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"Then followed that beautiful season

Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of All-Saints. Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape

Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.

Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart of the

ocean

Was for a moment consoled.

blended.

All sounds were in harmony

Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the farm

yards,

Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of pigeons,
All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, and the great

sun

Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapors around

him;

While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and yellow, Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree of the forest Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with mantles and jewels." pp. 24, 25.

We give the description of the burning of the village :

"Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the bloodred

Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the horizon Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow,

Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together.

Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village,

Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the roadstead.

Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering

hands of a martyr.

Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,

Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled.

"These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard.

Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish, VOL. LXVI. No. 138.

21

'We shall behold no more our homes in the village of GrandPré!'

Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm-yards, Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted. Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encampments

Far in the western prairies or forests that skirt the Nebraska, When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the whirlwind,

Or the loud-bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river.
Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds and the

horses

Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed o'er the meadows."- pp. 74-77.

We must add one or two passages from the second part, as a contrast to what precedes :

"Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with forests,

Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river;

Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders. Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plumelike

Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the

current,

Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand-bars
Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of their mar-

gin,

Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded.
Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river,
Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens,
Stood the houses of planters, with negro-cabins and dove-cots.
They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual sum-

mer,

Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and cit

ron,

Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward.
They, too, swerved from their course; and, entering the Bayou
of Plaquemine,

Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters,
Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction.
Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cy.

press

Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid air
Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons
Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset,
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter.
Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the wa-

ter,

Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches,

Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a ruin.

Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things around

them;

And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder and sad

ness,

Strange forebodings of ill, unseen, and that cannot be compassed. As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies, Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa, So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of evil, Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.". pp. 92-95.

66 Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape; Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest

Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.

Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver,

Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water. Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness. Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around

her.

Then from a neighbouring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,

Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water,

Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.

Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. Then single notes were heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation; Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision, As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the - pp. 104, 105.

branches.".

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"Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its

shadow, Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping. Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church-yard, In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed. Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them, Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and for ever,

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy, Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their

labors,

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!

"Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches

Dwells another race, with other customs and language.
Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile
Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom.
In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy;
Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of home-
spun,

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story,

While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighbouring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest."- pp. 161-163.

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ART. VIII. -CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. Breve Racconto delle Cose Chiesastiche più Importanti, occorse nel Viaggio fatto sulla Real Fregata Urania, dal 15 Agosto, 1844, al 4 Marzo, 1846. Per RAFFAELE CAPOBIANCO, Cavaliere del Real Ordine del Merito di Francesco I., e Cappellano della Real Marina. [A Short Narrative of the most Important Ecclesiastical Matters occurring in a Voyage made on Board the Royal Frigate Urania, from the 15th of August, 1844, to the 4th of March, 1846. By RAFFAELE CAPOBIANCO, Cavalier, &c., and Chaplain of the Royal Navy.] Napoli. 1846. 8vo. pp. 77.

A LITTLE more than two years ago, a frigate belonging to the navy of his Majesty the King of Naples made its appearance in our waters. After remaining a few weeks in the harbours of New York and Boston, the Urania, for this was her name, set sail again for Europe, and having visited some of the ports of Holland, England, and France, returned to Naples in March, 1846. Since her return, an account of her voyage has been published by her worthy chaplain, Padre Raffaele Capobianco, which we esteem ourselves fortunate in being able to introduce to the notice of American readers. Since the publications of Mrs. Trollope and Colonel Hamilton, we have hardly met with a book of travels which can compare with it in liberality of opinion or precision of information.

It appears that the voyage of which it is an account was undertaken at the command of the king, who desired to exercise a portion of his marine, which was suffering from long inaction. With this view, the more important portions of the world were to be visited. After a long passage across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, and thence to St. Helena, the frigate arrived at New York (or New Jork, as the necessities of the Italian language compel it to be written) in the spring of 1845. The chaplain describes the city at some length, but appears to have been chiefly interested in the signs of the flourishing state of the Catholic faith, under the auspices of the excellent Bishop Hus, or Hughes, as we have been accustomed to see the name spelt, and concludes as follows:

"The infernal enemy, who, like a hungry lion, continually goes about seeking whom he may devour, tried to insinuate the poison of error among our crew by means of Protestants, who, pretending to be possessors of the true sense of the divine Scrip

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