the audience. The regulations of the street are well settled and well known. There are no Front seats reserved for the ladies,' no private boxes, no 'Seats taken in box No. 2,' or No. 13.' There are no noisy cries, such as disturb the audience at other places of amusement - no calls of Trollope!' as at the Park' — no yells of Down in front!' as at the Bowery' - no cries of Hats off!' as at the 'Broadway Tabernacle' — no joining in the chorus by the audience,' as at the Franklin.' All is decency and order. Every thing is regulated by the great and glorious principle of equality. The gentleman who first gets the best seat, keeps it as long as he pleases, and when he vacates it, the one who happens to be nearest, takes it. The best seats are on the foundation of the fence, and as I usually go early, I generally secure one there. Next to these, the curb-stone is considered the most eligible. After this, come the leaning places, such as lamp-posts, pillars of the fence, etc. The performance commences at 'early candle-lighting,' and continues generally until about eleven o'clock. The well known modesty of the performers forbids me to speak of them in the terms my gratitude would prompt; but I may be permitted to remark, that better music can no where be heard for less money. If I might be allowed to make a distinction, where distinctions are always invidious, I would say that the gentleman who performs on the clarionet, and he who blows the French horn, are both of them performers of peculiar power, and great wind. Indeed the audience, some few evenings since, came very near having some difficulty; in fact we did have a little row with the gentlemen who frequent the walk in front of The American Museum,' about these two performers. It was asserted by the gentlemen from the American Museum, that the Fiddle and Horn down there played Oft in the Stilly Night' better than the Clarionet and Horn at Peale's. After going down to the American Museum, and hearing the air performed there, we brought the gentlemen in the opposition up to our own band. We waited patiently until the tune was played entirely through, and then finding that our opponents did not yield the point to us, we undertook to box their ears a little, in the hope that it might improve their hearing. At this they were offended, and commenced a quarrel, which at length grew so serious, that a large portion of the assemblage found lodgings for the night in the rear of the City Hall, and in the morning were subjected to a very officious questioning from Mr. Justice Lowndes.

M.

VOL. VII.

AN INVITATION.

COME forth to walk where the new-fallen shower
To every flower in beaded beauty cleaves,

And like a bride with diamonds for her dower,
Seems the pale aspen with its jewelled leaves:
Come!-morn's soft breezes through the orchards play,
Wakening the blossoms from their odorous dreams;
From the dark marts of mammon flee away,
Come to the breathing flowers and laughing streams!

J. B.

77

THE RESCUE:

OR THE INUNDATION

OF SAINT

PETERSBURG.

It was about the meridian of an unusually warm day for the November of a Russian winter, when two horsemen were seen slowly skirting the still expanse of Lake Peipus, on the road from Riga to St. Petersburg, which for some distance sweeps round its western margin. The scene was not devoid of romantic beauty. On one side the prospect was shut in by a forest of majestic pines, which, with their dark tufted foliage of bluish green, shaking and rustling in the light breeze that swept through their lofty tops, were the sole representatives of vegetation in the wintry landscape. To the left, and far before, stretching away until lost in the hazy horizon, lay the glossy and motionless lake, the level monotony of its vast frozen surface, which would otherwise have been painful to the eye, being at intervals relieved and enlivened by the picturesque form of a Livonian peasant, in his gay camese, sheep-skin tunic, and leggins of linden bark, darting on his rude skates from point to point, athwart its polished sheen.

The travelers were both young; probably neither of them had seen his five-and-twentieth summer. They were drest, with a few national exceptions, in English costume, and possessed in common, that undefinable air and bearing which we intuitively recognise as the stamp of high caste. But here all resemblance terminated: though both handsome, they were strikingly dissimilar in form and features; and as they rode along, side by side, the one apparently absorbed in melancholy reverie, the other ever and anon pouring forth the exuberant gayety of a light heart, in a snatch of some merry popular ballad, a greater contrast, as regarded temperament, could be with difficulty imagined. The last mentioned of the two youths was considerably the taller and more athletic; his fine soldier-like figure, well displayed in a close-fitting surtout, trimmed with fur, and the frank expression of his manly Saxon features, set off by a tasseled crimson velvet cap, poised lightly on the thick sunny curls which clustered round his fair broad brow, were well calculated to win golden opinions from all sorts of women. His companion, who was more slightly, perhaps more elegantly proportioned, was clad in a similar habit, somewhat less effect-ively arranged. His well-defined, calm, dark features were a perfect model of intellect in repose; but while their general and apparently habitual expression was subdued and gentle, the close observer might have detected in the large poetic eye, and the quiet firmness of the moustached upper lip, the indices of energy more lofty, than the careless courage mirrored in the countenance of his more sanguine comrade. The wayfarers, judging from the jaded appearance of their steeds, had travelled many a weary verst since dawn, and of the unmacadamized nature of their path, the apparel of the former, and the mired fetlocks and smoking flanks of the latter, bore conclusive evidence. Some occasional interjections of disappointment from the taller of the travelers, as he stood erect in his stirrups to take a survey of the scenery in advance, seemed to imply that the appearance of some habitation, affording probabilities of a comfortable meal, would, in his eyes, have been no disparagement to the natural beauties of the prospect. For

