in the summer vacation of 1827, I was set down by the coach at the gate of my friend Horace Van Pelt's paternal mansiona large, old-fashioned, comfortable Dutch house, clinging to the side of one of the most romantic dells on the North River. In the absence of his whole family on the summer excursion to the Falls and Lakes (taken by almost every "well-to-do" citizen of the United States,) Horace was emperor of the longdescended, and as progressively enriched, domain of one of the earliest Dutch settlers-a brief authority, which he exercised, more particularly, over an extensive stud and bins, numbers one and two. The west was piled with gold castles breaking up the horizon with their burnished pinnacles and turrets; the fragrant dampness of the thunder-shower that had followed the heat of noon was in the air; and in a low room, whose floor opened out so exactly upon the shaven sward that a blind man would not have known when he passed from the heavily piled carpet to the grass, I found Horace, sitting over his olives and claret, having waited dinner for me till five (long beyond the latest American hour), and, in despair of my arrival, having dined without me. The old black cook was too happy to vary her vacation, by getting a second dinner; and when I had appeased my appetite, and overtaken my friend in his claret, we sat with the moonlight breaking across a vine at our feet, and coffee worthy of a filligree cup in the Besestein, and debated, amid a true embarras des richesses, our plan for the next week's amusement.

The seven days wore on merrily at first, but each succeeding one growing less merry than the last. By the fifth eve of my sojourn, we had exhausted variety. All sorts of headaches and megrims in

the morning-all sorts of birds, beast and fishes for dinner-all sorts of accidents in all sorts of vehicles-left us on the seventh day out of sorts altogether. We were two discontented Rasselases in the Happy Valley. Rejoicing as we were in vacation, it would have been a relief to have had a recitation to read up, or a prayer-bell to mark the time. Two idle sopmores in a rambling lonely old mansion were, we discovered, a very insufficient dramatis persona for the scene.

It was Saturday night. A violent clap of thunder had interrupted some daring theory of Van Pelt's on the rising of Champagne bubbles; and there we sat, mum and melancholy, two sated Sybarites, silent an hour by the clock. The mahogany was bare between us. A number of glasses and bottles stood in their lees about the table; the thricefished juice of an olive-dish and a solitary cigar in a silver case had been thrust aside in a warm argument, and, in his father's sacred gout-chair, buried to the eyes in his loosened cravat, one leg on the table and one somewhere in the neighbourhood of my own, sat Van Pelt, the eidolon of exhausted amusement.

"Phil!" said he, starting suddenly to an erect position," a thought strikes me!"

I dropped the claret cork from which I was at the moment trying to efface the "Margoux" brand, and sat in silent expectation. I had thought his brains evaporated as well as the last bottle of Champagne.

He rested his elbows on the table and set his chin between his two palms.

"I'll resign the keys of this mournful old den to the butler, and we'll go to Saratoga for a week. What say?"

"It would be a reprieve from death by inanition," I answered; "but, as the rhetorical professor would phrase it, 'amplify your meaning,' young gentleman."

"Thus-to-morrow is Sunday. We will sleep till Monday morning, to purge our brains of these cloudy vapours, and restore the freshness of our complexions. If a fair day, you shall start alone in the stanhope, and on Monday night sleep in classic quarters, at Titus's in Troy."

"And you!" I interrupted, rather astonished at his arrangement for me. Horace laid his hand on his pocket with a look of embarrassed care.

"I will overtake you with the bay colts in the drosky-but I must first go to Albany. The circulating medium-" "I understand."

We met on Monday morning in the breakfast room in mutual good spirits. The sun was two hours high; the birds in the trees were wild with the beauty and elasticity of the day; the dew glistened on every bough; and the whole scene, over river and hill, was a heaven of natural delight. As we finished our breakfast, the light pattering of a horse's feet up the avenue and the airy whirl of quick-following wheels announced the stanhope. It was in beautiful order, and what would have been termed, on any pavé in the world, a tasteful turn-out. Light cream-coloured body, black wheels and shafts, drab livery edged with green, dead-black harness, light as that on the panthers of Bacchus-it was the last style of thing you would have looked for at the "stoup" of a Dutch homestead. And Tempest-I think I see him now: his small inquisitive ears, arched neck, eager eye and fine thin nostril; his dainty feet flung out with the grace of a flaunted riband, his true and majestic action, and his spirited champ of the bit, nibbling at the tight rein with the exciting pull of a hooked trout; how evenly he drew! how insensibly the compact stanhope, just touching his iron-gray tail, bowled along on the road after him!

