dication of fiery passion, and no less of tender softness. Often this face looks at me from the canvas, and I fancy sometimes that the white hand, covered as in Vandyke's pictures with its snowy lace, moves from the book it holds and raises slowly the forefinger and points toward its owner's breast. The lips then seem to say, "Speak of me as I was: nothing extenuate: set down nought in malice!"-then the fire-light leaping up shows plainly that this all was but a dream, and the fine pale face is again only canvas, the white hand rests upon its book:my dream ends with a smile.

EPILOGUE.

It was one of those pure days which, born of spring, seem almost to rejoice like living things in the bright flowers and tender buds:-and she was failing.

All the mountain winds were faintly blowing on the smiling trees, and on the white calm brow of one who breathed the pure delightful airs of opening spring, before she went away to breathe the airs of that other land, so far away, where no snows come, or frost, or hail, or rain; but spring reigns ever, sublimated by the light which shines on figures in white garments round the central throne.

She heard those figures calling, calling, calling, with their low soft voices full of love and hope; calling ever to her in the purple twilight dying o'er the world; rejoicing every one that she was coming.

She looked upon the faces seen through mist around her, and besought them smiling, not to weep for her, but look to the bright land where she was going for her faith was strong. She begged them to take tender care of the flower which lay but now upon her bosom, and not think of her. A voice had told her in the night that she was waited for: and now the sun was fading in the west, and she must go.

Alcestis-like she kissed them on their brows and pointed to the skies: the time had almost come.

She looked with dim faint eyes, as in a dream, upon that past which now had flowed from her and left her pure:-she saw the sunset wane away and die above the rosy headlands, glooming fast:-she murmured that her hope was steadfast ever; that she heard the angels; that they called to her, and bade her say farewell to all that was around her on this earth, for now the expected time had come.

The tender sunset faded far away, and over the great mountains drooped the spangled veil, with myriads of worlds all singing as her heart was singing now. She saw the rosy flush go far away, and die away, and leave the earth and then the voice said Come!

She saw a cross rise from the far bright distance, and a bleeding form: she saw the heavenly vision slowly move, and ever nearer, nearer, brighter with the light of heaven. She saw it now before her, and her arms were opened. The grand eternal stars came out above-the sunset died upon her browshe clasped the cross close to her bosom-and so fell asleep.

THE DEATH OF A MOUNTAIN HUNTER-FROM LEATHER STOCKING AND SILK.

His thoughts then seemed to wander to times more deeply sunken in the past than that of the event his words touched on. Waking he dreamed; and the large eyes melted or fired with a thousand memories which came flocking to him, bright and joyous, or mournful and sombre, but all now transmuted by his almost ecstasy to one glowing mass of purest gold. He saw now plainly much that had been dark to him

before; the hand of God was in all, the providence of that great almighty being in every autumn leaf which whirled away!

Again, with a last lingering look his mental eyes surveyed that eventful border past, so full of glorious splendor, of battle shocks, and rude delights; so full of beloved eyes, now dim, and so radiant with those faces and those hearts now cold; again leaving the present and all around him, he lived for a moment in that grand and beauteous past, instinct for him with so much splendor and regret.

But his dim eyes returned suddenly to those much loved faces round him; and those tender hearts were overcome by the dim, shadowy look,

The sunset slowly waned away, and falling in red splendor on the old gray head and storm-beaten brow, lingered there lovingly and cheerfully. The old hunter feebly smiled.

"You'll be good girls," he murmured wistfully, drawing his feeble arm more closely round the children's necks, "remember the old man, darlin's!"

Caroline pressed her lips to the cold hand, sobbing. Alice did not move her head, which, buried in the counterpane, was shaken with passionate sobs.

The Doctor felt his pulse and turned with a mournful look to his brother. Then came those grand religious consolations which so smoothe the pathway to the grave; he was ready-alwaysGod be thanked, the old man said; he trusted in the Lord.

And so the sunset waned away, and with it the life and strength of the old storm-beaten mountaineer -so grand yet powerless, so near to death yet so very cheerful.

