PAGE. PAGE. J. My Brother's Ocean-Grave. By the PEASANT Jottings Down of Travel. By PAUL INGLIS...351 Mental Culture. By KIT KELVIN.. K. Kossuth, Madame, Escape of from Hungary...312 31 ......389 486 Lela's Grave. By W. E. TUTTLE. Lines to my Specs. By THOMAS MACKELLAR. 165 LITERARY NOTICES.-Richard Edney and the Leper, the, an Authentic Narrative. By CARO- LINE CHESTBRO'. Lle Nelly's Death-Bed.. Lost Flowers. By H. W. ELLSWORTH.... Lecture, a. By the CHEVALIER M. .... 412 BARTON STOUT. 59 Never Despair.... .....493 19 0. 344 237 Old Letters. By CLARENCE ELWIN..........388 Magnetic Influences. ByCAROLINE CHESEBRO'.430 Milton to his Father. By Rev. J. GILBORNE The Two Prayers. By T. S. FAY... 399 Walter Mapes' Poems, the. By CARL BEN- SON...... 291 454 Washington, an Extract.. 40 18 Winter-Sprite, the. By W. M. MORLAND.....141 134 Winter, a Fragment.. 217 ..506 THE KNICKERBOCKER. VOL. XXXVII. JANUARY, 1851. No. 1. A SEQUEL TO SAINT LEGER. TEMPORA MUTANTUR. Jhr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten! DIM dream-like Forms! your shadowy train The same as in life's morning hour, Before my troubled gaze you passed; Oh! this time shall I have the power Shall I essay to hold you fast? And do I feel my bosom thrill True to that sweet delusion still ? Still press ye forward? Well then, take Dominion o'er me, as you rise From cloud and mist my heart you shake With youthful thoughts and sympathies, The atmosphere you bid me breathe. SAINT LEGER. See! the sun sinks behind the Engelhorn. The night will soon close us in. Are we far from the place you speak of? MACKLORNE.-No: down this narrow steep, and over the next summit, then once more descending till we strike the Haslithal a wild stream which we have to follow nearly a mile- and we may rest. It is but a half hour's work. SAINT LEGER. I am glad of it. I do not fancy an open bivouac, like our last. You have literally fulfilled your promise: no traveller or tourist ever disturbed this solitude. MACKLORNE.-Nor any mercenary guide. And yet, we have Alp upon Alp, and the glacier, and beyond it the firners, where one had best not venture. Still, if you please VOL. XXXVII. 1 SAINT LEGER. Nay, I do not please. I am satisfied with the glacier. I will not ambitiously press farther: the firners for the more adven turous. MACKLORNE. -But I would like to get a glimpse of the marvellous creatures who frequent there; gliding silently for they have no voice — among the ice-rocks. Do you know, they possess a strange power-that of changing into ice any one upon whom they breathe? What say you, shall we attempt it? SAINT LEGER. Let us first explore what is around us. We have not yet met the little maiden with the black dog, who dwells, you say, somewhere about here. MACKLORNE. Nor the young girl of Gentilthal; nor -in short, my dear boy, now that we have gained our locality, let us not be in haste to leave it. Here are real sublimities: none of the stale elves and fairies and demons of the Hartz SAINT LEGER (interrupting). — I am sick of the very names of Hartz and of elves, and fairies, and demons, and Walpurgis nights. MACKLORNE.And German philosophy and metaphysics. Go on, go on. SAINT LEGER.—Yes, of these too of everything save what is before me. Here appears something to lay hold of; the way, if difficult, is fresh, and even now I feel the freshness within my heart; I enjoy a new life— a new vigor; I breathe here. For several weeks I have been too ill to write. At one time I feared my narrative would remain unfinished: now however I enjoy a partial return of strength. Nature has once more rallied. It is not natural to die; physiologists may hold the contrary, but they mistake a necessary for a natural event. It is necessary to die, but Nature resists the necessity to the last. With this renewal of energy I hasten to complete my history, and while recalling the circumstances which succeeded those last narrated, the mountain scene with which I begin this chapter presented itself-a very reality!-and, with perhaps a childish fancy, I record the dialogue. Behold me now in an unfrequented part of the Grande-Scheidegg, from one side of which rise the gigantic peaks of the Wetterhorn, and from the other, stretch along in every direction those vast chains, extending, link by link, until they penetrate France-Hungary-Italy. Macklorne is my only companion; Robert Macklorne, whom I first met not a month ago. What has brought me here? why have I rejected what I myself proposed? why renounced a purpose of self-indulgence? why, having the world before me, and its enjoyments within my grasp, have I turned aside? What of the anticipated journey into Spain, what of the romantic passes of the Pyrenees? Sounds the guitar no longer in my ears, nor the tinkling of the muleteer's bell? Are the maidens of Andalusia no more a pleasurable vision? The soft skies and smooth waters and delicious climate of the South, why have they ceased to attract me? The Apennines, the Arno, Rome!