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156
convinced of the cause of the apparition, ex
cited those superstitious emotions so natural
to all mankind.— What I saw in California ,
try E. Bryant.
Southern (fcUctic.
IT IS NOT ALWAYS NIGHT.
BY W. C. RICHARDS.
It i3 not always night! Though darkness reign
In gloomy silence o’er the slumbering earth,
The hastening dawn will bring the light again,
And call the glories of the day to birth !
The sun withdraws awhile his blessed light,
To shine again—it is not always’ night !
The voices of the storm may fill the sky,
And Tempest sweep the earth with angry wing ;
But the fierce winds in gentle murmerings die,
And freshen’d beauty to the world they bring:
The after-calm is sweeter and more bright;
Though storms arise, it is not always night!
The night of Nature, and the night of Storm,
Are emblems both of shadows on the heart;
Which fall and chill its currents quick and warm,
And bid the light of peace and joy depart:
A thousand shapes hath Sorrow to affright
The soul of man, and shroud his hopes in night.
Yet when the darkest, saddest hour is come,
And grim Despair would seize his shrinking heart,
The dawn of Hope breaks on the heavy gloom,
And oue by one the shadows will depart:
As storm and darkness yield to calm and light,
with the heart—it is not always night !
1 —i
THE TEMPEST.
BY GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
Oh! colder than the wind that freezes
Founts that but now in sunshine play’d,
Is that congealing pang, which seizes
The trusting bosom when betray’d.—Moore.
I never was a man of feeble courage.
There are few scenes either of human or ele
mental strife upon which I have not looked
with a brow of daring. I have stood in the
front of the battle when swords were gleam
ing and circling around me like fiery serpents
of the air—l have sat on the mountain pinna
cle when the whirlwind was rendering its
oaks from their rocky cliffs, and scattering
them piece-meal to the clouds—l have seen
these things with a swelling soul, that knew
not, that recked not of danger; but there is
something in the thunder’s voice that makes
me tremble like a child. I have tried to over
come this unmanly weakness—l have called
pride to my aid—l have sought for moral
courage in the lesson of philosophy—hut it
avails me nothing—at the first low moaning
of the distant cloud, my heart shrinks, quiv
ers, grasps, and dies within me.
My involuntary dread of thunder had its
origin in an incidentthat occurred w r hen I was
a boy of ten years. I had a little cousin —a
girl of the same age with myself, who had
been the constant companion of my child
hood. Strange, that after the lapse of so
many years, that countenance should he so
familiar to me. I can see the bright young
creature—her large eyes flashing like a beau
tiful gem, her free locks streaming as in joy
upon the rising gale, and her cheek glowing
like a ruby through a wreath of transparent
snpw. Her voice had the melody and joy
pusnesS of a bird’s, and w r hen she bounded
over the wooded hill of the fresh green val
ley, shouting a glad answer to every voice of
nature, and clasping her little hands in the
very ecstacy of young existence, she looked
as if breaking away like a freed nightingale
from the earth, and going off where all things
are beautiful and happy like her.
It was a morning in the middle of August.
The little girl had been passing some days at
my lather’s house, and she was now to return
home. Her path lay across the fields, and I
gladly became the companion of her walk.
1 never knew a summer morning more beau
tiful and still. Only one little cloud was
visible, and that seemed as pure, and white,
and peaceful, as if it had been the incense
smoke of some burning censer of the skies.
The leaves hung silent in the woods, the wa
ters in the bay had forgotten their undulations,
the flowers were bending their heads as ii
dreaming of the rainbow and dew, and the
whole atmosphere was of such a soit and
luxurious sweetness, that it seemed a cloud
iof roses scattered down by the hands of Peris
from the far off gardens of Paradise. The
green earth and the blue sea lay abroad in
iheir boundlessness, and the peaceful sky
bent over and blessed them. The littie crea
ture at my side was in a delirium of happi
ness, and her clear, sweet voice came ringing
upon the air as often as she heard the tones
of a favorite bird, or found some strange or
lovely flower in her frolic wanderings. The
unbroken and almost supernatural tranquility
SUM kin?© A 8 Sir IT IE *
of the day continued until nearly noon.—
Then, for the first time, the indication of an
approaching tempest was manifested. Over
the summit of a mountain at the distance of
about a mile, the folds of a dark cloud be
came suddenly visible, and at the same in
stant a hollow roar came down upon the
winds, as if it had been the sound of waves
in the rocky cavern. The cloud rolled out
like a banner fold upon the air, but still the
atmosphere was as calm and the leaves as
motionless as before, and there was not even
a quiver upon the sleeping waters to tell of
the coming hurricane.