"I'm goin'," he murmured, as the red orb touched the mountain, "I'm goin', my darlin's; I always loved you all, my children. Darlin', don't cry," he murmured feebly to Alice, whose heart was near breaking," don't any of you cry for me."

The old dim eyes again dwelt tenderly on the lov ing faces, wet with tears, and on those poor trembling lips. There came now to the aged face of the rude mountaineer, an expression of grandeur and majesty, which illumined the broad brow and eyes like a heavenly light. Then those eyes seemed to have found what they were seeking; and were abased. Their grandeur changed to humility, their light to shadow, their fire to softness and unspeak able love. The thin feeble hands, stretched out upon the cover, were agitated slightly, the eyes moved slowly to the window and thence returned to the dear faces weeping round the bed; then whispering:

"The Lord is good to me! he told me he was comin' 'fore the night was here; come! come-Lord Jesus come!" the old mountaineer fell back with a low sigh-so low that the old sleeping hound dreamed

ing portion at Princeton College, where he was graduated in 1835. He studied with great thoroughness the science of the law, and at the age of twenty-seven contributed notes to Smith's Selections of Leading Cases in various branches of the Law, White and Tudor's Selection of Leading Cases in Equity, and Decisions of American Courts in several departments of the Law, which have been adopted with commendation by the highest legal authorities.

His attention was, however, by no means confined to professional study. He devoted much time to scientific study, and projected several theories on subjects connected therewith, while in literature he produced an anonymous novel, Stanley, which, with many faults of construction, contains passages of admirably expressed thought.

Mr. Wallace published a number of articles He was anonymously in various periodicals. much interested in philosophical speculation, and bestowed much attention on the theory of Comte, by whom he was highly prized.

In April, 1849, Mr. Wallace sailed for Europe, and passed a year in England, Germany, France, and Italy. On his return he devoted himself with renewed energy to literary pursuits. He projected a series of works on commercial law, in the preparation of which he proposed to devote a year or two at a foreign university to the exclusive study of the civil law. In the spring of 1852 his eyesight became impaired, owing, as was afterwards discovered, to the incipient stages of congestion of the brain, produced by undue mental exertion. By advice of his physicians he embarked on the thirteenth of November for Liverpool. Finding no improvement in his condition on his arrival, he at once proceeded to Paris in quest of medical advice. His cerebral disease increased, and led to his death by suicide at Paris, on the sixteenth of December following.

In 1855 a volume was published in Philadelphia entitled, Art, Scenery, and Philosophy in Europe; Being Fragments from the Portfolio of the late Horace Binney Wallace, Esquire, of Philadelphia. It contains a series of essays on the principles of art, detailed criticisms on the principal European cathedrals, a few travelling sketches, papers on Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, Perugino, and Raphael, and an article on Comte.

These writings, though not designed for publication, and in many instances in an unfinished state, display great depth of thought, command of language, knowledge of the history as well as aesthetic principles of art, and a finely cultivated taste. Occasional passages are full of poetic imagery, growing naturally out of enthusiastic admiration of the subject in hand. Some of the finest of these passages occur in the remarks on the Cathedral of Milan, a paper which, although endorsed by the writer" very unfinished," and no doubt capable of finer elaboration, is one of the best in the series of which it forms a portion.

THE INTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S.

What a world within Life's open world is the interior of St. Peter's!-a world of softness, brightness, and richness !-fusing the sentiments in a refined rapture of tranquillity-gratifying the imagination with splendors more various, expansive, and exhaust

less than the natural universe from which we pass,typical of that sphere of spiritual consciousness, which, before the inward-working energies of faith, arches itself out within man's mortal being. When you push aside the heavy curtain that veils the sanctuary from the world without, what a shower of high and solemn pleasure is thrown upon your spirit! A glory of beauty fills all the Tabernacle! The majesty of a Perfection, that seems fragrant of delightfulness, fills it like a Presence. Grandeur, strength, solidity,-suggestive of the fixed Infinite, -float unsphered within those vaulted spaces, like clouds of lustre. The immensity of the size,-the unlimitable richness of the treasures that have been lavished upon its decoration by the enthusiastic prodigality of the Catholic world through successive centuries, dwarfs Man and the Present, and leaves the soul open to sentiments of God and Eternity. eye, as it glances along column and archway, meets nothing but variegated marbles and gold. Among the ornaments of the obscure parts of the walls and piers, are a multitude of pictures, vast in magnitude, transcendent in merit,-the master-pieces of the world, the communion of St. Jerome,-the Burial of St. Petronilla,-the Transfiguration of the Saviour, not of perishable canvass and oils, but wrought in mosaic, and fit to endure till Time itself shall perish.

