CHAPTER V.

THE remarks that concluded the last chapter, although having no connection with the story, may serve to indicate the time supposed to elapse before the arrival of the professor's answer; just as a drop-scene, representing a battle in Mexico, marks the interval between the acts of a Roman tragedy.

The reader will now imagine the parlor of the establishment as it appeared on a particularly sultry summer's evening. The windows are all open-the company sufficiently mixed for everybody to serve as a restraint upon somebody else, and the Dorr-bugs (I have no idea how they spell their name) wrecking themselves against the ceiling, and thence tumbling upon the heads beneath, until you could not help sympathizing with the Reverend Homer Wilbur (in relation to a similar nuisance) in the doubt whether Noah could be justified in preserving this species of insect.

A piano that was in the room, and a most obliging lady to officiate thereat, redeemed parts of the evening; but the event that waked up everybody was the entrance of Kate Lawton with a letter from Professor Phantillo.

It was read aloud at the request of many voices; but the contents were vague and unsatisfactory. There was something concerning the position and influence of the planets (which it seems were averse to any interposition just then -though holding out good hopes for the future), a little concerning the mysteries of love and courtship in general-and a great deal about a future remittance of money. The interest of the communication, however, was reserved for the postscript, which ran as follows:

"I desire some information concerning this Major Wherrey, to whose care this letter is to be addressed. I discern

that your fate is strangely connected with his. I shall be glad to learn the amount of his property; also, whether he is disposed to believe in the science which I profess. Not a word to him of these inquiries; but answer me discreetly and secretly and I will help you, to a fortune beyond your proudest hopes."

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Mr. Barnard— "the professor is completely taken in; he evidently thinks that he has fallen upon a vein of metal that will pay the working. Don't you see, Major, he means to inform himself about your property, habits, &c., and then come down on you in some dextrous manner for a

remittance. Well, this is good! I'd no idea we should have such success!"

"Success!" exclaimed my uncle, starting from his seat; "yes! it's fine fun for you-but consider the fellow knows my real name he will be angry enough when he discovers the hoax, and in some way or other will make me pay for it." And a dismal diorama, representing respectable elderly gentlemen who had unwittingly fallen into the power of some character whom they were obliged to furnish with pocket-money forever after, uTrolled itself before the mental vision of my relative.

To be sure, Major Wherrey was unable to recollect that he had embezzled at the bank, or ever entertained a passion for his cook; but his faith was strong in the ability of his scientific friend to discover some point upon which to rest the lever of persecution, should he be so disposed. Such dismal forebodings were not shared by Miss Kate Lawton, who declared the letter quite worth the two dollars it had cost, and was particularly diverted with the connection discovered between her destiny, and anybody then at the water-cure.

Much more was said or sung (the latter by the lady at the piano) during the evening; all which, I would set down, if I naturally ran to conversation." But, not having the talent of Miss Burney for this, as well as one or two other things, I think it best to keep up the sober jog of narration. And here let me avow, what I have no doubt the reader has suspected all along, that the title of this paper, 66 a romance," is altogether a misnomer. Yet, when I inscribed that taking substantive at the head of my first chapter, I had no idea of asking a hearing under false pretenThe note-books, which were mentioned as being in my possession, and the singular sequel to the adventures they contain, seemed to me materials from which an elegant structure of fiction might be reared, and I had actually the temerity to draw a sketch for the ground floor. But the strong solution of fact with which my mind was filled, would precipitate itself upon the paper, till at last the proposed embellishments of fancy were thrown aside, and I became a chronicler of real experience, almost against my will.

ces.

Well! my uncle passed a hot, uncomfortable night. Hot!-yes; it was hot indeed. You could almost cut the caloric with a knife. Everybody pretended

to go to bed, but speedily rose, and stumbled about the entries all night. Muttered execrations, combined with the notes of a distant musical box, streamed through the ventilator, and pervaded my uncle's apartment, while "friends in boots," stalked up and down the piazza before the window, with the same interminable tramp.

Sleep was impossible for the most innocent or thoughtless, during that long night. Every half hour, or so, my uncle would go down cellar, and paddle about the tank; which performance served to impart a more fiery sultriness to his chamber, when he came out.

But the extreme discomforture of his bodily state, was exceeded by the turbulent nature of his mental speculations. One may dismiss a troublesome thought, or suspicion, by day; but, during a sleepless night, the unwelcome visitor returns, and leers upon you horribly, and will not be exorcised. This waking nightmare is far more terrible than anything dreams can furnish, and leaves us as weak and miserable as was Sancho Panza, after the visit of the Enchanted Moors, at the village inn.

