A foolish member of committee ventured to reply

"Come, come, Taylor! you did not always give way to fear. You are brave when you like, and have defied death before now!"

Taylor himself felt that there was more in their | lies before me. It came up against me like a wall silence than sympathy for him. The silence was and shut me in-into itself-and out from the light too dead to be the expression of sympathy. There of earth and the look of love. Back, back!" was awe and terror in it. A dreadful assurance of addressing the darkness, which he continued to his wife's death brooded over his soul. A horror see; "not yet so near! Take these gloomy eyes took hold upon him that he would be too late for away! These ?-these are your eyes, friends! It her forgiveness. His mind stumbled over dark is a fearful thing to die mountains of fear, as one would stumble at night over a place of graves. He yearned to reach his own door, and yet shook to his centre at every nearer step. When, at length, the weary height was reached, and the door pressed open, and the foreboding of death passed into certainty-when his eye rested on the still body of his neglected wife, and brought back the knowledge that the divider had come up into his home, the little strength which remained gathered itself into one terrific energy; he burst away from the men who supported him on his chair, flung himself passionately on the yet warm remains, and sobbed there like a little child until the energy had spent its force, and then he fell forward exhausted on the floor.

There was but one bed in the house. The men laid the body of the wife upon a table, and lifted the husband into her place.

The surgeon could do little. What was within his power to soothe the pain of his patient he did, added a few simple directions to the committee, and took his leave.

A half-hour elapsed before Taylor showed signs of revival. At length he began to recognize the faces around him, and his own condition. For awhile his mind came to him in mere gushes and starts, between the pauses of which he either raved or sank into stupor. The sight of the dead body on the table overcame him. He sobbed anew, and groaned bitterly. When they offered to remove it to another place, he besought them to refrain.

Taylor fixed his eyes upon him and said, slowly at first

"When death is still far away, it is easy to defy it; easy, I think, in any case, if the heart were right. It is the heart that makes brave. If I had the heart of this little child, I would still defy it. But look ye, man," and he started from his pillow and seized the man by the arm, and pointed to the table and spoke more rapidly, "when the heart is full of darkness, and dark billows are rolling in upon me from that dead body, crested with upbraiding eyes, and all eternity lies before me without one star, I have good need to fear!"

It was a dull, ignorant soul he addressed, one who had not prudence enough to be silent; and who, therefore, plunged again into his ignorance and brought out this reply:

"Do not take things so darkly as all that; has not your life been a useful and glorious one?"

Taylor let go his hold of the speaker's arm, and lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes for a little. When he had gathered his thoughts into some shape he said:

"Comrades, it is an untrue word which has been spoken. My life has not been glorious. A glorious life is a good one, and mine has not been that. I have been living in a vain show!" He paused a "While light remains, let me look upon her! moment while a spasm of pain shot through him. will not be long. Good soul, rest! There is rest" I have not long to be with you: I have often for the like of thee !" spoken to you, I have often said foolish things to you, about our duty to the country. Hear me once

Then, addressing himself—

It

The men strove to quiet him. "Men, men," he answered, "be not neglectful of your homes! Death will creep in when ye are out. Return to your own houses. Leave me here, I am better. Do leave me! Perhaps your wives are dying! Go home to your wives! There now, I can be left-go! I have something to say to my wife yet, and I would be alone. But, what!" remembering his daughter, "I miss Jane! Is not Jane there! Look for Jane! Ah, thou fatherless and motherless little one, thou art there!"

"It is

"Thou wretched man, for an hour of a vain more before I leave you. A time like this alters show to leave her here to die alone!" one's view of many things, and of nothing more than our past opinions." Another pause. not glorious to abandon duties which lie around us from our infancy. It is not glorious to rush out into public life and leave the fireside desolate. No, not even for the rights of our trade! To scoop out a wider runlet for our earnings is a poor work, when to do it we must stop up the channels of the heart." His mouth filled with blood, and they besought him to lie silent. "I may improve the minutes which remain. I would fain undo any evil I have done. For I have abused to worthless ends my speaking talent. Honor no man henceforth as you honored me. Honor is due to him only who deserves it at home; for it is a shameful thing to appear great in the public eye, and be all the while useless at home." A pause. "And now, comrades, farewell. Be great at home. Duty lies in that direction. If you see Cameron, ask him to forgive and forget my many foolish words. Good night, good night!"

Jane had been stupefied by the events of the afternoon. When the strange men carried in her father, all covered with blood, she shrank terrified into a corner, and now came forward trembling from head to foot. She could not speak, but she lifted up her eyes upon her father, and there went forth from them such kind meanings, that he smiled, returning her look as if he had drunk in the quietness of her spirit and made it his own. New strength came to him, and his eyes closed slowly into sleep.

