LOVE glided o'er the rosy path to meet me,

Mask'd in mortality's serenest guise;

But I beheld the eyes,

And fled! while FRIENDSHIP's hand, stretched forth to greet me, Applied its bland medicaments-to soothe

The mania of my youth!

To the false joys, which do these pains redouble;
And Time hath swept away the green delights
Of peaceful days and nights!

Hopes I have had, like those that most have cherished,
And wishes that, even from their very birth,

Too strongly clung to earth;

And earthly was their fate, for soon they perished-
And-lone ALNASCHAR of a world of thought-
My burthen turned to naught!

My race is not yet run, and fears prophetic
Bring clouds to dim the clearness of its course;
And Passion's fruit, Remorse,

Turns cheerful ease to abstinence ascetic-
Hov'ring about me like a bird of prey,

To scare me night and day.

Why was I born for this? Why dogged by Sorrow,
And Sin, and Shame, up from my very youth ?—
To teach this wholesome truth,

That here we should not build for a To-morrow
The fabric of our hopes, but raise them high,
Until they reach the sky!

THE WOMAN-HATER.

"Trust not the treason of those smiling looks, Until you have their guileful trains well trod." SPENSER.

I would say I detest, but I would fain do so without the expense of personal pain to myself, which must result from their contact and intercourse. If there be any truth in the assertion that I hate womankind, it is, that I abhor the woman man and the world have made, but that I love and reverence the trusting being of feeling and affection whom God intended she should be.

"MANY remembrances," says Aristotle, "make up one experience;" and if it could be hoped or expected that remembrance of written words would make up an experi- Many years ago, when I was in Camence, as well as that of actions, I might bridge, I cherished a favourite theory, sawith justice anticipate much good from the vouring of Platonism as I think, of silliness records of my past fortunes. Alas! that as I know, that nature never did, and never the verbal teaching of the old falls power- would, unite surpassing loveliness of form less on the ear of the young, and nothing to anything but corresponding purity of but the sad contact with calamity and sor- soul and refinement of intellect. How row can write upon the heart the lessons rudely this theory was shaken from its of wisdom and prudence. But the melan-basis-how this chaff of speculation was choly pleasure of looking back from the shores of age on the angry waters just past over of recounting old perils and escapes —induces me to incur the charge of useless tedium, by reading, to all who will listen, a page from that riddle-book of creation,

woman.

But you do me much injustice in calling me a woman-hater, in the proper meaning of the term; I hate no being and few things. It is true, that the society of those, the music of whose tones, the roundness of whose forms, and the intoxication resulting from whose intercourse, remind me too forcibly of miseries I would fain forget, is distasteful; true that it lacerates to the cruellest degree of anguish my inward heart; and therefore I fly from it, seeking in the passionless communion with books an excitement less enthralling perhaps, but infinitely richer in calm joy and not inactive contemplation. With my whole heart do I desire to benefit the sex whom you

dissipated before the wind of practice, shall
now be shown. Leaving Cambridge one
summer with the determination of visiting
the Lakes of Cumberland in search of that
health which had been but a sad truant from
my body, I fell in, during my journey north-
ward, with a young lady and her father,
with whom I was slightly acquainted, and
who invited me to join them in their route,
as our destination was nearly the same-
an invitation with which my love of society
induced me cheerfully to comply. Would
that my tongue had failed me before it had
acceded to any such fatal measure!
Aura
Merion was the very loveliest creature I
ever saw; I cannot elaborate a description
of her personal excellences.
To you, my
friend, or some other in whose veins the
pulse of youth is leaping, such a task must
be left; for me it must be enough to say,
in one word, she was beautiful. A dash of
foreign blood in her race had given her the
spotless paleness of a warmer clime, with-

out robbing her of the golden hair and blue eye of her native land. Grace and symmetry of form go to the completion of this picture, which I cannot look upon in the gallery of memory, even at this distance of time, without a thrill. Her voice was softness and music, an excellent thing in woman, and there was an artlessness of man. ner which lent tenfold effect to its tone. See! I have made a sketch, at the moment I vowed it should be left to you.

had been the ostensible cause of my visit to Cumberland. Whether she delighted in the saddle, or loved that particular path, we met daily. The tale is told-I deeply loved her.

