my valise, my boots, my whole wardrobe, were gone along with it.

Every man of the party was in the same condition. The accident of sleeping in our clothes alone prevented us from being stark naked. I roared for the landlord. He was "deaf or dead," no answer came. I darted down stairs, every door was bolted and barred as firmly as if it were midnight. I thought of my invalidhe too was "deaf or dead" when I knocked. On second thoughts I kicked the door open. The bird was flown.-The Red Woman had robbed us all. There was not a florin, a brooch, a ring, a snuff-box, or a second shirt in our whole coterie.-The spoliation had been managed with matchless dexterity.-We might be thankful that it had pleased the Red Woman to let us keep our skins.

To make the dénouement more palatable, the story spread over the neighborhood with a rapidity worthy of the Red Woman herself, and while we were considering how we should exist for the day, crowds came pouring about the house, and honoring each of us that appeared at the window with roars of merriment. As the tale spread, the neighboring nobles came in to enjoy their share of the amusement, and in our dismantled condition we were thus compelled to run the gauntlet of laughing condolence and burlesque compliment on our sagacity, from fair ladies and magnificent lords, who had seen us flourishing away among the circles of Vienna.

A year after, as I was on a mission to inspect the fortresses along our Rhenish boundary, I was struck with a familiar face among the prisoners working at Ehrenbreitstein. The fellow turned away; but I had marked my man, and on the bell's tolling for the close of their work, I accosted my old acquaintance, the Herr Michael Squeezegelt.

He had one surviving virtue, candor in great abundance, and when I had satisfied him that his story should not diminish his rations nor increase his chains, he was willing to let me have

every secret of his soul. I, however, confined my curiosity to the "Red Woman," and her victim.

"That fellow," said the Herr, "was the cause of my ruin. He and I became acquainted in the course of the war, in which he had deserted from the Archduke's army the night before he was to be hanged as a French spy, and deserted from Napoleon's army the night before he was to be hanged as an Austrian one. He was a clever knave, however, and as trade was low at the Gasthaus, I found him now and then useful to bring it up by a little smuggling, a little gambling, and, I am afraid, by a little tax-gathering among the gentlemen who came to see the beauties of the country."

"But the Red Woman, the lights, the procession on the walls and ceiling -what were these? juggling?"

"My comrade had been twenty things after his escape from the gallows, for it is hard, in these times, for a man with but one trade to live. Among his talents was firework-making, and he could do what he pleased with figures and lights of all kinds. His equal never sent up a rocket from the Prater. I had overheard you, some days before, asking questions about the Durrenstein and the odd lights that every ploughman in Lower Austria is ready to swear to. I had laid a little plan to raise a trifle on you myself out of the story. But the coming of the whole party in the storm, made me give up my own idea for Signior Ignatio Trombone's, which was to take in the entire company. His appearances and disappearances on the mountain, his sudden illness, for which he painted his face as it was lying on the table, and a couple of bottles of my best prepared claret put in the place of yours, when the palate could not have distinguished brandy from beer, put you all in the proper state. His recommendation that no one who was afraid should go to bed, would, he knew, only make gentlemen, particularly when heated by wine, the surer to defy the consequences; and, at all events, he knew that his opium would do its business. The signior played

the Red Woman in person, and startled as he was by finding you broad awake, he contrived to go through the affair in a tolerably complete style."

The fellow could not help laughing at the feat, and I own that I could not help joining him.

"But you ran away and left your trade to shift for itself?" said I.

"It had done that long before," was the answer. "I was on the point of running away the week you came to the house, but you paid handsomely, and I waited for something to turn up worth making a grand exit. The plunder of the company on St. Michael's night, was a grand prize in the lottery, and with it the signior and I took our leave of the Durrenstein."

"But where is the signior now?"

"He robbed me as we were passing the frontier. I swore I would give him up to justice. He knew that I was a man to make my words good, and, accordingly, he lost no time, but brought a pair of police officers to my bed-side; I saw him receive the reward for my caption, and walk off free as air, while I was sent to dig in these ditches. The last I heard of the signior was, that he had set up a rouge et noir table, a coach, and an opera box in Paris; though which of us will be hanged first, not even the Red Woman would be able to tell. But here comes the guard-and now for clean straw, horse-bean soup, and duck-weed water."

YES, radiant spirit, thou hast pass'd
Unto thy latest home,

And o'er our widow'd hearts is cast
A deep and with'ring gloom!
For when on earth thou wert as bright
As angel form might be :
And mem'ry shall exist in night,
If we think not of thee.

For, oh, thy beauty o'er us came
Like a fair sunset beam,
And the sweet music of thy name
Was pure as aught might deem.
With silent lips we gaz'd on thee,
And awe-suspended breath-
But thine entrancing witchery
Abideth not in death.

And all that we supposed most fair
Is but a mockery now:
No beam illumes the silken hair

That traced thy smiling brow.
The cheerless dust upon thee lies,
Death's seal is on thee set,
But the bright spirit of thine eyes
Shines o'er our mem'ry yet!

As in some dark and hidden shell
Lies ocean's richest gem,

So in our hearts shall ever dwell

The spells thou'st breath'd in them! Why should we weep o'er the young flow'rs That cluster on thy sod?

