The story itself is well enough, though per- | influence of Evangeline, upon crops and popuhaps the "sentimental journeys" of the damsel- lation, is thus (erroneously) foreshadowed: errant, who is the heroine, might as well have been circumscribed within narrower limits, both "Sunshine of Saint Eulalie' was she called; for that was the sunshine as to geography and moral probability. From Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards Nova Scotia to Bayou Plaquemine, thence to with apples; "the Walleway and the Owyhee"-the Ozark She, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and Mountains-the wilds of Michigan-and wher- abundance, ever else the foot of man or woman might tread-Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children." poor Evangeline wanders, year after year, in search of a lover, from whom she has been parted, by cruel fate-and the British. At last, after narrowly missing him several times, (and his escapes almost lead one to suspect him of some design to elude,) the baffled pursuer gives up the chase, and becomes a Sister of Charity in Philadelphia The sympathy between mankind and the brute creation receives a new illustration "Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer, Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection !" "And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the of "consciousness of human affection," a land Quakers." There she devotes herself to the care of the sick terrapin should be henceforth the very type of sensibility. in the Hospitals, and in the abodes of poverty," Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their until the advent of a certain pestilence, which came "Presaged by wondrous signs; and mostly by flocks of wild pigeons,* Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their craws, but an acorn." udders Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud, and in regular cadence Into the sounding pail the foaming streamlets descended!" A perfect cataract of milk! Buttermilk Falls are nothing to it! "How do the waters come down at Lodore ?" Mr. Longfellow evidently respects the rule, that "the sound should be an echo to the sense," This pestilence, whether Cholera or Yellow Fe- herself up to the service of the afflicted. At "So in each pause of the song, with measured motion the clock clicked!" It is with reluctance we accuse Mr. Longfellow of plagiarism: but the last of the three following lines is plainly borrowed from Moore's"I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled," &c. last, in one of the wards, she encounters the long lost Gabriel, in the last stage of the disease. He recognizes her, dies in her arms, and she soon after follows him to the silent repose of the tomb. The poem abounds with passages of beautiful poetry and sentiment, but travestied in such a grotesque costume of hexameter verse, as to disguise all their natural loveliness. And, moreover, the inflections and inversions, necessary to fit our vernacular tongue to the unaccustomed metres of heroic verse, often result in most deplorable combinations. These blemishes, added to many of the homespun images, for which we are indebted to the "simplicity" theory, make the whole work distasteful to an ear even toler-« Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the ably fastidious, and must consign it to a very bee-hives, "Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, sud- Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil the black smith !" There is also another instance humble place among Mr. Longfellow's produc- Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts tions. But I proceed to the examples. The benign These pigeons can hardly fail to remind the reader of Mother Goose's Melodies of another great prodigy "There was an old woman, and, what do you think, She lived upon nothing-but victuals and drink." and of waistcoats !" Which of us can forget old Grimes, who "Had no malice in his mind, In relation to one statement, I sincerely desire an explanation "Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the village, | Something there was in her life, incomplete, imperfect, unCheering with looks and words the disconsolate hearts of the women, finished, As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine, As, o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they de- Suddenly paused in the sky, and fading, slowly descended parted, Into the East again, from whence it late had arisen." Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their children!" I And now, patient reader, for patient you have proved yourself, if you have read so far as this, Does the poet really mean that these primitive propose to sum up all that I have been writing, children of Grand Pré urged their mothers home in some hexameters of my own: in respect of with their weary feet-kicking them along the which, I have only to say, with "rare Ben Jonroad? If so, we must conclude that old "Fa-son," that, if they be not poetry, they at least are ther Felician" was remiss in teaching them the truth! fifth commandment. It was certainly very undutiful behavior. 'Way down east, there lives one Long-fellow, odd and fantastic, After selecting so many unfavorable speci- Who writes poetry, which many people are fond of perusing. mens of the poem, it would not be fair to omit I like much of it-nevertheless, in my critical judgment, some of an opposite character. Those which Wordsworth following, his simplicity borders on flatness. follow, will recommend themselves, I think, with-But my quarrel is, for the most part, with his metrical noout a word of praise. "In doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer Sat in his elbow chair, and watched how the flames and smoke wreathes Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind him Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic, tions, Which do appear to me sometimes fanciful, quaint and pedantic. There is "Evangeline," who is a lovely one, if she was drest well; But she masquerades in an old suit of hexameter verses, Which seem stolen from some theatrical, classical, pawnshop. Longfellow might as well strut about, in an old toga virilis, Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into dark-Or put a helmet on his little head, take a spear in his right And play the part of a Cicero, Pompey, or Coriolanus. Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christ-"Tis not a new thing to see poets fail in an effort of this "And as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely the moon pass Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow her footsteps, kind Southey attempted it, till Anti Jacobins tore him to frag ments And Henry W. would act judiciously, if he would turn back, And trot his Pegasus, in the same gait that "the masters" have taught him. THE CRIME OF ANDREW BLAIR. BY P. P. COOKE. CHAPTER I. On a small lot of ground, fenced off from a corner of a large and valuable estate, stood many As, out of Abraham's tent, young Ishmael wandered with years ago, a mean log cabin. It fronted upon a Hagar!" highway, which, like many others in Virginia, Evangeline's desolation, and fortitude, are touch-was a river of mud in winter, and a strip transingly expressed in these lines, with which our planted from Zahara, in summer. In this cabin quotations shall concludelived Molly Herries, an old witch of a woman, and Jack Herries her son. The mother was "Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all hideously ugly, ill-natured and querulous. The thingsson was a heavy, round-shouldered fellow, with Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its path-skin, and damp looking black hair. One day— high cheek bones, cunning black eyes, a dark oily Fair was she and young; but alas! before her extended, way, Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and suf. at that ripe season when the haze of the Indian fered before her. summer obscures our landscapes-Molly Herries and Jack conversed: “Mother,” said Jack, "I see the rich men go his mother's cabin. We must go before him to by on their snorting horses: are they any better this house. than I am? I see the rich ladies go by in their grand carriages: when you go out it is on foot, with a stick in your hand. God made all of us. There is a great injustice in some being up so high, and others just as good being down so low." "Work you rascal-work," ," answered the old woman. This good advice seemed to fall like a fagot upon the embers of Jack's meditations. Andrew Blair, a man of wealth, talent, political training, and a fair degree of distinction, had built a palace on his patrimonial estate. It stood on the broad top of a towering hill-some foundling of mountain origin, put down far away among the lowlands. He called this residence, which his pride had established in place of the old rambling homestead of his father, by a fine name-Lindores. "Work!" he retorted-"its very easy to say Andrew Blair sat in a superb room, at dinner, work. Words come glib. But when I am strain- with his neighbor, Colonel Arthur Pellew. As ing my back, which is weakly because I have the wine does its work of development, you may been growing too fast; and when I lose my wind, perhaps read the two gentlemen. The host is a which has never been good since I was down man of singularly quick senses. His eyes watch with the measles, it's little comfort I get from and discover every thing. He hears a faint whisthinking of what's to be made by my working. per at a remarkable distance. His mind is subImight work for thirty years, and the best would be til and winds to its object. He is not dishonest, be a coat of plaster, and a stone chimney to the or even crafty, in the evil sense of the word. It old rat-trap of a cabin. Mother, I am a rascal-is but the mind's constitution to do by graceful am I? Well, I'm going out to seek my fortune." indirection, and with an intense enjoyment of its "You are-are you?" said Molly Herries. own dexterity, what a bold mind does better at a "And what's to be done with me?" "That's your look out," answered the affec-gerous, but rather those of a woman than mascutionate son. "When birds get their wings, line. When he seems to be controlling them, he mother, they fly away. The old hen shifts for is only directing them: the calmness which looks herself." like forbearance is only the cool search for the weak point of attack. "But Jack," said the mother, softening under the first growth of alarm, "we can may-be fix things without your going away. It's not the bird that flies furthest that finds the greenest tree, or the fattest stubble to light in." "Mr. Blair promised to inquire for an overseer's place for me," replied Jack. "I am going to see him. But if he can't do anything for me, I'm off. I'm very fond of you-I am positively. But every tub on its own bottom. Of course, in this country, which is so enlightened, nobody's going to burn you for a witch.” Molly Herries made a blow at the head of her son. He avoided it with a leap which put him outside of the cabin. direct bound. His passions are swift and dan His guest is blunt, frank, and choleric. As Jack Herries trudged up from the cabin to the palace, these gentlemen conversed over their dessert. "You wronged me in that business," said Pellew, "and the more I think of it the less I am satisfied with it." "Pellew," Blair answered, "I have more than once assured you that you misunderstood my agency in the affair. I explained to you in great detail, not a week ago I thought at the time, quite to your satisfaction." "So