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looked forward to that descent. I had worked my way up through all sorts of dangers, but with my spirits buoyed with the excitement of anticipation and the magnificence of the scenery; now they were to recur when my sole thoughts were to be given to looking down upon them. I doubted the capabilities of my mule; heretofore the tumbles had been up-hill, and of no great distance, now, under the force of gravity, they were to be in an opposite direction; and where he might conclude to tumble to was more than with all my misgivings I dared imagine.

As I dolorously straddled my tripod, and commenced my dot-andcarry-one march homeward, I decided upon what seemed the safest plan under the circumstances. It consisted in simply letting the mule do as he pleased, as I knew, from a diligent perusal, when a boy, of several treatises on 'Habits of Animals,' that ultimately he would return to his own stable. I determined not to urge him in the slightest degree, but to allow him to enjoy all his own vagaries, even if a week was consumed in the trial, and at every place that seemed more than ordinarily dangerous to get off and walk. With a settled consciousness that nothing untoward could happen to me, my companions rapidly turned the corner out of my sight, and left me, as on my way up, to my own

resources.

The first mile was accomplished slowly, but without accident. I be came encouraged, but this monotonous routine did not suit my mule; some display was necessary to show the freshness of his powers and the fertility of his imagination, and it soon came. As we passed a blacksmith's-shop, its large doors, one at each end, invitingly open, in he bolted, with a loud bray of welcome, as much as to say, ‘GOD save all in this house.' Seeing my inability to get away, the blacksmith came to the rescue, and applied the heated iron in his hand to the animal's hide. There was a singe and a roar, and away he went, but it was only to the other door. A second application of the actual cautery had the effect of returning him to the first door. How long this game of battledore and shuttlecock might have continued, it is hard to say, had not a brilliant stratagem been adopted. A man stationed himself in each door-way, when the mule, finding himself met at all points, vacated the position.

With one parting singe, he took the narrow path-way leading to the crest of the mountain, on the other side of which commenced the descent I so much feared. This path, cut between high precipitous rocks, was so narrow that the mules going and coming could with difficulty pass each other. Jogging along it, so busily thinking of other matters that I had forgotten all my troubles, I had nearly reached the top, when happening to look up to the summit of the path-way, a short distance in front, my eye was attracted by a sudden glitter. In an instant a

gorgeously-dressed lancer made his appearance on the spot, and as the perception of the fact that the Emperor was coming, on his return from Rio, became plain to my startling faculties, another and another followed, until soon a long train of armed men came in sight, bearing directly down upon me. I became nervous and confused, and in my agitation, completely forgetting the instructions of the guide, jerked the reins of my mule, in order to hurry his steps and get him as far as possible to the side of the path. But with his own peculiar obstinacy, or rather for once obeying the rules of his education, instead of quickening his movements, he stood still. I had turned the steam off my machine, and had no wood to get it again in motion. Thinking it perfectly superfluous, under the course of tactics I had adopted, I had loaned my single spur to one of my companions, and for the same rea son was unprovided with a cudgel. In vain I kicked and shouted, pounded him with my fists, and beat a tattoo on his ribs with my heels: with his legs planted straight out in front of him, as immovable as the Column Vendome, his head down and ears laid back, the wretched beast stood stock-still. My head began to swim and my sight to leave me; all around seemed a blank; my whole consciousness and will were concentrated in trying to make the animal move, while nearer and nearer came that shining line. Soon a hoarse noise called to me in Portuguese; but I did not reply to it, and can scarcely say that I even more than heard it: royalty, the world, were nothing to me then, compared with the obstinacy of that mule. I remember a hubbub of laughs and oaths, but all of that time is as a confused dream in my mind.

From this state of oblivion I was suddenly aroused by a hearty voice addressing me in French: You have rather an obstinate mule there.' I looked up; in front of me was a young man in a cocked hat and dark undress uniform, mounted upon some animal which, from my then confused condition, I cannot now feel sure of the nature of. Some of the lancers had passed me, others were endeavoring to force the narrow passage on one side. What I replied to this remark, or whether I replied at all, I know not. Use your spurs,' said the same voice, and then, as if suddenly aware of my destitute predicament, it added, 'Well, try a lance.' An order was given to one of the soldiers at my side, who dropped his lance to the position for a charge, and obeyed at once. At the application of the cold steel, my mule made a bound, the counterpart of his acrobatic performance on the way up. I remember striking heavily against some body, it may have been the Emperor, or only one of the guards. I heard loud laughs and shouts and screams; I have a dim perception of seeing women, baggage, and many mules; something was overturned, and then all became dark before my eyes.

How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell, probably not more than a few minutes. On opening my eyes, I found myself upon the ground, my shoulders supported by one of the soldiers, while a second was sopping my head with a handkerchief wet with cold water. My clothes were muddy and torn in several places. In the middle of the path, as unconcerned as if nothing had happened, or, as I thought, with a diabolical leer in his eye, stood the wretched cause of my troubles. At my side, surrounded by several ladies and officers in uniform, was the same person who had addressed me just before the accident. As I looked round and made attempts to rise, he said: 'Ah! you feel better; it was not much, after all.'

Whatever I may have thought, I coïncided in the opinion by replying: A mere trifle.'

'Monsieur is English,' he asked.

'Non, Monsieur, American.'

'Where are you going?'

"To Rio, Monsieur.'

'Alone?'

'No, Monsieur, I have some friends somewhere about here.' 'Ah! yes, I met them a few moments

was with them.

ago on the other side of the Well, take care of yourself,

mountain; Baron for there are places on the way down where a fall will not be so pleasant as here. Adieu.'

