the radiant Eros brings, can find no fitting type, "Alethe! beloved! adored!" thus speaks the even in the oriental tints of a painter's palette, impassioned scroll, "I cannot yet believe you are therefore my meagre portraiture cannot faintly far from me! I cannot, yet, realize the dark, reflect that golden atmosphere, which henceforth prosaic hours, which have succeeded the glowencircles Alethe. Time wears on, and though his gleaming scythe mows down legions of blossoms, there are still myriads of joys-countless bands of hopes stretching down the limitless perspective, and with these he has yet to contend for a ruthless triumph. Alethe smiles, for she believes they will be invincible! ing radiance of my bliss, and like foul spectres have sundered the silver cords which linked me to happiness and joy! I have dwelt too long in the lustrous sunshine, to feel so suddenly, that its glow and warmth are vanished, and that the night is darkening about me! Harmonies, and perfume, and light-songs, and zephyrs, and rays, are still lingering around me and steeping my How sunilingly she muses over the weird gift, soul in one delicious, heavenly spell, for Memory whose chameleon hues still glitter on her finger! aboundeth and revelleth in my heart. Yes! Those varying tints no longer bear with them Alethe mine! you are beside me now, as of late. their shadowy prophecy, and as she gazes on the The caressing fingers which playfully twined miniature rainbow which crests its jewelled sur-themselves in my hair, are wandering there, even face, she forgets to see the that bow of promise now-the fair hand whose velvet palm has dwelt is painted therein, with a broken circle-that upon my brow, or with soft dalliance has glided there is a foul flaw, a deforming blemish upon to my cheek, is resting there yet-the graceful its changing face! And day by day, aye, hour arm, white as a cloud-flake, is again around me by hour, that flaw widens-that blemish dark-with its twining embrace-and the electric touch eus—until—until-but no! she will not see it! of those roseate lips, light as a flower leaf, yet Love, with its treacherous hand, has drawn entrancing as luxury, dreamy as oriental odours, around her a dazzling, a blinding curtain-an blissful as Paradise, still thrills me with esctasy! ideal world has grown up for her. As she sits "Ah! Alethe! my Beautiful! my Adored! shall alone, and muses, and dreams amid these fair I name it Love which you, enchantress of my creations, the music of Hope comes floating from being, have evoked from the exhaustless depths the sanctuary of her heart, and in its heavenly of my heart? Love, which hath erst so inunanthems the enchantment deepens, and strength-dated the world that its tide is defiled by the eus, until she forgets the darker shapes, and less touch of profane lips, and the unhallowed wayharmonious notes which people, and make vocal, farer along life's path dabbles at its limpid sources Reality. with the same freedom, as the initiated in pure A dim hour now comes on, apace, for this gen-places stoops, on bended knee and with revertle enthusiast, and the pang of parting-the ential brow, to quaff its silver waters? No! grief of a first separation, teaches her that the shadow companieth with the light, and that love owneth its midnight as its noonday. But there are stars to make holy that night-a diadem of rated-too lofty to be debased, and therefore constellations-a s—a coronet of rays wherewith to higher, holier, sublimer than Love. It is, rather, crown such darkness; and the Lover's hand has an adoration, which would shrine you as my not been laggard to weave the glittering chaplet. Saint-a worship, which would consecrate you as See! even now, she bends over a written page my Angel-an idolatry, which would glorify you whereon the heart has chronicled its faith! Soft as my Divinity. Thus would I hallow you, smiles dawn upon the vermillion lips-and tears | Alethe, beloved! Thus do I cherish you, my like "pearlets splintered from the rain," through Gem of Purity-my Bird of Beauty-my Dove whose transparent medium the sunlight sparkles, of Gentleness! are dropping silently from the downcast lash, embalming and consecrating the vow she reads. But there is no bitterness in such tear drops, for her angelic nature tells its joys, as its griefs, by such pure and beaming messengers, and from those barmonious, eloquent eyes, the soul sends forth dew-glistening tributes, alike for the bliss which enchants, as for the sorrow which appals! While thus Alethe lingers over those magical sentences, let us draw nigh, and read the words which claim immortality, for the passion which prompts them: Alethe! no! There is in mine more of regality-more of sovereignty-regal in its treasuressovereign in its attitude-too royal to be adulte "This brief parting shall only cement our hearts more closely, dearest! It is a dark span between two glittering points-a narrow torrent between two flowery shores-and the gleaming spots shall shine as stars when the chasm is passed-and the blossom-clad