Stars like them glow in heav'n's bright bow'rs To light thee up to God!

IN our boyhood we had a friend from whom "we had received his heart, and given him back our own,"-such a friendship as the most fortunate and the most happy-and at that time we were both are sometimes permitted by Providence, with all the passionate devotion of young and untamed imagination, to enjoy, during a bright dreamy world of which that friendship is as the Polar star. Emilius Godfrey! for ever holy be the name! a boy when we were but a child-when we were but a youth, a man. We felt

stronger in the shadow of his armhappier, bolder, better in the light of his countenance. He was the protector-the guardian of our moral being. In our pastimes we bounded with wilder glee,-at our studies we sat with intenser earnestness, by his side. He it was that taught us how to feel all those glorious sunsets, and embued our young spirit with the love and worship of nature. He it was that taught us to feel that our evening prayer was no idle ceremony to be hastily gone through, that we might

knoll in the open sunshine, and the whole school were in ecstacies to hear tales and stories from his genius, even like a flock of birds chirping in their joy all newly alighted in a vernal land. In spite of that difference in our years -or oh! say rather because that dear difference did touch the one heart with tenderness, and the other with reverence, how often did we two wander, like elder and younger brother, in the sunlight and the moonlight solitudes! Woods-into whose inmost recesses we should have quaked alone to penetrate, in his company were glad as gardens, through their most awful umbrage; and there was beauty in the shadows of the old oaks. Cataracts-in whose lonesome thunder, as it pealed into those pitchy pools, we durst not by ourselves have faced the spray-in his presence, dinn'd with a merry music in the desert, and cheerful was the thin mist they cast sparkling up into the air. Too severe for our uncompanioned spirit, then easily overcome with awe, was the solitude of those remote inland lochs. But as we walked with him along the winding shores, how passing sweet the calm of both blue depths-how magnificent the white-crested waves tumbling beneath the black thunder-cloud! More beautiful, because our eyes gazed on it together, at the beginning or the ending of some sudden storm, to us the Apparition of the Rainbow! Grander in its wildness that seemed to sweep at once all the swinging and stooping woods, to our ear, because his too listened, the concerto by winds and waves played at midnight, when not one star was in the sky. With him we first followed the Falcon in her flight-he showed us on the Echocliff the Eagle's eyry. To the thicket he led us where lay couched the lovely spotted Doe, or showed us the mildeyed creature brousing on the glade with her two fawns at her side. But for him we should not then have seen the antlers of the red-deer, for the forest in which they bell'd was indeed a most savage place, and haunted,-so was the superstition at which they who

lay down our head on the pillow, then ever drenched in sleep-but a command of God, which a response from nature summoned the humble heart to obey. He it was who for ever had at command wit for the sportive, wisdom for the serious hour. Fun and frolic flowed from the merry music of his lips-they lightened from the gay glancings of his eyes-and then, all at once, when the one changed its measures, and the other gathered as it were a mist or a cloud, an answering sympathy chained our own tongue, and darkened our own countenance, in a communion of spirit felt to be indeed divine! It seemed as if we knew but the words of language-that he was a scholar who saw into their very essence. The books we read together were, every page, and every sentence of every page, all covered over with light. Where his eye fell not as we read, all was dim, or dark, unintelligible or with imperfect meanings. Whether we perused with him a volume writ by a nature like our own, the volume of the earth and the sky, or the volume revealed from Heaven, next day we always knew and felt that something had been added to our being. Thus imperceptibly we grew up in our intellectual stature, breathing a purer moral and religious air, with all our finer affections towards other human beings, all our kindred and our kind, touched with a dearer domestic tenderness, or with a sweet benevolence that seemed to our ardent fancy to embrace the dwellers in the uttermost regions of the earth. No secret of pleasure or pain-of joy or grief-of fear or hope-had our heart to withhold or conceal from Emilius Godfrey. He saw it as it beat within our bosom, with all its imperfections -may we venture to say with all its virtues. A repented folly-a confessed fault-a sin for which we were truly contrite-a vice flung from us with loathing and with shame-in such moods as these, happier were we to see his serious and his solemn smile, than when in mirth and merriment we sat by his side in the social hour on a

scorned it, trembled,-haunted by the ghost of a huntsman whom a jealous rival had murdered as he stooped, after the chase, at a little mountain well that ever since oozed out blood. What converse passed between us two in all those still shadowy solitudes! Into what depths of human nature did he teach our wondering eyes to look down! Oh! what was to become of us, we thought in sadness that all at once made our spirits sink,— like a bird falling suddenly to earth, struck by the fear of a thunder-cloud gathered above its song,-what was to become of us when the mandate should arrive for him to leave the Manse for ever, and sail away in a ship to India never more to return! Ever as that dreaded day drew nearer, more frequent were the tears in our eyes; and in our blindness, we knew not that such tears ought to have been far more rueful still, for that he then lay under orders for a longer and more lamentable voyage-a voyage over a narrow streight of time to the Eternal shore. All-all at once he drooped-on one fatal morning the dread decay began -with no forewarning, the springs on which his being had so lightlyso proudly-so grandly moved-gave way. Between one Sabbath and another his bright eyes darkened-and while all the people were assembled to the sacrament, the soul of Emilius Godfrey soared up to Heaven. It was indeed a dreadful death-serene and sainted though it were-and not a hall —not a bouse—not a hut—not a shieling within all the circle of those wide mountains, that did not on that night wail as if the parents there had lost a son. All the vast parish attended his funeral-Lowlanders and Highlanders in their own garb of grief.And have time and tempest now blackened the white marble of that monument—is that inscription now hard to be read-the name of Emilius Godfrey in green obliteration-nor haply one surviving who ever saw the beauty of the countenance of him there interred! Forgotten as if he had never been! for few were that glorious or