In short, Major Wherrey, naturally nervous and timid, was goaded almost to frenzy, at the remembrance of his own indiscretion. At Bearbrook, too--that this Professor Phantillo should live at Bearbrook, where my uncle's famous cranberry plantation was situated, and where he himself resided several months in the year. "Good heavens!" thought the poor gentleman, "what an opportunity it gives him for raking together all sorts of scandal-for setting my neighbors against me-and, perhaps, getting up some curious chemical blight for the cranberries."

Two letters, that were brought to my uncle's room the next morning, served to plunge him into still deeper perplexity. The first was written on odd-looking paper, was post-marked from Bearbrook, bore a strictly non-committal seal, and turned out to be from Professor Phantillo himself. It was filled with dark hints about secret information the professor had received, which obliged him to suppose that Major Wherrey had tampered with the affections of a certain Miss Fanny Weston, and stated that unless the sum of twenty dollars was received by the next post, he should feel it his duty to publish his suspicions in the Bearbrook Gazette.

The other epistle was from a nameless

gentleman, connected with the New York press, who politely forwarded a copy of an article that was to appear in the Criminal Investigator of the next week.

Poor Major Wherrey was nearly beside himself, at this palpable conspiracy. He drove to the next town to consult a lawyer; and came back again to advise with the doctor. He bewailed his fate with no gentle expletives touching himself, the professor, Miss Lawton, Mr. Barnard, and the New York reporter. Finally, his trunks were ordered, and he determined to fly from his tormentors.

There was no stage, however, before afternoon, and six or eight hours must be endured before any one could leave the place. The obliging young lady played the wedding march upon the piano; but music had no charm to soothe the troubles of my uncle. In a fit of impatient desperation, Major Wherrey seized a book from the centre-table of the "boarders' parlor"—where the usual number were collected, to stare at each other, and wish away the morning--and hastily turned over its leaves. It had the popular alliterative title, and, of course, had sold to an almost mythical number of copies at least, so said the publishers.

66

Harpoons and Hautboys, from Hatty's Haversack," repeated my uncle, as he glanced over the title-page, and then with a start of recognition-"Miss Kate Lawton, from her friend, T. Barnard." The start was occasioned by a remarkable resemblance that Major Wherrey detected between the chirography of these latter words, and that of Professor Phantillo; nor was his astonishment lessened, when he observed, in the handwriting of the New York reporter, near the bottom of the page, this expressive criticism—“ a book just such as I like. -K. L."

Of course, my uncle's understanding received a sudden illumination from this accidental discovery. Relieved from his apprehensions so unexpectedly, his first impulse was to embrace his persecutors, as if they had done him some distinguished favor; then came the revulsion of feeling, and the mortification of having been successfully hoaxed-than which there are few things harder to bear with equanimity.

He was, nevertheless, reminded by the lady and gentleman who had amused themselves at his expense, of an opinion he had himself expressed upon the

allowability of a practical joke, when there was positively no other way of getting rid of time-and the contempt with which he had dared anybody to take him in-if they could.

As this reminiscence served to check the bitter complaints of which the major was about to deliver himself, he summoned sufficient discretion "to smooth his cheek to smiles," and pretend to laugh at his own misfortune.

At any rate, his equanimity was completely restored, when some whisky, lemons, and sugar, smuggled from the neighboring village, were mingled with the water supplied so lavishly by the institution, and, the door being locked, he sat with Mr. Barnard enjoying the same after dinner.

"Well, sir," said my uncle, after the professor's epistles had been duly discussed, "so you sent the letters to Bearbrook to be post-marked; and all that stuff about my fate being united with that of Miss Kate Lawton, and the havoc I had made with her affections, was written by you!"

"Written by me-yes"- replied Mr. Barnard, "but dictated by herself."

CHAPTER VI.

And now we have come to the last chapter, which, according to all rules and precedents, should contain a wedding, or, at the very least, an engagement. I have something of the kind to put into it, you may be sure, though it may not prove of the most legitimate description.

In fact, had I persevered in my first idea, and made a romance out of this matter, I should have bestowed the hand of Miss Kate Lawton upon Signor Kwinsidi, the gentleman from Norway, or Sir Harold Skiff, the English baronet; both of whom, as I learn from my uncle's diary, were sojourners at the establishment during his visit, and appear to have been of person and years suitable for the manufacture of a hero.

But, as I have determined to adhere to the real facts in the case, and tell, not what Miss Kate could, would, or should have done, but, what she actually did do-I am compelled to declare that she is at present my aunt.

