Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 6, June 1842

by Various

THE LAST SCENE.

“Have you heard the news, Mr. Forrester?” exclaimed Mrs. Dale, as, two days after the confidential disclosure of the piazza, he entered the saloon; “Ah, I see by your look of innocent surprise, you are still in blissful ignorance.”

“What has happened?” asked Cecil carelessly, “any thing which serves to break the monotony of a seaside existence must be a blessing.”

“I do not know whether you will think it so,” said the lady laughing, “Miss Oriel has eloped with Mr. Beauchamp.”

“I am glad of it—from my very soul I rejoice at it,” exclaimed Cecil Forrester, while a dark, vindictive smile gave a most disagreeable expression to his usually fine face.

“Why, how strangely you look at me,” replied Mrs. Dale, “what is the matter?”

“Nothing—nothing—when did it all happen?”

“Did you not see her go out with him to ride last evening? Well, it seems Mr. Beauchamp’s servant had been privately despatched to the city with their baggage, and instead of returning the lovers rode directly to the next town and were married.”

“Why did they give themselves so much trouble? If Beauchamp had asked the old woman she would have dropped a curtsy and thanked him for the offer.”

“There is the mystery of the whole affair; Mrs. Oriel pretends to be very indignant, but it is easy to see she is secretly pleased. Miss Oriel has written a letter to Miss Grey in which she entreats her to ‘break the tidings tenderly to poor Mamma;’ excuses herself on the plea of irresistible affection; talks of Mr. Beauchamp’s ardor and her fear of maternal opposition, and finishes by requesting Ellen to ‘allow his favorite Mrs. Dale to acquaint Mr. Forrester with her regret at having been the cause of disappointment and sorrow to him.’ ”

“What the devil does she mean by that?”

“Why to make Ellen jealous of me and distrustful of you, and thus disappoint both your love and revenge,” said Mrs. Dale.

“She shall not attain her ends,” exclaimed Forrester impetuously, “I will tell Ellen the whole story. I am glad she is actually married to Beauchamp, and I know the reason he did not want to ask her mother; he was afraid of inconvenient inquiries.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Only this morning I met here a person who knows him well. His history is soon told. He was originally bred a tailor, but, having a soul above buttons, he cut the shop, and has since been hanging on the skirts of society in a manner very different from that intended by his honest old father. His bank stock and sugar plantation may exist in the regions of the moon, where all things which unaccountably disappear from earth are said to be collected, his negroes are still on the coast of Guinea, and he really lives by his wits. A run of luck at the gaming-table or a lucky bet on the race-course enables him every now and then to pay old debts, and live for a time like a gentleman until his funds are exhausted, when he again betakes himself to his vocation.”

“Can this be possible?”

“There is no doubt of it; he is a mere adventurer, and as Miss Oriel is something very similar, they are ‘matched as well as paired.’ ”

Cecil Forrester afforded another proof of the truth of the poet’s line,

“Full many a heart is caught in the rebound.”

The following winter saw him the happy husband of Ellen Grey; while all trace of Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp was lost to their view. About two years later, when business had compelled Mr. Forrester to visit one of our southern cities, he strolled into the theatre to get rid of an idle evening, and as he gazed with listless curiosity on the gorgeous spectacle of Indian life which occupied the stage, he was suddenly struck with a familiar tone in the voice and a familiar expression in the countenance of the stately queen of the Zenana. He looked again, the resemblance seemed to grow upon him; he went round to the stage box, and in that near proximity to the actress all doubt vanished. He looked upon the still resplendent beauty of Laura Oriel.

---

SIGHTS FROM MY WINDOW—ALICE.

———

BY RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

———

I sit beside my window,

And see the crowds go by,

With joy on every countenance,

And hope in every eye,

And hear their blended voices,

In many a shout and song,

Borne by the spring’s soft breezes

Through all the streets along.

And peering through a lattice

Of a humble cottage near,

I see a face of beauty,

Adown which glides a tear,⁠—

A rose amid her tresses

Tells that she would be gay,

But a thought of some deep sorrow

Drives every smile away.

She whom I see there weeping,

Few save myself do know,⁠—

A flower in blooming blighted

By blasts of keenest wo.

She has a soul so gentle,

That as a harp it seems,

Which the light airs wake to music

Like that we hear in dreams.

A common fate is that poor girl’s,

Which many yet must share,⁠—

In the crowd how little know they

What griefs its members bear!

One year ago a radiance

Like sunlight round her played,

Heart felt, eyes spoke of gladness,⁠—

She was not then betrayed.

There was one of gentle manners,

Who e’er met her with a smile,

And a voice so full of kindness,

That she could not deem it guile,

And her trusting heart she gave him,⁠—

She could give to him no more,⁠—

Oh! daughter of the poor man,

Soon thy dream of bliss was o’er!

’Twere vain to tell the story

Of fear, hope, and joyous passion;

She forgot her father’s station,

He forsook the halls of fashion;

She loved him well—he knew it,⁠—

’Twas a pleasing interlude,

Fitting to enjoy more keenly

Scenes the poor might ne’er intrude.

Hark! the sound of music swelling!⁠—

Now the crowd are rushing by,

Horses prancing, banners flying,

Shouts ascending to the sky!⁠—

There’s a sea of life beneath me,

And his form is there,⁠—

For his fearful sin who spurns him?

On his brow what sign of care?

I see her now—she trembles⁠—

There is phrensy in her eye;

Her blanchéd lip is quivering;

There is no good angel nigh;⁠—

She falls,—the deep-toned bugle

Breaks on the quiet air;

Look to the calm blue heaven⁠—

That sound—her soul—are there!

In the cavalcade she saw him,

In his plumes and armor drest,

And more closely to her bosom

His treasured gifts she prest;

Her eye met his—’twas finished⁠—

Not a word by tongue was spoken;

A cold glance—a look of passion⁠—

And her heart was broken!

How common are such histories,

In the cottage and the hall;

From prison bars how many eyes

Look on life’s carnival!

The joys we seek are phantoms

That fade ere closed the hand

In the dark reached forth to grasp them,

But the brain receives their brand.

---

THE TWO DUKES.

———

BY ANN S. STEPHENS.

———

(Concluded from page 245.)

The duke saw his wife, and at first seemed willing to avoid her, but after moving forward a step or two, he turned back, took her hand in his with an energy that startled her, and pressing his lips to it, turned away and hurried on with the guard still surrounding him.

The duchess stood gazing after him, filled with strange apprehension. The force with which he had wrung her hand was still painful, and there was an expression in his face which made her heart sink with sad forebodings. What had befallen him? Where was her daughter—and why did he, who so seldom forgot the etiquette of his high station, take leave of her thus, when only going forth for a morning? As the gentle and yet proud lady stood pondering these things in her mind, the old counsellor, whom we have mentioned, returned slowly up the corridor, and approaching her with touching reverence, told her all. She thanked him, tried to smile as she extended her hand—but in the effort her strength gave way, and she fell pale and helpless on the stone floor. The old man lifted her in his arms, and carrying her to the Lady Jane Seymour’s room, placed her on the bed, and bathed her temples with water, which he laved from a silver basin with his hand, till at last he went forth in despair to call assistance, for she lay upon the glowing counterpane pale and still, like a draped statue reposing in the purple gloom which filled the chamber; and for many long hours the lady who had always seemed so quiet, proud, and almost void of feeling, remained as one dead.

It was half an hour before Lady Jane was informed of her mother’s condition. She was still in her father’s closet, with her hand locked in that of Lord Dudley, and her large troubled eyes bent earnestly upon him, as he spoke to her in a voice so deep, so earnest and impassioned, that every tone thrilled through her heart with a power that made it tremble.

“Do not look at me thus. In the name of heaven, speak to me, Jane. I have not done this; it is no fault of mine. Do I not love you?—ay, and will forever! I will follow my father, beseech him, kneel to him if needs be, and put an end to this dreadful contest; but speak to me first—my own—my dearest—say that you will struggle for power to aid me that—nay, Jane, nay, do not shrink from me; one kiss—one look, to prove you love me as before, and I will go at once. All will terminate well—God bless you!”

As the young man finished his hurried speech, he lifted the young girl from his bosom, where she had fallen in utter abandonment to her tenderness and grief, pressed her forehead with his lips again and again—then folding her to his heart once more, he carried her to the chair her father had just occupied, and placing her within it, was about to leave the room. Lady Jane put back the long ringlets that had fallen over her face with both hands, and looked after him through the tears that almost blinded her. Then rising to her feet, she tottered toward him with outstretched arms, and when he turned for a last look, sprang forward and wound them almost convulsively round his neck. It was but the paroxysm of a moment, for scarcely did she feel his clasp together about her, when she drew gently back, checked the tears that gushed into her eyes afresh, and spoke breathlessly, as one whose very heart was ebbing with the words, as they came laden with pain to her lips⁠—

“It is in vain, Dudley, all in vain. There have been words and deeds, this day, between your father and mine, which must separate us forever. Farewell!”

He would have expostulated, have soothed her with hopes which had no foundation in his own mind, for his thoughts were in confusion, and his heart seemed ready to break with contending feelings; but as he spoke, her slender fingers wreathed themselves convulsively around his hand, her face was uplifted to his for a moment, and she glided swiftly through the door and along the corridor to the chamber where her mother was lying, and left him standing bewildered and in pain, as if a guardian spirit had been frightened from its brooding place in his heart.

---

In an apartment belonging to that portion of the tower occupied by the sovereigns of England sat a pale, slender boy reading. The room was furnished in a style of magnificence, befitting one of high rank and of habits more elegant and studious than were usual to the court of Henry the Eighth during his reign. The books which it contained were richly bound, and some of them encrusted with jewels; all had clasps either of silver or of gold, and a portion were entirely filled with manuscript in the hand-writing of the late King Henry.

Tall windows cut deep into the massive walls in one side of the room filled it with light. The massive stone sills were cushioned with velvet, and upon the cushions, musical instruments of the most precious wood and inlaid with gold, had been flung down, as if their owner had become weary of one amusement only to seek another. The boy arose from his easy leathern chair, and moving toward the window, ran his fingers thoughtfully over the strings of a lute that lay on the cushion, gazing idly through the glass at a court below, as he was thus occupied. After a moment he sauntered back to the chair, took up the volume of manuscript which he had left open on a small and curiously carved table standing near the window, and sinking once more to his seat he began to read again, but the book seemed to fatigue him at last, so allowing it to sink, still open, to his lap, the youth gradually sank to a fit of abstracted musing, and sat with his head resting on his hand, and his large eyes fixed dreamily on the face of a great ebony clock which stood opposite the window, its burnished face glittering through a whole bower of carved wood, and its huge pendulum swaying to and fro with a dull, sleepy motion, well calculated to continue the state of languid thoughtfulness into which the youth had fallen.

