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suppress them. I have been taught to abase a proud spirit to the clasps and kisses of the vulgar; to smile on suitors who united the insults of a despicable pride to the endearments of a loathsome fondness; to affect sprightliness with an aching head, and eyes from which tears were ready to gush; to feign love with curses on my lips, and madness in my brain. Who feels for me any esteemany tenderness? Who will shed a tear over the nameless grave which will soon shelter from cruelty and scorn the broken heart of the poor Athenian girl? But you, who alone have addressed her, in her degradation, with a voice of kindness and respect, farewell. Sometimes think of me-not with sorrow; no: I could bear your ingratitude, but not your distress. Yet, if it will not pain too much, in distant days, when your lofty hopes and destinies are accomplished-on the evening of some mighty victory-in the chariot of some magnificent triumphthink on one who loved you with that exceeding love which only the miserable can feel. Think, that wherever her exhausted frame may have sunk beneath the sensibilities of a tortured spirit-in whatever hovel or whatever vault she may have closed her eyes-whatever strange scenes of horror and infamy may have surrounded her dying bed, your shape was the last that swam before her sight-your voice the last sound that was ringing in her ears. Yet turn your face to me, Cæsar. Let me carry away one last look of those features, and then He turned round. He looked at her. He hid his face on her bosom, and burst into tears. With sobs long and loud, and convulsive as those of a terrified child, he poured forth on her bosom the tribute of impetuous and uncontrollable emotion. He raised his head; but he in vain struggled to restore composure to the brow which had confronted the frown of Sylla, and the lips which had rivalled the eloquence of Cicero. He several times attempted to speak, but in vain; and his voice still faltered with tenderness, when, after a pause of several minutes, he thus addressed her:

"My own dear Zoe, your love has been bestowed on one who, if he cannot merit, can at least appreciate and adore you. Beings of similar loveliness, and similar devotedness of affection, min

gled in all my boyish dreams of greatness, with visions of curule chairs and ivory cars, marshalled legions and laurelled fasces. Such I have endeavoured to find in the world; and in their stead, I have met with selfishness, with vanity, with frivolity, with falsehood. The life which you have preserved is a boon less valuable than the affection }}

"Oh! Cæsar," interrupted the blushing Zoe, "think only on your own security at present. If you feel as you speak -but you are only mocking me—or, perhaps, your compassion

"By heaven! by every oath that is binding

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"Alas! alas! Cæsar, were not all the same oaths sworn yesterday to Valeria? But I will trust you, at least so far as to partake your present dangers. Flight may be necessary: form your plans. Be they what they may, there is one who, in exile, in poverty, in peril, asks only to wander, to beg, to die with you."

"My Zoe, I do not anticipate any such necessity. To renounce the conspiracy without renouncing the principles on which it was originally undertakento elude the vengeance of the senate without losing the confidence of the people, is indeed an arduous, but not an impossible task. I owe it to myself and to my country to make the attempt. There is still ample time for consideration. At present, I am too happy in love to think of ambition or danger."

They had reached the door of a stately palace. Cæsar struck it. It was instantly opened by a slave. Zoe found herself in a magnificent hall, surrounded by pillars of green marble, between which were ranged the statues of the long line of Julian nobles.

"Call Endymion," said Cæsar.

The confidential freedman made his appearance, not without a slight smile, which his patron's good nature emboldened him to hazard, at perceiving the beautiful Athenian.

"Arm my slaves, Endymion; there are reasons for precaution. Let them relieve each other on guard during the night. Zoe, my love, my preserver, why are your cheeks so pale? Let me kiss some bloom into them. How you tremble! Endymion, a flask of Samian and some fruit. Bring them to my apartments. This way, my sweet Zoe."

TO A BRIDE.

I CANNOT strike-my April lyre
Hath not one constant string;
Its flight is but a meteor-fire
Upon a broken wing.

I'm sure my lyre was made in heaven
And strung with rainbow chords,
For every tint by sunlight given
Is woven in its words.