With these parting words and a hearty laugh, the Emperor (for he it was) mounted, and in a few seconds the cavalcade was hid from my sight by a turn in the path-way.

I rejoined my companions, whom I found drawn up in a line by the side of the road. They seemed anxious about me, and eagerly inquired where I had been, and the cause of my dilapidated appearance. I replied ambiguously, merely hinting that a friend had favored me with an introduction to his Majesty. A short time after, an account was published of the misadventure of an American in the Imperial presence. They charged me as the person. I attempted to deceive; they laughed, so I shrouded myself in impenetrable mystery. But the sight of a mule, or the name of an emperor, to this day brings disagreeable associations to my mind.

ON W O MAN.
NATURE, regardful of the babbling race,
Planted no beard upon a woman's face;
Not ROGERS' razors, though the very best,
Can shave a chin that never is at rest.

LITERARY NOTICES.

IDYLS OF THE KING. BY ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L. Boston: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 1859. THE romances of King ARTHUR and his Knights of the Round Table, form a large and interesting branch of mediaeval popular literature. ARTHUR, MERLIN, GAWAINE, and LANCELOT, are historical characters in old Welsh and Armorican songs of the sixth Christian century, and were then the names of contemporary British heroes and bards who led and inspired the resisting but conquered Britons against the triumphant Saxons. The historical ARTHUR was a chieftain in the southern part of Britain, who enjoyed preeminence over neighboring princes, fought twelve battles, most of them against the Anglo-Saxons, and was mortally wounded in the conflict with his nephew MODRED at Camlan. His death was long concealed, and the consequence was a wide-spread, popular fiction that he had only withdrawn from the world into a fairy region, and that at a future crisis he would return to the Britons and lead them in triumph through the island. Such is the ARTHUR of the sixth century; and his contemporaries speak of him with respect but not with wonder. In the twelfth century he reäppears with his associates in innumerable romances, no longer in moderate greatness, but as a kind of miraculous MARS, before whom kings and nations sunk in panic as a chivalrous paragon of excellence, the favorite theme of minstrels, the very flos regum. From the twelfth to the fifteenth century the romances of CHARLEMAGNE and his paladins were hardly more popular in the principal countries of Europe than were those of ARTHUR and his knights. They were told voluminously in metre and in prose, with astonishing variety of sentiment and adventure, forming grand bodies of the mediaval doctrine of heroism, and displaying a sort of mythic code of life in accordance with the elevated and romantic spirit of ideal chivalry.

The laureate of England has returned to these early blossoms of modern genius for the subject of his latest poem, which is certainly a chef-d'œuvre, and will perhaps be accounted his magnum opus. It treats of but few of the incidents, and mentions few even of the names which are known to a student of Arthurian literature, but each of the four idyls is in itself a complete and most delicately-limned picture, a beautiful reproduction of a simple legend. The rich melody of the blank verse recalls some of the finest pieces in his earlier volumes as MORT D'ARTHUR and ULYSSES.

'ENID' is the heroine of the first idyl, which relates how her husband, the brave GERAINT, a Knight of ARTHUR'S Court,' first won her for his wife from YNIOL'S castle, and afterward won her from his own causeless jealousy. GUINEVERE, ARTHUR'S Queen, had been too hastily answered by a Knight that

HAD visor up, and showed a youthful face,

Imperious, and of haughtiest lineaments.

GERAINT at once followed him to avenge the insult, and fell in with YNIOL in a ruined hall, who chanced to have specially suffered at the hands of the proud knight. YNIOL's daughter sang in the distance:

'AND as the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;

So the sweet voice of ENID moved GERAINT;'

and he only thought and said, 'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me' Soon she entered, and in a moment he thought, 'Here, by GoD's rood, is the one maid for me.' The hoary YNIOL spoke to her to tend the stranger's horse and to prepare flesh and wine, and when GERAINT was fain to give his aid, the host added:

"REST! the good house, though ruined, O my son!
Endures not that her guest should serve himself.
And reverencing the custom of the house,
GERAINT, from utter courtesy, forbore.'

At length the proud knight, the author of injury and insult, was vanquished by GERAINT- and not only vanquished, but changed. The work was great and wonderful.'

'His very face with change of heart is changed.
The world will not believe a man repents:
And this wise world of ours is mainly right.

Full seldom does a man repent, or use

Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch

Of blood and custom wholly out of him,

And make all clean, and plant himself afresh.'

GERAINT bore away with him ENID, who became the favorite of ARTHUR's queen, and who afterward retired with him to his lands on the banks of Severn. There unluckily he heard her say at the close of a monologue: 'O me! I fear that I am no true wife.' He heard only enough for misinterpretation, and straightway in his frenzy he ordained a mild, bedlamite action, a fantastic journey. She rode before, under command never to look back, and he followed her. In that age of violence the foremost rider was the first to discover plots and purposed attacks, and twice she turned back to warn her husband, twice he vanquished the assailants, and twice reproached her for breaking his command. A third time a slight motion of her finger indicated the danger, and the warrior was in a manner pleased that she kept the letter of his word. He, however, was wounded, though victorious, and ENID turned only when she heard the clashing of his fall after he had begun again to follow her; and in the land of a barbarous and hostile prince, her patient kindness was most touchingly displayed. He was conscious, though believed to be dead, and while riotous knights revelled about her, her devotion only to her lord was triumphantly proved. At length the huge and bearded Earl DOORM ventured an insult to her.

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