As King Edward the Sixth—for the boy was no less a personage—sat musing, thus languid from ill health, and rendered somewhat more sad than usual from the manuscript and book which he had been reading, a page entered, and before he had time to speak, Lord Dudley, son of the reigning protector, followed him into the room. The young nobleman looked pale and much agitated, and Edward himself seemed a little startled by his abrupt entrance, for he was so little accustomed to being consulted on matters regarding the welfare of his kingdom, that any person thus nearly connected with the Lord Protector became an object of nervous dread to him; for such persons seldom interrupted his retirement except to counsel some change of residence, or dictate regarding his personal habits, which to a person naturally shy, and rendered sensitive by illness, was always a subject to be dreaded, but never opposed. It was therefore with something of dismay in his pale features, that Edward received his visiter.

Dudley advanced close to the king’s chair, and sinking to one knee, pressed his lips reverently to the slender hand which the royal youth extended with habitual courtsey, though a languid and deprecatory smile, rather than one of welcome, stole over his lip.

“My lord,” he said in a voice low and almost femininely sweet, “I am not well to-day, but if your good father recommends that we remove to Windsor, let the household be prepared; he is the best judge, though in his strong health and great energy he does sometimes tax our weakness a thought too far with these sudden removals.”

Edward motioned the young nobleman to arise as he spoke, and when he still retained a kneeling posture, looked in his face with something of astonishment.

“My liege,” said Dudley in a respectful and low voice, “I did not come from my father. Alas, since he became Duke of Northumberland and Protector of this realm, there has been little of confidence between us. I have come to you, my liege, on a subject dear as my own life, one which I dare not again intrude upon him, though every feeling of friendship and honor should make him listen to my prayer.”

“Of what speak you?” said Edward apprehensively, while his large eyes wandered from the young nobleman’s face to other objects in the room, as if he would gladly have avoided any subject of interest, “of whom speak you—and of what?”

“I would speak, my liege, of the duke, your highness’ uncle, of his suffering wife and daughter, who now lie with him, prisoned within these very walls; I would claim that justice and clemency at your hands, which I have sought and knelt for in vain, at the feet of my own father.”

The king sank back into his chair, and passed his pale hand across his forehead, as if the subject were not only a painful one but not entirely comprehended in its full import.

“We know,” he said at length, “that our uncle has been found or thought guilty of many evil practices against the good people of our realm, and that our present able protector has seen it best to imprison him for a season; but we did not know that our noble aunt and sweet cousin Jane were the companions of his captivity. Pray, can you inform us, my good lord, how this all happened? Of what wrong has our sweet playmate and cousin been accused, that she too must be drawn from her home? His Grace of Northumberland forgets that the same blood which fills the veins of his king fills hers also; pray explain, my lord. We have no power to sift all the evil practices of our government, but even his grace, your father, must be careful how he deals with one of our mother’s house.”

The feeble youth became animated with a spirit which surprised Lord Dudley, as he uttered these words. A bright flush spread over his cheeks, and his eyes sparkled with the excitement which sprang both from disease and a resentful feeling, perhaps the most violent that ever visited his gentle heart. Naturally kind and most affectionate in his nature, he had always clung with fondness to those members of his family connected with his mother, and, since her birth, the Lady Jane had been his especial favorite. It therefore aroused all the strong feelings of royal pride in his heart to hear that a creature so pure and delicate had been, through an abuse of power, made the inmate of a prison. Nor was he better reconciled to the fact when Dudley informed him that it was through her own affectionate desire to mitigate the confinement of her persecuted parent that she had abandoned all to follow him. The youthful monarch was touched by an act of devotion such as his own heart would have prompted, and he questioned Lord Dudley regarding the arbitrary power by which the fallen protector had been imprisoned, with a degree of energy, and an evident determination to know the exact position of affairs, which astonished as much as it pleased the anxious nobleman.

Lord Dudley’s was a difficult and painful explanation. It was scarcely possible to place the proceedings against the Duke of Somerset in a favorable light before the young king, without in some degree exposing the conduct of his own parent to condemnation. Still he had entered the presence of his sovereign with a firm resolve to explain all, and throw himself and his hopes on the generosity of a mere boy, and an invalid, who had ever been completely controlled by his guardians, those guardians the very men whom he was called upon to brave. It was with faint hopes, that Dudley undertook this last appeal, when all other efforts to assist his friends failed, and when he had done speaking, when he saw the feeble youth lying back in his chair, pale and exhausted from the emotions which his narrative had excited, he felt almost condemned, that any motive could have induced him to disturb the repose of a being so fragile and sensitive.

“My liege, my kind, gracious master,” said the young man, starting to his feet as the overpowered monarch sank back to his chair, faint, pale, and with his golden lashes quivering upon his thin cheeks as they closed his eyes; “my gracious king, forgive me that I have thus intruded—that for any reason I have disturbed a repose which should be sacred to the whole nation; but the persecution of a being so fair—so good—one whom I have long looked upon as my future wife—who is now suffering and in prison”⁠—

Dudley broke off abruptly, for all at once the hectic color rushed back into the king’s face, and his languid blue eyes kindled with the brilliancy of a spirit, for the first time, thoroughly aroused.

“Were we indeed a king,” he said, “a true, free king as our father was, and not the invalid child which men see in us, these things could not happen. No man would dare to enter the councils of a nation and cast their leaders into prison without the sanction, nay, command of his monarch. But, alas! there is not in the kingdom a being more completely held in thrall than ourself! Until now, we were scarcely made aware of the persecution which has been so ruthlessly urged against our uncle—but it shall not be! The new duke, thy father, must not thus abuse the authority with which the council, rather than ourself, has invested him!”

Edward arose, excited to some degree of strength by the indignation of his generous heart, and walked up and down the room once or twice, as if to tranquilize his spirit, then seating himself once more, he requested Lord Dudley to explain the cause and all the particulars of Somerset’s arrest.

It was a difficult task which the young monarch imposed on his visiter; for Dudley loved his father, and it was impossible to enter into the desired explanation without, in some degree, implicating him; but a sense of justice, and that true love which brought him to Edward’s presence, urged him to obedience, and while he so guarded each word as to cast as little blame as possible on his own parent, he pleaded the cause of his friends with a degree of enthusiasm that aroused all the love of justice and family affection, which were strong and predominating qualities in the heart of the youthful monarch.

Edward sat perfectly still, shading his eyes with his small, thin hand, till Dudley had finished speaking; and even for several moments after, he remained motionless, and as if lost in thought. At last, he allowed the hand to drop from his eyes, and looked up.

“My lord,” he said, in a firm, clear voice, “you have acted rightly and well in laying this subject before us. Our reign may be a brief one, but it shall be marked, at least, by one act of justice. Come hither again after nightfall. Meantime we will consider the subject and decide what can best be done.”

Dudley bent his knee reverently, kissed the pale hand extended toward him, and left the presence. As his fine, healthy form disappeared through the door, and the vigorous footfall of youth and firm health sounded back from the corridor, Edward looked after him, smiled very sadly, and sinking down to his chair, exhausted with the scene, murmured:

“How well he is! how full of life and hope! and I—” He covered his face with both hands, and tears trickled through his fingers, till they fell like rain amid the sables that lined his robe. “And yet,” he added at last, removing his hands and wiping away the tears, while a brighter expression stole over his face, “and yet I have the power to make him happy—and Jane, my sweet cousin. Let me act while I have yet strength!”

Edward arose once more, unlocked a miniature cabinet which stood upon the table, and taking out a small golden flask, drank off its contents. The potion seemed to compose and strengthen him; a color came to his lips, and his eyes had within them that strange, glittering fire which springs from artificial excitement. A small branch of twisted ebony, hung with a cluster of tiny bells, lay upon the table. The king took it up, and rang the bells till the apartment seemed haunted in every nook and corner with a gush of fairy music. As the sound died away, the door was opened, and a page presented himself, evidently much astonished at the energy with which his summons had been rung.

“Go to the lieutenant of the tower,” said Edward, promptly, as the page advanced to receive his orders. “Tell him that the king desires his presence without delay.”

The boy disappeared instantly; and when his companions in the ante-room crowded near to know why it was that a sound so full and bold had summoned him, in place of the faint, silvery tinkle which usually came from the king’s apartment, he put on a look of profound mystery, and, after describing the change which had come upon his royal master, gave it as his decided opinion, that something very tremendous and extraordinary was about to happen, but what the event might be he was not at liberty to inform them. This much he would, perhaps, venture to say. The lieutenant of the tower would soon be ordered to present himself before the king, and after that something might transpire to surprise them all. With these profound sayings, the boy departed from the ante-room, putting on his plumed cap with an important air, and placing a finger to his saucy red lips, in token of secrecy, as he looked back in passing through the door.

After an absence of half an hour, the page returned, following the lieutenant of the tower, for whom he ceremoniously held the door opening to King Edward’s chamber. The lieutenant passed in to the royal apartment, while his young escort closed the door after him, dexterously managing to leave it unlatched, and sufficiently ajar to command, for himself, a view of all that was passing within, while he stood toying with his cap, and, as his companions supposed, retaining his station merely to be within hearing of the king’s bell.

So little had Edward mingled in the affairs of his nation, that, for the first time in his life, he addressed an officer of his kingdom in the man who stood before him, who stood lost in astonishment at a summons so strange and unexpected.

Though a little restrained and shy in his manner, from almost constant illness and seclusion, there was a degree of quiet dignity about the young king’s bearing as he extended his hand to raise the lieutenant from his kneeling posture, that well became his station and his royal nature.

“We have sent to command your presence, sir lieutenant, somewhat against our usual habit; having been informed, to-day, that our uncle, the Duke of Somerset, with the gentle ladies of his household, have been placed prisoners under your care. Our desire is, that they be discharged the tower, at once, and sent, with all due honor in our own royal barge, to the duke’s palace on the Strand. You are commanded to see to this; retaining only, in pledge, the solemn word of our uncle, that he present himself before us, his king, in three days, to be confronted with his accusers, and to answer the charges brought against him.”