'Tis a true lyre-for thou, who first
Didst feel the breath it drew-
Thou, in whose smile its numbers burst,
Art changed by sunshine too.
Thou art a bride-but in that word

How many thoughts are spoken!
For though it stirs one silver chord,
It jars a thousand-broken.

I look up from thy sunny smile
To watch thy drooping lid,
And see by what an idle wile
A starting tear is hid.

The blood that dyes thy lip so well
Is truant from thy cheek-
And the deep blue veins too truly tell
The throb thou canst not speak.

Yet joy!-thou art a happy bride,
With hopes of sunshine wove;
And he who standeth by thy side
Hath tried his early love.
With all thou wast, and all thou art,
To bind thy soul to him-
Oh what must be the human heart
If he thine eye can dim!

I'll not believe it. Angel wings

Are but by angels worn,
And hearts that gush with living springs
To living hopes are born.

If worth like thine, and love like thine,
For change and woe are given—
Oh! where, within an earthly shrine,
Is found a type of heaven?

Yet weep for thou art leaving now

Father, and friends, and homeThe lips that press'd thy open brow

The voice that whispered, "Come!" The cadence of thy mother's prayerThe love she cannot tell

All that thy heart hath garner'd there,
Is in this sad farewell.

Well-peace be thine! If life is made
Of sun and shadows up,
We know who leads us in the shade
And mingles every cup.

And though the shadowy veil of night

May not be ours to sway,
If prayer can win a gift of light,
Thou 'lt not in darkness stray.

NOTES OF A READER.

COMMONPLACES.

Ir is an odd reflection, that while we are pouring out our affection in a letter to a dear friend, and communing with his image in tender sentiment, he may be snoring away upon a bed; and, that while he is reading our expressions of ardent and unintermitting love, we may be in a totally different mood, and utterly oblivious of his existence. So much for the sympathy of correspondents!

There is nothing so presumptuous as a half-informed person-"a little learning is a dangerous thing "—and the majority of the reading public is of this class. The most ignorant are those who are not aware of their ignorance.

There are some men who imagine that wisdom must always be rude and forbidding, and who deem that what is beautiful is, of necessity, superficial. I think these gentlemen have mistaken the owl of Minerva for the goddess.

There are some minds which, like the vulture's eye, can pass heedlessly over the beauties of the verdant meadow, and spy only the carrion that lies rotting in the corner.

Fame, like the Hebrew verb, has no present tense.

There is as much difference between silent caution and cautious silence, as there is between an eye-glass and a glass eye; one is an artificial mean, the other a mean artifice.

Weak minds are dwarfed by the active rivalry of society, strong ones are advanced by it. A rose-bush dwindles in a wood; an oak grows taller in a forest than in a field.

There are certain gossips in society who resemble long and twisted trumpets -what they receive as a faint whisper, they give out in a long, connected blast.

Every one knows the height of virtue to which he may attain; but no man can anticipate the depth of depravity to which he may descend.

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CHRISTIAN WOLF.

A TRUE STORY-BY SCHILLER.

In the whole history of man, there is no chapter more instructive than the annals of its crimes. Every great crime supposes some proportionately great power in action. If in common life the secret play of desires is disguised under the appearance of ordinary emotion, when these desires become strong passions, they break forth with a greater violence in proportion to the degree in which they have been repressed. The acute observer of human nature, who knows how much may be attributed to the constitution of the free will, and how far analogical reasoning may be lawful, will profit by his experiences in the social life, and will gather from them precepts concerning the moral and inner life of man.

There is something so simple, and yet so compound, in the human soul! The same activity or desire can play a thousand different forms and directions-can produce a thousand contradictory phenomena, and appear variously mingled in as many distinct characters, creating

VOL. I. (7.)