-why does it no longer thrill me to pronounce these names? Why, in short, have I not heeded the voices within and around me, calling me to pleasure? why am I here with Robert Macklorne? We experience always a strange sensation when an object we are striving to compass, and for which we were preparing to put forth our entire strength, is suddenly secured without our agency or effort to pursue is the business of life; it is after we have reached the goal that we feel disappointed and ill at ease. When therefore Leila Saint Leger was suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from her impending fate, and I was left to rejoice in her happiness, I felt a species of disappointment of the kind I have mentioned. This was attended with a sort of vacancy of soul, an absence of purpose, a complete paralysis of energy, which made me miserable. It was just here that Macklorne came to my aid. I found in him the opposite of every companion I ever had. He attached himself to me; he appeared to discern by intuition my character and feelings. When I was preparing to continue my journey, according to the plan I had proposed, he begged me to postpone it and go with him. I will promise you,' he said, 'a deliverance from all unnatural excitement; I will take you where you can rest quietly and look abroad upon the strife you have already passed, and the pilgrimage which is already before you. Come with me: lo! I am your good genius! Perhaps it was a weakness to yield to the advice of a new acquaintance of whom I knew almost nothing-perhaps it would have been a greater weakness to let my pride stand in the way of following it. In my heart I felt a prompt assenting response to the invitation, and taking this for a token I did assent: so, one pleasant morning, just at sunrise, Macklorne and I sallied from the hotel, passed down the König Strasse, and turned our backs upon Dresden. We walked cheerfully on until we had passed the suburbs, and were in the midst of green fields. 'How do you feel now?' said he; any symptoms of courage failing, of repenting the undertaking? I hope not. Drink in this refreshing air: it will fill you with a sense of freedom. Here we are only think of it us two; we have true hearts, no enmity toward a living creature, but with comfortable wishes for all mankind. Come! let us lay ourselves upon the world: not the world of kings and queens and nobles, of palaces and courts; nor the world of wealth and traffic and business; nor indeed the world of scholars and students and thinkers and writers, dilettanti, cognoscenti, and so forth; nor yet the world of the learned professions, whether of the priests, the doctors, or the scribes; nor, again, the world of easy competence and good living; nor the world of tavern life, of travellers and donkeys journeying hither and yon by land and by water; nay, none of these; but the world of the humble and the laborious, the obscure and the insignificant; where are the cottager with his wife and children, and the maiden whose home is on the hill-side; where too dwells the patriarch who has lived to fourscore, and now enjoys repose, while he dandles the prattling infant on his knee and remembers how its parent used to frolic: the world of homely life, where throbs the heart of this great Universe, where the FATHER looks down with love and compassion, where, since time was, should the world's story have been written!' Never had I seen Macklorne exhibit so much seriousness and so much power. I seized him warmly by the hand, and declared that I would go with him upon such a pilgrimage to the ends of the earth. The matter being doubly ratified, we went on our way. I do not now propose to describe our route, or to detail the occurrences which happened day by day. We passed on foot through parts of Bohemia, Bavaria, and the Tyrol, and came to the country of the Grisons, and turned thence into the wild regions of Uri and Unterwalden. Not once on our journey had we entered a hotel or a scene of public entertainment. To Macklorne every place appeared familiar: he was equally at home in every spot, and always ready to turn the events of the hour into matter for agreeable discourse. We adapted ourselves to the manners and customs of our entertainers, whoever they happened to be, and we never received aught but kindness and ready courtesy. The constant exercise which was thus imposed upon me, the daily change of scene, the new habit of life, and the fresh class of human beings to whom I was thus introduced, left, at first, no opportunity for painful thought or reflection. The thoughts which did arise were natural, belonging to the place and the occasion. Meanwhile my whole frame was benefited, my appetite was sharpened by exertion, and my repose was rendered unbroken and refreshing by healthful fatigue. Here once more I present myself, and propose to continue a narrative which shall at least bear the stamp of truth. Although the sun had disappeared, it was still light, and as we descended from the sides of the Grande-Scheidegg we passed through beautiful forests of beech, mountain-ash, and pine, when, at last, I distinguished the distant murmur of the angry stream which Macklorne had told of, and in a few minutes we came to the Haslithal, which dashed along over broken crags and overhanging fragments, bounding from rock to rock as if charged with some errand of spiteful haste. 'Here we were to rest,' said I, but I see no sign of shelter; indeed on this side everything appears wilder as we advance; upon the other, a better prospect is afforded, but how shall we cross?' 'Follow me,' replied Macklorne, and you shall know. I hope the high water has not carried away our bridge.' At that moment the sound of a Swiss horn was heard playing the Ranz des Vaches. The music floated across the torrent, louder but less noisy than the mad stream; it was wafted away through the forests and up the mountains, and then the echo seemed gradually to die along among the glistening ice-peaks of the glacier, while, nearer by, the strain penetrated my soul like some divine afflatus. So unexpectedly were my ears greeted by it, that I stood entranced. The favorite airs of every country are always adapted to its localities: how great then the advantage of listening to them there. Beside, we had not seen a habitation for many days, nor indeed a human being. These sounds, then, 'How sweetly did they float upon the wings I stopped, breathless with astonishment and delight. Macklorne, too, was equally pleased. 'I thought,' said he, after pausing several minutes until the melody was concluded, 'I could not be mistaken. Yonder is the |