Edward slightly waved his hand, when he finished speaking, as if he deemed farther conversation or ceremony unnecessary; and, after thus quietly expressing his wishes, desired to be alone.

The lieutenant was a shrewd man, who held his station under favor of Northumberland, and who had been taught, like most of his fellow subjects, to regard the king as a mere shadow in his own realm. He was taken by surprise—so completely deprived of all presence of mind, by a command totally unexpected, and most important in its nature, that for a moment he stood gazing hard upon the floor, completely at a loss how to act, or what to say. At last, he cast a furtive look on the young monarch, who stood tranquilly regarding him, but instantly turning his eyes away, again bowed almost to the ground, and said, in a soft, deprecating voice, that he would mention the king’s desire to the Lord Protector forthwith, and that he would, doubtless, sign the order necessary for a release of the noble prisoner.

A fire, like that in the eye of an angry falcon, shot into the large, blue orbs which Edward fixed upon his officer. A streak of crimson flashed across his forehead; his slight figure was drawn proudly up, and, as his velvet robe, with its heavy facings of sables, fell back and swept the floor, there was a majesty in his look which well became a son of Henry the Eighth. After regarding the confused lieutenant a second, with a glance, which made that personage more desirous to leave the room than he had even been to enter it, the young monarch turned away, saying, in the same calm and tranquil tone in which his first command had been given⁠—

“The King of England will write his own orders—wait.”

Seating himself by the table, Edward took up a pen, and though his fingers trembled with weakness upon the parchment, wrote and signed an order for his uncle’s release, the first and last legal document that his own free will ever originated. After it was written, he took up a small agate cup, perforated in the side, and after shaking a quantity of gold dust over the damp ink, he folded the parchment and held it toward the still irresolute lieutenant. There was something in the manner with which all this was done; so quiet, so firm and full of dignity, that, in spite of himself, the officer was awed by a feeling of respect which could not be resisted. Bending his knee, he reverently took the parchment, pressed his lips to the hand which extended it, and left the presence, irresolute how to act, and yet deprived of sufficient courage to resist the command of his sovereign.

As the page ran forward to open a door which led from the ante-room to a corridor, through which the lieutenant was obliged to pass, he saw, at the farther extremity, the Duke of Northumberland, now Lord Protector, moving toward the king’s apartments, followed by some half dozen retainers whom he left near the entrance, while he advanced to meet the lieutenant with a look of surprise and displeasure at seeing him there. The page observed that when the duke and his officer met, they conversed earnestly and with considerable animation together, but in low voices, and all the time looking suspiciously around to be certain that no person was within hearing. They were thus engaged for more than ten minutes, while the restless page stood, with the door in his hand, regarding them through a crevice thus conveniently created to gratify his curiosity.

“Now,” said he, muttering to himself as he softly swung back the door a little to increase his opportunity of survey—“now, if I could but steal through without making these rusty hinges sound an alarm, it would be rare pastime to creep along the wall and hear what treason those lofty old fellows are plotting. It is no light matter, I’ll warrant—see, how the tall old duke clutches his fingers and bends his dark forehead over his eyes till one can scarcely see them, beneath the hoary brows—see, his lips are pressing hard upon each other like a vice—now is his turn to speak—nay, if I were master lieutenant now, beshrew me! but I should get away from that beautiful old gentleman without waiting to say ‘by your leave!’ There he stands, looking the king a thousand times more than my young master yonder, and I doubt not berating that poor lieutenant, as if he were a hound. See, how slowly, and with what a manner he lifts that right hand, holding the finger up, and shaking it before the poor lieutenant as if it were the blade of a dagger. Beshrew me! but I must learn more of this game—the corridor is half in shadow, and they can but kick me out, like a troublesome dog, if I am discovered—so be quiet, latch and hinge, if you can, for once.”

As the boy half muttered, half thought these words, he gently pushed back the door, and was about forcing himself through the opening, but a noise, created by the rusty hinges, was not the only means of betraying his attempt. A space large enough to admit his body also served to fling a line of light far into the dim corridor, which startled the two persons he was regarding more than a noise could have done. They both turned and looked keenly toward the door. The duke uttered a brief sentence and moved on, waving his hand imperatively to the lieutenant. He also went down the passage, and passing the group of attendants in a hurried manner, disappeared through a door at the opposite extremity, through which the duke had entered the corridor.

Meantime the page, finding himself in danger of detection, had escaped to his post near the king’s chamber. When Northumberland approached, he arose from the bench on which he had flung himself, looked up from beneath the feathers of his cap, with a sleepy yawn, and moved forward to announce the Lord Protector, rubbing his eyes as he went, and laughing with silent mischief beneath the concealment of his drooping plumes. As the duke passed him at the door, he paused an instant and fixed a keen glance on his face, which the boy returned by taking off his cap, and bending his curly head almost to the ground, while, with the most frank and cheerful of all voices, he prayed for long life to the noble Lord Protector.

If Northumberland had any suspicion of the boy at first, it was half disarmed by that clear voice and the handsome face sparkling with intelligence lifted to his. There was something mischievous and yet affectionate and pleasing in it, which brought a smile to his own face as, with careless munificence, he flung a piece of gold into the boy’s cap and entered the king’s chamber.

The page was not so much elated by the gift but that he would have been at his old trick of listening once more; but after advancing a pace into the chamber, Northumberland turned back, looked at the urchin with a half smile, and closed the door himself.

A laugh from his companions, who witnessed his defeat from another end of the room, sent a flood of crimson over the boy’s face, but shaking his curls with an air of good-natured bravado, he gave the golden coin a triumphant toss, which sent it flashing like a star up into the sunshine which poured through a neighboring window, and catching it in his hand again, sprang forward and joined the laugh merrily as the most gleeful among them. Instantly, the noisy troop were silenced by a sharp bell-tone from the king’s chamber.

“Hush!” said the page, balancing the coin on his finger and eyeing it with a roguish look as he bent his head to listen. “That was the crusty old duke! such fellows hate an honest laugh as King Harry did holy water! they would keep us cooped up here like a flock of pigeons without the privilege of a coo. Hark! again, I must keep quiet till the old one is away, and then we will try a game of chuck farthing in the corridor, if we can get this shiner changed into half crowns and farthings.” So, grasping his fingers over the gold, the page nodded to his companions, leaving them half terrified by the thoughts that their merriment had reached—not the king, he was too good and lenient to chide them for harmless mirth—but the stern duke, whom they all feared beyond measure. The page looked back upon them, as he entered the chamber, tried to smile and seem courageous, though he was half frightened out of his wits—and the next instant stood in the presence of his sovereign, with his bright, black eyes—half concealed by their long lashes—bent to the floor, and a brilliant red burning through the ringlets that fell over his cheek. He seemed the very picture of a living and healthy Cupid in disgrace.

“What noise was it that reached us but now from the ante-room?” said the Lord Protector, sternly, as the boy appeared before him. “Is it with this rudeness and riot you surround the chamber of our invalid king? Begone, sirrah! strip off the royal livery at once and return to your mother, if you have one.”

The boy lifted his face to that of the stern duke and his cheek dimpled even while it turned white with fear, a smile was so natural to it. But when the last cruel words were spoken, the long lashes drooped over his eyes again and grew heavy with moisture. He turned away from the face frowning upon him, and, kneeling at the king’s feet, lifted his eyes—now full of tears—to those of his master and said,

“I have no mother.”

Edward’s kind heart was deeply touched by the sadness with which this was said. He was but a youth himself, and forgetful of his dignity and of all but the sweet, pleading face lifted to his, he laid his thin hand upon the curls which fell back from it, and would have kissed the forehead, but an exclamation from Northumberland warned him of the impropriety. Still the page had seen the impulse and the generous tears which filled the mild eyes of his master. His young heart swelled with grateful affection, and, burying his head in Edward’s robe, he sobbed aloud.

“Poor boy! he is an orphan like ourself. You will not send him hence, my lord duke,” said the young king, turning his face with an anxious and almost pleading look upon his guardian. “The offence was not heavy; and see how penitent he is.”

“The offence not heavy, my liege?” replied the duke harshly, “have I not given orders that no sound shall disturb your highness’ repose, and notwithstanding this, am I not distracted almost in my first private audience by the riotous mirth of this urchin and his mates?”

“Nay, we have ourself somewhat to blame in this—having little cause for merriment in our own heart, and pining here day after day—for, alas! kings have no companions—it has sometimes been a comfort to hear the merry laugh of these thoughtless boys—to know that cheerfulness is not shut out from our presence forever. That health and laughter—which is its music—is yet a thing of earth; though, alas! a blessing which we may witness, but never enjoy. Shut out the sunshine which smiles through these windows, the stars which at night time glimmer through that narrow line of glass, and which we have learned to read when pain has made our couch sleepless, till they have become as old friends; break yon lute, whose music is to this faint heart like the voice of a good child to its parent, and, above all, send away the cheerful voices which sometimes fill the next room, and you have wrested from the King of England the only fragment of his inheritance that was ever his.”

The page looked up as his master was speaking, the tears were checked in his eyes, and he knelt breathlessly, as one who listened to the voice of an angel. The proud Northumberland turned his eyes from the pale, spiritual face of his royal ward, and bent them on the floor. There was a look of patient suffering in those features which touched his better nature; something in the sad, broken-hearted feelings which filled that voice, which found a passage to his soul, even through the selfishness and ambition that encased it. Other thoughts, too, were busy in his mind. He had a point to carry with the young monarch—a difficult and doubtful one. His animosity against the page only arose from resentment, excited by his conversation with the lieutenant, and some faint suspicion that he had played the listener while that conversation was held. A moment’s reflection convinced him that to have heard any part of his conference, from the distance at which he had caught a glimpse of the boy in the corridor, was impossible; so, resolving to make his concession the means of obtaining a much greater one from the king, Northumberland determined to seem won to mercy by sympathy and regard for his ward.

While these thoughts were passing through the mind of that crafty man, Edward remained in his chair, supporting his head with one hand, while the other still lay caressingly, and half buried amid the bright ringlets of the kneeling culprit, who gathered the royal robe between his small hands, and kissed the glowing velvet with grateful eagerness, while his bright face was again deluged with tears—such tears as can only know their birth in a warm, wayward, and affectionate nature.