the last two or three versts, his reconnoissances had become more frequent, his interjectional murmurs more emphatic; and when, after leaving the windings of the lake, he beheld a long straight vista of forest road, extending as far as the eye could pierce, without disclosing a single hut, or even a wreath of smoke on which to hang the hope of a dinner, his impatience found vent in something which savored of the ungodly, and turning to his companion, he exclaimed:

I wish to heaven, Alexis, we could spy an auberge; there should be one near here, if my recollection fail me not: poor Ukraine,' he continued, patting the neck of his strong Tartar steed, is staggering with the fatigue of plunging through this morass, called by courtesy a road, and I am voracious. You, who have appeared to be etherealizing in the seventh heaven for the last half hour, do not, I presume, condescend to be hungry.'

Why truly, Ivan,' replied his friend, I fear I am but dull society for you; but remember, if my thoughts wander, it is only from you to those who are nearest and dearest to your heart, as well as mine.'

'I have no alternative but to admit the excuse; but why with the anticipation of speedily meeting all that is nearest and dearest,' and so forth, you should look as melancholy as an exile on his route to Siberia, is an anomaly I find it difficult to comprehend.'

My dear Ivan, I tremble lest I should have misconstrued your sister's partiality. It is now five years since we left St. Petersburg; she may long since have ceased to think of my boyish passion in a serious light; she may reject

Pshaw! my dear fellow reject? Did the letter from Catherine which I showed you at Riga, look like rejection? The saints defend me from poet-lovers! They are the most incredulous, lachrymose, selftormenting bipeds on the globe. Thank the virgin, I never but once overstepped the latitude of sober prose; in a misguided hour, I was rash enough to pen a sonnet to a fair Muscovite, with whom I was smitten, and after having devoted a week to its composition, and subsequent embellishment, the friend to whom I showed it informed me the first nine lines were plagiarised from Derszhaven, upon which I threw it in the fire, and retired from the profession in disgust.'

เ

You do not then,' said Alexis, smiling, emulate the fame of your Teutonic ancestors, the famous Brothers of the Sword,' who, not satisfied with winning laurels from the Paynim in the stricken field, would ofttimes throw aside the death-dealing mace, and the heavy espaldron, for the love-discoursing lute, thus twining the bays of Apollo around the helmet of Mars.'

No, the muse is not my forte,' returned Ivan. But, without this redeeming qualification, I fear I inherit from my Gothic ancestors a considerable portion of that intellectual obtuseness, which inclined them rather to the reckless pursuits which require firm heart and strong hand, than to what the Scotch call the humanities; thus, while you return from the fair cities of the South, accomplished in arts as well as arms, I only bring back to my country the heart and hand of a rough, unpolished soldier.'

I am afraid you are, as an Englishman would say, fishing for a compliment.''

604

'No, I only angle for those little delicacies among the daughters of Eve; or rather, I barter with them—the rate of exchange being geFlattery is the true open sesame nerally as six to one in their favor. to the female heart. Only learn the science of applying it discreetly, and from the stately signora of voluptuous Spain, to the wickedeyed little grisettes of Paris, you may go on 'conquering and to conquer.''

Well, there certainly is a pleasure in drinking in the grateful glances of a pair of fine eyes, worth the harmless exaggeration which kindles them. But, to descend from the sentimental to the sensualnot so unnatural a transition as some people imagine- here is the posthouse I have been looking for; let us consign our horses to yon two boors, and see what it contains.'

