now ardently espoused. Marrying those interests, his offspring was, alas! but a dungeon and chains. He declared himself the defender of Geneva, against the Duke of Savoy. By that Duke was Geneva captured. Bonnivard, taken prisoner, was thrown into the dungeons of Chillon in 1530. In the vigour of his years, in the full vivacity of his spirit, in the highest energies of his intellect, in the perfect bloom of his affections, we find him torn from the sphere wherein those qualities are so useful and so graceful, and chained to the pillar of a damp dungeon. There he pines away, without the satisfaction of feeling that his miseries tend to redeem, or in any way to benefit, his adopted country. But, Martyr-patriot, your sufferings have been not altogether in vain. Thinking of you, shall hearts in every age feel their devotion to liberty waxing fresher and more strong; and deeper, sterner, and more destroying shall grow their hatred of oppression. It is the sound of chains like yours which arouses to deeds of retribution the free spirits of the world, and from out your dreary dungeons shall go for ever forth, "appeals from tyranny to God."

Entering beneath the huge portals, I found myself descending into the cells, under the conduct of a female. "The jailer of Bonnivard had not so pleasant a voice as yours," said I. God hasten that time, when all the political dungeons on the earth and under the earth shall be entered only by persons with motives like mine, and I may well add, under like fair guidance.

"There are seven pillars of Gothic mould
In Chillon's dungeons, deep and old;
There are seven columns, massy and gray,
Dim with a dull imprison'd ray."

Among these columns I now passed. "This is the ring of Bonnivard," said the damsel. "He was chained here for six years. Here are still traces of his footsteps in the stone pavement." I walked round the pillar, and seating myself upon the adjacent rock, perused the "Prisoner of Chillon," by Lord Byron. The name of its author, carved by his own hand, was upon one of the columns before me. But how indifferent seemed to me the poem! I knew the truth about Chillon, and I was now reading Byron's fiction. The truth is far more impressive than the fiction. Byron's prisoners are all from his brain :-three brothers, two of whom die, and their survivor whines out lamentations, that never could have come from the soul of Bonnivard. Why did not the poet take the simple truth, and surround it with illustrations from his great genius? Then might the poem have been worthy of the spot. Now, Bonnivard's praises, his noble self-sacrifice, his lofty patriotism, his onward courage, are all unsung. And what are these walls without that associated patriotism, and courage, and self-sacrifice? Chillon may give some interest to the lines of Byron, but, in my mind, those lines add nothing to the interest of Chillon. They are quite merged and forgotten in the mightier impressiveness of those other associations, full of truth and full of dignity, that invest these sad memorials of the vengeance of the Duke of Savoy. And yet how many are there, with whom this spot is interesting, only because, forsooth, Lord Byron rhymed about it. "Have you made the visit to Chillon?" asked I of an Englishman, a few days ago. "Chillon, Chillon?" muttered he, half inquiringly. "Yes, dear," interrupted

his wife, "Chillon, the castle about which Byron wrote that beautiful poem, you know." "Ah, yes," said the gentleman; "I'm told it's quite a place since Byron wrote about it. A good many English visit it, I'm told."*

I desired to climb up to the grated window, and get a view of the exterior scene. "Oh no, Monsieur," said the guide, "you will have a much finer view from up stairs." I was resolved, however. What did I care for the view from her kitchen window? I wished to look abroad from the crevice through which the prisoner's eyes, all glazed and lustreless, had so often looked. Lake Leman lay before me. The sun was just setting. Had Bonnivard ever turned sighing, from a scene so fair, back to the desolation of his prison? Of all the lovely forms of nature about this far-famed lake, the one before me outrivalled any I had yet beheld. No wind was stirring, and its waves were still. The sun, descending behind a cluster of clouds, was reflected therein. Its image was like a vast ingot of burning gold. A moment after, the appearance was changed, and by a fortunate position of the clouds, its light streamed down into the far depths of the lake, and for an instant I seemed to behold therein a city with a thousand golden spires. As the sun disappeared, the picture was again changed. The many-coloured light was scattered far over the waters, and Leman was as if a thousand rainbows had been broken into fragments upon its polished breast. The shadows came down. Once more the scene was varied. The last expression was the fairest. Words can give no conception of it. Imagine one vast, wide-wavering, out-spread mantle of changeable silk. But I forget the snow-blanched Alps, rising high in the distance. I forget "Clarens, sweet Clarens," upon the right;-the Rhone upon my left, bursting, as it were, through a garden into the lake; and those little vessels of delicate construction, faintly and far distant seen, as if painted upon the sky. And there is a moral association about these objects. It lends to them one fairest charm. It is of a later time. For a moment Bonnivard is forgotten, and Rousseau arises. This is the scene of his Heloise. There are the mountains and the waters, which he once peopled with affections. The heart of Rousseau seems to live and beat in all things within the view of yonder Clarens,-the home of Julie, of Claire, and of St. Preux. I turned inward to the cell. The darkness had descended. Already were the damps and solitude beginning to oppress me. A single hour had sufficed to fill me with chills and with dreariness. Alas, for the wretched prisoner of six long years!