“Forgive the pain my zeal in behalf of a health so precarious has occasioned,” said the duke, advancing graciously to the king, while his face relapsed into one of those bland smiles which sometimes beamed like magic over his proud features. “Heaven forbid that anything which is dear to your highness, however faulty, should be condemned by one whose first aim is to render his king happy! Let the boy go at once! Far be it from me to desire his chastisement. Go, sirrah,” he added, taking hold of the boy’s arm and lifting him from his knees, but still giving to the action and words a tone of good-natured encouragement, “go to the ante-room; here is another piece of gold to repay the fright we have given you.”

The page stood up; his checks flushed once more beneath the tears that stained them. He looked upon the proffered gold, and, with a motion of the head, betraying both pride and boyish petulance, seemed about to refuse it, but a glance from his master, and something in the duke’s eye which awed him, checked the resentful impulse, and taking the gold, with half muttered thanks, he knelt once more at Edward’s feet, kissed the hand which was kindly extended, and bursting into tears again, left the chamber.

The moment he reached the ante-room, our page flung himself on a bench, and burying his face in the tapestry that cushioned it, sobbed aloud. His companions gathered about him in dismay, anxious to learn the cause of his tears; but it was a long time before he would reply to their questions. At last he started up, dashed the two pieces of gold on the stone floor till they rang again, and told his friends to take them up—fling them into the court below—toss them for farthings—do anything with them—but protested that he would never touch them again. After this ebullition of boyish wrath, he gave a glowing description of the tyranny which had been practised upon him by the duke; of the goodness of his royal master; and of the great danger which had threatened them all. Whereupon, they jointly and severally entered into a contract never to laugh again during the whole course of their lives—a resolution they persisted in keeping for a full half hour, when our young hero set them all into convulsions by a most ludicrous imitation of the protector’s manner as he took leave of the lieutenant. When this new burst of merriment died away, the group of youngsters stood for a while frightened by their own boldness, and expecting each moment to hear another summons to the royal chamber; but instead of the sound they feared, came another which overwhelmed them with surprise. It was the voice of their royal master, louder than any one had ever heard it before, and powerful with strong feeling. The duke’s voice was also heard, sometimes stern and almost disrespectfully harsh, again soothing and persuasive, with something of that cajolery in its tone which one might expect from the hired nurse of a wayward child.

While these unusual sounds were continued in the king’s apartment, the pages gradually drew nearer to the door, till they could command some broken sentences of what was passing within. At length the king’s voice grew fainter and less distinct. Northumberland now and then uttered a brief sentence, and his heavy footsteps were plainly heard as he strode up and down the room. At last a sharp ringing of the bells sent the listeners to a distant part of the room, where they stood gazing in each other’s faces, uncertain whether they ought to obey the summons or not. Their doubts were speedily relieved, for the door was flung open and the Duke of Northumberland appeared, looking pale and much agitated. He beckoned with his hand, and the page that we have mentioned so often entered the chamber. He found the king lying back in his chair, faint and pale as death; his lips were perfectly bloodless, and though he seemed insensible, the silken vest worn beneath his robe was agitated by the quick and terrible beating of the heart it covered.

With instinctive affection, the page untied the silken fastenings of his master’s dress, and exposing the delicate neck and chest, which heaved and throbbed as if the heart were forcing a passage through, he commenced chafing it with his hands, till the agitation became less painful and apparent.

At length, Edward unclosed his eyes and drawing his doublet together with a trembling hand, tried to sit up. Northumberland advanced and seemed about to address him, but he shrank back with a nervous shudder. After a moment, he got up again and would have spoken, but his lips only trembled; he had no strength to utter a word. Northumberland walked to a window, where he stood some time with his arms folded, gazing gloomily through the thick glass. Still the page knelt by his master, chafing his hands, and folding the robe over his feet with that kind assiduity which bespoke an affectionate nature.

At length Edward spoke, and the duke turned eagerly from the window, evidently relieved by this proof that his late attack would not be immediately fatal.

“My lord,” said the king, faintly, “you see how impossible it is that this subject can be discussed farther. I beseech your grace, have my wishes obeyed, both regarding your son and all the parties concerned.”

Again Northumberland’s brow darkened, and he seemed about to expostulate, but Edward looked him gravely in the face and added,

“It must be so, my lord duke, or England will not brook the imprisonment of a protector who, with all his faults, knew how to respect the rights of his king.”

The color forsook Northumberland’s face, but still he frowned and looked unyielding. Edward arose feebly from his chair, and leaning upon the shoulder of his page, moved toward an inner bed-chamber. The duke saw by this movement that all hope of further conference was cut off, and feeling himself baffled and forced to act against his wishes by a mere youth, he once more forgot his usual crafty composure and the respect due to his sovereign.

“My liege,” he said, almost imperatively, “this is requiring too much; I cannot grant it.”

Edward turned so as to face the angry noble, and while still supported by the page, answered mildly, but with the same steady will as before,

“My Lord of Northumberland,” he said, “either our uncle, the Duke of Somerset, returns to his palace to-morrow as we have directed, or on the next day he goes there Lord Protector of England.”

With a slight wave of the hand, and with his features contracted with the pain which his effort to speak occasioned, Edward turned away and passed into his bedchamber without waiting for a reply, which, in truth, Northumberland was unable to give, so completely was he astounded by what had already been said.

The page would have called other assistance when Edward reached his bedchamber, but the invalid prevented him, and after having the points of his dress untied, lay down upon the bed, faint and exhausted. The boy moved about him with that soft, gentle tread so grateful in the chamber of an invalid. He smoothed the pillows, drew the counterpane of embossed velvet over the recumbent monarch, and, taking some scented woods from a closet, flung them into a brasier that stood in the fire-place, and nursed the flame beneath till the chamber was filled with a soft, drowsy atmosphere, grateful to the sense, and almost certain to produce tranquil sleep. Then he would steal once more to the bed, pull back the voluminous curtains, and bend over the pale form resting there till his dimpled cheek, so damask and healthy, almost touched that of the monarch, and the wreath of his bright curls fell amid the damp masses of hair which swept over the pillow, in a contrast that was lovely and yet painful to behold. When satisfied that his master was asleep, the boy stole softly from the chamber, as had always been his habit, to await the time of his waking in the next room. He started with surprise on seeing it still occupied by the Duke of Northumberland, who stood before the window gazing sternly into the court below, and evidently lost in a train of most unpleasant thoughts. When the boy entered he started impatiently, and, clearing the frown from his face with an effort, crossed the room.

“Tell your master,” he said, addressing the page, “tell your master that his wishes shall be obeyed—say that all shall be in readiness by eight this evening;” and with these words Northumberland left the royal apartments.

Either the protector’s voice aroused Edward, or he had not slept, for scarcely was the door closed when his voice summoned the page to his bedside. When the duke’s message was repeated to him, a smile of satisfaction settled on his face, and he sank into a tranquil slumber. After awhile those usually quiet apartments were full of bustle and preparation. Attendants passed in and out; pages were seen running to and fro with mysterious faces. More than one laden wherry untied its contents at the tower stairs, and everything bespoke the approach of some uncommon event.

---

One little month had scarcely passed when the Duke of Somerset, bereft of wealth and station, sat in a gloomy prison room of the tower, expecting each moment to be dragged forth to trial, and, perhaps, an ignominious death. It was a large room, but so dimly lighted that persons sitting together looked sallow and careworn in the dusky atmosphere that filled it. The very sunbeams forced themselves sluggishly through the high window, as if rusted by the masses of old iron which blocked their passage, and were lost, long before they reached the floor, in a web of ragged and dusty cobwebs, which covered the ceiling like mouldering tapestry, moth-eaten and turning to dust where it hung. There, on the gloomy floor of this desolate place, sat the prisoner, striving to read by the unhealthy light, which was only sufficient to make the effort a painful one. He lifted his eyes to the grating with an impatient exclamation, and, flinging his book on the floor, began pacing up and down the stone flags. Instantly a figure started forward from an inner room and lifted the book; while the sweet, pale face of Lady Jane Seymour was raised for a moment to that of her suffering parent, as he moved rapidly up and down the room. She laid the book once more upon the flags, and exerted all her frail strength to move the chair her father had occupied to a station nearer the window. This done, she again lifted the ponderous volume with her two fair hands, smoothed out the dark letter page which had been doubled in the fall, and bearing it to the duke, besought him to sit down, while she read aloud to him.

Somerset paused a moment in his walk, impelled by the persuasive but sad tones of his child; but confinement had made him irritable; so, extricating his disordered cloak from the slight grasp which she had fixed upon it, he pushed the book from him with a violence which sent it crashing to the floor again, and resumed his restless occupation. The book had fallen upon the flags, with its broad leaves downward, and crushed beneath the heavy binding, that, with the ringing of the heavy clasps, as they struck the stones, brought another person into the room, but so changed, so thin, and broken-hearted in appearance, that few persons who had seen the dignified, proud, and lovely Duchess of Somerset, in her high estate, could have recognised her as she stood within the sickly atmosphere of her husband’s dungeon.

The gentle lady moved across the room, her rich, but now soiled, vestments sweeping the dusty floor as she passed; while her daughter was patiently occupied in smoothing the pages which had been injured in their fall, and in brushing away the dust which they had gathered, she approached her husband, placed a hand upon his arm, and looked with a sad smile into his face.

“The apartment within is less gloomy than this,” she said; “come and sit with us; you, who never failed to share the sunshine of life with us, should not thus brood alone, now that sorrow has befallen us. Come!”

Somerset turned abruptly from his noble wife, and to conceal the emotions her sweet, patient manner had awakened, rather than from continued moodiness of spirit, he still paced up and down the darkest part of his dungeon, with all the appearance of continued irritation, for he was ashamed of the tears which, in spite of himself, sprang to his eyes on witnessing his gentle and yet proud wife so fallen and so patient in her ruin.

The duchess was rendered quick-sighted by affection, and, speaking in a low voice to her daughter, the two left the fallen man to the liberty of grief. The room which they entered was scarcely superior to the other, but more light was admitted to it; and where is the spot so dark, or so full of discomfort, that a loving and intelligent woman cannot give some domestic charm to it? When the unfortunate lady and her still more unfortunate child left their palace home, and besought permission to share the confinement of a husband and a father, they had been permitted to bring a few objects of comfort to cheer the desolation which surrounded him. Several leathern chairs, and a stool or two, cushioned and embroidered by the fair beings who selected them for that reason, stood within the room. Lady Jane had swept and garnished the stone floor with her own delicate hands, all unused as they had been to such menial service. A rude table was there, a few favorite books lay upon it, and a lute, the companion of many a happy, childhood hour, was now taken up by that gentle girl, that its sweet tones might soothe the moody spirit of the proud man, who seemed scarcely conscious of her effort to tranquilize him.