To escape the tempest was impossible. As
the only resort, we fled to an oak that stood
at the foot of a tall and rugged precipice.
Here we remained and gazed almost breath
lessly upon the clouds marshalling themselves
like bloody giants in the sky. The thunder
was not frequent, but every burst was so
fearful that the young creature who stood by
me shut her eyes convulsively, clung with
desperate strength to my arm, and shrieked
as if her very heart would break. A few*
minutes and the storm was upon us. During
the height of its fury, the little girl lifted her
finger towards the precipice that towered
above us. I looked up, and an amethystine
flame was quivering upon its gray peaks!
and the next moment the clouds opened, the
rocks tottered to their foundations, a roar like
the groan of a Universe filled the air, and I
felt myself blinded, and thrown I knew not
whither. How long I remained insensible, I
cannot tell, but, when consciousness returned
the violence of the tempest was abating, the
roar of the winds dying in the tree tops, and
the deep tones of the clouds coming in faint
er murmurs from the eastern hills.
I arose, and looked tremblingly and almost
deliriously around. She was there—the dear
idol of my infant love—stretched out on the
wet green earth. After a moment of irreso
lution, I went up and looked upon her. The
handkerchief upon her neck was slightly
rent, and a single dark spot upon her bosom,
told where the pathway of her death had
been. At first I clasped her to my breast
with a cry of agony, and then laid her down
and gazed upon her face almost with a feel
ing of calmness. Her bright, dishevelled
ringlets clustered sweetly around her brow,
the look of terror had faded from her lips,
and infant smiles were pictured beautifully
there ; the red rose tinge upon her cheek was
lovely as in life, and as I pressed it to my
own, the fountains of tears were opened, and
I wept as if my heart were waters. I have
but a dim recollection of what followed—l
only know thui I remained weeping and mo
tionless till the coming of twilight, and that
I was then taken tenderly by the hand, and
led away where I saw the countenance of
parents and sisters.
Many years have gone by on the wings of
light and shadow, but the scenes I have por
trayed still come over me, at times, with a
terrible distinctness. The oak yet stands at
the base of the precipice, but its limbs are
black and dead, and the hollow trunk looking
upwards to the sky, as “if calling to the
clouds for drink,” is an emblem of rapid and
noiseless decay. A year ago I visited the spot,
and the thoughts of by-gone years came mourn
fully back to me—thoughts of the little inno
cent being who fell by my side like some beau
tiful tree of Spring, rent up by the whirlwind
in the midst of its blossoming. But I remem
bered —and oh! there was joy in the memo
ry !—that she had gone where no lightnings
slumber in the folds of the rainbow cloud,
and where the sunlit waters are broken on
ly by the storm-breath of Omnipotence.
My readers will understand why I shrink
in terror from the thunder. Even the con
sciousness of security is no relief to me—my
fears have assumed the nature of an instinct,
and seem indeed a part of my existence.
MIRABEAU.
There have been men in particular ages,
who might be considered as concentrating
■within themselves all their country’s charac
ter —who represented, at the same time, both
the good and evil traits. Themistocles was
the very impersonation of all the virtues and
vices of Athens in his day. The moral anti
thesis, Alcibiades, was a still more remarkable
compound of the manifold virtues, vices, foi
bles, &c., of this same Athens, at a later and
more degenerate period. In looking over
France, during the session of the National
Assembly, we shall find the celebrated Mira
beau, without doubt, to bethotype-Frenchman
of that epoch; and if Louis XIV could say,
in his day, “I am the nation!'” Mirabeau
could say, in his latter days, with more truth,
“ I am the National Assembly /”
This extraordinaiy man had been horn
among the nobility, and been maltreated.—
He had experienced every kind of tyranny
from his very birth—that of his own father,
of the government, and of the tribunals. He
was thus trained to despise the government,
and the upper class of French society. He
had seen all manner of men, from drill ser
geants to prime ministers, from the inmates of
the jails of Pontarlier to princes and kings.