I feel that I am gossiping, and know that those who have never fallen victims to the soft passion, (a very soft passion it is,) and those who fondly hope they never will, may alike turn over these pages with disdain. You, my young friend, will not do so, because they will at least interest you as coming from one you have known and loved. For other and remoter readers, I shall look for my recompense among those whom Eros has rendered docile and greedy of knowledge of the passion that devours them. Even these I shall spare the details of meeting after meeting, of the thousand little coinages of love's currency that circulated between us, of the songs copied or written, the flower-gifts never for a day neglected, (some of Aura's are in my desk still,) the many airy nothings which, to those alone most deeply interested, acquire a local habitation and a name.

As fathers are sleepy companions, my conversation with Miss Merion was almost uninterrupted, except by the delays incidental to a well-travelled road. Little as I had previously known of her opinions or predilections, a few hours sufficed to place us on terms of the most perfect apparent intimacy; we had passed, with the steps of light and playful criticism, over the regions of literature usually cultivated by a feminine intellect, and the kind smile was the signal for recall when either was straying where the feet of the other were unable to follow: we had talked of love, with the calm candour of two philosophers, little fearing that a few short days would change the To this forbearance an exception must tone of our remarks, and add the intensity be made. Some miles from the scene of of personal interest to the warmth of the my sketch was the ruin of an ancient abbey, theme. I well remember the sense of unde- placed in a patch of scenery such as here fined pain with which I received an im- and there, in the wide world, Nature decopression, drawn from her manner rather rates to the highest of her skill, as if for her than from her words, of the interest she felt own peculiar abode. A couple of moons in the destinies of a certain mutual male had waned upon my intercourse with Aura, friend, then in a foreign land, and soon af- when a party was made up for the purpose ter in his grave. This sense of pain should of visiting this ruin; and, duly chaperoned, have warned me, as indeed in subsequent we set off-one of the vehicles, in which days it would, that something was grow- was Miss Merion, with some others of the ing up between me and Aura Merion which party, being entrusted to my pilotage. would soon be uneradicable by all efforts on Everything-the season, the drive, the scemy part. Was it madness or infatuation nery-was delightful, and tended to inspire that led me on to love, where I saw I must the thoughts and emotions most favourable either occupy a second place, a divided to love. We gazed our fill on the ruin, heart, or wait for the expiration of a former wandered around it until the sun had gildpassion, ere I could hope to excite the new? ed it with his latest glory, and then, with As was said, the hand of fate was laid on the sombre yet not unpleasing melancholy Aura's lover, and in a week or two the news such a sight must inspire, we left the place. of his death removed the external part of The aged pile had told us his story; we the barrier; the internal remained to be saw him in the backward eye of fancy, dealt with. Could anything, however, be when the pale and white robed sister was more damping to the young ardour of af-gliding through his happy cloisters, and fection than the knowledge that Aura's love was elsewhere bestowed? To mine it was not damping, more than the rain-drops to a blazing forest. In her presence, reason and cold calculation of chances were lulled to sleep, and passion and intoxication alone awake. Then first did I learn to appreciate the caution of the old men in Homer, who demand the removal of the war-creating, beautiful Helen, lest her presence should influence the deliberation, and sway the voice of the councillors.

Our journey terminated, but not its consequences. A few miles of separation alone lay between our homes, and my foot or my bridle-rein turned oftener towards hers than was at all consistent with the change of scene, the search after which

we heard the organ pealing until his pointed windows trembled at its sound—and now all was decay. A starry night clothed the heaven to light us homeward. From the disposition of our party I could converse with Miss Merion unheard, and the neglected rein hung from my hand as I poured into her ear all that fancy could supply, or love dictate. We looked up to the sapphire vault, and she quoted the poetry of Italy with a tone of feeling and expression entirely irresistible. I, on my part, spoke what I knew of Chaldæan and Egyptian lore, that read that sky like a book of prophecy; then of Aratus, and his starry imaginings, whose fancy had covered the mazy heavens with regular and lifelike pictures. Like a lark, weary of soaring, our

converse at_length turned homeward, and choking with excessive and conflicting paswe spoke of ourselves. I told her of my sions, I left the room-the house, and strode love, my more than love; and she recorded through a soaking rain and a tempest of a certain night when I appeared to her in wind to my home. sleep-recounted the things I said, and the pleasure they gave her. Her pressure of my hand when I drew up the horses at her home, gave me assurance of the warmth of her heart-and it was a lying assurance; but mark the sequel!