Lady Jane knew that it but mocks a broken spirit to see anything it loves over-cheerful; so her strain, though not gloomy, was touching, and a sad one, so sad that her father, as he walked in the adjoining room, forgot the selfishness of his sorrow and wept like a child, that two creatures so gently nurtured should thus inhabit a prison, and, for his sake, exert their broken spirits to render it cheerful. After a while he entered the apartment where they were, and going up to the duchess he bent down and kissed her, while his right hand rested on the head of the young girl sitting at her feet. Lady Jane lifted her grateful eyes to his face and smiled. When her father kissed her forehead also fondly, and with the affection of former times, a swarm of kindly feelings sprang to her heart; her light fingers touched the lute again, and a gush of music, not gay, and yet scarcely sad, filled the dungeon room. It was a home song, such as they had loved in better days, and it awoke many pleasant memories; so, amid all their sorrows, these three persecuted beings sat together in domestic companionship, almost happy. If chains were upon them, their love of each other twisted a few golden links amid the iron which no human power could wrest away.

The memories which the song awakened gradually led the conversation to brighter themes, and for awhile the inmates of that dungeon almost forgot their present condition. They talked of former days, and, as they talked, an expression amounting almost to a smile rose to the face of the father. The sunshine, too, seemed to partake of their joy, streaming in more gaily through the narrow window, and playing, like a wilful but merry child fitfully across the floor; while a bird—a wanderer from green fields far away—pausing a moment outside the casement, poured forth such a gush of music that it thrilled the inmost hearts of the listeners with joy. Could the duke have seen them then how would he have envied them.

But, as the day wore on, their thoughts once more were brought back to the full consciousness of their present situation, and again a shadow came over the souls of the members of that little family, typical of the sunshine which but just before had been shining so merrily through the casement, but which now had vanished, leaving the dungeon room dark and forbidding.

The gloom of coming night at last gathered thickly in the dungeon, rendering it still more cold, desolate and prison-like. The duke still retained his sombre mood and gazed gloomily on the stone flags at his feet, while his patient wife sat by his side, her hand resting in his, and her sweet, low voice now and then whispering words of endearment, such as her proud and modest nature had considered too bold at any time save when the beloved one was in affliction, or in any place except that miserable dungeon room. Hers was the love of a true and delicate nature. And, like the flame of a lamp which, scarcely seen amid the glare of sunshine, grows brighter and more vivid when surrounded by darkness, it seemed the only faithful or bright possession left to the fallen man. Nay, there was yet another, scarcely less wretched than himself, or less clinging and affectionate than the woman who would have comforted him. That gentle girl, still tireless in her wish to please, crouched at his feet, and the soft notes of her lute stole up tremblingly and thrilled amid the darkness which shrouded them all. She felt that her father’s thoughts were far from her, that the melody which sprang from her weary fingers was all unheeded, and yet she played on, glad that in the darkness she could weep without being seen. So, as her hand wandered over the strings, tears streamed down her pale cheeks, unchecked, and fell upon it till the fingers were damp as if they had been laved in a fountain. Sometimes a sob would escape with the tears, but then came a gush of wilder music and the voice of her sorrow was concealed by it.

The wife still wound her fingers lovingly in the prisoner’s hand, grieved that no answering clasp was given back, and yet chiding herself for selfishness that she could expect to be thought of at such a time. The daughter wept on, and still coined her tears into music. But the husband and father had become almost unconscious of these efforts; he was like a caged lion indignant with his keepers, and with his heart full of the forest where he had once prowled a king. At last there was a sound of feet mustering at the prison door. It was about the hour when their evening meal might be expected. The little group looked listlessly up when the bolts were withdrawn, and the glare of a torch fell bright and crimson through the door. Somerset started to his feet, while the duchess withdrew her hand, and resuming her usual air of gentle dignity moved back a pace, where she stood pale and composed, ready to receive the lieutenant who, for the first time, entered their dungeon in person.

“My lord duke,” said the lieutenant, addressing his prisoner with some embarrassment, but throwing into his voice and manner that respectful homage which the fallen protector had scarcely hoped to witness again; “my lord duke, I am sorry to intrude on your privacy, or to interrupt the music with which this gentle lady soothes your prison hours, but I have orders for your removal to another room.”

“To another room!” exclaimed the duchess, while her cheek blanched whiter and her voice was changed with apprehension, “and we, his daughter Lady Jane and myself, surely, surely, we go also!”

“Not yet, noble lady; the protector has ordered it otherwise; but I beseech you take it not to heart, the separation will be a brief one,” said the lieutenant, bending before the terrified duchess as he spoke. “Nay, sweet lady, do not weep,” he continued, turning to Lady Jane, who had dropped her lute to the floor, and stood directly in the light, with her hands clasped firmly together and her tearful face exposed; “it pains me to witness such sorrow for a cause so groundless. It is but a change of apartments! A short time and you will doubtless receive the Lord Protector’s sanction to cheer the noble duke’s apartments once more; meantime, my orders are imperative! My lord duke, I trust that you will not be displeased with the change. Permit me to lead the way!”

“I will be ready to attend you in a moment,” replied the duke, “but first grant me a moment’s privacy. As my return is uncertain, I would take leave of the duchess and my child without so many witnesses!”

The lieutenant bowed, and withdrawing from the dungeon, closed the door. Then all the strong affections of his nature rushed back upon the wretched duke, for he believed that they were separating him from his family forever. He tried to speak, but could not; a rush of feelings, that had weighed down his heart to apathy before, choked his utterance; a silent embrace and the clinging arms of his wife were forced from his neck; another embrace, a blessing on his child, and before they could cry out or strive to detain him, the door swung to with a sharp crash, the light disappeared, and those suffering and helpless creatures were left alone.

“Mother!” That word arose amid the darkness faint and broken with tears.

“My child, we are alone!” replied a second voice, made strong by the agony of parting.

“No, not alone, mother, God is with us!” And, as she spoke, that noble girl stretched forth her hands and groped the way to her mother in the darkness. As she passed the lute, which still remained on the floor, her garments brushed the strings and a tone of music stole through the room—a pleasant tone—and it seemed that an angel had answered to those trustful words.

The duchess, who had sunk down in agony of heart, began to weep when she heard the sound, and so, in that dark and lonesome prison room, those two helpless beings clung together and comforted each other.

An hour went by, and once more a sound of heavy feet was heard outside their dungeon. The bolts shot back and a flood of light revealed the duchess sitting in the chair left vacant by her husband. Kneeling upon the floor, and half lying in her mother’s lap, was the Lady Jane; her face had been buried in the vestments of her parent, and she had been praying, but, as the door opened, her head was thrown back and a joyful expression filled the soft brown eyes turned eagerly upon the entrance. It was crowded with people, and an exclamation of pleasant surprise burst from the duchess and her daughter when two females entered the dungeon, each with a heavy bundle under her arm. In the foremost Lady Jane recognised her old nurse, and the other had long been chief tyring-woman to the duchess. Never were human beings so welcome, never two beings “so happy without knowing why,” as these old warm-hearted women.

“There,” said the nurse, holding the Lady Jane in her arms, and kissing her fondly between the words; “there, I say, you with the crusty face, roll in the coffer—that will do!” she added, as one of the men brought in a good sized coffer, which the duchess recognised as her own.

“Now,” continued the old woman, still with her arms around her astonished foster-child, “place that mirror on the table; softly, man, softly, you are not wielding your iron bolts now, and that silver frame is easily bruised if you knock the fillagree work about after that fashion!—there, set it down, for a bungler as you are; place the lamp in front; be careful, knave, you are treading on my lady’s lute—pick it up!” The man pushed the lute aside with his foot, and set the lamp down without regard to the old woman’s order.

“So, you cannot pick up the lute which a noble lady has fingered, forsooth! Wait a few days, and we shall see you creeping on your knees for the honor, instead of standing there with a look as stubborn as your own iron bars. Go, bring in the case of essence bottles, if that does not prove too heavy a task, and then take yourself off, for a clumsy cur; a pretty serving-man you would make, I trow!”

The man, on whom the old woman’s eloquence was exercised, seemed very willing to obey her last command. He brought in the case which she had desired, and, placing it on the table, left the dungeon and was about to lock the door, but just as he was closing it a clear cheerful voice was heard in conversation with him. After a moment’s delay, the half-closed door was swung open again to admit a handsome boy in the king’s livery, who carried a casket under his arm.

“That was well thought of, my pretty page,” said the nurse, approaching to take the casket, “but who has found courage to break the new protector’s seal? If it was you, boy, I only hope that handsome head may be firm on your shoulders six weeks hence. I would as soon have touched a red-hot coal as the bit of wax sticking to the smallest cabinet in the palace, and I saw all my lady’s jewels counted and locked up weeks ago.”

As she spoke, the old nurse allowed the Lady Jane to escape from her embrace, while she advanced to the page, and would have taken the casket from under his arm, but he stepped aside, with a roguish toss of the head, and dropping on his knee before the young lady, placed the casket in her hand. Bewildered, and as one in a dream, she gazed first upon the casket, then, wonderingly, on the handsome boy at her feet.

“What means this?” she said at last, looking doubtfully toward the duchess, who sat gazing upon the scene with equal wonder. “Our crest is upon the lid, but underneath are the royal arms of England.”

The duchess arose, and, taking the casket from her daughter’s hand, touched a spring. The lid flew open, and, with an exclamation of surprise, the ladies saw, not their own jewels, but a magnificent suite of diamonds which had once belonged to Jane Seymour, the Queen of Henry the Eighth; a young creature who had perished in giving birth to the present king—fortunate, perhaps, in being taken from her earthly state before she had learned how terrible a thing it was to “outlive her husband’s liking.”

“What means this—whence came the jewels?” exclaimed both ladies at once, turning their eyes from the gems that flashed and glowed in the lamplight, to the boy who had risen from his knees, and, with his plumed cap, was brushing away the dust which his vestments had caught from the floor.