borders shall bloom with perennial freshness when the stream is spent. The joy beyond bewilders me with its ecstasy-it transports me with its rapture, for then-then Alethe, light of my heart, life of my being, you shall be mine-miue only-mine forever!" No wonder such words entrance the gentle reader-no wonder she smiles upon the glowing|plished-the speechless prophecy is fulfilled-the page, and with girlish abandon clasps the voice-weird gem is shattered! There lie the shivered less messengers of such a love to her bosom, as remnants, each still mirroring the mimic rainthough to enshrine them in so pure a temple-bow, and looking up with mocking brilliance into no wonder she knits them to her lips with rapturous kisses, as though to blend them with her fragrant breath, aud thus endue them with life and voice! the tearful eyes bent down upon them. As the broken jewel hath escaped from the rich chasing around it, and left the bright gold unadorned, so as Alethe bows her head over the fatal letter, And, now, the Opal Ring sparkles and glows which tells her, in chilling word, and with cold, and blushes with the glinting rays, and the fast courteous phrase, she is alone-alone-the great increasing rift upon the face of the gem, clothes moral convulsion which has rent her heart in itself in deceptive light! She does not yet dis- twain, leaves her future existence blank and cern the flaw, or her loving heart would have void-without brightness-without adornment! started back with affright even now, in its un-But blessed be God! the "fine gold" is still dimmed zenith of joy! there-yes! still there, to be purified, and refined, and chastened, in the hot crucible, and made precious for the treasury of Heaven! But she cannot, now, believe it, as she cowers, dismayed, among the broken images of her worshipped Tremble, tremble, thou thoughtless lover, for the priceless jewel thou hast won! Thou hast, perchance, sought it long, in the burden and heat of life's toilsome day, and hast groped wearily for its storied treasure, and when thou hopes-she cannot now believe it, as she surrenhad'st deemed it but a fabled gem, lo! it hath ders herself, unresistingly to the wild, whelming flashed upon thee, with its transcendent glories, agony, which is turning her into stone-as she and thou hast hidden it in the foldings of thy bends, like a fragile reed, before the fierce blast heart! Oh! guard it well-watch it warily-of the whirlwind. She trembles before the fiery tend it lovingly! Let no shadow blemish its lus-breath of the lightning, and shudders at the voice ter-no foulness defile its purity! It shall be a of the crashing thunderbolt! 'Tis a tempest to guiding star to thee, throughout thy pilgrimage, appal and scathe the stoutest heart, and I cannot and its faithful rays shall burn in thy pathway, depict it! steadily and surely, even unto the end! But remember! ah! remember! if thou be recreant to thy trust, God shall avenge it in the day when He maketh up his jewels! He will, then, require of thee that radiant gem, and though thou be at the very gates of Paradise, and with poised wing waiting to bathe thy spirit in the streaming glories, which make glad the Blessed, He will banish thee from the golden portals, if there be spot, or stain, or blemish upon that pearl, which He hath committed to thy keeping! How, then, shall He deal with thee, if thou recklessly and sinfully cast it away? alabaster." There is a grief whose intensity bales description; and, like the master artist, who veiled the anguish his pencil could not delineate, so, in the broad picture of Humanity, mingling with its chiaro oscuro, there are dark, sombre, frightful depths, which we cannot portray, and before which, we haug an impenetrable curtain. Weep on thou fair and guileless Spirit! Angels shall be thy comforters, and seraphs shall yet make melody around thee, for God counteth thy pangs and putteth "thy tears in his bottle." Weep on for a season, but He who arrangeth the lilies of the field" in all their splendor, shall surely raise thee from the darkness and dust, thou spotless and drooping Lily, and clothe thee yet with the robes of gladness. The rainbow borroweth its glory from the weeping cloud, and would not have even its hues of light, but for the tears which are even now hanging on its rim! Months are gone, and sti!l absence continues, and its hours grow dimmer, and the hopes which soothed the weary heart are waxing fainter and fainter! Alethe is alone again-and again the fair cheeks are wet with tears, but this time, there And shall not man shudder, thus to mar the fair is no brightness on those cheeks, for the hue hath destiny with which he has trifled? Shall be not changed to the tintless shade of " monumental tremble, thus to pollute the pure springs of a The lip so lately decked with peace with which he has sported? Shall he not healthful, happy colour, is now pale and trem- cower beside the altar, on which he has poured, bling. In one hand she holds au open letter, but in sacrilegious libation, the life-blood of a