The demanded and reluctantly granted interview of explanation-the heartless false jargon about unmeaning attentions, her ignorance of my motives, and the like-are better omitted. Our farewell took place late one evening, and the next sunrise found The poetical temperament (without mean- me on the box of a south mail, on my way ing the mere faculty of versifying) is pecu- to bury my sorrows, and, if possible, my liarly dangerous to one under the influence remembrance, in the sober studies of Camof love. It sheds a light of tenfold brillian- bridge. What was the real cause of Aura's cy over each lovable attribute in the ob- changed demeanour? An English gentleject, and, by dazzling the eyes of the sub-man, named Pentegru, the owner of a beauject, precludes the chance of his perceiving tiful house and broad lands in the part of anything else. All drawbacks, all shadows, Scotland whither Aura went, had seen her, of character, are concealed; and as the il-loved, and proposed, and-won. True, lusion thus formed is perfect in beauty, so three weeks was a short time !-true; formis the dispelment of it dreary and full of er passions must be banished or forgotten; sorrow. To say that in Aura I detected no-true, Mr. Pentegru possessed no single fault, were even to say less than the truth. recommendation beyond a very honest, I had throned her as my idol, and in the in- well-meaning stupidity; belonging to a tensity of my worship shunned rather than class-the uneducated country gentlemencourted that calmness of mind by which the now almost extinct. True-all these things wood, earth and stone might have been militated against his suit-the proposal seen and estimated. A somewhat too high was made beneath his own stately roof, and valuation of rank and birth seemed to my in sight of his own woods and fields; Miss eyes the only foible of Miss Merion's Merion's mother, too, was there, and he was character; she seemed little to feel Ed-successful. It was Aura's third attachment mund Spenser's dictum that "love is no- within four months!!! bility;" but having it in my power to claim the worthless distinction of a belted earl as my great-great (I know not how many greats) grandfather, I viewed this taste of hers as an additional tie. See the blindness throughout!

revel. A waltz was in progress as I entered the door, and at that very moment Miss Merion was being whirled past by a tall and strikingly handsome officer, most unlike the only man she should have been waltzing with, Mr. Pentegru.

My heart was schooled to calmness. I had, indeed, the bachelor's gown, and completed my academic course, before I ventured near the scene of the above adventure. The little town of was gay and noisy on the night I entered it, with all the glories Aura's departure for Scotland on a short of a race ball, or some such festivity. As visit filled me with grief, heightened by a the mail rattled past the windows of the ilstrong presentiment of longer separation. luminated ball-room, I felt a longing to enter We parted in all tenderness, and-to slur its precincts, which was too easily gratified over this painful portion of the narration to be resisted. Mine host, all bows and rapidly-in three weeks she returned. We smiles, told me what steps were necessary met again in one of her accustomed walks; towards gaining admission, and an hour she was not alone, but the glad words of saw me ascending accoutred to the scene of greeting and welcome were springing to my lips. Could it be? her soft eye wandered above, around, across me, without meeting the passionate glance it should have been ready to return. She passed-she who three short weeks before had told me how I was the subject of her dreamswithout the salutation due to a common acquaintance; and words cannot describe the stupified misery she left behind. I was awake; a thousand things came back from the past to tell me I had given my heart and soul to one, whose affections were doffed and donned as easily as a cloak or bonnet. And yet it was hardly credible; and when I saw her at a ball, I could not refrain from asking her hand for a dance. It was not withheld; and the tact with which her soft voice spoke of indifferent subjects, without trenching on an explanation, or even touching the past, was admirable, if not admired. Sick and wretched, with a lump in my throat like a peach, and

"Who is that gentleman ?" asked I, of a friend who stood near.

"Captain Etheling. Miss Merion has been waltzing with him the whole evening." I turned away, and moved onward; caught her eye, and threw as much meaning as possible into the distant bow that I gave her.

