that they noticed little what was passing outside the scene of the duel. The fog had thickened; the weather had changed; the wind had driven the vessel at will; it had got out of its route, in plain sight of Jersey and Guernsey, farther to the south than it ought to have gone, and was surrounded by a troubled sea. The great waves kissed the gaping wounds of the corvette, -kisses full of peril. The sea rocked her menacingly. The breeze became a gale. A squall, a tempest perhaps, threatened. It was impossible to see before one four oars' length.

While the crew were repairing summarily and in haste the ravages of the gun deck, stopping the leaks and putting back into position the guns which had escaped the disaster, the old passenger had gone on deck.

He stood with his back against the mainmast.

He had paid no attention to a proceeding which had taken place on the vessel. The Chevalier La Vieuville had drawn. up the marines in line on either side of the mainmast, and at the whistle of the boatswain the sailors busy in the rigging stood upright on the yards.

Count du Boisberthelot advanced toward the passenger.

Behind the captain marched a man, haggard, breathless, his dress in disorder, yet wearing a satisfied look under it all. It was the gunner who had just now so opportunely shown himself a tamer of monsters, and who had got the better of the

cannon.

The count made a military salute to the unknown in peasant garb, and said to him :

"General, here is the man."

The gunner held himself erect, his eyes downcast, standing in a soldierly attitude.

Count du Boisberthelot continued:

"General, taking into consideration what this man has done, do you not think there is something for his commanders to do?"

“

"I think there is," said the old man.

"Be good enough to give the orders," returned Boisber thelot.

"It is for you to give them. You are the captain."

"But you are the general," answered Boisberthelot.

The old man looked at the gunner.

66

Approach," said he.

The gunner moved forward a step. The old man turned

toward Count du Boisberthelot, detached the cross of Saint Louis from the captain's uniform and fastened it on the jacket of the gunner.

"Hurrah!" cried the sailors.

The marines presented arms.

The old passenger, pointing

with his finger toward the bewildered gunner, added: "Now let that man be shot."

Stupor succeeded the applause.

Then, in the midst of a silence like that of the tomb, the old man raised his voice. He said:

"A negligence has endangered this ship. At this moment she is perhaps lost. To be at sea is to face the enemy. A vessel at open sea is an army which gives battle. The tempest conceals, but does not absent itself. The whole sea is an ambuscade. Death is the penalty of any fault committed in the face of the enemy. No fault is reparable. Courage ought to be rewarded and negligence punished."

These words fell one after the other, slowly, solemnly, with a sort of inexorable measure, like the blows of an ax upon an oak.

And the old man, turning to the soldiers, added:

"Do your duty.'

The man upon whose breast shone the cross of Saint Louis bowed his head.

At a sign from Count du Boisberthelot, two sailors descended between decks, then returned, bringing the hammock winding sheet. The ship's chaplain, who since the time of sailing had been at prayer in the officers' quarters, accompanied the two sailors; a sergeant detached from the line twelve marines, whom he arranged in two ranks, six by six; the gunner, without uttering a word, placed himself between the two files. The chaplain, crucifix in hand, advanced and stood near him. "March!" said the sergeant.

The platoon moved with slow steps toward the bow. The two sailors who carried the shroud followed.

A gloomy silence fell upon the corvette. A hurricane moaned in the distance.

A few instants later there was a flash; a report followed, echoing among the shadows; then all was silent; then came the thud of a body falling into the sea.

The old passenger still leaned back against the mainmast with folded arms, thinking silently.

Boisberthelot pointed toward him with the forefinger of his left hand, and said in a low voice to La Vieuville:

"The Vendée has found a head!”

THE HASTY PUDDING.

BY JOEL BARLOW.