He had made himself notorious by his disso
lute manners and his quarrels. Thiers speaks
of him as frightful with ugliness and genius ;
yet no man had more amours , or was so suc
cessful in them. His character was so low,
at the meeting of the States General, that there
was a murmur in the Assembly when he first
entered to take his seat. But, no sooner did
this eccentric man appear in the tribune, than
his power became manifest.
lie was immeasurably superior to every
mind with which he came in contact in the
Assembly. He had, in fact, no second—it
was Eclipse first , and the rest nowhere. —
From the member that was hardly tolerated,
he soon became the member that was gazed
upon by every eye, and courted by every or
der. Proud of his high qualities, and jesting
over his vices, by turns haughty and supple,
he won some by his flattery, awed others by
his sarcasms, and led all in his train by the
extraordinary influence of his oratory. Os
the Abbe Maury, the leader of the cote droit.
he used to say, “ When he is on the right
side, we debate ; when he is on the wrong, I
crush him.” Ilis sarcasm, irony, originality,
were so great, that every body was afraid of
him in the tribune. The aristocracy at last,
not being able to meet him in debate, made
an effort to get rid of him by duel. Many
sent him challenges, but he always refused,
merely noting down their names in his pock
et-book. “It is not fair,” said he, in regard
to one of his opponents, “to expose a man of
talent like me, against a blockhead like him.”
What is very extraordinary in such a coun
try as France, this conduct did not bring him
into contempt, or even cause his courage to be
doubted. There was something so martial in
his mind, so bold in his manner, that no one
could impute cowardice to him. He made
partizans every where—among the people—
ir. the very court —and, to crown the measure
of his greatness, as soon as he learned the
secret of his power, and saw the career that
was opened to him, he suddenly became one
of the hardest working men who have ever
appeared on the stage of action. “If l had
not lived with him,” says Dumont, “I should
never have known what a man can make of
one day.” A day for this man was more
than a week or a month is for others. The
mass of things he guided on together was
prodigious; from the scheming to the execu
ting, not a moment was lost. The fact is,
that he at last, tough as was his physical
frame, overworked himself, and died from fe
ver generated by hisexcessive labors — South
ern Quarterly Review.
©dectic of iUit.
ODE TO THE BED.
BY THE LATE THOMAS HOOD.
Oh, Bed! oh, Bed! delicious Bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head;
But a place that to name would be ill-bred,
To the head with a wakeful trouble —
‘Tis held by sucli a different lease!
To one a place of comfort and peace,
All stuff’d with the down of stubble geese,
To another with only the stubble!
To one, a perfect Halcyon nest,
All calm, and balm, and quiet, and rest,
And soft as the fur of the cony—
To another so restless for body and head,
That the bed seems borrow’d from Nettlebetl,
And the pillow from Stratford the Stony!
To the happy, a first-class carriage of ease,
To the Land of Nod, or where you plca.se;
But, alas! for the watchers and weepers,
Who turn, and turn, and turn again,
But turn, and turn, and turn in vain,
With an anxious brain,
And thoughts in a train
That does not run upon sleepers!
Wide awake as the mousing owi,
Night-hawk, or other nocturnal fowl, —
But more profitless vigils keeping,—
Wide awake in the dark they staie,
Filling with phantoms the vacant air,
As if that crook-bnck’d tyrant, Care,
Had plotted to kill them sleeping.
And oh ! when the blessed diurnal light
Is quench’d by the providential night,
To render our slumber more certain,
Pity, pitv the wretches that weep,
For t hey must be wretched who cannot sleep,
When God himself draws the curtain!
The careful Betty the pillow beats.
And airs the blankets, and smoothes the sheets,
And gives the mattress a shaking—
But vainly Betty performs her part,
If a ruffled head and a mmpled heart
As well as the couch want making.