But it was disturbed. A change came up into his countenance. It was as if some fearful dream were darkening through it. His whole frame quivered as if in agony. One of the men touched him to break the dream, and he awoke and rolled his eyes wildly round upon them all.

"Ha!" he cried, "it is a fearful darkness which

He fell once more into a sleep. The men left on some committee business connected with the procession, and Jane had to sit alone with the dying and dead. Her father's sleep was heavy and unrefreshing. The same dark cloud which appeared before, came ever, at brief intervals, over his brow. His mind was toiling, though his eyes were closed.

It might have been an hour ere he awoke. He was much weaker. His voice now could not rise

above a whisper. His first inquiry was if the men | one thing, that the beginnings of all patriotism are were gone. Then he called his daughter nearer, in the heart and home, and that the public-spiritedand asked how it had been with her mother before ness which is not rooted there is spurious and she died.

(Hush, my light-bringer! the sweetest light is selves by the lie, that they are bearing the yoke of painful to an eye diseased.)

From the Spectator.

priate. Venice is very briefly dismissed; Milan AN AMERICAN'S SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN shortly, but not so short. The longest topic at

EUROPE.*

THIS volume is akin to various other books that have lately appeared from American pens; where a traveller, without special qualification or novelty of ground, keeps a journal of his thoughts and observations, or writes home an account of his journeyings in letters to his friends, which in due time are revised and given to the world. Whether the "cacoethes scribendi," a fashion of cheap books, or the rarity of good travels in America-for only the very best of this kind of English literature, and that of modern date, seems to be reprinted--be the cause of this Transatlantic fecundity, we know not. The result is a numerous class of books, which, if not intrinsically worse than the inferior tours produced by the Britishers, are more empty and more wordy -less adapted to an old people, with whose general public the age of mere sentiment and outpourings of individual opinion have passed away.

Florence is a panegyric on the American sculptor Power, done with a critical tone, but with the unflinching purpose of a hackney puffmonger: the Yankee is placed on a level with the artist who produced the Medician Venus. Art is a leading subject at Rome also, but relieved by sights in which life predominates.

The form of the book is that of extracts from letters; the style is closer and more forcible than is usually exhibited by American writers, with a greater air of scholarly training; but the sustained interest is not equal to the ability of the writer, pernaps from the incongruity of the matter in reference to the form. We expect a book of travels, with its narratives, its incidents, and its pictures: we get a series of disquisitions, without notice, title, or arrangement, and are consequently disappointed.

The author commences with England; but there is not much space devoted to this country, and what there is chiefly relates to Wordsworth and the Lakes. It might be the contrast of London and seven years ago, but the sketches both of Havre and Rouen seem to bear hard upon those striking and rather pleasant towns of Normandy.

The author of Scenes and Thoughts in Europe, though belonging to the common grade of American tourists, is rather better qualified than most of them. He has not, indeed, any special training which would enable him to travel advantageously in Europe; but he has better qualifications than the "At three o'clock, we left London by railroad for run of his countrymen. In his youth he sojourned Southampton, which we reached at six; and, crossin Germany, if he did not study there; and in addi- ing the channel by steamboat in the night, entered tion to the larger ideas which this advantage has the port of Havre at ten the next morning. The given him, he seems to have contracted more scruples town looked dirty at a distance, and is dirtier than as to the sanctities of social life and personal feeling. it looked. The small craft we passed in the harbor Either in Europe or America, he has given some were unclean and unwieldy. The streets ran filth study to history and art, and considered the complex to a degree that offended both eyes and nose. Knots system of European society as it has grown up of idle, shabby men were standing at corners gosduring so many ages, with an American bias, it is siping, and looking at parrots and monkeys exposed true, but without the self-sufficient vulgarity which for sale. The inn we got into, commended as one characterizes many of his compatriots. Neither did of the best, was so dirty that we could not bear to he scamper over Europe at railroad speed. His face the prospect of a night in it. We hired a carletters embrace a period of nearly three years; and though he often left places slightly inspected, and lingered in others of no greater importance, time was allowed for the formation of opinion.

riage, and started at four with post-horses for Rouen, which we reached at midnight. Here we spent Sunday. Rouen is finely placed, on the Seine, with lofty hills about it. In the diligence in which we started early on Monday to overtake fifteen miles up the river the steamboat to St. Germain, I heard a Frenchman say to a Frenchwoman, Rouen est le pot-de-chambre de la Normandie.' You know of the cathedral at Rouen, and of the Maid of Orleans' execution; but this is probably in all respects new to you. To me it was also new and satisfactory; being an indication that some of the dwellers in this region have a consciousness of the presence of stenches."