Captain Etheling was a young man, who had recently changed his name on his accession to an immense fortune; handsome and accomplished, little was requisite to make him an universal favourite in the little circle of the town of Accordingly,

he had scarcely been three weeks there, when every female and most of the males, were ready to join loudly in his praises-the

rather, as his demeanour was marked by the | whose reserve respecting himself had causmost polished courtesy and affability. Missed this strange incident, I believe that, as Merion, not insensible to the value of such a far as she was capable of loving, she was conquest, and undeterred by principle and devoted to Pentegru. The want of that respect for her engagement to Mr. Pentegru, consistency of character, for which we must had used every endeavour to bring him to look to principle, to religion, not to impulse, her feet, and had succeeded fully, if one led her to do violence to this devotion, might believe the accredited judges of such rather perhaps for the sake of display and things in The two appeared in- the indulgence of a sickly sentimentality, separable, and many an envious glance was than of anything baser; and the conse directed at the supposed future husband of quence was the loss of him whose regard Aura, her previous betrothment to Pentegru she most wished to cultivate and attract. being unknown. Military duty, however, Pain and sorrow now follow every word having summoned Captain Etheling away, I write. Two days after this took place, I without any formal proposal having trans-had drawn my chair to a cheerful fire, and pired, the circumstances were fast wearing had opened a volume of the Republic of out from the memory of the good people of Plato, determined to beguile the hours thus till bedtime, for the evening had closed in, when a knock at my door (I was lodging in a snug house near -) made me start from my chair in alarm-so loud, so violent was it. No time was left for surmise; for a young surgeon of —, named Jones, rushed abruptly into my apartment. "For God's sake!" he said, "for God's sake, my dear sir, do you know anything of Miss Merion's movements to-day ?" "Mr. Merion's carriage passed my door this morning, towards " said I, trembling at every joint, as if a palsy had struck me, "and I think she was in it with her mother."

Not many days elapsed before a carriage, furiously driven, stopped at the door of Miss Merion's residence, and out of it leapt Pentegru. To his demand of a private and immediate interview with Aura, her mother, to whom the demand was made, offered no opposition. They were left alone for some time, until Mrs. Merion, alarmed at the fierce loudness of Pentegru's tone, opened the door that led to the room, to interrupt or prevent anger so strange and unseemly. "You told Captain Etheling too," he was saying, in a tone tremulous with suppressed passion, "when he said he loved you, that of him you had thought with sentiments such as you could never feel towards any other man?"

A deep sob was the reply.

"That his image was next your heart, sleeping or waking, and that you loved none other ?"

The same inarticulated answer was returned.

"And yet during this time you were betrothed to me? Is it is it really all true?" "Most true," faintly answered Aura; “and true, that if Captain Etheling had the feelings of a man of honour, he would never have addressed, solely to insult and deride me."

"Woman! Henry Etheling loved you with the warmest affection of a good man; he told me all, that I might advise him respecting your immediate union."

"Told you all," repeated Aura, "that you might advise."

"Are you ignorant that Etheling is my brother?"

"Oh! merciful Heaven forbid! I left my surgery early this morning, and the boy who should have remained in went out too. On my return I found a box containing a vial of poison missing, and a guinea left in its place. I was alarmed; but oh! I was nearly stunned, when on the floor as if accidentally dropped, I found this glove."

He held out a lady's glove, so delicate in its shape and size, and so almost certainly hers, that my eyes began to grow misty with horror.

"Are you mad?" I whispered, for I could not speak: "why did you not ride instantly to Miss Merion's?"

"Alas! if my suspicion is true, I were four hours too late. I was riding there, and thought it better to call on you by the way. My horse is at the door."

"Your whip! your whip!" I shouted; "follow me on foot."

And ten seconds more saw me mounted, and heard the horse's hoofs as I dashed into the darkness. Arrived at Merion Lodge, Mrs. Merion stepped forward to prevent I tore past the servant who opened the door, her fainting daughter from falling on the and rushed into the drawing-room. The floor; whilst Pentegru, having violently family were assembled, all but Aura, whom rung the bell, rushed out of the house like I fiercely demanded to see. Everything a man distracted; and the sound of his re- was consternation; my looks, my streamtreating carriage-wheels had died away be-ing hair, (for I had brought no hat with me,) fore Aura opened her eyes to sadness and and my hollow voice, made all shudder. sorrow. When she did so, she appeared Aura had felt unwell, they said, and had retotally changed; her usual graceful pride tired to rest some hours before. of demeanour was vanished for ever; she "As you value your soul's salvation," I seemed crushed and humbled, and walked exclaimed, then for the first time weeping at about more like some passionless spectre the sight of that happy family, "show me than a young and high-spirited woman. her room." Whatever she might have said to Etheling, 47

VOL. VIII.

None stirred nor spoke but her little sis