these shew that, under similar circumstances, Suzsi would have been a Jeanie Deans-though, we will answer for it, the idea of Jeanie never crossed the author's mind, notwithstanding the similarity of some of the circumstances. She is a great deal prettier, however, than Jeanie-and thence the knot of the story-viz., the jealousy. Now, this jealousy is, as it is done, the main, indeed, the only considerable, fault in the tale. The grounds given are so exceedingly slight, that any man who could carry on a continued, vindictive jealousy, on such an account, must have been one utterly bad in mind and heart-which our friend Franz, though we see but little of him, is by no means meant to be. This should be altered in two points-more apparent cause should be given for the jealousy; and he never should have said one word to her discredit. A man, such as we are led to believe him to be, would rather have had his tongue drawn out with pincers first. But our readers shall judge. : The stranger had scarcely seated himself before his repast, when a band of zigeuner who were passing through the village having noticed the lights still burning in the saal, entered without further invitation, and established themselves in the back-ground, for the performance of one of their singular concerts. A dulcimer, two violins, a monochord and a bass, were the instruments employed,—all of their own manufacture; and without the least knowledge of counterpoint, or of music as a science, they contrived to maintain a very decent degree of harmony; each in turn improvisating a variation upon the motivo sustained by the others, a very beautiful and characteristic national melody. On the conclusion of their concerted piece, old Matthias, who was vain of his daughter's talents and sweet voice, desired one of the violinists to repeat alone the accompaniment of the same air; which he called upon Suzsi to sing in her best manner, for the entertainment of his guest. The young girl, unused to disobey, came forward without delay or affectation; and, save that she held the corner of her plaited apron for support and countenance, without any remarkable shew of timidity. Her voice was sweet and touching; and after breathing a prelude whose tripled notes closely resembled the call of a quail, she proceeded to sing the following * I have heard this little song so modulated as to offer the closest imitation of the wachtelschlag, or quail-call, whose name it bears, in Germany;-I believe, however, it is of Italian origin, Suzsi who, in the interest of her song, had lost the coy shyness arising from singing it to a stranger, had dropt the protecting corner of her apron, while she sweetly repeated the triple notes, which were modulated so as to imitate the quail-call with remarkable exactness; and stood with her right hand extended, her head bent forward, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, when Franz, having concluded his diplomatic labours, entered the saal! The first object that met his inquiring eyes, was the handsome young stranger leaning back negligently in his chair,-his supper standing untouched before him on the table,-and his eyes fixed, with no equivocal expression of admiration, upon those of the heiress of the Blue-Hedgehog! Poor Franz felt an indescribable thrill through every vein, at the sight; and disdaining to hush the echo of his heavy footsteps in compliment to the singer, he stalked towards the table with the air of a Bajazet, twisting his mustachios with a demonstration of mental martyrdom which Kean might have envied. This really is all she does—for the rest is entirely the strangerwho, seeing that Franz is jealous, began to pay her certain little attentions, which were hellebore and arsenic to poor Franz. He spoke his commands respecting the adjustment of his chamber in a whisper hard to be endured; and begged her to sweeten the coffee she had set before him, in a tone of gallantry such as had rarely been breathed before in the Igelische Gasthof. And this is all: for the existence of her secret is known only to herself, and its revealment would, and in fact does, send the jealousy into the air at once. But, unfounded as it is, Suzsi suffers not the less :How darkly comes the first grievous cloud of suspicion over the fair heaven of youthful love!-With what profound disunion may a word,—a look,-an inference,-sever the ties of confiding affection,-those sweet and holy bonds which, of all human impulses, appear the worthiest of immortality. The peevishness of an idle hour will overcome the remembrance of years of untiring patience and exclusive devotion; and like the son of Thetis, Love himself is doomed to perish by a puerile wound, however bravely he may have resisted fiercer attacks, however strong his buckler may have proved against a more heroic enemy. Poor Suzsi was but the child of the landlord of a country inn; but so gently, so purely had run the current of her young existence, so solely devoted was her kind heart to the duties of a tender daughter and a Christian maiden, that her claims to commiseration appear to me nowise inferior to those of a more classic or more courtly heroine. The heart is of no degree; and I doubt, indeed, whether the one or the other could have been more sensible to the value of an honest man's warm affections, or could have drooped with more heart-stricken affliction under the evil interpretation of a wayward and jealous lover.-Hers was not a tearful sorrow; but it was deep, and tender, and overcoming. The days went laggingly along;-her very existence appeared to have acquired a new character. She began to think that it might be endurable to abandon Dorogh and its green pastures, since Dorogh could wear so dull and joyless a seeming. The house was full of discordant noises,-the air seemed to hang heavily upon her, when Like an unrighteous and unburied ghost, She wandered up and down those long arcades. The paths of the village looked dusty and uninviting when her restless heart prompted her to wander forth; and all the uses of this world seemed as flat and unprofitable to Suzsi, as they have done to every victim of discontent from the days of Hamlet until now. A thorn was in her heart;-a struggling pain haunted her parched throat, the tears came quivering importunately over her eyes; and never more painfully than when striving to assume a tone of merriment with her father's guests, in the vain hope of disguising the secret anguish of her feelings. We would fain give the scene on the hill, but our limits warn us. The following is as much as we can find room for from the scenes at the palace. Old Blaschka thinks that "she has been looked on with the evil eye," when she boldly makes her way to the presence of the Tavernicus: He was fain to follow her airy footsteps, however, into a chamber of which two splendidly-liveried attendants held open the folding doors; just as a voice within, which appeared unaccountably familiar to his ears, exclaimed to his companion, "Suzsi! my flower of Dorogh! you must have thought that I had forgotten you;-I have not so far wronged my conscience, süsses mädchen. Even in the press of weighty affairs committed to my charge, your own have not been neglected." "And you, too, my Demosthenes of the speise-saal-my Mirabeau of Hungarian sans-culottisme,—how hath gone the world with you, since we drained a measure together at the Blue-Hedgehog?" continued the young Tavernicus, towards Johann Blaschka, whose great eyes were fixed in utter consternation upon a vast mirror that reflected the whole interior of the gorgeous chamber. "How fares it now? What, dumb-speechless altogether?