As he finished, the speaker sprang from his horse, and tossed the rein to the peasant who came up to receive it. Alexis followed his example, and they entered the inn, a spacious, rough-looking tenement, rudely constructed of pine logs. Making their way through an oblong hall, such as forms the vestibule of almost every Russian tavern, much to the discomfiture of the flocks of poultry which were feeding on its floor, they reached that part of the caravansery devoted to the entertainment of guests, and having seated themselves in the first of its long suite of apartments, Ivan called lustily for the hostess. She soon appeared, and speedily thereafter the friends were vigorously discussing the merits of part of a roast turkey, garnished by a dingy-looking loaf of barley bread, and flanked by a huge flagon of quass.

While the travelers are thus agreeably engaged, we will take the liberty of giving the reader a little farther insight into their history and purposes than he has been able to gather from their somewhat disjointed conversation.

They were both of noble blood and ancient race. With a spirit of inquiry and enterprise somewhat rare among their caste in Russia, they had left St. Petersburg five years before, for the purpose of making a tour of Southern Europe, and were now returning, the one deeply read in its classic lore, the other, who had little of the student in his composition, more au fait in the politics and tactics of the day, than the mysteries of Eld.

Count Alexis Zalewski was an orphan. His ancestors, for many centuries, had transmitted from father to son little other inheritance than the sword; and however inefficient that instrument might prove, to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the family, not one of them ever dreamed of sullying his high descent, by engaging in any occupation less aristoBut the uncle of cratic than cutting the throats of his fellow mortals.

Alexis, to whose wardship he had been consigned by the decease of his parents, had more avarice than pride, and conceived that thriving amid contempt, was better than haughty starvation. He accordingly determined to sink the dignity of the böiar in the humble suavity of the merchant. Pursuant to this unchivalric resolution, he abandoned the sterile Finnish quagmire, dignified by the name of the family domain, took with him his nephew, then an infant, and sitting down among the growing crowds of St. Petersburg, philosophically bore the scorn and proscription of his order, in consideration of the immense sums he acquired by administering to their luxurious wants.

The young Alexis, as he grew up, disgusted by the narrow-mindedness of the class with whom his uncle was accustomed to associate, naturally sought companionship with youths of his own grade; and the old man, who was fond of him, deviating in this instance from his usual penurious habits, furnished him with the means of meeting them on terms of equality. He soon formed a friendship with a young noble about his own age, the fatherless scion of an ancient and honorable, but somewhat reduced house, and his intercourse with Ivan Viatka naturally led to an introduction to his mother and sister. In this society, the winged years of boyhood fled rapidly, and ere, in company with Ivan, he left St. Petersburg to complete his education abroad, he had won from the beautiful Catherine Viatka the confession that her brother's friend was not indifferent to her.

We will now rejoin the thread of our narration, broken for a moment to give this brief explanation.

The travelers having done justice to the viands set before them, and ascertained that their steeds had been fed and attended to, ordered the latter to be brought to the door, paid the reckoning, and prepared to resume their progress, intending to reach within an easy day's journey of their destination that night. They had just mounted, when a mujik, or peasant-artisan for such the short-handled broad axe in his girdle, the almost universal tool of a Russian artificer, proclaimed him to be walked up to the door of the inn, and with an obeisance which brought the tip of his patriarchal beard to his knee, inquired if the 'noble boiars were wending to St. Petersburg.' Being answered affirmatively, he continued:

The great waters are out: Panitsa is displeased, and has poured a great flood over the imperial city.'

Merciful God!' exclaimed Alexis, shuddering; but how know you this? when did you leave the capital?'

I am only from Narva,' replied the peasant, where an express from the most gracious Tsar brought the tidings this morning.'

The young men waited not to hear more, but exchanging glances of mute emotion, with gloomy forebodings resumed their route, rapidly and in silence. At Narva, where they procured fresh cattle, the disastrous intelligence was confirmed; and as, by the light of a clouded moon, they urged their reluctant steeds over the dreary, snow-covered swamp which lay between that village and the autocratic city, the proofs of its truth, and of the fearful nature of the devastation, grew more and more appalling. The road, as they proceeded, was rendered almost impassable by crowds of vehicles, filled with both sexes, of every rank and age, hurrying in utter abandonment from their desolated homes. The cries of the wretched fugitives, mingled with the howlings of the wind as it wailed mournfully over the waste, conveyed a melancholy omen to the hearts of the travelers. Making their way with difficulty through the flying throng, it was broad day when they reached the outskirts of the town. For some time they had distinctly heard the booming of artillery, and the ringing of bells, warning the citizens whose domicils were yet uninvaded, that the element con

* Originally a Slavonian deity, answering to Venus, whom the ignorant semi-Christianized boors have inducted to the calendar of saints, and invoke or deprecate on all

momentous occasions.

1