To make a lively young creature of three-and-twenty marry a somewhat infirm gentleman of forty-two, even if he did have a fine house in the country, and could keep his carriage in town, would,

I admit, in any work of fiction be utterly unnatural and preposterous. I can only urge, in palliation of so original a finale, the excuse Ben Jonson once advanced for dispensing with the graces of rhyme -that the fact stated happens to be true.

Of course I was astonished at the engagement, and suspected the parties iminediately concerned must have been still more so. Yet, it is not difficult to see how it happened. My uncle had never seen so much of any lady before, and no lady had ever seemed so disposed to see a great deal of him. But, after all, it is likely enough that the whole affair was determined upon and arranged soon after Major Wherrey's arrival. "Here is a good-tempered gentleman, of handsome fortune, who only wants a little encouragement, to take a wife to assist him in spending it and if so, why should not I as well as any one else profit by the circumstance?" Mind, I don't say that Miss Kate said or thought anything of the kind; I only decline to peril the perfect authenticity of this history by declaring that she did not.

But however it came about, I am heartily glad that it did come about somehow -for a happier match was never lighted amid such watery surroundings. Happy! yes, you would have thought so, had you been at Bearbrook last winter during the session of the Court. Why, that great house was full of company, and Major Wherrey, all smiles, was going about from one guest to another, expatiating upon the excellence of his wife and his cranberries, and entreating us all to make ourselves perfectly at home-for which every one thanked him sincerely, and declared they would.

And, what is more, I believe we did it too-only that nobody's real home could have been half so amusing. You should have seen our Bearbrook theatricalsnot the performance of Love's Sacrifice: that to be sure was a failure-but those two farces in which Aunt Catherine played the chambermaid, and had fifteen bouquets thrown upon her by the delighted audience. And then that good romping country ball when the young lady who never meant to marry" found herself engaged to Sir Harold Skiff; and Mr. Barnard sang that capital song after supper, and even Kwinsidi, the imperturbable Norwegian, was stimulated into something like life. But, as the reader did not see all this (that is supposing he was not of the party), I can only wish him better luck another time, and not

try to anticipate his pleasure by imperfect reminiscences.

In conclusion, then-but, stop :-before concluding, I wish to say a word to Mr. Frank Osborne, whose history of "Wensley" I have just read with almost unmingled satisfaction.

There exists in that work a passage highly commendatory of the “institution of cousins," and, by implication, rather severe upon those who are slow to appreciate the advantages of this blessed relationship; but, Mr. Osborne, had you

had a young and pretty kinswoman, to whose luxurious mansion you were always welcomed, whom you could drive, and read to, and take to the theatre, without the confounded report of an engagement, and the shrugs and frowns of fathers and brothers-had you found such a treasure at Wensley, should we not have read:

"Cousins may be very well for those who can get nothing better; but,—there Is virtue in an Aunt.

HE title of this recently issued work

THE

is a text d-propos alike to a discussion of the life and fortunes of a great poet, and of a great poem. We desire to speak of both; but what we have to say must be briefly said, and we shall endeavor to concentrate our critical illumination upon a few topics suggested by Dr. Hart's volume, rather than to diffuse it over the whole ground. Let us begin by recapitulating the prominent incidents of the poet's life.

In London, just about three hundred and one years ago, was born Edmund Spenser. At that time the future Queen Elizabeth was twenty years of age. Five years afterwards she succeeded to the English crown. Raleigh-SpenserSidney-friends so congenial, and men so eminent in those "spacious times of great Elizabeth," were singularly cotemporaneous in their origin. Raleigh was born in 1552, Spenser in 53, and Sidney in 54.

At sixteen, Spenser entered one of the colleges at Cambridge as a charity scholar. There, during his seven years of study, he became intimate with one Gabriel Harvey, a singular man, whose eccentricities attracted the outrageous ridicule of Thomas Nash, a student of the same university, and one of the liveliest satirists of the time. Harvey was not only learned, but fond of displaying his acquirements, full of conceit, singular in his manners and dress, and especially oracular on matters of astrology. But Harvey, for all his whimsicalities, became a warm and active friend of Spenser, and ma

terially assisted his promotion in after life.

Spenser left Cambridge at twentythree, and resided about two years at some unascertained place in the north of England. There he fell in love with a wayward "Rosalind," who liked and loathed him, and finally rejected his suit. However harrowing such an accident must have been to one of the gentlest of the gentle race of poets, it has been by the common consent of mankind declared essential to the discipline of all poets, inasmuch as nothing less grievous is supposed to induce that desperate state of mind in which successful poets are popularly believed to write successful poetry. The literary results of the affliction, in Spenser's case, were not long afterwards before the world. But passing by his poetry for the present, let us first deal with his biography as a man.