Horace was behind with the drosky and black boy; and with a parting nod at the gate, I turned northward, and Tempest took the road in beautiful style. I do not remember to have been ever so elated. I was always of the Cyrenaic Philosophy, that "happiness is motion," and the bland vitality of the air had refined my senses. The delightful feel of the reins thrilled me to the shoulder. Driving is like any other appetite, dependent for the delicacy of its enjoyment on the state of the system; and a day's temperate abstinence, long sleep, and the glorious perfection of the morning, had put my nerves" in condition." I felt the air as I rushed through. The power of the horse was added to my consciousness of enjoyment; and if you can imagine a Centaur with a harness and stanhope added to his living body, I felt the triple enjoy ment of animal exercise which would then be his.

It is delightful driving on the Hudson. The road is very fair beneath your wheels, the river courses away under the bold shore with the majesty inseparable from its mighty flood, and the constant change of outline on its banks gives you, as you proceed, a constant variety of pictures,

from the loveliest to the most sublime. The eagle's nest above you at one moment, a sunny and fertile farm below you at the next-rocks, trees and waterfalls wedded and clustered as, it seems to me, they are nowhere else done so picturesquely—it is a noble river, the Hudson! And every few minutes, while you gaze down upon the broad waters spreading from hill to hill like a round lake, a gailypainted steamer, with her fringed and white awnings and streaming flag, shoots out as if from a sudden cleft in the rock, and draws across it her track of foam.

Well, I bowled along. Ten o'clock brought me to a snug Dutch tavern, where I sponged Tempest's mouth and nostrils, lunched, and was stared at by the natives; and continuing my journey, at one I loosed rein and dashed into the pretty village of - —, Tempest in a foam, and himself and his extempore master creating a great sensation in a crowd of people who stood in the shade of the verandah of the hotel, as if that asylum for the weary traveller had been a shop for the sale of gentlemen in shirt sleeves.

Tempest was taken round to the "barn," and I ordered rather an elaborate dinner, designing still to go on some ten miles in the cool of the evening, and having, of course, some mortal hours upon my hands. The cook had probably never heard of more than three dishes in her life, but those three were garnished with all manner of herbs, and sent up in the best china as a warranty for an unusual bill; and what with coffee, a small glass of new rum as an apology for a chasse-café, and a nap in a straightbacked chair, I killed the enemy to my satisfaction till the shadows of the poplars lengthened across the barn yard.

I was awoke by Tempest prancing round to the door in undiminished spirits, and as I had begun the day en grand seigneur, I did not object to the bill, which considerably exceeded the outside of my calculation, but, giving the landlord a twenty-dollar note, received the change unquestioned, doubled the usual fee to the ostler, and let Tempest off with a bend forward which served at the same time for a gracious bow to the spectators. So remarkable a coxcomb had probably not been seen in the village since the passing of Cornwallis's army.

The day was still hot, and, as I got into the open country, I drew rein, and

paced quietly up hill and down, picking the road delicately, and, in a humour of thoughtful contentment, trying my skill in keeping the edges of the green sod as it leaned in and out from the walls and ditches. With the long whip I now-andthen touched the wing of a sulphur butterfly hovering over a pool, and now-andthen I stopped and gathered a violet from the unsunned edge of the wood.

I had proceeded three or four miles in this way, when I was overtaken by three stout fellows galloping at speed, who rode past and faced round with a peremptory order to me to stop. A formidable pitchfork in the hand of each horseman left me no alternative. I made up my mind immediately to be robbed quietly of my own personals, but to show fight, if necessary, for Tempest and the stanhope.

"Well, gentlemen," said I, coaxing my impatient horse, who had been rather excited by the clatter of hoofs beside him, "what is the meaning of this?"

Before I could get an answer, one of the fellows had dismounted and given his bridle to another, and coming round to the left side, he sprang suddenly into the stanhope. I received him as he rose with a well-placed thrust of my heel, which sent him back into the road, and with a chirrup to Tempest, I dashed through the phalanx and took the road at a top speed. The short lash once waved round the small ears before me, there was no stopping in a hurry, and away sped the gallant gray, and fast behind followed my friends in their shirt sleeves, all in a lathering gallop. A couple of miles was the work of no time, Tempest laying his legs to it as if the stanhope had been a cobweb at his heels; but at the end of that distance there came a sharp descent to a mill-stream, and I just remember an unavoidable mile-stone and a jerk over a wall, and the next minute, it seemed to me, I in the room where I had dined, with my hands tied and a hundred people about me. My cool white waistcoat was matted with mud, and my left temple was, by the glass opposite me, both bloody and begrimed.

was

The opening of my eyes was a signal for a closer gathering around me, and between exhaustion and the close air I was half suffocated. I was soon made to understand that I was a prisoner, and that the three white-frocked highwaymen, as I took them to be, were among the spectators. On a polite application to

the landlord, who, I found out, was a justice of the peace as well, I was informed that he had made out my mittimus as a counterfeiter, and that the spurious note I had passed upon him for my dinner was safe in his possession! He pointed, at the same time, to a placard newly stuck against the wall, offering a reward for the apprehension of a notorious practiser of my supposed craft, to the description of whose person I answered, to the satisfaction of all present.