P. 106.

these dissimilar characters and opposite actions from the same principle, while man himself has no conjecture of the common relation which exists among them. Were some Linnæus to classify the human race according to its passions and inclinations, how should we be astonished to find a multitude of men, who are now confined within the narrow limits of social life, classed, from their vices, with the monster Borgia.

It is not my aim to develop here the literary and scientific advantages which would result from history, were it conducted upon the profound principles to which I have adverted. I prefer such a course, because it would tend to extirpate that feeling of scorn, and of proud security, with which bold and untried virtue looks upon those who have fallen into degradation because it would create a spirit of mildness and toleration in the world, without which no fugitive from honour can return, no reconciliation can be made between the law and its transgressor, and without which, finally, no diseased member of society can be. saved from entire destruction.

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Whether the criminal, whose history

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I shall now give, possessed any claims upon public indulgence, or whether he was entirely lost to the state, the reader shall judge. Our compassion will no longer benefit him, for he has perished by the hands of the executioner-but an analysis of his vice and folly may be instructive to humanity, and, perhaps, to justice.

Christian Wolf was the son of an innholder in the town of and, after the death of his father, he assisted his mother in the management of domestic affairs until he was twenty years of age. The economy of the family was very simple, and Wolf consequently had many idle hours. He was already known at school as a mischievous youth. The grown up maidens complained of his impertinences, and the boys of the town acknowledged fealty to his inventive head. Nature had neglected his person. A small, unsightly figure, crisped hair of a disagreeable blackness, a flattened nose, and a projecting upper lip, which had been wrenched from its natural position by the kick of a horse, combined to give his aspect an unpleasantness which terrified the women, and which afforded abundant scope to the wit of his comrades.

What was denied him he would obtain by importunity; if he displeased, he resolved to please. He was sensual, and persuaded himself that he loved. The maid who was the object of his affections, treated him with severity; and he had reason to fear that she was more attached to his rival than to himself; but she was poor. A heart which shut itself against his protestations, might, perhaps, be won by his presents; but he was himself oppressed by want, and the vain attempt to render his exterior prepossessing, swallowed up the little profits of his narrow business. Too indolent and too ignorant to extricate himself by speculation from his household embarrassments, and too proud and tender to compromise with the peasants that mastery which he had hitherto sustained, and to renounce his freedom, he saw but one resource left-a resource which thousands, both before and after him, have embraced with better success than followed him that of honest stealing. His native town touched upon a forest which belonged to the sovereign of the country; he became poacher, and faithfully deposited the profits of his plunder at the feet of his mistress.

Among the lovers of Joan, was Robert, an apprentice to the gamekeeper of the forest. He very soon perceived the advantage which his rival had gained by his largesses, and with jealous care sought out the sources of this change. He directed his lurking eyes with great assiduity upon the Sun-this was the sign of the inn-and soon discovered from whence the money came. Not long before a strict edict had been promulgated against hunting in the forest, which condemned the transgressor to the house of correction. Robert was unwearied in his attempts to surprise his enemy on his secret paths, and at last he apprehended him while in the very act. Wolf was imprisoned, and it was only by the sacrifice, in the payment of a fine, of all the little property which he had laboriously gathered, that he could avert the adjudged punishment.

Robert triumphed. His rival was driven from the field, and the favour of the maid lighted not on the mendicant. Wolf knew his enemy, and this enemy was the successful possessor of his Joan. An oppressive feeling of want combined with his offended pride-his sensibilities were harassed by the united violence of grief and jealousy-hunger drove him out into the wide world-revenge and passion held him back. He became for the second time a poacher; but the double vigilance of Robert for the second time gained an advantage. Now he experienced the whole punishment of the law; for he had nothing more to give, and in a few weeks Wolf was consigned to the house of correction.