-You, in whose reproof was wisdom,-in whose rhetoric was conviction? "Johann Blaschka!" faltered the old man aghast. "Johann Blaschka himself," he reiterated, as the Tavernicus perceived that his distended eyes were riveted upon the reflection of his own shape in the mirror before him. 66 Suzsi, meanwhile, had advanced towards the writing-table by which the Tavernicus was seated; and having humbly kissed his hand, and thanked him for his honourable remembrance, she proceeded to acquaint him with the sorrow and humiliating suspicions to which she had been exposed in her faithful preservation of his secret. Noble sir!" said she, smiling through her tears, "I trust you may never know such grief as that which has made my cheek so pale, and my heart so heavy, since I was last honoured by your lordship's countenance. Trust me, tekintetes Gróf, nothing less than this would have emboldened me to trespass on your goodness, that I might crave permission to explain the truth to-to-my father, and to " 66 My father's daughter's jealous lover? Why Suzsi, I had rather my name had been bruited-even in the very ears of the captious Ur Pàl,rather my titles had been proclaimed by all the heralds of the empire, than that one tear of thine had been wasted to secure my incognito. Here," continued he, taking a parchment from his secretary, "here is the lease; I fought a good fight with my worthy friends the Canons to carry my point; -a bloodier battle methinks hath not chanced in Hungary betwixt priest and layman, since the fatal field of Mohacs saw seven bishops left stiff and stark upon its turf. But no matter. The Chapter of Gran hath added, at my instigation, another life to the renewal of the lease; and 'tis granted in the name of Suzsi Westermann, edės_kintsem ! *—say-hast thou aught to object?" Surzi is presented to the Archduchess, and sings before her her Hungarian song. This scene is very delicately touched; but we would rather give the description of what she felt at all this, as well as old Blaschka. * Edés kintsem! a term of endearment equivalent to the German mein schatz, my treasure. Suzsi had made her lowliest parting acknowledgments,—had spoken her grateful farewell to her gencrous patron, the Tavernicus;-had even reached the outer court of the palace on her return homewards, before her companion had sufficiently recovered from his saisissement to breathe one word in utterance of his amazement. During their visit to the Palatine's princely abode the heart of the young girl had been awakened to sentiments of deeper interest than those of mere vulgar admiration. Her duty to her father, her devotion to her lover, her care for her own fair fame,-all were involved in the momentous change of her destiny. She was gratified,-triumphant,-clear from shame ;-could she be interested at such a time by gilded cornices or inlaid floors?-could the splendours of a royal dwelling, or the flowing state of an Imperial presence disturb the gentle current of her heartfelt gratitude and joy? Not so old Blaschka. His wonderment, when indeed it found leisure to expand itself in words, dwelt ever on the dazzling and inexplicable magnificence which had burst upon his bewildered senses; and maugre the untrim shagginess of the national capût in which he was enveloped,-maugre the rustiness of the flapped beaver, and still more-despite the uncollected mass of shapeless features it overshadowed, Master Johann descended the hill towards the suburb of Wasserthal, with an air of jauntiness, an elevation of head, and trippingness of step, which argued something of the self-delusions of Malvolio. The spirit of feminine mischief had indeed besieged the brains of the reverend elder. The giggling courtesy with which the court damsels had greeted his grotesque person and untutored demeanour, had proved as flattering to his perceptions as a more favourable notice; and the " hyperbolical fiend which vexed the man," prompted him to "talk of nothing but ladies." We do not quite like the deceit practised upon Franz on their return. A fine, noble girl, like Suzsi, who has suffered so much from a necessary concealment, would have gone to him at once, and told him all. Nor does the supper-scene in any degree repay the sacrifice. The point is not come to after all; and moreover, that wretch Ménesatz is too odious to have been let within the doors. We are quite aware how very imperfectly we have given any idea of even this tale, which we professed in some measure to analyze. We have not been able, from our cramped measure this month, to do any such thing, or we should have put it beyond all doubt whether we had bestowed upon it over-praise. We are aware it is cast in lowly lifeAnd then?-We will quote the motto prefixed to its first chapter, to which the name of Hood is appended : Alas! there's far from coats of frieze To silk and satin gowns, But I doubt if God made like degrees] So do we. For the rest, lordly readers will find plenty of noble blood in the other stories; and, indeed, in the last there is no one below the rank of an archduchess. But, in all and each, we find the same merits and attractions, which must have gratified our readers in the extracts we have given; and, in some, excellences of other orders, with which we have had no opportunity of presenting them. THE SEPARATION. 'Lorsque l'on aime comme il faut, Ne revient jamais assez tôt.'-MOLIERE. He's gone, dear Fanny!-gone at last― Next Tuesday he will sail from Dover. Last night he left us after tea,— I never thought he'd leave us-never; Papa, too, said he was so clever. For stooping, just to tie a sandal! He's every Sunday at St. Bridget's! She said he squeezed one's waist and hands, Whene'er he waltzed-a plague upon herI danced with him at Lady Bland's, -"pon my honour." He never squeezed me His regiment have got the route, (They came down here to quell the riot, And now-what can they be about?— The stupid people are so quiet :) They say it is to India, too, If there, I'm sure he'll get the liver !— There may be bright eyes there-and then! His heart will soon beat for another. I know him well! he is not false- Or after he has danced a waltz- |