you did. You explained until devil the bit could I understand a simple matter. A dirty wall requires a great deal of white-washing." Blair looked quickly to his guest, but answered with a smile : "Throw my coat out, mother," he said coaxingly. "You don't suppose I was in earnest. You don't suppose I would leave my respected parent." Jack, at this effective stroke, put a "Pardon me; but the clearest truth, where knuckle into first one eye then the other. "Throw facts are minute and crowded, is unintelligible if my coat out. I'll be back from the great man's one has a very single impatient mind to bring to in a little while. Throw my coat out, mother." judge of it." The old woman slammed the door in his face; then, grimacing angrily, threw a shabby coat out at a little loop-hole of a window. Jack Herries put the garment on, smoothed down the cuffs, roached his hair with several applications of his beefy fingers and set off at a lazy gait. His destination was the house of Andrew Blair-the master of the estate, on a corner of which stood "I understand you," answered the choleric colonel. "You talk about my impatient mind. You mean my stupid mind. May be I am a jack ass. But by — you wronged me in the business, in spite of your fine excuses." Blair answered with a paling cheek, and a low, clear tone: "Excuses? excuses did you say?" But he checked himself, and added coldly-" Finish your inexorable will was armed-on foot-and ready wine, and let us go into the open air." to advance he looked up firmly and said boldly: The gentlemen left the table and walked out. Mother, we must make a bon-fire of the old Pellew lived at no great distance, over some fields, rat-trap. I have the great man in my power. beyond a skirt of woodland, at an old barracks The old witch shall have a coach for her crab of a place, which his bachelor life and bad tem-stick yet. Money-money-makes all the difper made desolate enough. He had walked to ference between people, mother." Lindores, and now expressed his determination to go home. Andrew Blair quietly insisted upon walking a part of the way with him. One of the servants heard his master mutter "a cutthroat evening it is, to be sure." Guest and host-the ox and the panther-walked away together. CHAPTER II. The chapter just ended is but the prologue to my story. We must pass, at a bound, over a space of time greater than the interval which brought gentle Perdita from the wreck to the dance of the shepherds. The comment which Blair had made on the weather was well enough merited. It was abomFive and twenty years have passed away. inable. The air was dry and hot. The sky was The rough bachelor's establishment, which once dull with a haze exaggerated, from a delicate belonged to Colonel Arthur Pellew, has underveil to an oppressive blanket of smoke-or of gone great changes. A cupola surmounts the something like smoke. The wind made mel-roof-so burnished a cupola that, in sunlight or ancholy sounds. No deciduous tree, except the moonlight, it blazes like a bale-fire. Pigeonwhite oak, retained its leaves; and these were as houses, imitated from the pagodas which we see dead as the beauty and youth of the world of a on blue India china, pierce the foliage of wilthousand years ago. The sun looked as it does lows, and shine with glossy birds that chase each when seen through smoked glass—orbed, rayless, other on the steep roofs, making war or love. and blood-red. The Indian summer, when it The portico of an Athenian temple towers in just a little touches our country scenes, is good front of the renovated edifice. Close, cramped and welcome; but when it shrouds us, and mel-avenues, walks edged with box, little gods and ancholy winds rise, I know nothing in the ill goddesses with cracked legs and weather-stainlooks of honest winter half so dismal. ed shoulders, tulip beds under forest trees, and Andrew Blair and Colonel Pellew had been numerous other evidences of the introduction of sometime gone, when Jack Herries reached the a very refined taste, confound, if they do not dehouse. The negro is generally an affectionate light, the visitor. The interior of the house, whose creature, but he possesses very little generosity surroundings are so elaborate, is quite splendid. of sentiment, and deals hardly with his inferiors. I can, however, be only particular enough to say Freeborn Jack Herries in such a coat, with black that one apartment, the dining-room, is adornoily face, and vulgar manners, excited the posi-ed with paintings, and prints of a singular chartive indignation of a composed-looking old negro acter. Amongst the paintings, a series illusgentleman, in breeches and long hose, whose trates Hood's "Dream of Eugene Aram." The bushy grey hair spread to his shoulders like an execution of these is, in general, bad enough, but ample and well-powdered wig. But Jack was the painter has seized a ghastly conception ably not to be driven off until his questions were fully and the face of Aram, repeated in the different answered. When they were, he cocked his (sub-pictures, is something to haunt one. There are stitute for a) beaver, clenched his fists in his pockets, and renewed his lazy gait in pursuit of the gentlemen, whom he could see drawing toward the skirt of woodland. again some wild scenes, highly colored, and with a fantastic horror in their details, of man-killing on the Spanish main. Two Shakspeare prints— "The death of Desdemona," and "The mur The next hour of that dismal day saw a fatal der of the Princes"—are amongst these proofs of deed done. a strange singleness of idea in the pictorial adornment of the room. Andrew Blair came home after night-fall. He was disordered in dress, and as wan as the messenger who pulled Priam's curtain. It was a sunny evening of late autumn. Along a