phan's kindred-and they lived in a foreign land-forgotten but by one heart, faithful through all the chances and changes of this restless world! And therein enshrined among all its holiest, most sacred remembrances, shall be the image of Emilius Godfrey, till it too, like his, shall be but dust and ashes!

Not

Oh! blame not boys for so soon, so very soon, forgetting one another-in absence or in death. Yet forgetting is not just the very word; call it rather a reconcilement to doom and destiny-in thus obeying a benign law of nature, that soon streams sunshine over the shadows of the grave. otherwise could all the ongoings of this world be continued. The nascent spirit outgrows much in which it once found all delight; and thoughts delightful still, thoughts of the faces and the voices of the dead, perish not, lying sometimes in slumber-sometimes in sleep. "Awake but oneand, lo! what myriads rise !" It belongs not to the blessed season and genius of youth, to hug to its heart useless and unavailing griefs. Images of the well-beloved, when they themselves are in the mould, come and go, no unfrequent visitants, through the meditative hush of solitude. But our business-our prime joys and our prime sorrows-ought to be-must be with the living. Duty demands it; and Love, who would pine to death over the bones of the dead, soon fastens upon other objects, with eyes and voices to smile and whisper an answer to all his vows. So was it with us. Ere the midsummer sun had withered the flowers that spring had showered over our Godfrey's grave, youth vindicated its own right to happiness; and we felt that we did wrong to visit too often and too despairingly that corner in the kirk-yard. No fears had we of any too oblivious tendencies in our heart of hearts; in our dreams we saw him-most often alive in all his beauty-sometimes a phantom from the grave! If the morning light was hard to be endured, bursting suddenly upon us along with the feeling that he was

dead, so likewise did it more frequently cheer and gladden us with resignation, and send us forth a fit playmate to the dawn that rung with all sounds of joy. Again we found ourselves angling down the river, or along the loch-once more following the flight of the Falcon along the woods-eying the Eagle on the Echo-cliff. Days passed by, without so much as one thought of Emilius Godfrey-pursuing our pastime with all our passion, reading our books intently-just as if he had never been! But often and often, too, we thought we saw his figure coming down the hill straight towards

us-his very figure-we could not be deceived-but the love-raised ghost disappeared on a sudden-the griefwoven phantom melted into the mist. The strength, that formerly had come from his counsels, now began to grow up of itself within our own unassisted being. The world of nature became more our own, moulded and modified by all our own feelings and fancies, and with a bolder and more original eye we saw the smoke from the sprinkled cottages, and read the faces of the mountaineers on their way to the sheep-fold, or coming and going in joy to the house of God.

They

Two writers of our day, Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Wordsworth, are especially remarkable for their descriptions of the lower classes of Englishmen. They may be taken to represent two great divisions of metrical writers about the poor. There is a third division, for whom we are not now careful to find a representative. "The last shall be first" in these observations. It contains the authors who delight in drawing shepherdesses and ploughmen as beings in whom the peculiarities of drawing-rooms are universal, and the general attributes of humanity utterly wanting. assign to their personages a certain fantastic and affected refinement such as has never existed among those classes, and put them into situations in which neither those classes nor those refinements could by any possibility have arisen. Some landscape, and circumstances of the quietest character are described in hyperboles of the most violent and far-fetched extravagance; and two youths are exhibited talking a language as remote from that of instructed as from that of ignorant men, and "contending in alternate verse," till the complacent and congenial umpire refuses to decide on the superior merits of either, and the

reader can find no degrees of comparison in the absurdity of both. This is an extreme case. But there have been authors near our own time who have written almost as ridiculously, and have been applauded for their gentle labors. A man of talent, who has more warmth of sensibility and quickness of perception than reason or imagination, is likely to lose himself in describing the details he has seen, as he is not strongly guided by the principles he has thought. A powerful mind, but more philosophical than poetical, will always rather recur to universals and omit individuals. And it would be no great wonder that either of them should be able to delude his age into believing him a great poet. But, in the writings to which we refer, there is neither universal truth nor particular accuracy; and, in worshipping them, we bow down to idols, which, like the monsters of a Hindoo temple, are likenesses of nothing in the heavens, or the earth, or the waters under the earth.

Of such works-dolls to amuse the childless-it was perhaps scarcely worth while to speak. The opposites of them are the compositions in which the phenomena of obscure and vulgar existence are merely made use of like