who assured us that the simple mountaineers | himself the instrument we have named, on avoid the spot with superstitious horror. which we have heard him perform in a style To them there must have appeared to be some strange magic in the hidden treasure; and so to the calmest judgment it would seem, when in the ordinary course of life we behold, not only the fearful and painful sacrifices made for the attainment of gold, but the court paid, the homage offered to its possessors by those who have no hope of gaining any thing by their reverence for the mere name of wealth. To come nearer home, our village at one time rejoiced in a gold worshipper, whose history is worth relating. While still young, and taking our daily walk with our nurse, we observed an old man working at the repairs of some miserably dismantled houses. He was a tall, gaunt personage, painfully meagre, and very ragged. His jaw-bones protruded distressingly, and his poor thin elbows looked so sharp, that one could have fancied they had cut their way through the torn coat that no longer covered them. We pitied, and with child-like sympathy and freedom made acquaintance with him; always pausing to speak to him as we passed the spot on which he labored. Sometimes a little boy, a fair delicate child, was with him, assisting in the work as far as his age allowed; and with this young creature we grew intimate, and were at length led by him to the old man's home. It was a very large, old-fashioned farm-house, but so much out of repair that only three or four rooms were habitable. These, however, were kept in exquisite order by the wife, who was a very pretty, sad-looking woman, many years younger than her husband. By her care the antique furniture, which must have counted its century at least, was preserved brightly polished; the floors were so clean, that the lack of carpeting was scarcely perceptible; and the luxuriant jessamine she had trained round the windows was a charming substitute for curtains. There was one peculiarity about the dwelling, of a striking kind when its apparent poverty and the character of its owner were considered: it contained a music-room! in which was a tolerably large church organ, made and used by the miser himself. To the debasing and usually absorbing passion which governed him, he united a wonderful taste and genius for music, to gratify which he had constructed of touching, and at times sublime, expression, the compositions of Purcell, Pergolesi, Handel, &c. We have always thought this love of harmony in a miser a more singular and inconsistent characteristic than the avarice of Perugino or Rembrandt, since in their case the art they practised fed their reigning passion for gold; nevertheless so it wasold Mr. Monckton would go without a meal, see his wife and family want common necessaries, with plenty of money at his command, and yet solace himself by performances on the organ, which frequently went far into the night, startling the passing stranger by bursts of solemn midnight melody; for he never played till the faded daylight rendered it impossible for him to work at the various little jobs by which he added to his hoards. His He had two sons: the pretty child we first knew, and an elder one, a slim, delicate youth, who was by nature an artist. father's parsimony rendered it, however, a difficult matter for him to procure materials for the exercise of his art, which was wholly self-taught; and it was wonderful to witness the effect he could produce from a bit of common lamp-black, or an ordinary drawing-pencil. His genius at last found aid in the loving heart of his mother, who secretly and at night-often whilst her strange husband filled the house with solemn music-worked at her needle to procure the means of purchasing paints, canvas, brushes, &c., for her boy; toiling secretly, for if she had permitted the father to know that she possessed even a few shillings, he would have extorted them from her. It was all she could do to help the young painter in his eager self-teaching; for she possessed no other knowledge than that acquired at a village school during her childhood. Her own fate had been a very sad one. She was a laborer's daughter, betrothed from early girlhood to a sailor, who was her cousin; but during one of his voyages-the last he was to make before their marriage-her beauty attracted the admiration of the rich Mr. Monckton, and he offered to make her his wife. The poor girl would fain have refused him, and kept her promise to her absent lover, but her family were flattered and dazzled by the idea of About four years after we first became acquainted with the Moncktons, the fair, gentle child, then nearly fourteen, became ill; growing thin, pale, and weak, till his mother and Richard, in great alarm, besought old Monckton to let him have medical advice. The request produced a storm of passionate reproaches. "The boy," he said, "was well enough. He ate as much as was good for him. Did they think people could not live without gormandizing as they did? Did they imagine he should throw away his little means upon doctors, who were all a set of cheats? He should do nothing of the kind!" And poor Ernest was left to pine and wither, till Richard in despair sought out a physician, and telling him their story, besought him to come and see his brother, promising to repay the advice he asked by his future toil. her wedding a man known to be so wealthy, and she was not proof against their entreaties and their anger. She married him; her relatives, however, derived no benefit from the match their selfishness had made. The miser's doors were closed against them; and lest his wife should be tempted to assist their poverty at his expense, he forbade her ever seeing her parents. A weary lot had been poor Mary's