The year of punishment was past; his passions grew with time, and his hopes were more buoyant under the pressure of misfortune. Hardly was he free, when he hastened to his native town, to revisit his Joan. He appeared, and the inhabitants all avoided him. Pressing necessity at last bowed his pride, and vanquished his prejudices against labour. He offered his services as a journeyman to the rich man of the town. The peasants shrugged their shoulders at the tenderling, and his strong and lusty competitors were preferred by the unfeeling patron. Wolf tried a last resource, and applied to the shepherds for the only honourable employment which was left to him; but they would trust their droves with no vagabond. Disappointed in every scheme, turned away from every place, he became for the

third time a poacher, and for the third time misfortune threw him into the hands of his vigilant enemy.

This double relapse had made his crime more heavy. The judge looked into the book of the law, but not into the temper of mind of the defendant. The mandate against the poacher demanded solemn and exemplary satisfaction, and Wolf was condemned, with the sign of the gallows branded on his back, to labour three years in a fortress. This period also passed, and he left the fortress-but with an entirely different character than when he entered it. Here began a new epoch in his life; his own confession, which he made to his spiritual counsellor, shall give you its history.

At

"I entered the fortress," said he, 66 as one who had been misled to error, and I left it a vicious and contemptible vagrant. There had been something in the world which was dear to me, and my pride writhed under shame. When brought to the fortress I was confined with three and twenty prisoners, two of whom were murderers, and the rest were notorious thieves and vagabonds. Not a day passed in which the story of some infamous course of life was not repeated, and some wicked plot contrived. first I fled from these people, and hid myself from their conversation as soon as possible; but I needed some creature for a companion, and my barbarous guards had taken away from me my dog. The labour was hard and cruel, my body was sickly; I needed assistance, (I speak with candour,) I needed pity, and this I must purchase with the last remnant of my conscience. So I became at last accustomed to the abominations of the place, and after nine months I had excelled my teachers.

"From that time, thirsting after revenge, I longed for the day of my liberation. All men had offended me, for all were better and more prosperous than myself. I compared myself to a martyr for the rights of nature, and felt that I was a sacrifice to law. I gnashed my teeth and rubbed my chains when the sun came up behind the hill near the fortress; for a distant prospect is a double torment to the prisoner. The free draught of air which whistled through the vents of my prison, and the swallow that settled upon the iron bars of my lattice, seemed to taunt me with their freedom, and made my confinement the

more terrible. At that time I vowed implacable and burning hatred against every human being; and this vow I have faithfully kept.

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My first thoughts, so soon as I was liberated, was of my native town. proportion as my hopes of future support there were small, the means of gratifying my thirst for vengeance were great. My heart beat more wildly as the steeple of the church arose from afar through the forest. I no longer experienced the fervent pleasure which I had felt on my first return from captivity. The memory of all the troubles and persecutions which I had formerly suffered, awoke at once from a frightful deathsleep; my wounds all bled afresh; my scars all opened. I doubled my speed, for I was refreshed in the anticipation of terrifying my enemy by my sudden appearance, and I longed for fresh degradation as anxiously as I had before trembled in view of it.

"The bell was tolling for vespers as I stood in the middle of the marketplace, and the congregation were thronging into the church. I was very soon recognised; every man who brushed along near me, started back in terror. I had always been inordinately attached to children, and my affections overpowering me at this instant, I involuntarily gave a groat to a boy that was passing by me. The boy stared at me for a moment, and then threw the groat back into my face. Had I been more cool, I might have recollected that the beard which I carried out with me from the fortress, still shockingly disfigured my features; but the anguish of my heart had supplanted my reason. Tears, such as I had never wept, ran down my cheeks.

"The boy knows not who I am, nor from whence I came, said I, half-loudly to myself, and yet he shuns me as an obscene beast. Do I then bear a mark upon my forehead, or have I ceased to look like a man, since I have felt that I could love no more? The contempt of this boy pained me more bitterly than three years of galley service, for I had done him a kindness, and could charge him with no personal hatred.

"I sat down in a carpenter's yard, which was opposite the church; what in particular I desired, I know not; but this I know, that I rose up exasperated, because among all my past acquaintances there was not even one who deemed me

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