[JOEL BARLOW, American author and public man, was born in Redding, Conn., in 1754; graduated at Yale, and delivered the commencement poem ; became a chaplain in the Continental army; settled in Hartford as a lawyer after the peace; with another, founded the weekly American Mercury, and wrote satires, being one of the "Hartford wits"; edited a psalmody, with original versions; in 1787 published the "Vision of Columbus," gaining wide American celebrity; became agent of the Scioto Land Company, for which he went to France in 1788: was an active Girondist partisan and writer in 17891791; 1791-1793 lived in London, one of a group of ardently republican writers and artists; published "Advice to the Privileged Orders," proscribed by government, assailed by Burke, and eulogized by Fox; took refuge in France, helped annex Savoy, was candidate for deputy from there, and wrote "Hasty Pudding" there; made a fortune trading and speculating in Paris; was United States consul at Algiers 1795-1796; returned to Paris, lived as a littérateur, wrote the "Columbiad," gathered material for histories of the American and French revolutions, and mediated between France and America by influential writings; returned to America in 1805, published the "Columbiad," 1807; in 1811 took the post of minister to France to avert imminent Franco-American war, went to Wilna, Poland, in 1812, to meet Napoleon and sign a treaty, was involved in the retreat from Moscow, and died in Poland of the hardships, December 24.]

YE ALPS, audacious thro' the heav'ns that rise
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies;
Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurled,
Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world,
I sing not you. A softer theme I choose,
A virgin theme, unconscious of the Muse,
But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire
The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

Despise it not, ye Bards to terror steeled,
Who hurl your thunders round the epic field;
Nor ye, who strain your midnight throats to sing
Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring.
Or on some distant Fair your notes employ,
And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy.

I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,

My morning incense, and my evening meal,
The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl!

VOL. XX. — -9

Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul.
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
And as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,
No more thy awkward, unpoetic name
Should shun the Muse, or prejudice thy fame;
But rising graceful to the accustomed ear,
All Bards should catch it, and all realms revere!
Assist me first with pious toil to trace
Thro' wrecks of time thy lineage and thy race.
Declare what lovely Squaw, in days of yore
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore),

First gave thee to the world; her works of fame
Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.

Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,

First learned with stones to crack the well-dried maize,
Through the rough sieve to shake the golden show'r,
In boiling water stir the yellow flour:

The yellow flour, bestrewed and stirred with haste,
Swells at the flood, and thickens to a paste,

Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,
Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim.
The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,

And the whole mass its true consistence takes.
Dear hasty pudding, what unpromised joy
Expands my heart to meet thee in Savoy!
Doomed o'er the world through devious paths to roam,
Each clime my country, and each house my home,
My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end,
I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend.

For thee, through Paris, that corrupted town,
How long in vain I wandered up and down,

Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching horde
Cold from his cave usurps the morning board.
London is lost in smoke, and steeped in tea;
No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee;
The uncouth word, a libel on the town,
Would call a proclamation from the crown.
For climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays,
Chilled in their fogs exclude the generous maize;

A grain whose rich luxuriant growth requires
Short gentle showers, and bright ethereal fires.
But here, though distant from our native shore,
With mutual glee we meet and laugh once more.
The same! I know thee by that yellow face,
That strong complexion of true Indian race,
Which time can never change, nor soil impair,
Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air;
For endless years, through every mild domain,
Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign.
But man, more fickle, the bold license claims,
In different realms to give thee different names.
Thee, the soft nations round the warm Levant
Polanta call. The French, of course, Polante;
Ev'n in thy native regions, how I blush
To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush!
On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spawn
Insult and eat thee, by the name of Suppawn!
All spurious appellations, void of truth;
I've better known thee from my earliest youth;
Thy name is Hasty Pudding! Thus our sires
Were wont to greet thee fuming from their fires;
And while they argued in thy just defense,
With logic clear they thus explained the sense:
"In haste the boiling cauldron o'er the blaze
Receives and cooks the ready-powdered maize;
In haste 'tis stirred, and then in equal haste,
With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast:
No carving to be done, no knife to grate
The tender ear and wound the stony plate;
But the smooth spoon just fitted to the lip,
And taught with art the yielding mass to dip,
By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored
Performs the hasty honors of the board."
Such is thy name, significant and clear,

A name, a sound to every Yankee dear,
But most to me; whose heart and palate chaste
Preserve my pure hereditary taste.

Let the green succotash with thee contend,
Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend,
Let butter drench them in its yellow tide,
And a long slice of bacon grace their side,
Not all the plate, how famed soe'er it be,
Can please my palate like a plate of thee.