“They were entrusted to me by my royal master, the king,” replied the boy, who paused in his occupation and gazed upon the casket, as he spoke, fascinated by the rich hues that played and quivered about it. “I was bade to deliver them to the Lady Jane Seymour—to say that the king desired that she would mingle them with the adornments of her fair person before she placed herself under the escort of the lieutenant, who will be here anon to bring farther orders from the Lord Protector.”

Before the astonished ladies could question him farther, he had obeyed some signal given him from the door, and left the dungeon.

It was in vain the noble duchess questioned the nurse and the tyring-woman. They were too much elated to gratify the anxiety of their mistress, even if they had not been as much mystified as herself. All they could say was, that a messenger had been sent from the Duke of Northumberland with orders to convey them to the tower; that they were commanded to take from the wardrobe, in the palace, every thing necessary for the toilet of their ladies. Though scarcely half an hour was allowed them for a choice, they had filled a coffer, and, with a few things hastily collected, were hurried into a barge and so to the dungeon of their mistress, scarcely realizing how it had all been brought about.

This unsatisfactory information only served to increase the excitement already produced in the minds of the prisoners; while their attendants were busily searching for keys, and smoothing the rich vestments that had been somewhat roughly crowded into the coffer, they looked on as people in a dream. The glare of lights which filled every gloomy angle of their dungeon; the velvet robes flung in glossy robes over the armed chair; the jewels, twinkling and flashing like a cluster of stars, on the table—all seemed like enchantment, and they looked on with a strange emotion of hope mingled with foreboding and almost with affright. Still there was something in all that had transpired, calculated to encourage more than to depress. So after a few brief words of consultation, the mother and daughter sat down and permitted the two women to adorn their persons without farther question. The duchess was speedily arrayed. In spite of her fears, a ray of hope had been awakened, and her face, before so pale and care-worn, became almost happy in its expression, save that a color, far more vivid than was natural to her cheek, betrayed the anxious fears that struggled against the more hopeful feeling that had sprung to life in her heart. She stood by as they wreathed the diamond tiara amid the tresses of her daughter’s hair, and, with her own fair hand, put back two or three of the brown curls where they fell over the young cheek, which gradually became warm and damask from the influence of anticipations which she could not entirely control, and yet which she trembled to encourage. How beautiful she looked in her robe of glowing velvet, with the tiara which had once adorned a queen, shedding its starry brightness amid her hair and over that pure forehead. Her neck, always beautiful, now gleamed out with more pearly whiteness beneath the string of brilliants that shed a rich light upon it; and, as the old nurse busied herself with the point lace which draped her rounded arms, she looked up to her mother, and a sweet, natural smile came faintly over her face. The mother did not smile, but a brighter expression lighted up her eyes, and the two looked almost happy making their strange toilet in a dungeon. The nurse had taken that little hand, which trembled in her clasp with conflicting emotions, and after pressing her lips upon the rosy palm, was drawing on the snowy glove with its embroidery of seed pearls, when there was a sound at the door, as of some person knocking against it with his knuckles, and, after a moment, the lieutenant of the tower once more presented himself. When the duchess advanced eagerly toward him, demanding a reason for all that had transpired, he answered with the calm politeness which usually marked his demeanor, that the Lord Protector had given orders that they should be removed to another room.

“But, tell me,” said the lady, almost beside herself with anxiety, “tell me, is it to the duke—is it to my husband you conduct us?”

A smile stole up to the lieutenant’s face. It might be one of irony aroused by the keen anxiety which she displayed: it might be a sign of admiration for the two beings that could look so lovely amid the gloom of a dungeon; but they could not read its meaning, and he would give no other reply to their question.

The Lady Jane began to tremble, but she placed her arm within that of the duchess, and was supported from the dungeon. Her heart died within her bosom as she found herself in a long, damp passage, surrounded by strange faces, and going, she could scarcely dream where. She looked in her mother’s face; it had become very pale again, and the arm on which she leaned shook beneath the weight of hers. All at once, she felt that the train of her dress had been lifted from the floor. She looked round, and there was that handsome little page grasping the folds of velvet in his small hand, while his bright face was lifted smilingly to hers. He seemed to comprehend and pity the anxiety betrayed by the troubled expression of her face, for drawing close to her side, he whispered⁠—

“Have no fear, sweet lady, there is nothing of harm to dread.”

“Sirrah, fall back to your place,” said the lieutenant, looking sternly over his shoulder.

The boy shrank back, but not till his words had brought comfort to the heart of Lady Jane, and were whispered in the ear of her mother.

On they went, through dark passages and gloomy chambers;—the flambeau carried by their guard, crimsoning the walls as they passed on, and their shadows changing, and seeming to dance in fantastic groups around them as the lights were tossed upwards and flared in the chill currents of air that drew down the corridors. At last, they entered a large room, lighted up and surrounded by a range of cushioned benches, from which some half dozen pages arose with great show of respect as the party entered. The lieutenant and his officers remained standing at the entrance to the room, while two of the pages ran forward to an opposite door, which they held open as if the ladies were expected to pass through. The duchess turned her eyes on the lieutenant, uncertain how to act; he bent his head, and drawing respectfully back, answered her appeal in a low voice.

“Lady,” he said, “my charge ends here; pass on to the next room, where the king awaits you.”

The duchess started as she heard this, and grasping the hand which rested on her arm, whispered⁠—

“Courage, my child, all will be well!”

Though taken by surprise, the noble lady had been so long accustomed to courts that, in crossing the ante-chamber, she resumed the quiet and dignified manner which anxiety had previously disturbed, but the quick feelings of youth could not be so readily controlled, and when the duchess presented herself in King Edward’s apartments, the young creature leaning on her arm was pale as death beneath all the warm glow of her jewels, and trembled visibly with suppressed agitation. The duchess cast a quick glance over the room. Her husband was there, not in his prison garments but robed as became his station, and by his side stood the Duke of Northumberland—though her heart leaped at the sight, she remained to all appearance composed and ready to sustain the dignity of her noble house before the man who had been its bitter enemy. Lady Jane also looked up, and recognised her father, with a thrill of joy such as she had seldom known before, but instantly the happy glow died from her face, and almost gasping for breath she clung to the duchess for support. She had seen another face, that made her heart tremble as she gazed—a face which had haunted her soul with a memory which would not be shaken off, but which in darkness and in sorrow had clung there as “the scent of roses hangs forever around the vase which once preserved them.” It was the face of Lord Dudley—the son of her father’s enemy. The man whom she had loved with all the truth and fervency of a pure and most affectionate heart, but from whom she was separated forever. Was it strange that her cheek and lips grew white or that those heavy lashes drooped sorrowfully beneath the look with which he regarded her? a look which made her heart turn faint with the memories which crowded upon it. She could not meet that glance again. Her father, the highborn and persecuted, was there, and yet that one look had made her almost forgetful of his wrongs.

Before these thoughts could fairly pass through her mind, and while the duchess hesitated at the door that she might have time to gain something of composure, the duke of Northumberland arose from his seat with that air of graceful and proud courtesy which no man could adopt with so much ease, and crossing the room, gave his hand to the duchess, inquired kindly after her health, and requested permission to lead her before the king, who sat in his large easy chair looking almost healthful, and made quite happy in the newly aroused power of conferring happiness upon others. Edward stood up to receive the duchess, and when she would have knelt, he took her hand in his and pressed it affectionately to his lips.

“His Grace of Northumberland will bear witness for us,” he said, “how ignorant we have been of all that you have suffered, and how deeply the knowledge grieved us when it did come. For our sake let all be forgotten; if any power is left to our feeble state, these persecutions shall not happen again.”

The lady, thus kindly addressed, made a grateful reply, which was somewhat restrained by the presence of Northumberland. He must have heard all that was passing, though his face wore the same bland and tranquil smile with which he had first approached her.

After pressing his lips once more to the fair hand in his, Edward turned to the Lady Jane, a smile broke over his pale face, and those large eyes, usually so regretful and sad in their expression, now sparkled with pleasant feelings.

“And our sweet cousin,” he said, looking down upon her lovely face as she sank to his knees, “methinks the prison fare has added to a beauty which was bright enough before. Nay, fair one, if you must do us homage, another hand must raise you.”

As he spoke, Edward had extended his hand as if to raise the young girl from his feet, but instead of this he laid it among the rich tresses of her hair, where it rested pale and caressingly lighted up by his own princely gift of jewels, and sinking to his seat again he bent forward and addressed the wondering girl in a low and earnest voice, smiling as he spoke, and faintly blushing as he saw that his words made the warm color deepen and glow in the cheek that had a moment before looked so cold and pale.

“Nay, do not rise yet,” he said, checking the modest impulse which prompted the bewildered girl to seek the shelter of her mother’s side, and as he spoke, Edward lifted his eyes from the drooping lashes that began to quiver upon the now red, now pallid cheeks, and looked expressively toward Lord Dudley, still keeping his hand upon the young creature’s head. He felt her start and tremble beneath his touch as Lord Dudley came eagerly forward, and though she did not look up, he knew by the trembling of her red lip and the rosy flood that deluged her face and neck, that the music of that familiar footstep had reached her heart.

Dudley returned the young monarch’s smile, as his hand was removed from its beautiful resting place, with a look of gratitude, and bending down he whispered a few words to the Lady Jane as he raised her from the king’s feet. She cast one timid glance on his face; it was eloquent with happiness, so eloquent that her eyes sought the floor again.

The king looked toward the ante-room and gave a signal with his hand. It was obeyed by our favorite page, who glided across the room and softly opened a door leading to the royal oratory. There, within the gleam of a silver sconce which flooded the little room as with a stream of moonlight, stood the king’s chaplain, in his sacerdotal robes, and with a book open in his hand. Upon the marble step at his feet lay two cushions of purple velvet fringed and starred with silver. Lord Dudley led his trembling charge forward, and they knelt down upon these cushions, while King Edward and all within the outer room stood up. A moment, and the deep solemn tones of the chaplain, as he read the marriage ceremony, filled the two apartments. The sweet face of Lady Jane was uplifted, and the pure light fell upon it, as she made her response in a voice rendered low by intense feeling—another response, louder and more firmly uttered—a benediction—and then Lord Dudley led his bride from the oratory.

“Your blessing, my father,” murmured the half happy, half terrified young creature, as she knelt with her lord at Somerset’s feet.