from that hour she married. Her only comfort was derived from her children; and even they became a source of sorrow as they grew past infancy, and she found that her husband's avarice would deny them even the advantages she had enjoyed as a poor cottage child. They received no education but such as she could give them; nay, were made to toil at the lowest drudgery in return for the scanty food and clothing their father bestowed. She taught them to read and write; and afterwards Richard, Dr. N--was a kind-hearted benevolent the elder, became his own instructor. There man. He at once complied with the youth's were many old books to be found in the entreaty, and called at an hour when the farm-house, and of those he made himself old man was absent at the farm. He found master. The villagers, who had a few his patient worse than the brother's report volumes, were willing to lend them to such had led him to believe. The illness was a clever lad; and at length, as we have said, decline, caused probably by want of suffi his genius for painting developed itself, and ciently nourishing food at a period of rapid was ministered to by his mother's industry. growth, and increased by the overworking We remember seeing his first attempt at of a mind that was ever craving after knoworiginal composition. It was boldly con- ledge. He prescribed such remedies as he ceived and well executed, considering the judged best; but informed the mother, at difficulties under which he labored: the sub- the same time, that strengthening food was ject was Phaeton driving the chariot of the of the first importance, and would be the sun. It was shown to the clergyman of the best means to effect a cure. Alas! how village, a man of great taste, and a connois- was it to be obtained? The heart of the seur in painting. He was so much pleased miser was impenetrable to their remonwith it that he became the warm friend of strances and entreaties-what was life in the young artist, and, as far as circumstances his eyes compared with gold? When they permitted, his instructor in literature and found that no human sympathy could be painting. The younger brother inherited expected from the father, the mother and his father's taste for music, and was a quiet, brother determined to use their own exerthoughtful child, passionately attached to tions to obey the behest of the physican. Richard, on whom he looked as a prodigy of Early and late the former worked at her learning and talent. Nothing, in fact, could needle-the good doctor finding her as much be more touching than the attachment of employment as he could; whilst Richard, these two brothers: at their leisure hours abandoning the study of his art, painted they were always to be seen together: their | valentines, card-racks, and fancy articles for pleasures or sorrows were mutual. The the stationers, and sought eagerly for every privations, injustice, and restraint to which they were subjected appeared to bind them to each other with a love "passing the love of woman;" and both found consolation in the mental gifts mercifully imparted to them. opportunity of winning a few shillings, to be spent in ministering to the comfort of the beloved sufferer. But it was all too late; Ernest sank slowly, but surely. There were intervals when life, like the flicker of an expiring lamp, appeared suc belief, resolved to watch, and try if it might be permitted to her living eyes to gaze again upon the child whom the grave had shut from her sight. With this hope she concealed herself, without Richard's knowledge, in a large closet in his bedroom-placing the door ajar that she might see all that passed in the chamber. Her watch was of no long duration; suddenly her sleeping son rose from his couch, lighted his candle, approached his easel, and began to work at the portrait! Much amazed, and half angry at the deception she believed he had practised on her, Mrs. Monckton issued from her hiding-place and spoke to him. He made her no answer; she stood before him-he saw her not; he was fast asleep! It was indeed a spirit's painting; for love had in this instance burst the bands of matter, and the somnambulist had achieved a work of art that surpassed all the efforts of his wa king hours. The story of the sleep-painting got abroad, and reached the ears of a gentleman of large fortune, who resided in the neighborhood. He called on the young artist; was pleased with his manners; and proposed engaging him as travelling companion to his own son, a youth about to visit Italy with his tutor; proffering a salary that would enable him to cultivate his genius for painting in the land of its birth, and of its perfect ma cessfully struggling with death; but these occasional brightenings were always succeeded by a more entire prostration and languor. The personal beauty, for which Ernest had always been remarkable, grew almost superhuman during his illness, and Richard could not resist stealing a little time from his busy labors to paint his brother's portrait. In the execution of this task of love, however, many hinderances occurred; and before it was more than a sketch, the dear original had passed away from them in one of those quiet sleeps which, in such cases, are the usual harbingers of death. The painting was removed to Richard's chamber, and in the first agony of his grief, forgotten; but when Ernest had been committed to the grave, and life had assumed its usual monotony-more gloomy now than ever he remembered his attempt, and resolved on finishing the likeness from memory. An easy task! for nightly, in his slumbers, he saw the fair, sweet face of his young brother. The second morning after he had resumed his pencil, he was startled at finding that the painting appeared to be in a more advanced state than he had left