FRENCHMEN AND PARIS.

And it is opinion, conjoined with the writer's literary ability, that gives its character to Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. Though by no means an imitator of Emerson, or even a disciple, he resembles that writer in his manner of investigating things, so as to impart attraction to rather worn subjects by the vigor and novelty of his views. In fact, a great part of the book is less travels than essays upon subjects turned up in travelling. Incidents are few; the descriptions are not numerous, and are less of the things themselves than what they suggest to the writer: criticism or disquisition is the hasis of all the more elaborately handled topics. "A Frenchman more than other men is dependent The number of persons of leisure in Europe com- upon things without himself. Nature and his own pared with America, leads to a view of the Euro- mind, with domestic interests and recreations, are pean aristocracy; in which a good deal of largeness not enough to complete his daily circle. For his and shrewdness are mixed up with some prejudice best enjoyment he must have a succession of factiand some overstrained positions. The writer sojourned for six weeks at a cold-water-cure station; and he gives one of the best because the most logical expositions in its favor that we have met with. Paris suggests an estimate of the French people, and a criticism on French literature and its principal classics; which might perhaps have been done at home, but it is so obviously suggested by the genius loci, and draws so much illustration from the surrounding scenes, that it looks natural and appro

*Published by Wiley & Putnam, New York.

tious excitements. Out of this want Paris has grown to be the capital of the world for superficial amusements. Here are the appliances, multiplied and diversified with the keenest refinement of sensual ingenuity, for keeping the mind busy without labor and fascinated without sensibility. The senses are beset with piquant baits. Whoever has money in his purse, and can satisfy through gold his chief wants, need have little thought of the day or the year. He finds a life all prepared for him, and selects it as he does his dinner from the voluminous carte of the restaurant. To live is for him as easy

as to make music on a hand-organ; with but slight | forgetful of mere differences, they were met for a physical effort from himself, he is borne along from common object :week to week and from season to season on an unresting current of diversions. Here the sensual can pass years without satiety, and the slothful without ennui. Paris is the Elysium of the idler, and for barren minds a paradise."

FRENCH TRAGEDY.

a

"We make no compromise by meeting for this purpose. I would not meet here to-day if I thought I was making a compromise of my religious opinions. I avow that I am most decidedly in favor of the Established Church-I am in favor of that form of Christianity established in this country; I give "The French appear not to have had depth enough decided preference to its forms, to its doctrines, to produce an original tragic drama. and its episcopal order; and I make no sacrifice of The tragic inaterial, whereof sentiment is as essential an ele- my principles by cordially uniting with others who ment as passion, is meagre in them compared with differ with me upon these points, but concur with the Germans or English; hence the possibility and me in that high principle that the Bible contains even necessity of a simpler plot and a measured the word of God. That principle has been so powregularity. Corneille or Racine could not have erfully described by one of the ablest men, that I wrought a tragedy out of a tradition or a modern cannot do better than repeat his own words. By fable; they require a familiarized historical subject. the religion of Protestants,' says Chillingworth, I The nature of French tragedy compared with do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or CalEnglish is happily illustrated by the Hamlet of vin, or Melancthon, nor the Confession of AugsDucis, which I have seen played at the Théâtre burg or Geneva, nor the Catechism of Heidelberg, Français. The title of the piece is, 'Hamlet, nor the Articles of the Church of England; no, nor Tragédie en 5 acts, imitée de l'Anglais par Ducis.' the harmony of Protestant confessions; but that A fitter title were, Hamlet, with the part of Ham-wherein they all agree, and to which they all sublet left out by particular desire of French taste.' scribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of It is as much an imitation of Shakspeare as straight their faith and actions-that is, the Bible; the Bible, walks and parallel lines of trees are an imitation of I say, the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants. nature. Hamlet is resolved into a tender-hearted, Retaining, then, (said Sir Robert,) my opinion in affectionate son. He has not been put aside, but is favor of the Established Church of this country, king. Ophelia does anything but go mad. The but fully concurring in the principles laid down by mother is overwhelmed with remorse for the mur- that writer, I have great pleasure in cooperating der, which she confesses to a confidant. The heart with those who differ with me in points of church of Hamlet's mystery is plucked out. The poetry government, but I have still greater pleasure in is flattened into phrases. The billowy sea of Shak-cooperating with them in spreading the knowledge speare is belittled to a smooth pond, in every part of that word from which we all draw our common whereof you can touch bottom. It is not deep enough to dive in."