The Duke of Somerset bent down, kissed the beautiful forehead so bewitchingly uplifted, and gave the blessing which made his child happy. The duchess smiled, and wept amid her smiles.

“Ah, Jane,” she murmured, fondly putting back the ringlets her own hand had arranged, “ah, Jane, we little thought this evening would end so happily.”

The king stood by, and turned away to conceal the pleasant tears which filled his eyes.

“One thing more,” he said, “and our slumber will be sweet to-night;” as he spoke, the royal youth advanced to “The two Dukes,” where they stood side by side, and linking their hands together, placed his own upon them.

“Be friends,” he said, “the kingdom has need of you both.”

Edward felt their hands beneath his clasped together, and was satisfied. He was young, full of generous impulses, and believed that two ambitious men toiling for the same object could be friends.

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THE ABSENT WIFE.

———

BY ROBERT MORRIS.

———

At twilight’s soft and gentle hour

When shadows o’er the dull earth creep,

And nature feels the soothing power

Of coming night and balmy sleep⁠—

When the tired laborer hastens home

His wife and little ones to kiss,

And the young beauty anxiously

Awaits love’s hour of dream-like bliss⁠—

When nest-ward hie both bird and bee,

My fondest thought is still for thee!

Again at midnight’s solemn hour,

When eyes are closed and lips are still,

And Silence, like a spirit’s form,

Rests sweetly on each vale and hill,

When Love and Grief sit side by side

Around some sinking sufferer’s bed,

Or Crime in shadow seeks to hide

A form to every virtue dead,⁠—

E’en then in dreams thy form I see,

Or waking fondly turn to thee!

At rosy morn, when like a gleam

From some far brighter sphere than ours,

The sunlight with its golden sheen

Awakes the world and tints the flowers⁠—

When birds their tuneful numbers raise

And chant a welcome to the dawn,

When Nature lifts her voice in praise,

And day, creation-like, is born⁠—

Then, when are hymns from land and sea,

I bow to Heaven and think of thee!

My lonely room—my quiet hours,

No hand to press—no voice to cheer,

No form to meet in Pleasure’s bowers,

No song to melt the soul to tears⁠—

No welcome home with looks of joy,

No gentle song to tell of love,

No day-dreams of our cherished boy,

No child-like eyes to point above⁠—

No hand to soothe the ruffled brow,

Alas! how much I miss thee now!

Pity the wretch, who, doomed to roam

From day to day this lower sphere,

Unloved by any—loving none,

Still wasting on from year to year,

As lonely as some twinkling orb

That trembles in the distant sky,

A watcher mid the hosts of night

With none to share its company⁠—

Unloved while living, and when dead,

With none a heart-wrung tear to shed!

Alas! how cold and desolate

The path of such a one must be,

How dim his hopes—how sad his fate,

How cheerless his lone destiny!

No eye to mark each changing look,

No lip his fever’d brain to press;

No gentle one in whisper low,

With kindly words his ear to bless,⁠—

To point his thoughts from earth to sky,

And paint some bright Futurity!

Why do we live? Affections—ties

That well and form within the breast,

That intertwine our sympathies

With hopes and joys that make us blest⁠—

These point the panting spirit up

To milder realms beyond the skies,

And whisper to the trembling soul

New bliss awaits in paradise!

Oh! what were life with love away,

Where earth its bound—its limit clay!

Then soon return, fond one, return,

Thy greeting shall be kind and true,

Love’s lamp again shall brightly burn,

And life its purest joys renew!

Oh! absence, like the clouds that throw

Thick shadows o’er the summer sky,

But, passing, leave a brighter glow,

A deeper, purer blue on high:

So now I wait the passing gloom,

That light again may gladden home!

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SONG.

Oh! sing unto my soul, my love,

That all-entrancing lay,

Such as the seraphim above

Are singing far away⁠—

It comes as some familiar strain

Once heard in heaven, now heard again.

For sure—as olden sages tell⁠—

We are not all of earth:

The soul, by some mysterious spell,

Has glimpses of its birth;

And memories of things divine

Thrill o’er me at that voice of thine.

They come as half-forgotten dreams

From that eternal land,

The sounds of its celestial streams,

The shores of silver sand,

The angel faces in the air⁠—

Oh! sing, and waft my spirit there!

A. A. I.

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REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

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Zanoni, a Novel. By the Author of “Pelham,” “Rienzi,” &c. Two Volumes. Harper & Brothers.

A few years ago, in the first volume of “The Monthly Chronicle,” a tale, or rather the fragment of one, appeared, professedly from the pen of Bulwer. But the story defied critical as well as common sense to understand it. It opened abruptly and closed abruptly. It had, properly speaking, neither beginning nor end. It was incomprehensible. By general consent, “Zicci” was regarded as a freak of the author—its only merit was the novelty of having no merit at all. After being the jest of the reviewers for years, this story has been completed, and now lies before us, under the altered name of “Zanoni.”

The idea of the novel is borrowed from the dreams of the old Rosicrucians, and of the predecessors of that sect as far back as the Chaldeans. These visionaries imagined that man, by a rigid practice of virtue and the sublimation of every earthly feeling, could attain to a perfect comprehension of the most hidden secrets of nature—could hold communion with, and exercise control over, the unseen powers of the air—and could even preserve human life to an indefinite extent, by acquiring the means by which it might be perpetually renovated. The story opens at Naples, towards the close of the last century. The hero is a noble Chaldean, who, having attained to the knowledge of this last secret of his sect while yet in the prime of youthful manhood, wears now the same aspect as when he gazed on the stars from his home in Assyria, before the temple had been built on Mount Zion—before the Greeks had fought at Marathon—before the builders of the pyramids had died. To an imaginative mind, such a character possesses peculiar charms. He comes before us with all the solemnity of the past, making vivid to us the great deeds of buried ages. He has seen the army of Alexander on the Indus. He was in Egypt when Antony’s fleet set sail for Actium. He remembers when Demosthenes thundered for the crown, when Cæsar fell in the Senate House, when Rome was sacked by Attila. For three thousand years he has gazed on mankind with a face as unchanging as that of the weird Sphinx of the desert. For ninety generations, he has survived war, and pestilence, and the slow decay of the system,—a being mysterious in his subtle power, wonderful in his awful and majestic beauty. This exemption from death he has won by the subjugation of every feeling and passion to the mastery of a PURE INTELLECT. But still retaining his youth, he retains the capacity to love; and though, for such a lapse of ages, he has withstood temptation, he is destined at last to yield to it. He meets with and loves a beautiful Italian girl. He thus endangers his earthly immortality; for the moment he yields to earthly passion, however pure, his intellect becomes clouded, and he loses the prophetic faculty as well as others of his high attributes. Conscious of this, and knowing that he will bring peril and sorrow around the path of Viola by linking her fate with his, he struggles long against his passion, and even after yielding to it, endeavors to avert from her head the dangers which, as consequences of his conduct, thicken around her. In this Titanic conflict betwixt the intellect and the heart—in the alternation of the aspirations of the one and the agonizing throes of the other, lies the burden—as the old writers would call it—of the novel.

The idea, as thus stated, is simply grand. It has a unity that overpowers us. Had the author contented himself with merely developing this idea, omitting every thing which had no necessary bearing on the dénouement, he would have produced an almost faultless story. But he has, in a great measure, failed in carrying out his conception. He has weakened the effect by diverging from the burden of the story. As the novel has been circulated in various cheap forms throughout the country, we shall take it for granted that our readers have perused the book. This will save us the necessity of recapitulating the plot as the basis of our remarks.

The plot is grossly defective in several important particulars. Many even of the leading incidents have no bearing on the dénouement. The compact betwixt Zanoni and the Evil Eye, at Venice, is of this character. The author’s original intention was to make the condition exacted from the husband play a prominent part at the crisis; but he subsequently changed his mind, and brought about the dénouement by other means, forgetting, however, to rewrite this scene, so as to adapt it to the altered aspect of the story. The Evil Eye, when he comes to assert his rights, is cavalierly dismissed, in a very inartistical manner. It would have contributed far more to the unity of effect of which we have spoken, if the author had pursued his original design, and made the condition exacted from Zanoni, the sacrifice of his own life, when, at any future period, he should wish again to preserve the life of Viola. By following out this plan, Bulwer would have been saved the necessity of introducing the sanguinary scenes of the French Revolution; and the crisis would have been brought about in a far more natural manner than it is at present. The introduction of Robespierre and his associates is forced; it renders involved an otherwise simple and effective plot. We are astonished that an adept in Art, such as Bulwer professes to be, should have committed a blunder for which, if he had been a schoolboy, he should have been soundly whipped. If he intended to enlist and keep up the interest of his readers in his two chief characters, why has he distracted the attention by the introduction of The Reign of Terror, that most real of tragedies, whose horrors exceed anything that romance can imagine, whose thrilling story stops the pulsation of the heart for anything less terrible? The mind should have been left undistracted to contemplate the stern, Doric self-sacrifice of Zanoni! The author should not have sacrificed the unity of effect for the dying struggles of Robespierre, or any other human butcher in the blood-bespattered shambles of Paris. We can see what misled Bulwer. Not satisfied with the grandeur of his original conception of the dénouement, he sought to increase the interest by the clap-trap effect of rapidly shifting the perilous incidents in which all the chief actors are involved. This is a trick he has learned behind the foot-lights, and not in the study of the great old masters.

There are numerous minor errors in the plot. Glyndon’s liaison with Floretta does not advance the story, and the only part she plays in evolving the crisis, is the betrayal of Viola at Paris. If the plot had been handled properly, there would have been no necessity for her agency here. But the desire to paint mere sensual love, in this character, induced Bulwer to patch her into the tale. He has been persuaded, from the same reason, to introduce other unimportant characters we might name. In short, his motley array of personages reminds us of Burke’s graphic picture of Chatham’s last piebald ministry, where he compares it to a piece of mosaic, “here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white,” and humorously depicts the consternation of men, who had been all their lives libelling each other, on finding themselves “pigging together in the same truckle-bed.” In like manner the robber figures in the scene. So do Mervale and that worthy shrew his wife. These are all gross faults; for the necessity of preserving that oneness and entireness of effect, of which we have spoken so much, exists in peculiar force in a highly imaginative work like this. The introduction of supernal agents is, at all times, a dangerous experiment; and, when they are introduced, the illusion is to be kept up at every sacrifice. This can scarcely be done where the reader listens on one page to the converse of immortal powers, and on the next to the wrangling of a cross, sleepy wife with a drunken husband—when we are hurried from the lofty aspirations of Menjour and Zanoni, to the silly love toying betwixt Glyndon and Floretta. This brings us to another error in the author—an error which lies at the very bottom of all his errors.