it the night before; but he fancied that imagination must be juggling him, and that he really had done more than he remembered. The following day, however, the same phenomenon startled him, and he mentioned the circumstance to his mother. She was super-turity. The offer was eagerly and thankstitious, and nervous from sorrow and regret; and she at once adopted the fanciful notion that there was something supernatural in the matter; suggesting the possibility of their dear Ernest's gentle spirit having thus endeavored to show them, that in another world he still thought of them and loved them. Richard combated the idea by every argument his reason offered him; but as he was convinced of the fact, and could give no satisfactory explanation of it, he was at last persuaded by her earnest entreaties to leave the picture untouched for two or three days, and see what consequences would follow. The painting progressed! daily, or rather nightly, it advanced towards completion. Every morning a stronger likeness of the dead smiled on them from the canvas, and a more skilful hand than the young painter's appeared to be engaged on the work. It was a marvel past their simple comprehension; but the mother, confirmed in her first fully accepted, and old Monckton made no opposition to his son's wish: he was only too thankful to be relieved from the burden of supporting him. Indeed, the miser was somewhat changed since Ernest's death; not that he expressed in words any remorse for having preferred his gold to the life of his fair young son; but from that time he never touched the organ—the spirit of music appeared to have died with Ernest; and he often visibly shrank from meeting the silent reproach of Richard's eyes. The neighbors also shunned him; they had loved poor Ernest, and the conduct of his father towards him-the fact of his refusing to pay the physician who had attended him "because he never sent for him"-and the mean, pauper-like funeral which he had grudgingly bestowed on the dead-revolted and disgusted them. A mean funeral was one of the offences the people of K― never forgave! The old man probably detected something of their feelings in their manners, for he gradually gave up his ordinary work about the village—that is, the keeping in repair such cottages as belonged to him III. On a barb of Ronda is the freedman mounted; A meaning look's exchanged,-and Abdul now IV. and remained much within doors. This change of habits and want of exercise told fatally on threescore and ten, and probably Fierce down the steep the coal-black barb he urges, Forth through the gate the panting courser Scourges; hastened his death. which took place two From "Fraser's Magazine." THE REVENGE OF ABDUL. AN ARABIC BALLAD. 1. WITHIN the palace court the hot sun quivers,- Nor slacks, till near the Vega's verge he sees 11. Two are together;-one, the mansion's lord, XIII. The fountains sparkle in the palace court XIV. Olives utter, as an air goes by, Murmur'd thanks for each refreshing sigh; XV. 'Tis the voice of women which doth fling XVI. Up the echoing court a tread is heard ;— Hath moved across those windows, like a cloud. XVII. Was there an ear within which knew the tread? Was there a heart it fill'd with hope, or dread? Who knows?-though sure, of him whose steps in trude Thus rudely here, full dangerous seem'd the mood. XVIII. "What? so soon return'd !-Bismillah! boy, Are these the trophies of thy new employ? Sweat, and dust, and rust, and blood-shot eyeBe such the fruits of gold and liberty?" ΧΙΧ. "Hearken" cried the youth ;-but at the word One well-known voice within the Harem's heard"Oh, brother, hold! Thy murderous aim I see ;Spare him, for pity-for thyself—for me !” XX. "He's doom'd!" he cried; and, like the lightningdart, A two-edged dagger's in the chieftain's heart ;An instant, and he's grasp'd him by the hairThe next-a headless corse lies quivering there. ΧΧΙ. A moment more,-and, as the life-blood flows, The crashing head against the casement goes; Then, ere it drops amid the shrieking throng, Hath fled the avenger of his sister's wrong. XXII. Fled! but how far?-before their master's gate XXIII. THE HEART'S KIBLAH. I. Lo, the moon upon our white Alhambra Looks, a loving queen upon her towers,But there's whiter marble in yon Zambra, Purer light within these hearts of ours. II. Within yon lawns a thousand bubbling waters Fling their effulgent kisses o'er the flowers,But ob, the glances of Granada's daughters Drop deeper treasures in these hearts of ours. III. War is good-but when the fight is foughten, And eve unclasps the helm in beauty's bower, How sweeter far to clasp the unforgotten, Whose heart's a Kiblah to this heart of ours! DIAMOND DUST. To a man under the influence of emotion, nature is ever a great mirror full of emotions. To the satiated and quiescent alone, she is a cold, dead window for the outward world. Do good and fly from evil is the sum of human duty. This is virtue in short-hand, perfection in epitome, and heaven in rever sion. THINGS are often impossible because cowardice makes them so. Ir has generally been noticed, that those who have most cause for presumption display it least as a treasure-car makes less rattle in the streets than an empty carriage. HE that does any thing praiseworthy merely to fulfil a promise is not likely to derive much satisfaction from the perform ance. ALL genius is metaphysical, because the ultimate end of genius is ideal, however it may be actualized by incidental and accidental circumstances. IN the treatment of nervous complaints, he is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope. THE magnet does not more surely and powerfully attract the needle, than youth, by some electric sympathy of soul, is at Hack'd with a hundred wounds young Abdul tracted by youth. |