cramped avenue-up to the Athenian porticorolled a carriage. Out of it got a well-dressed man, of middle age, with black hair, dark skin, and shrewd eyes. He looked about him, and gave directions, with the manner of a master. Such, indeed, he was. Jack Herries had become John Herries, Esq., a man of influence and large Jack Herries about the same time got back to his cabin. He seemed, beneath his weight of thought, to forget the foolish quarrel with his mother. He entered, sat down without a word, and with elbows on his knees, and face between his hands, meditated under a volley of questions. At last, as if thought had done its work, and the possessions, and rode in the coach which even 66 his old mother-now some years dead—had lived | many ways, losing and winning, and now what to be trundled grandly about in, in fulfilment of is the result? Against the property which I have his bold promise. After him a lady, very small, got together is a monstrous debt. The man who very meek-looking, with a prim cap border visi- has built up my fortunes holds my bonds to so ble under her bonnet, and a rich dress remarka- great an amount, that the carpet I tread on would ble for a sort of tidy simplicity in its fashion, not be left to me if I were compelled to pay also descended from the carriage. It was clear, them. It was a weakness to borrow from him, from the fact that Herries merely stood to one when I might have compelled him to give.* I side, and turned his tobacco in his cheek, leav- wanted boldness to say give.” ing her to get out or tumble out as might happen, that the lady was his wife. And she did bear to him this relation which seems to justify every sort of affectionate negligence. The poor boy, little wife. very soon after his escape from poverty to brighter hopes, had married this lady, then a comely and well-educated country girl, as much above him as her honest and simple tastes reduced her, in his false opinion, below his present grand position. Man and wife were presently talking earnestly in the long dining-room hung with the pictures of murder. The conversation would seem to have been a continuation of one begun in the carriage. "These schemes," said Herries, with a slow emphatic utterance, "whether honest or wicked, must at least now be perfected for our security. Our son must marry the niece of Andrew Blair. I have broached the subject to Blair." "And how did he meet it?" the wife asked. "That matters very little," Herries answered evasively. "Pride must bend in this world. You groan, and say that I have borne hard on this man. Now I tell you that those who come after him, if he should die without a safe conclusion of matters between us, would bear harder upon us-yes-ruin us utterly-even to the second generation. One day I found my hands on a round of the ladder of life. I have climbed well since that day, but always with a danger pulling at my hands and feet, and threatening to drag me suddenly from the extreme height if I should win it." Herries strode to and fro, his face inclining toward his breast, his brow darker than the swart hues which anger produces could have rendered it; despondency had, for the moment, seized upon him. "Husband," said the wife, "if we keep our truth and purity, the rest is but dreams." Not so-I hope-not so: it was honor, and the sense of right that prevented you from saying give"-stole in the fine clear voice of the prim Herries turned with a sudden step. His face assumed a resolute expression; but it was not because the good fairy of his household had strung his nature with better thoughts, for he said bluntly: "The safe ending must now be this. Our son must marry this girl, who, besides my bonds, will bring him the fine Lindores property. Blair of course will give every thing to the girl. He must. This will be a safe and honest conclusion to my dealings with him: every way better than my original scheme, which was-keeping a keen watch on his health-to strike in at the earliest failing symptom, and extort a surrender of my bonds. Tom must marry the girl, or I must at once adopt this original plan. Do you know that Blair has lately had a very singular attack? He may die suddenly any day." 66 When we begin to scheme," answered Mrs. Herries-clear-minded and unyielding-"we begin to make cares and troubles for ourselves." "You must admit," said Herries impatiently, that I have schemed into all that we possess― property, influence, and good position. Indeed you never would have been my wife but for those first steps of my scheming which brought me up to an equality with your family." Mrs. Herries, being anything but one of those caustic wives who avail themselves of opportunities such as this to suggest the possibility that wedlock has proved a one-sided blessing, only said with honest energy: "Our property is not really ours—your influence is but caused by the weakness of human nature which pays court to the appearance of wealth-and our position, not being natural to us, is not truly so comfortable as the middle sta"From the day-the day—which brought me tion. An industrious perseverance would have up from the poverty which I may be dragged brought you to the middle station. These things back to, I have used Andrew Blair," Herries being true, in seeming to gain, what after all continued as if talking to himself. "I began by have you gained?” borrowing a sum of money from him, which, 66 Nothing," says Herries, "unless I get rid of coming so freshly out of poverty, I thought quite my bonds." a fortune. The use of this money enlarged my "Ah! even accomplish that end, and apart ideas. I borrowed again--and again--and again-- from the remorse which may afflict you for the year after year. I bought lands, I speculated in use of bad means, you will inevitably find the VOL. XV-7 |