The subject is unfit for prose. It properly belongs to the drama. The true province of the imagination is poetry, and although this divine faculty may stoop to prose, it can never truly shine but in the celestial garments of the muse. We do not deny the impossibility of treating an ideal theme in prose—we only assert the superior advantages which poetry affords for the same object. Transitions may be tolerated in the drama which should be anathematized in prose. But, above all, poetry would favor the preservation of the illusion to which we have already referred. The tone of a story such as Zanoni is, could be better preserved in poetry. The idea of the tale is inexpressibly grand, and might have been worked out with terrible effect. The struggle in Zanoni’s mind betwixt his love for Viola and his longing for an earthly immortality would have produced, if evolved by a master hand, a tragedy equal to Manfred, Faust, we had almost said Prometheus.

But we have said enough under this head. Let us look at the characters.

Of Zanoni we have already spoken. His character belongs to a lofty region of the ideal. The conception of Pisani, also, is highly imaginative. He comes in, at the opening of the tale, with the same effect with which a fine overture precedes an opera. He prepares the mind, by his unearthly music, for the mysteries that are to follow. His barbican, his solitary life, his dreams of wild figures and wilder music in the air, entitle him to a high rank in the ideal. What a grand thought is that which represents him at the theatre, mechanically performing his part, while all the time his soul is thinking of his beloved opera, so that often, unconsciously to himself, he bursts out into its weird and startling music!

Viola, the impersonation of the purest love, unalloyed by any sensual feeling—Glyndon, the weak, vacillating, yet aspiring man—and Menjour, the embodiment of mere intellect, apart from any influence of the heart, good or bad, are well drawn characters—of their kind. Their fault is that they have no individuality. All Bulwer’s personages partake of this error. There is not, in his numerous novels, a single personage whom we can look back on as on a real individual. Falstaff and Nicol Jarvie are so life-like that it seems as if we had drunk canary with the one, at the Boar’s Head, and “had a crack” with the other, on the causeway of Glasgow. Bulwer’s characters have none of this personal identity—they are only embodiments of certain passions or peculiarities. His actors are like the knights of Spencer, mere stalking horses for particular vices or virtues—or, like a wigmaker’s block, the representative in turn of the heads of all his customers. Every personage in Zanoni, without, as we remember, a single exception, is thus ticketed for a particular vice or virtue, like passengers in a railroad car. Now, we do not object to the introduction of these personages if they are necessary to the plot; but, for heaven’s sake, Mr. Bulwer, give us something more than mere automatons! Don’t ask us in to a second Mrs. Jarley’s wax-works!

We have spoken, in terms of high praise, of the character of Zanoni. We have, however, said that the theme was more adapted for poetry than prose. Having chosen prose, the author has erred in calling his book A NOVEL. Let us be understood. Feeble as is the province of prose to do justice to so ideal a character as Zanoni, we do not base our present objection to the book on that ground. It is one of the inalienable rights of man to show his ignorance, to make a blunder, or in any other way to play the fool. This is not the question now. The work before us purports to be a novel, and nothing but a novel. It might have been named a romance, a mystery, or the Lord knows what! But it is put forth as a novel, under the imprimatur of the writer of “Art in Fiction,” of the man who sets up to be the high priest of the synagogue! Is it such?

A novel, in the true acceptation of the name, is a picture of real life. The plot may be involved, but it must not transcend probability. The agencies introduced must belong to real life. Such were Gil Blas and Tom Jones, confessedly the two best novels extant. Whether the title was properly applied, in the inception, is not the question. Usage and common sense have affixed a definite meaning to the word. When authors cease to paint real life they cease to write novels. The tales may be very good of their kind, but they are no more novels than a sirloin is a mutton chop, or than Bulwer is the artist he pretends to be. Judged by this standard, Zanoni is not a novel. There are pictures of real life in it; but to paint society, as it is, was only collateral to the chief aim of the work.

We say nothing of the moral of the story; for all that is truly noble in Bulwer’s imaginary doctrines of the Rosicrucians is stolen from the pure precepts of our holy religion.

The English of the author is neither better nor worse than in his former novels. His language was always inflated, often bombastic. He personifies as desperately as ever. His allegories are as plentiful as Sancho Panza’s proverbs, or as an old maid’s ailings. The same straining after effect, the same attempts at fine writing which were such glaring defects in his former novels, are here perceptible. Through every line, the author looks out, eager, like Snug the joiner, to tell you he is there.

There are many fine thoughts, nevertheless, in these volumes; and, on the whole, the book is a valuable addition to our imaginative literature.

If we have dwelt longer on the faults than on the merits of “Zanoni,” it is because the latter are more apparent to the popular eye. We have dealt out, however, even-handed justice to the book, since the province of a critic is not that of the state advocate, who argues only on one side, but rather that of the judge who sums up the case, and of the jury who are sworn “a true verdict to give according to the evidence.” With this remark, we leave “Zanoni” to its fate.

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The Poets and Poetry of America, with an Historical Introduction. By Rufus Willmot Griswold. One vol. Carey & Hart: Philadelphia.

This is the best collection of the American Poets that has yet been made, whether we consider its completeness, its size, or the judgment displayed in its selections. The volume is issued in a style commensurate with its literary worth. The paper, type and printing are unexceptionable. Messrs. Carey & Hart have, in “The Poets and Poetry of America,” published the finest volume of the season.

The editor begins his selections of American Poets with Frenau, prefacing them, however, with an historical introduction evincing considerable research. In this introduction he shows that, prior to the revolution, the pretenders to the muse in the colonies scarcely rose to the level of versifiers. From Frenau downwards, the chain is kept up to the youngest poet of the day. About eighty-eight authors are embraced in the body of the work. To the selections from each author is prefixed a short but clear biography. The editor has not always been guided, in making his selections, by the relative merit of the various authors, but, in cases where the writers have published editions of their poems, he has been less copious in his extracts, than when the poet has left his works to take care of themselves. Thus we have the whole of Dana’s “Buccanier,” of Whittier’s “Mogg Magone,” of Sprague’s “Curiosity,” and of Drake’s “Culprit Fay.” Most of C. Fenno Hoffman’s songs are also included in the collection. But Pierpoint’s “Airs of Palestine,” are excluded, as are the longer and best poems of Willis. At the end of the volume is an appendix, in which about fifty writers, whom the editor has not thought worthy of a place in the body of his book, figure under the name of “Various Authors.” Such is the plan of the work. A word, in detail, on its merits.

We have said that this volume is superior to any former collection of the American Poets, whether we regard its size, its completeness, or the taste displayed in the selections. This is our general opinion of the book. We do not, however, always coincide with the judgment of the editor. There are several writers in the Appendix who have as good claims to appear in the body of the work, as others who figure largely in the latter more honorable station. There are many mere versifiers included in the selection who should have been excluded, or else others who have been left out should have been admitted. Perhaps the author, without being aware of it himself, has unduly favored the writers of New England. Instances of all these faults will be noticed by the reader, and we need not further allude to them.

The editor has scarcely done justice to some of our younger poets, either in his estimate of their genius, or in his selections from their poems. A glaring instance of this is the case of Lowell, a young poet, to whom others than ourselves have assigned a genius of the highest rank. We would have been better pleased to have seen a more liberal notice of his poems. We know that, with the exception of “Rosaline,” better selections might have been made from his works. A few years hence, Mr. Griswold himself will be amazed that he assigned no more space to Lowell than to M’Lellan, Tuckerman, and others of “Οι Πολλοι.” Holmes is another instance of the injustice done an author by the editor’s selections. The author of “Old Ironsides” has written better poems than that, all about the old man, of whom

“My grandmamma has said—

Poor old lady! she is dead

Long ago—

That he had a Roman nose,

And his cheek was like a rose

In the snow.”

And again,

“I know it is a sin

For me to sit and grin

At him here,

But the old three-cornered hat,

And the breeches—and all that,

Are so queer!”

Little more can be said in the way of criticism, unless we should follow up these remarks by further examples in detail. For this we have no inclination, since, after all, the book, as a whole, is one of high merit; and, from the very nature of the work, it is impossible for an editor to produce a faultless volume. A thorough analysis of the book might induce many, whose minds are not comprehensive, to think it a bad, instead of what it really is, a good work.

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The Two Admirals, a Tale, by the Author of “The Pilot,” “Red Rover,” &c., &c. Two Vols. Lea & Blanchard: Philadelphia.

Mr. Cooper, in the book before us, has re-asserted his right to the rank of the first living American novelist. The “Two Admirals” is not inferior to the best of his works. The scenes are described with that graphic force for which our author is distinguished above all writers of sea-tales. The two combats betwixt Sir Gervaise Oakes and the French fleet are told with unusual power. But there is nothing like character in the tale, and the plot is shamefully commonplace. Mr. Cooper seems to be aware of his want of ability to write a story, or paint a character, and he therefore wisely expends his whole strength on particular incidents and scenes. In his line he is without a rival here or in Europe.

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The Poetical Works of John Sterling. First American Edition. One vol. Herman Hooker: Philadelphia.

Every man of taste will rejoice at this collected edition of the poems of Sterling, the “Archæus” of Blackwood. To Rufus W. Griswold, the editor, and Herman Hooker, the publisher, the American public is indebted for this edition of the works of one of the most pure, delicate, fanciful, and idiomatic, of the poets of the present day.

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Essays for Summer Hours. By Charles Lanman. Second Edition. Boston: Hilliard, Grey & Co. London: Wiley & Putnam.

These essays are distinguished by grace, sweetness, and graphic force of language. The author is a devout lover of nature in all her moods, but especially in her more quiet aspects. He has produced a book which will be no discredit to him.

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Tecumseh, or the West thirty years since. A Poem. By Geo. H. Colton. Wiley & Putnam: New York & London. Moore & Wiley: Philadelphia.

This book is an elegant specimen of American typography. Of the merits of the poem we shall not speak until July, when we trust to have leisure and space for the task.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

A cover was created for this eBook and is placed in the public domain.

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 6, June 1842, George R. Graham, Editor]