loving, its lines are few, and its page is blotted with the trusting, gentle heart? Though he triumph in stains of weeping; in the other fair haud, now the spoils he has won, shall he not see the stainquivering with the agony of a blighted spirit, its ing tears which dim them? Though he exult palm, no longer soft and roseate, as of late, but in the laurels he wears, shall be not perceive the withered and spectral, there gleam the fragments poison and death which defile them? Ah! yes! of the Opal Ring! Yes! the omen is accom-there cometh a day-there hasteneth the hour when Retribution shall claim her own! Like the light, stealing with chastened splendor, the crowned and classic Hero, who in pomp and through the "richly dight" window of some old pageantry traversed the Via Triumphalis, but still cathedral, and flinging its ray, thus softened, thus amid the peals of trumpets, and the shouts of mil-subdued, upon the white marbles of the Sanctulions, heard the whispering slave, who bade him ary! "Remember;" so, man in the triumphal path of The changeful glories of the Opal Ring are life, in the brilliancy and tumult of the world, no longer cresting the finger of Alethe's hand, owneth his murmuring monitor, conscience, fearless conscience, who, loud over the clarion blast of plaudit-clear over the syren melody of adulation, whispereth in his ear-" Remember!" but where the treacherous gem once glowed, there is now beaming the steady effulgence— the surer brightness of a plain gold ring. That shining circlet links together two trusting hearts, it unites into one two loving natures-it binds with its gentle fetters two lives-two beingsYears pass away, with their varying seasons, two destinies. Lest you may not be astute and as Alethe again stands before us, we miss enough to translate such mysterious symbol, I. the expression of sunny happiness which once would point you to the manly form beside her, wrapped her in its glory and its rays-we miss whose twining arm is, even now, drawing closer the roseate blushes and the flickering smiles, which to his heart, the angel of his home-the wife of once swept over her face with magic alternations, his love. Mark his enraptured gaze, as, resting like bright-hued summer clouds. In her aspect her head upon his bosom, he looks fondly and there now beams an ethereal loveliness-a moon- | tenderly into that face, which, with its thousand light beauty, spiritual and silvery as a halo now charms, is to him heavenly as a constellation! encircles her a "prone and speechless dialect" He does not speak, but there is worship in that accompanies her, revealing the suffering which look-adoration in that touch-idolatry, raptuhas chastened the renunciation which has sub-rous and divine, in that mute language! dued her. There is, as it were, a soft miserere See the beautiful child, whose golden tresses breathing forth from every lineament, and lend- are falling over her blooming face, and whose ing its entrancing charm to her countenance, un-eyes, blue as vernal skies, are mirrors of infanttil it grows dreamy and appealing as that which ine glee! Smile at the dexterity, with which haunted the vision of the Italian Painter, and the agile little rogue has stealthily clambered to the idealized and made eternal the pale beauty of topmost round of the mother's chair, while, such the doomed Cenci. But Alethe is tranquilly position attained, she clasps both parents with happy-peacefully serene. All the wild rapture which once stirred the bounding pulses of her heart is quenched forever-not even its shadow remaineth! All the tender enthusiasm, whose tones once sang the pæaus of Hope, is perished forever not even its echo lingereth! But, in place of the feverish bliss in which she once exulted, there has sprung up a gentle joy-instead is a willing captive,—that fair child,—that laughof the syren melody which once beguiled her, there have arisen holier songs, and she has learned to find her pleasure and her peace therein. Memory is thus sanctified and softened; for though she cannot forget that sorrow, crushing as an avalanche, freezing as its snow, which fell upon her spirit in the Aurora hours of life, she "What a cunning Elf it is!" murmurs the now perceives its purifying influences-its en- father, between the kisses he is lavishing upon riching and fertilizing effects. She feels, that as the ambrosial lips of his child, and the tender the eagle is nurtured for the skies mid the tumult dialect, which affection addresses to infancy, of the tempest, so is the soul tutored for a fairer mingles with each embrace. "Alethe, dearest," and a loftier home, amid the wild crash of the and a shade of earnestness mellows his fine feagreat moral storm. Such belief shines through tures-"this is not a moment to speculate on the the luminous cloud (that liquid lustre born of futurity of our darling. but, even now, I cannot tears) which is now dissolving in her eyes-it forbear asking myself, shall she ever wear the gleams on the pure surface of that cheek, so spi- Opal Ring?" ritual in