The other apartments of the Chateau were visited,—the chamber of the tyrant Duke, and many cells. They have but little definite history attached to them. I took leave of my fair conductress, and as the boat bore me swiftly from the lessening castle, I fell into some reflections.

Since Bonnivard's death, three hundred years have passed away. Great have been the revolutions in the civilized word. Mighty and many truths have been revealed. Each generation pronounces itself wiser and happier, better and more free, than that which preceded it. Man's destiny and his rights have been more clearly revealed, and more widely promulgated. Tyranny is denounced with a louder and more general voice. We look back with horror upon * This gentleman, whoever he was, did not come from Great Britain. "A good many English visit it, I 'm told," is not the remark of an Englishman.-ED.

the chains and dungeons of the feudal age. The memory of the Duke of Savoy is blackened by the sufferings of Bonnivard ;-Bonnivard, the worthy gentleman, the enlightened scholar, the noble patriot, and the martyr. The small province once lorded over by the Dukes of Savoy, is not far removed from the present dominions of the Austrian Emperor. In these dominions, I see a prison far more fearful than that which I have just now left behind me; and lingering out life within its dungeons, are some of the first gentlemen and scholars of Italy.

Alas! thought I, for the political prospects of the human race. The voice of liberty is loud, but the power of its foes, though noiseless, is strong and still unbroken. The sufferings of Bonnivard, of Pellico, and Maroncelli, are but links, a little away apart from each other, in a chain of wrong that will be forging until the end of time. History proves that the spirit of tyranny is immortal, as the spirit of freedom. They are both born from one womb,-ambition in the human breast. Destroy that ambition, the wish to excel, to be great, to be above,—you indeed kill the spirit whose action we call tyranny, and you lay likewise waste some fairest realms of the intellect and the heart. And yet fondly do we look forward to a worthier political life, among this portion of the earth's inhabitants. We hope for an age, when chains shall cease to clank, and dungeons for the free shall be forgotten things; when men shall stand erect in the presence of each other, conscious of equal political rights, and what is more, actually enjoying equal political privileges. Shall that age for ever be, as for thousands of years it has ever been, a beguiling dream?

When our boat touched the shore at Vevay, it was after ten o'clock. A knot of Swiss damsels were waiting for the longdelayed bateliers. I had forgotten all about the songs. Mentioning the subject, four of the party rowed a little distance from the shore, and began what they call the "Vaudois,"-a cantonal song. The sentiment was patriotic and affectionate, and the words were very impressively sung. It was the first Swiss song I had heard, at such an hour, on a Swiss lake, among Swiss mountains. Thus heard, it has a character and impressiveness that totally vanish, when transplanted into some dry street, on the other side of the Atlantic. I had heard the Swiss song from various instruments, and likewise in crowded theatres in the United States, but they did never worthily embody it. Its only fit harp is the Swiss voice; its only theatre is the Swiss lake and mountain; its only worthy auditors are Swiss ears. I enjoyed the present song much, but the native listeners around me seemed to enjoy it far more. And why should they not? To me it had but the vulgar interest of novelty. To them it was one of the finest teachers. It was an agent in their system of education: it was an influence that wrought kindly upon their character. Its words embodied their recollections and their hopes; its strain sent quicker pulses through their hearts, and a warmer grasp into each hand. One mode, and that not the least interesting, of enjoying a Swiss song, is, closing your ears, to open eyes upon the natives who are listening to it. You will perceive how deeply those tones go beyond the auditory nerve. They touch a thousand heart-strings.

VOL. V.

D

SONG OF "OLD TIME.”