There s Morbid, all bile, and verjuice, and nerves,
Where other people would make preserves,
lie turns his fruits into pickles:
Jealous, envious, and fretful by day,
At night, to his own sharp fancies a’ prey
lie lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wroW w.v
Tormenting himself with his prickles. b y ’
Lut a child—that bids the world good night
In downright earnest and cuts it quite
A cherub no Art can copy,—
’Tis a perfect picture to see him lie
As it ho had supp’d on dormouse pie,
(An ancient classical dish by the by.)
With a sauce of syrup of poppy.
Oh, bed! bed! bed! delicious bed!
That Heav’n upon earth to the weary head
Whether lofty or low its condition ! * ’
But instead of putting our plagues on shelves
In our blankets how oft we toss ourselves ’
Or are toss’d by such allegorical elves
As Pride, Hate, Greed and Ambition !
A WITNESS TO CHARACTER,
The conversation turned upon legal prac
tice in general, and the ingenious dexterities
of roguish attorneys in particular.
“ The cleverest rogue that ever I heard of
in the profession,” said o‘Connel], “was one
Checkley, iamiliarly known by the name nf
1 Checkley-be-d d.’ Checkley was agent
once, at the Cork assizes, for a fellow accu
sed of burglary and aggravated assault, com
mitted at Bantry. The noted Jerry Keller
was counsel for the prisoner, against whom
the charge was made out by the clearest cir
cum tantial evidence, so clearly, that it seem
ed quite impossible to doubt his guilt. When
the case for the prosecution closed, the Judge
asked if there were any witnesses for the de
fence”
“ Yes, my lord,” said Jerry Keller, “I have
three briefed to me.”
“ Call them,” said the Judge.
Checkley immediately bustled out of court,
and returned at once, leading in a very re
spectable-looking, farmer-like man, with a
blue coat and gilt buttons, scratch wig, cor
duroy tights and gaiters.
“This is a witness to character, my lord,”
said Checkley.
Jerry Kelly (the counsel) forthwith began
to examine the witness. After asking him
his name and residence, “ You know the
prisoner in the dock V 1 said Keller.
“Yes, your honor, ever since he was a
gorsoon!”
” And what is his general character?” said
Keller.
“ Och, the devil a worse!”
“ Why, what sort of a witness is this you’ve
brought ?” cried Keller, passionately, flinging
down his brief, and looking furiously at
Checkley. “He has ruined us !”
“He may prove an alibi, however,” re
turned Checkley; “examine him as to an alibi,
as instructed in your brief.”
. Kdler accordingly resumed his examina
tion :
“Where \vas the prisoner on the 10th in
stant ?” said he.
“He was near Castlemartyr,” answered the
witness.
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure, counsellor!”
“How do you know w 7 ith such certain
ty ?”
“Because, upon that very night I was re
turning Irom the lair, and, when I got near
my own house, I saw the prisoner a little
way on “oelore me—l’d swear to him any
where. He was dodging about, and I knew
it could be for no good end. So I slipped in
to the field, and turned off my horse to grass ;
and while I was watching the lad from be
hind the ditch, [ saw him pop across the wall
into my garden, and steal a lot of parsnips
and carrots; and, what I thought a great dale
worse ot, he stole a bran new English spade
I got from my landlord, Lord Shannon. So,
iaix, I cut away after him, but as I was tired
from the days labor, and he being fresh and
nimble, I wasn’t able to catch him. But next
day my spade was seen surely in his house,
and that s the same rogue in the dock ! I
wish I had a hoult of him.”
“It is quite evident,” said the Judge, “that
we must acquit the prisoner ; the witness has
clearly established an alibi for him; Castle
martyr is nearly sixty miles from Bantry ; and
he certainly is anything but apartizan of his.
Pray, friend, addressing the witness, “will
you swear informations against the prisoner
lor his robbery of your property ?”
“ froth I will, my lord ! with all the plea
sure in life, if your lordship thinks I can get
any satisfaction out of him. I’m tould I can
for the spade, but not for the carrots and pars
nips.”
“Go to the crown office, and swear infor
mations,” sard the Judge.
1 he prisoner was of course discharged,
the alibi having clearly been established. la
an hour’s time, some inquiry was made as to
whether Checkley’s rural witness had sworn
informations in the crown office. That gen
tleman was not to be heard of: the prisoner