its tint, that if a momentary flush leap her tiny arms and salutes each, with a round of echoing kisses. How joyously she triumphs in the surprisal she has effected! With what impudent glee she glories in the coup de main she has achieved! And now the delighted father, exultant in his bliss, has caught her to his bosom, and playfully detains her his prisoner. But she ing sprite; and as each dimpled arm encircles the neck of either parent, closely-closely, until the rose-tipped fingers meet, and interlace, she might typify the living, breathing, beautiful link, which Angels have fashioned, to rivet two hearts, and unite two beings! "Nay, nay, comato mio-or if she be decked to mingle with its lilies, you see something holy transiently with its treacherous radiance, may in its glow, and straightway bethink yourself of she succeed to the purer joys, and dearer hopes of this"-aud the wife raised her soft eyes, again eloquent with tenderness, and holds forth the finger, adorned with the simple circlet of the Marriage Ring. "Alethe mine! Beloved! Adored!" The crushed and broken heart, the speechless wo, And thus we know each other-outwardly By speech and gesture, countenance and dress! But the true life, the inward grief and joy, The soul's dark history, few or none may guess! The actor dons his mask, and plays his partKnow'st thou what passions sway the actor's secret heart! Fair reader! whose eye hath, perchance, lingered on these unworthy pages, in the coming hours of life, thou too, mays't wear the Opal Ring! Thou, too may'st link with its prismatic tints an enchantment gorgeous and beguiling, as that which companied, for a brief season, with the gentle Alethe; but ah! forget not even then, to scan the many-hued gem, lest the base flaw break its lines of light-cease not to look diligently at its fair and seemly surface, lest the deceptive blemish gape wider and wider, until at last, it shall rift, and cleave, and shiver the dark-sketches of Headley and Channing-as good specimens omened jewel! Vale. VERA INCOGNITA. THE OLD BACHELOR. "Time tempers love, but not removes, Oh! what are thousand living loves, To that which cannot quit the dead."-Byron. Lonely and old, he sits beside his hearth, Rapt in a deep, sad dream of other days; His eyes are fixed with thoughtful, earnest gaze Upon his table letters lie outspread, Yellow with age, and worn in many a foldRecords of youth, of joys forever dead, Of her whom he shall never more behold: Alas, poor dreamer! vainly wouldst thou crave That buried treasure from th' inexorable grave! He holds a locket in his trembling grasp, He greets the image with a deep-drawn sigh: Is this the man, so stern and so severe, Ah! joyous children, may you never know POE ON HEADLEY AND CHANNING. From advance sheets of "The Literati," a work in press, by the late Edgar A Poe, we take the following of that tomahawk-style of criticism of which the author was so great a master. In the present instances the satire is well-deserved. Neither of these sketches we believe have been in print before.-[Ed. Mess. 66 JOEL T. HEADLEY.* The Reverend Mr. HEADLEY-(why will he not put his full title in his title-pages?) has in his "Sacred Mountains" been reversing the facts of the old fable about the mountains that brought forth the mouse-parturiunt montes nascitur ridiculus mus-for in this instance it appears to be the mouse-the little ridiculus mus-that has been bringing forth the 'Mountains,” and a great litter of them, too. The epithet, funny, however, is perhaps the only one which can be considered as thoroughly applicable to the book. We say that a book is a "funny" book, and nothing else, when it spreads over two hundred pages an amount of matter which could be conveniently presented in twenty of a magazine: that a book is a "funny" book— "only this and nothing more"-when it is written in that kind of phraseology, in which John Philpot Curran, when drunk, would have made a speech at a public dinner: and, moreover, we do say, emphatically, that a book is a “funny" book, and nothing but a funny book, whenever it happens to be penned by Mr. Headley. We should like to give some account of "The Sacred Mountains," if the thing were only possible-but we cannot conceive that it is. Mr. Headley belongs to that numerous class of authors, who must be read to be understood, and who, for that reason, very seldom are as thoroughly comprehended as they should be. Let us endeavor, however, to give some general idea of the work. "The design," says the * The Sacred Mountains: By J. T. Headley,—Author of "Napoleon and his Marshals," "Washington and his The pangs which traced those wrinkles on his brow; Generals," etc. author in his preface, "is to render more familiar | sky and catches against the top of the mounand life-like some of the scenes of the Bible." tain......At length emboldened by their own numHere, in the very first sentence of his preface,bers they assembled tumultuously together...... we suspect the Reverend Mr. Headley of fibbing: Moses...... As he advanced from rock to