It is gone-gone-and a new career
Opens to me with the coming year:
In my course I may not wait;
While my glass I turn, and my scythe I try,
Ye can pause to look at the wrecks which lie
In the grave of Thirty-eight!

For its knell ye are ringing a joyous chime,
"T is a festival hour, a merry time!

Ye bury the year with a joyous sound;
In the lighted hall the dancers bound,
The wine-cup sparkles now;

And the laugh, and jest, and song are there,
And bright eyes flash, and maidens fair
List to the lover's vow.

Such is the requiem, all hearts elate,
Of Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-eight!

But its memory, like a ghost at last,
Stalks from the tomb of the mighty Past,
Awhile on earth to dwell:

And I laugh to mark how few will learn:
How many the shadowy teacher spurn,
And all that he can tell;

For I know that the only seers there be
Have but learn'd the most

From the Past's pale ghost,

To sail on the Future's stormy sea!

"Out upon Time !" is the constant cry:
"Out upon Time and his tyranny !"
For mine is the despot's sway.
And monarchs of earth, the proudest ye see,
Are vassals of mine, and bow to me,

Whose power cannot pass away.

But ye all forget, while ye rail at your doom,
Though I wither the flower, I gave it the bloom!

And what though my scythe unceasing mows on,
I raise up fresh beauty, though yours be gone;
All things have their time to die.

And sorrow away, from the heart I chase,
And the tear, on the mourner's cheek efface,
For a gentle touch have I.

And I hallow much that was little prized,
And I test the wisdom so oft despised.

But still ye rail on at "Old Father Time,"
Though ye bury the year with a joyous chime.
In my course I may not wait;

But they are the wise who earnestly try
To gather some spoils from the wrecks which lie
In the grave of Thirty-eight!

For I know that the only seers there be
Have but learn'd the most

From the Past's pale ghost,

To sail on the Future's stormy sea!

CAMILLA TOULMIN..

THE TWIN-DOOMED.

BY C. F. HOFFMAN, AUTHOR OF "A WINTER IN THE FAR WEST." "Twin-born they live, twin-born they die; in grief and joy twin-hearted; Like buds upon one parent bough, twin-doomed, in death not parted." THE superstition embodied in the above distich is very common in those parts of New York and New Jersey which were originally settled by a Dutch population. It had its influence with Dominie Dewitt from the moment that his good woman presented him with the twin-brothers, whose fortunes are the subject of our story. He regarded them from the first as children of fate-as boons that were but lent to their parents to be reclaimed so soon that it was a waste of feeling, if not an impious intermeddling with Providence, to allow parental affection to devolve in its full strength upon them.

They were waifs, he thought, upon the waters of life, which it hardly concerned his heart to claim.

The death of the mother, which soon followed the birth of the twins, confirmed this superstitious feeling, and their forms were henceforth ever associated with images of gloom in the breast of their only surviving parent. Old Dewitt, however, though a selfish and contracted man, was not wanting in the ideas of duty which became his station as a Christian pastor. He imparted all the slender advantages of education which were shared by his other children to the two youngest; and though they had not an equal interest in his affections with the rest, he still left them unvisited by any harshness whatsoever. The indifference of their father was, in fact, all of which the twins had to complain.

The consequence was natural; the boys being left so much to themselves, became all-in-all to each other. Their pursuits were in every respect the same. At school, or in any quarrel or scene of boyish faction, the two Dewitts were always named as one individual; and as they shot up toward manhood, they were equally inseparable. If Ernest went out to drive a deer, Rupert always must accompany him to shoot partridges by the way; and if Rupert borrowed his brother's rifle for the larger game, Ernest in turn would shoulder the smooth-bore of the other, to bring home some birds at the same time. Together, though, they always went.

The "Forest of Deane," which has kept its name and dimensions almost until the moment when I write, was the scene of their early sports. The wild deer at that time still frequented the Highlands of the Hudson; and the rocky passes which led down from this romantic forest to the river, were often scoured by these active youths in pursuit of a hunted buck which would here take the water. Many a time, then, have the cliffs of Dundenberg echoed their woodland shout, when the blood of their quarry dyed the waves which wash its base. Their names as dead shots and keen hunters were well known in the country below, and there are those yet living in the opposite village of Peekskill, who have feasted upon bear's meat, which the twin-huntsmen carried thither from the forest of Deane.