Harvey, assisted doubtless by the unfortunate love affair, enticed his friend from his seclusion, and introduced him to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his nephew, Sir Philip Sidney-personages then high in favor with the queen -noble, wealthy, adorned with manifold accomplishments, after the fashion of gentlemen of the time, and congenial (especially Sidney), to the peculiar abilities of Spenser. These noblemen were not slow in discovering his wealth of mind and heart, and, from mingled motives of admiration and friendly affection, gave the young poet patronage-a home, and to some extent employment, and in 1580 secured his appointment as a secretary to Lord Gray, then about

to assume the government of Ireland. Thither Spenser followed his superior, and there received various minor offices and emoluments, and in 1586 a grant from the crown of 3,028 acres in the county of Cork, being part of the estate of the Earl of Desinond, forfeited by treason and rebellion. Sir Walter Raleigh had previously received nearly 12,000 acres of the same domain; and it is curious that there is no record of acquaintance between Spenser and Raleigh until after these possessions had made them neighbors. The grant to Spenser required his residence upon his estate, and he took up his abode at Kilcolman Castle, an ancient stronghold of the Earls of Desmond. It was situated on the shore of a lake, which was surrounded by a plain, the whole being encircled in the distance by mountains. This old castle remains (or did recently remain), a ruin strikingly venerable and picturesque, and surrounded by some of the fairest scenery of Ireland. Here

began the halcyon days of Spenser. He had seen trouble; the leisure and competence which he desired had been delayed by the ill-will of Cecil and others who were rivals to his patron, Leicester, but now the clouds which had "lowr'd upon his house" seemed to be "in the deep bosom of the ocean buried." At Kilcolman he lived twelve years, during which he married the lady whose graces and virtues are so magnificently celebrated in his 66 Epithalamium."

During this period the larger portion of his poetry was composed. Here, too, he was visited by one whom he styled "the Shepherd of the Ocean"-Raleigh -who, familiar with foreign adventure, brought an account of that New World, quite as novel, and almost as romantic as the continent just discovered, and in part explored, by Spenser in his own exuberant imagination. Here, too, without anachronisin, we may imagine Raleigh to have initiated his friend into a new art and mystery, then lately imported from America by an expedition which he had sent thither. As they reclined at a window of the old castle, or among the alders "by the Mulla's shore,' we may fancy them wrapt in a cloud not altogether ideal, while "wound and loitered, idly free, the current of unguided talk."

But a wild storm was mustering behind the mountains that bounded the fair horizon of Kilcolman. It quickly overspread the heavens and burst. It

made shipwreck of the fortunes of Spenser, and sent his life down amid sorrow and desolation to the grave.

It is difficult to comprehend fully the condition of Ireland at that time; but it does seem as if there never had been, from the remotest period, a nation more shockingly cursed with anarchy and misrule, than the Irish. The first authentic fragment of the history of Ireland, is found in Tacitus, who mentions that an Irish chief, driven from his country by civil war, came to Agricola, and endeavored to persuade him to invade Ireland, assuring him, that a single legion of Roman soldiers would be sufficient to overrun and subdue the whole island. This incident is a fair exponent of centuries of the succeeding history of Ireland. Government, so far as it existed at all, remained for a long period in the form which it always assumes among barbarous nations-that of petty independent tribes, between which there is no bond of union, ruled by chiefs who are perpetually at feud with each other. The country was successively invaded, at different periods, by the English, the Danes, and again, the English; but these invasions were predatory and partial. The Celts were not subdued, nor their governments centralized. Neither was the condition of the native tribes elevated by the infusion of new political and social elements. On the contrary, those of the invaders who remained, retrograded, and assumed the manners and spirit of the natives. They embodied themselves in new clans, and by new feuds between themselves, and with their neighbors, complicated the existing anarchy and misery.

The power of England, however, gradually increased and predominated in Ireland, from the invasion under Henry II., in 1172, until its thorough establishment in the time of Elizabeth. But, throughout all that period, Ireland may be considered as territory partially colonized by English subjects, rather than as an integral portion of England under English law. The barbarism and poverty of the country rendered it unprofitable to the English sovereigns; they had enough to do to handle France and their home affairs, and they gave themselves very little concern about Ireland. When Elizabeth came to the throne, the tendency to rebellion was aggravated by religious dissension. The Celtic race continued loyal to Catholicism, which, at a very early period, had become the