6

CLIMATE OF FLORENCE.

"It is much like ours of the Middle States, except that our winter is colder and drier. An American is surprised at this similarity on arriving in Italy; having got his notions from English writers, who, coming from their cloudy northern island, are enchanted with the sunny temperance of an Italian winter, and oppressed by the heats of summer. The heat is not greater than it is in Maryland and our winter is finer certainly than that of Florence, being drier, and though colder at the same time sunnier. As with us, the autumn, so gloomy in England, is cheerful, clear, and calm, holding on till Christmas. They have hardly more than two cold months. Already in March the spring is awake, and soon drives back winter, first into the highest Apennines, where he clings for a brief space, and thence retreats up to the topmost Alps, not to reappear for nine or ten months. Nor is that beautiful child of the light and air the Italian sunset more beautiful than the American."

faith."

ADVERTISING IN GERMANY --A mercantile house at Berlin has proposed to all the railway companies of Germany to supply all their carriages with silk blinds for nothing. They simply propose to reserve to themselves the right of changing the blinds as often as they may please; and they require the companies to engage themselves not to accept, during fifty years, either for money or gratuitously, any blinds but theirs. Their object is to cover the blinds with advertisements.- Galignani's Messenger.

WE E announce with great regret the death of Dr. Andrew Combe; which occurred at Gorgie Mill, near Edinburgh, on the night of Monday last. Dr. Combe was only forty-nine years of age; and, although he had long been afflicted by disease of the lungs, no expectations were entertained of his dissolution until within a week of that event. His immediate illness was a sudden attack of bowel complaint, under the weakening influence of which he sank without pain. Dr. Combe was one of the physicians in ordinary to the queen, and corresponding member of the imperial and royal society of physicians of Vienna; and his works-the chief of SIR R. PEEL AND THE BIBLE.-Sir Robert Peel which were, The Principles of Physiology applied presided over the annual meeting of the Tamworth to the Preservation of Health, A Treatise on the Bible Society, held 18 August, in the town-hall. Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy, Sir Robert's speech was the great feature of the and The Physiology of Digestion-had passed proceedings, otherwise of a somewhat formal nature. through a number of editions, and attained a celebSir Robert enlarged on the reasons for the neces-rity rarely equalled, both in Europe and America, sity of greater exertion to disseminate the Bible; Just before his last attack of illness he was actively among the chief of which were the increase of pop- engaged in the preparation of a communication ulation, the increased congregation of working peo-intended for insertion in the Times, on a subject of ple in manufactories and railway works, and the extension of colonial establishments. He insisted upon the importance of Christian and especially of Protestant unity; and asserted its moral influence, as shown in the effect of missions to China. He therefore rejoiced at the present meeting, in which,

the greatest moment within his peculiar branches of philanthropic inquiry, namely, the nature and causes of the ship fever which has swept off within the last few months so many hundreds of the unfortunate Irish in their emigration to the United States. -Times.

From the Edinburgh Review.

1. A Lytell Geste of Robin Hode, with other Ancient and Modern Ballads and Songs relating to this celebrated Yeoman. Edited by JOHN MATHEW GUTCH, F. S. A. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1847. 2. Robin Hood; a Fragment by the late ROBERT SOUTHEY, and CAROLINE SOUTHEY. 8vo. Edinburgh and London: 1847.

ON dismissing, in November, 1644, the commissioners whom the parliament had sent to him at Oxford to treat for peace, Charles I. most needlessly affronted them. He refused them the usual courtesy of communicating to them the contents of his answer to the proposals of which they had been the bearers. The commissioners ventured to remark upon the incivility, on which his majesty packed them off with the following rebuke-" What is that to you, who are but to carry what I send? And if I will send the song of Robin Hood and Little John, you must carry it." Obsequious cavaliers very probably repeated this impertinence as a notable exhibition of royal spirit; but graver men would ponder on it, as a truer revelation of the character and temper of their infatuated king, than what Clarendon had studied to impress upon his State Papers, in language so solemn and imposing, that it is almost impossible even now to distrust their majestic

tone.