Quite too indignant to remonstrate, I seated myself in the chair considerately offered me by the waiter, and listening to the whispers of the persons who were still suffered to throng the room, I discovered, what might have struck me before, that the initials on the panel of the stanhope and the handle of the whip had been compared with the card pasted on the bottom of my hat, and the want of correspondence was taken as decided corroboration. It was remarked also by a bystander, that I was quite too much of a dash for an honest man, and that he had suspected me from first seeing me drive into the village! I was sufficiently humbled by this time to make an inward vow never again to take airs upon myself if I escaped the county jail.

The justice, meanwhile, had made out my orders, and a horse and cart had been provided and brought to the door to take me to the next town. I endeavoured to get speech of his worship as I was marched out of the inn-parlour, but the crowd pressed close upon my heels, and the dignitary landlord seemed anxious to rid his house of me. I had no papers, and no proofs of my character, and assertion went for nothing. Besides, I was muddy, and my hat was broken in on one side proofs of villany which appeal to the commonest understanding.

I begged for a little straw in the bottom of the cart, and had made myself as comfortable as my two rustic constables thought fitting for a culprit, when the vehicle was quickly ordered from the door to make way for a carriage coming at a dashing pace up the road. It was Van Pelt in his drosky.

Horace was well known on the road, and the stanhope had already been recognised as his. By this time it was deep in the twilight, and though he was instantly known by the landlord, he was some minutes in identifying the person of his friend in the damaged gentleman in the straw.

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Ay! ay! I see you don't know him," said the landlord, while Van Pelt surveyed me rather coldly: "on with him, constables! He would have us believe you knew him, sir! Walk in, Mr. Van Pelt. Ostler, look to Mr. Van Pelt's horses. Walk in, sir."

"Stop!" I cried out in a voice of thunder, imagining that Horace really had not recognized me; "Van Pelt! stop, I say! Horace!"

The driver of the cart seemed more impressed by the energy of my cries than my friends the constables, and pulled up his horse. Some one in the crowd cried out that I should have a hearing or he would "wallup the comitatus ;" and the justice, called back by this expression of an opinion from the sovereign people, requested his new guest to look at the prisoner for an instant.

"Do you know the culprit?" he asked in a solemn voice, after obtaining a momentary silence among the crowd.

Van Pelt had, by this time, become possessed of the principal circumstances of the case, and his first glance showed me that he recognized me. To my utter astonishment, however, the smile that had involuntarily started to his lips changed to a feigned look of surprise; and after gazing at me for a minute, while the crowd watched his face for the effect of his examination, he turned to the justice, and declared he had never seen me before in his life!

"Drive on, constable," said the justice; and, with a shout from the people, the horse started into a smart trot, and, preceded by a hundred boys, we went jolting over the stones of the village street, on our way to the county jail.

Van Pelt overtook me at the end of the first mile; but I was long in forgiving him.

(To be continued.)

FEMALE DUELLISTS.

It is quite unnecessary to revert to the old heroic times and the era of the Amazons, to adduce instances of the pugnacious dispositions of women. In the days of old, they have been frequently seen standing in the foremost ranks in the field of glory, or posting themselves in the imminent, perilous breach, in defence of their native cities; and examples are not wanting in more recent periods.

In ancient Rome it was no uncommon thing for the ladies to appear in the Circus, and there act the part of the gladiators. A contest of this character is related by the historian, Dion Cassius; and Athenæus speaks of a noble Roman who inscribed in his will an express direction that, when he was buried, some beautiful female slaves, bought expressly for the purpose, should be armed and fight together until they expired. In modern times, there is no occasion to refer to the fictions of poetry for similar acts. Without speaking of the Clorindas, Armidas, and Djaïdas of romantic fable, a great number of cities rejoice in the traditions of the exploits of their respective Amazonian worthies! The city of Lille can boast its Jeanne Maillotte; the old town of Beauvais can never forget its Jeanne Hachette; the city of Orleans, or rather the entire realm of France, distinguishes Joan of Arc among its noblest warriors, and Bretagne may well be proud of its countess of Montfort. In the middle ages, the fair sex was always excluded from the judicial lists, which was some advance upon the Roman civilization, and in accordance with the spirit of chivalry. Woman, says Beaumanoir, the Norman jurist, cannot be permitted to fight. If the justice of her cause had to be decided by single combat, she was compelled to produce a champion to answer in her name, and it was only in this way that her gage of battle could be received.