his

The

It is the sanctuary of Space and Silence. No throng can crowd these aisles; no sound of voices or of organs can displace the venerable quiet that broods here. The Pope, who fills the world with all pompous retinue, fills not St. Peter's; and the roar of his quired singers, mingling with the sonorous chant of a host of priests and bishops, struggles for an instant against this ocean of stillness, and then is absorbed into it like a faint echo. The mightiest ceremonies of human worship,-celebrated by the earth's chief Pontiff, sweeping along in the magnificence of the most imposing array that the existing world can exhibit,- -seem dwindled into insignificance within this structure. They do not explain to our feelings the uses of the building. As you stand within the gorgeous, celestial dwellingframed not for man's abode-the holy silence, the mysterious fragrance, the light of ever-burning lamps, suggest to you that it is the home of invisi ble spirits, an outer-court of Heaven,―visited, perchance, in the deeper hours of a night that is never dark within its walls, by the all-sacred Awe itself.

When you enter St. Peter's, Religion, as a local reality and a separate life, seems revealed to you. Far up the wide nave, the enormous baldachino of jetty bronze, with twisted columns and tint-like canopy, and a hundred brazen lamps, whose unextinguished flame keeps the watch of Light around the entrance to the crypt where lie the martyred remains of the Apostle, the rock of the church, give an oriental aspect to the central altar, which seems to typify the origin of the Faith which reared this Fane. Holiest of the holy is that altar. No step less sacred than a Pope's may ascend to minister before it; only on days the most august in the calen dar, may even the hand which is consecrated by the Ring of the Fisherman be stretched forth to touch the vessels which rest on it. At every hour, over some part of the floor, worshippers may be seen kneeling, wrapt each in solitary penitence or adoration. The persons mystically habited, who journey noiselessly across the marble, bow and cross themselves, as they pass before this or that spot, be token the recognition of something mysterious, that is unseen, invisible. By day illuminated by rays only from above, by night always luminous within -filled by an atmosphere of its own, which changes

pendent of, their purely critical excellencies. Though he has never published an autobiography,* yet all of his works are, in a certain sense, confessions. He pours out his feelings on a theme of interest to him, and treats the impulses of his heart and the movements of his mind as historical and philosophical data. Though he almost invariably trusts himself, he is almost as invariably in the right.

For, as some are born poets, so he too was born a critic, with no small infusion of the poetic character. Analytic judgment (of the very finest and rarest kind), and poetic fancy, naturally rich, and rendered still more copious and brilliant by the golden associations of his life, early intercourse with honorable poets, and a most appreciative sympathy with the master-pieces of poesy. Admirable as a genial critic on books and men, of manners and character, of philosophical systems and theories of taste and art, yet he is more especially the genuine critic in his favorite walks of art and poesy; politics and the true literature of real life-the domestic novels, the drama, and the belles-lettres.

As a descriptive writer, in his best passages, he ranks with Burke and Rousseau; in delineation of sentiment, and in a rich rhetorical vein, he has whole pages worthy of Taylor or Lord Bacon. There is nothing in Macaulay for profound gorgeous declamation, superior to the character of Coleridge, or of Milton, or of Burke, or of a score of men of genius whose portraits he has painted with love and with power. In pure criticism who has done so much for the novelists, the essayists, writers of comedy; for the old dramatists and elder poets? Lamb's fine notes are mere notes-Coleridge's improvised criticisms are merely fragmentary, while if Hazlitt has borrowed their opinions in some cases, he has made much more of them than they could have done themselves. Coleridge was a poet-Lamb a hu

morist. To neither of these characters had Hazlitt any fair pretensions, for with all his fancy he had a metaphysical understanding (a bad ground for the tender plant of poesy to flourish in), and to wit and humor he laid no claim, being too much in earnest to indulge in pleasantry and jesting-though he has satiric wit at will and the very keenest sarcasm. Many of his papers are prose satires, while in others there are to be found exquisite jeux d'esprit, delicate banter, and the purest intellectual refinements upon works of wit and humor. In all, however, the critical quality predominates, be the form that of essay, eriticism, sketch, biography, or even travels.

THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS,

THE author of a translation of The First Ten Cantos of the Inferno of Dante, published in 1843, and of a volume of original Poems in 1854, is a native of, and resident at, Boston. His writings bear witness to his sound classical education, as well as to the fruits of foreign travel. The translation of Dante, in the stanza of the original, has been much admired by scholars. The Poems exhibit variety in playful satire, epistle, ballad, the tale, description of nature, of European antiquities, and the occasional record of personal emotion. In all, the subject is controlled and elevated by the language of art. It is the author's humor in the Epistles which open the volume to address several foreign celebrities in the character of an English traveller in America, writing to Charles Kemble on the drama; to Edward Moxon, the London publisher, on the

The Liber Amoris can hardly be called an exception. VOL. II.-41

state of letters; and to Rogers and Landor on poetry and art generally. In the Epistle to Landor, the comparatively barren objects of American antiquities are placed by the side of the storied associations of Italy. The land is pictured as existing "in Saturn's reign before the stranger is changed to the Roman era:— came," like the waste Missouri; when the view

Soon as they rose-the Capitolian lords

The land grew sacred and beloved of God; Where'er they carried their triumphant swords Glory sprang forth and sanctified the sod. Nay, whether wandering by Provincial Rome, Or British Tyne, we note the Cæsar's tracks, Wondering how far from their Tarpeian flown, The ambitious eagles bore the prætor's axe. Those toga'd fathers, those equestrian kings,

Are still our masters-still within us reign, Born though we may have been beyond the springs Of Britain's floods-beyond the outer main. For, while the music of their language lasts,

They shall not perish like the painted menBrief-lived in memory as the winter's blasts!

Who here once held the mountain and the glen. From them and theirs with cold regard we turn, The wreck of polished nations to survey, Nor care the savage attributes to learn

Of souls that struggled with barbarian clay. With what emotion on a coin we trace

Vespasian's brow, or Trajan's chastened smile, But view with heedless eye the murderous mace And checkered lance of Zealand's warrior-isle. Here, by the ploughman, as with daily tread

He tracks the furrows of his fertile ground, Dark locks of hair, and thigh-bones of the dead, Spear-heads, and skulls, and arrows, oft are found. On such memorials unconcerned we gaze;

No trace returning of the glow divine, Wherewith, dear WALTER! in our Eton days We eyed a fragment from the Palatine. It fired us then to trace upon the map The forum's line-proud empire's church-yard paths

Ay, or to finger but a marble scrap

Or stucco piece from Diocletian's baths. Cellini's workmanship could nothing add, Nor any casket, rich with gems and gold, To the strange value every pebble had O'er which perhaps the Tiber's wave had rolled.

One of the longer poems-Ghetto di Roma, a story of the Jewish proscription-is admirably told; picturesque in detail, simple in movement, and the pathos effectively maintained without apparent effort. The lines On the Death of Daniel Webster are among the ablest which that occasion produced. The chaste and expressive lines, Steuart's Burial, are the record of a real incident. The friend of the author whose funeral is literally described, was Mr. David Steuart Robertson, a gentleman well known by his elegant rural hospitality at his residence at Lancaster to the wits and good society of Boston.

The healthy objective life of the poems, and their finished expression, will secure them a reputation long after many of the feeble literary affectations of the day are forgotten.

ON A BUST OF DANTE.

See, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim,
The father was of Tuscan song.
There but the burning sense of wrong,
Perpetual care and scorn, abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside.

Faithful if this wan image be,
No dream his life was-but a fight;
Could any Beatrice see

A lover in that anchorite?

To that cold Ghibeline's gloomy sight
Who could have guessed the visions came
Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light,
In circles of eternal flame?