Our present purpose, however, is not to comment upon the ill-humor of Charles I., but upon his illustration. The song of Robin Hood and Little John, was the most popular instance of a familiar and household story that occurred to him. It was in the mouth of every one, from the palace to the cottage; and it is so still. It has floated down the stream of time for many centuries, and although it may have lost, in its descent, somewhat of its ancient fascination, there is even now an attractiveness about it, sufficient to allure many eyes and stir many hearts quite enough to justify the publication of two as handsome volumes as those put forth by Mr. Gutch; and to enliven by its animating title a more appropriate fragment than the posthumous Robin Hood of Southey, which is not likely, we fear, to add another leaf from the holly-tree or the laurel, to either name.

birth, which is set down by the old writers as in Warwickshire and Staffordshire; and will in due Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire, is now claimed by time be contested by the true Homeric number of candidates. A singular saying, "Robin Whood in Barnwood stood," had at one time made good its way into Westminster Hall, as a proverb for a quibble. It appears, by the reports, that reverend judges have done it the honor of introducing it on more than one occasion. If they could have foreseen the trouble they were bringing upon Ritson by this now obscure allusion, it may be hoped that they would have refrained-the outlaw would have been scarcely more perplexed at finding himself before them in his own proper form in open court.

Robin Hood's companions have a kind of coparcenary in their master's popularity. Wakefield still remembers her celebrated pinder George à Green; and he is a sign-post hero, not only there, but in places far distant from the scene of his first encounter with his chief. The names of Maid Marian and Friar Tuck, of Scarlet Much, and, above all, of Little John, are linked indissolubly to that of their leader; and the last of them eclipses, in the circumstances of his death and burial, even the exploits of his chief. If we are to believe his chroniclers, Little John lies interred, not only in three places, but in three kingdoms. England shows the house in which he died, and the spot where he was buried, at Hathersage in Derbyshire; and tradition-that safe guide, as we are told, in matters of faith, but not over trustworthy in matters of history-asserts that his grave having been sacrilegiously opened, some years ago, "by order of Captain James Shuttleworth," a thighbone was found in it of gigantic dimensions. The bone was as malicious as it was long. The curious captain and his coadjutor, a wicked sexton, were instantly visited by " many unlucky accidents." The thighbone threw the captain off his horse, and tripped up the sexton in his church-yard. Neither of them could obtain peace of mind or safety of body, until the pilfered os femoris was restored to its allotted resting-place, when "all these troubles ceased." One would have thought that these facts constituted a strong case for England. But Scotland overturns them all, by proving that she gave Little John a The existing evidences of Robin Hood's wide- grave, not by any mere tradition, but by the ocular spread popularity are singularly numerous. There testimony of that most veracious canon of Aberdeen, is scarcely a country in England, or any class of the historian Hector Boece. We read in Bellenancient remains, which, in some place or other, den's translation, that, "in Murray land is the kirk does not claim a kind of relationship to this cele- of Pette, quhare the banis of Littill Johne remanis, brated hero. Cairns on Blackdown in Somerset- in gret admiratioun of pepill;" and he very judishire, and barrows near to Whitby in Yorkshire and ciously adds, in reasonable explanation of the popLudlow in Shropshire, are termed Robin Hood's ular admiration, "He hes bene fourtene fut of hicht, pricks or butts; lofty natural eminences in Glouces- with square membris effering thairto. Six yeris tershire and Derbyshire, are Robin Hood's hills; afore the cuming of this werk to licht, we saw his a huge rock near Matlock is Robin Hood's Tor; hanche bane, als mekill as the haill bane of ane ancient boundary stones, as in Lincolnshire, are man; for we schot our arme in the mouth thairof; Robin Hood's crosses; a presumed loggan or rock- be quhilk apperis," he concludes, and it is the ing-stone in Yorkshire, is Robin Hood's penny- moral of his story, "how strang and square pepill stone; a fountain near Nottingham, another between grew, in our regioun, afore they were effeminat Doncaster and Wakefield, and one in Lancashire, with lust and intemperance of mouth."-(Bellenare Robin Hood's wells; a cave in Nottinghamshire den's Boece, i. xxxiv.) But Scotland is not allowed is his stable; a rude natural rock in Hope Dale is to repose in triumph, notwithstanding the possession his chair; a chasm at Chatsworth is his leap; of this enormous hanch-bane," and the energetic Blackstone Edge in Lancashire is his bed: ancient testimony of Hector Boece. Ireland puts forth a oaks, in various parts of the country, are his trees; claim which has an antecedent probability, arising Plumpton park in Cumberland, the forest of Feck- from its singular conformity with the national charenham in Worcestershire, the deep glades of Sher-acter. Little John, we are told, took refuge from wood and Barnsdale, and the innermost recesses of English oppression in the neighborhood of Dublin. Needwood and Inglewood, still resound with his A hillock, perhaps a barrow, which once stood on exploits; while Loxley, the presumed place of his Ostmantowne green, and was termed Little John's