At a later period the duel began to be affected by the petticoat. "They talk in Paris," says Guy-Patin, "of two court ladies who fought a duel with pistols. When it was mentioned to the king, he laughed, and observed, that he did not see how it could be prevented, as the law only referred to gentlemen.' Madame de Villedieu speaks of a duel with swords, between Henriette-Sylvie de Molière and another lady, who were both attired in male dresses. In Madame Dunoyer's letters, may be found the details of a rencontre of the same kind, between a lady of Beaucaire and the daughter of a noble family there, who fought with swords in a garden, and would have killed one another, if they had not been parted. This was a regular duel, carried on according to the forms and ceremonies in such cases made and provided, and one lady challenged the other. De la Colombière mentions this affair, and goes on thus: "the same

two beautiful courtesans, who fought with small swords on the Boulevard St. Antoine; they each received several wounds in the face and neck, where their mutual envy and jealousy principally incited them to aim their thrusts. One of these creatures raised her handkerchief, and showed me a wound she had received on the right side of her neck." In his Essays on Paris, St. Foix alludes to a young woman named Durieux, who, in a crowded street, attacked Antinotti, her suitor, and had a regular combat with him.

thing occurred again in Paris, between as she turned upon them, challenged them severally, forced them to go out with her, and killed them all three. Having settled this matter, she returned to the ball with all the composure and unconcern possible. "She obtained her pardon from the king," says her biographer; and it was in favour of a woman of disorderly life that Louis the Great deviated from his just and exemplary severity against duellists. Mademoiselle Maupin withdrew to Brussels, where she became acquainted with the elector of Bavaria. A short time afterwards she returned to the opera, and died in 1707.

The most renowned, however, of these duellists in petticoats was Mademoiselle Maupin, the actress, whose exploits of this kind are truly marvellous. She was born in Paris, in 1673, and her paternal name was Daubigny. She was married when very young, and having procured her husband an employment under government which required his presence in the provinces, she entered into the opera company in 1698. Being passionately fond of fencing, she formed a connexion with Serane, the famous fencing-master, and soon acquired a strength and skill in the use of her weapons, that was unsurpassed even by the Chevalier* d'Eon, or by whatever name that anomalous personage should be styled. She was one day insulted by the actor Dumeny, one of her intimates, and made an appointment with him on the Place des Victoires; but, as she could not persuade him to draw his sword against a woman, she kicked him, and deprived him of his watch and snuff-box as trophies of her prowess. Another of her acquaintance having given her offence, she forced him to beg her pardon on both knees. On one occasion she went to a masked ball in male attire, and thought proper to make impertinent observations, accompanied by gestures, on a lady there present. Three gentlemen who had escorted the lady, did their best to make her desist, but ineffectually,

* Everybody knows the story of Monsieur or Mad'lle d'Eon, who was some time attached to the French embassy at the court of St. James, fought several duels, travelled over the greater part of the world, and was afterwards discovered to be a female. See the Magazines of the first decade of the reign of George the Third for particulars thereof.

During the whole course of the eighteenth century, when the fair occupied the most influential position both in courts and in society, and when gallantry and devotion to the ladies was the first duty of every gentleman, quarrels, rivalries, and disputes among the gentler sex were of constant occurrence. They urged their suitors and male friends to challenge those of their rivals, and the slightest hesitation on their parts was followed by irrevocable and immediate disgrace. Then came the farce of tears and faintings at the news or the sight of bloodshed, and the mischief they had themselves excited by their jealous or vindictive passions. It would be ridiculous to cite instances, as you cannot open a volume of the Mémoires of that period, without meeting with the details of a duel in every page.

Among the affairs in which ladies have filled the principal parts, I will only allude to one, quoted by Soulavie, the editor of the Memoirs of the Duke de Richelieu. This was the famous duel with pistols, between the Marchioness de Nesle and the Countess de Polignac. I pass over the details, which can be found in the work just mentioned by those to whom it is not sufficient to know that the contemptible cause of this disgraceful exposure was nothing else than a mutual jealousy, the object of which was that outrageous coxcomb, the Duke de Richelieu.

In our own time the periodical press has not unfrequently commemorated some female duels, the reality of most of which may with reason be doubted. There are two or three, however, which are thoroughly authenticated. In 1827, Madame Bourgoing, of St. Rambert, accepted a challenge from another lady to meet her with pistols. About the

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