The lips as Cuma's cavern close,
The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin,
The rigid front, almost morose,
But for the patient's hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,
Which, through the wavering days of sin,
Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

Not wholly such his haggard look
When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed,
With no companion save his book,
To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;
Where, as the Benedictine laid
His palm upon the pilgrim guest,
The single boon for which he prayed
The convent's charity was rest.*

Peace dwells not here-this rugged face
Betrays no spirit of repose;

The sullen warrior sole we trace,
The marble man of many woes.
Such was his mien when first arose
The thought of that strange tale divine,
When hell he peopled with his foes,
The scourge of many a guilty line.
War to the last he waged with all
The tyrant canker-worms of earth;
Baron and duke, in hold and hall,
Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth;
He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of knightly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O, Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou;
That poor, old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other VIRGIL now:
Before his name the nations bow;
His words are parcel of mankind,
Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
The marks have sunk of DANTE's mind.

STEUART'S BURIAL.

The bier is ready and the mourners wait,
The funeral car stands open at the gate.
Bring down our brother; bear him gently, too;
So, friends, he always bore himself with you.
Down the sad staircase, from the darkened room,
For the first time, he comes in silent gloom:

It is told of DANTE that, when he was roaming over Italy, he came to a certain monastery, where he was met by one of the friars, who blessed him, and asked what was his desire; to which the weary stranger simply answered, "Pace."

Who ever left this hospitable door
Without his smile and warm "good-bye," before!
Now we for him the parting word must say
To the mute threshold whence we bear his clay.
The slow procession lags upon the road,—
'Tis heavy hearts that make the heavy load;
And all too brightly glares the burning noon
On the dark pageant-be it ended soon!
The quail is piping and the locust sings,—
O grief, thy contrast with these joyful things!
What pain to see, amid our task of woe,
The laughing river keep its wonted flow!
His hawthorns there-his proudly-waving corn-
And all so flourishing-and so forlorn!
His new-built cottage, too, so fairly planned,
Whose chimney ne'er shall smoke at his comman 1.
Two sounds were heard, that on the spirit fell
With sternest moral-one the passing bell!
The other told the history of the hour,
Life's fleeting triumph, mortal pride and power.
Two trains there met-the iron-sinewed horse
And the black hearse-the engine and the corse!
Haste on your track, you fiery-winged steed!
I hate your presence and approve your speed;
Fly! with your eager freight of breathing men,
And leave these mourners to their march again!
Swift as my wish, they broke their slight delay,
And life and death pursued their separate way.
The solemn service in the church was held,
Bringing strange comfort as the anthem swelled,
And back we bore him to his long repose,
Where his great elm its evening shadow throws-
A sacred spot! There often he hath stood,
Showed us his harvests and pronounced them good,
And we may stand, with eyes no longer dim,
To watch new harvests and remember him.

Peace to thee, STEUART!-and to us! the All-wise
Would ne'er have found thee readier for the skies
In his large love He kindly waits the best,
The fittest mood, to summon every guest;
So, in his prime, our dear companion went,
When the young soul is easy to repent:
No long purgation shall he now require
In black remorse-in penitential fire;

From what few frailties might have stained his

morn

Our tears may wash him pure as he was born.

JOHN W. BROWN.

JOHN W. BROWN was born in Schenectady, New York, August 21, 1814, and was graduated at Union College in 1832. He entered the General Theological Seminary in 1833, and on the completion of his course of study was ordained Deacon, July 3, 1836, and took charge of a parish at Astoria, Long Island, with which he was connected during the remainder of his life. In 1838 he established a school, the Astoria Female Institute, which he conducted for seven years. In 1845 he became editor of the Protestant Churchman, & weekly periodical. In the fall of 1848 Mr. Brown visited Europe for the benefit of his health. He died at Malta on Easter Monday, April 9, 1849.

In 1842 Mr. Brown published The Christmas Bells: a Tale of Holy Tide: and other Poems, a volume of pleasing verses suggested by the seasons and services of his church.

In the Christmas Bells he has described with beauty and feeling the effect of the holy services of the season upon the old and The poem young. has been set to music.