rock the Aaron never appears so perfect a character as for his design, as it appears to ordinary appre-sobbing of the multitude that followed after, tore hension, is merely that of making a little money his heart-strings......Friends were following after by selling a little book. whose sick Christ had healed...... The steady mountain threatened to lift from its base and be carried away.......Sometimes God's hatred of sin, sometimes his care for his children, sometimes the discipline of his church, were the motives...... Surely it was his mighty hand that laid on that trembling tottering mountain," &c. &c. &c. or not. The mountains described are Ararat, Moriah, Sinai, Hor, Pisgah, Horeb, Carmel, Lebanon, Zion, Tabor, Olivet, and Calvary. Taking up these, one by one, the author proceeds in his own very peculiar way to elocutionize about them: we really do not know how else to express what it is that Mr. Headley does with these eminences. These things are not exactly as we could wish Perhaps if we were to say that he stood up be- them, perhaps :-but that a gentleman should fore the reader and "made a speech" about know so much about Noah's ark and know anythem, one after the other, we should come still thing about any thing else, is scarcely to be exnearer the truth. By way of carrying out his pected. We have no right to require English design, as announced in the preface, that of ren-grammar and accurate information about Moses dering "more familiar and life-like some of the and Aaron at the hands of one and the same auscenes" and so-forth, he tells not only how each thor. For our parts, now we come to think of mountain is, and was, but how it might have it, if we only understood as much about Mount been and ought to be in his own opinion. To Sinai and other matters as Mr. Headley does, hear him talk, anybody would suppose that he we should make a point of always writing bad had been at the laying of the corner-stone of English upon principle, whether we knew better Solomon's Temple-to say nothing of being born and brought up in the ark with Noah, and hailfellow-well-met with every one of the beasts that If any person really desires to know how and why it was that the deluge took place-but especially how-if any person wishes to get minute and accurate information on the topic-let him read "The Sacred Mountains"let him only listen to the Reverend Mr. Headley. He explains to us precisely how it all took place-what Noah said, and thought, while the ark was building, and what the people, who saw him building the ark, said and thought about his undertaking such a work; and how the beasts, birds, and fishes looked as they came in arm in arm; and what the dove did, and what the raven did not-in short, all the rest of it: nothing could be more beautifully posted up. What can Mr. Headley mean, at page 17, by the remark that "there is no one who does not lament that there is not a fuller antediluvian history?" We are quite sure that nothing that ever happened before the flood, has been omitted in the scrupulous researches of the author of "The Sacred Mountains." went into it. He might, perhaps, wrap up the fruits of these researches in rather better English than that which he employs: It may well be made a question moreover, how far a man of genius is justified in discussing topics so serious as those handled by Mr. Headley, in any ordinary kind of style. One should not talk about Scriptural subjects as one would talk about the rise and fall of stocks or the proceedings of Congress. Mr. Headley has seemed to feel this and has therefore elevated his manner-a little. For example: "The fields were smiling in verdure before his eyes; the perfumed breezes floated by...... The sun is sailing over the encampment......That cloud was God's pavilion; the thunder was its sentinels; and the lightning the lances' points as could he part with his children whom he had they moved round the sacred trust......And how borne on his brave heart for more than forty years!...... Thus everything conspired to render Zion the spell-word of the nation and on its summit the heart of Israel seemed to lie and throb......The sun died in the heavens; an earth&c. quake thundered on to complete the dismay," &c. Here no one can fail to perceive the beauty (in an antediluvian or at least in a Pickwickian sense) of these expressions in general, about the floating of the breeze, the sailing of the sun, the thundering of the earthquake, and the throbbing of the heart as it lay on the top of the mountain. The true artist, however, always rises as he through the valleys nothing but little black islands proceeds, and in his last page or so brings all his of human beings were seen on the surface...... The more fixed the irrevocable decree, the heavier elocution to a climax. Only hear Mr. Headley's he leaned on the Omnipotent arm...... And lo! a finale. He has been describing the crucifixion solitary cloud comes drifting along the morning and now soars into the sublime: "Yet still the water rose around them till all VOL. XVI-77 |