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true, has, at all times, been usual in the train of large armies, but which naturally took place to a much greater extent in these high northern latitudes, where the hand of man has so imperfectly subdued the original savageness of the soil. Whole droves of famished bears and wolves followed the troops, on their return to the south, to feed on the chance prey afforded by the carcasses of the artillery and baggage horses that dropped on the road. In consequence of this, the province of Esthonia, to which several regiments directed their march, was so overrun with these animals, as greatly to endanger the safety of travelers.

In a single circle of the government, no less than forty persons, of different ages, were enumerated, who had been devoured, during the winter, by these ravenous beasts. It became hazardous to venture alone and unarmed, into the uninhabited parts of the country. Nevertheless, an Esthonian country woman boldly undertook a journey to a distant relation, not only without any male companion, but with three children, the youngest of which was still an infant. A light sledge, drawn by one horse, received the little party; the way was narrow, but well beaten; the snow, on each side, deep and impassable; and to turn back, without danger of sticking fast, was not to be thought of.

The first half of the journey was passed without accident. The road now ran along the skirts of a pine forest, when the traveler suddenly heard a suspicious noise behind her. Casting back a look of alarm, she saw a troop of wolves trotting along the road, the number of which her fears prevented her from estimating. To escape by flight is her first thought; and, with unsparing whip, she urges into a gallop the horse, which itself snuffs the danger. Soon, two of the strongest and most hungry of the beasts appear at her side, and seem disposed to stop the way. Though their intention seems to be only to attack the horse, yet the safety both of the mother and of the children, depends on the preservation of the animal. The danger raises its value; it seems entitled to claim for its preservation an extraordinary sacrifice.

As the mariner throws overboard his richest treasures, to appease the raging waves, so here has necessity reached a hight, at which the emotions of the heart are dumb before the

dark commands of instinct; the latter alone suffers the unhappy woman to act in this distress. She seizes her second child, whose bodily infirmities have often made it an object of anxious care, whose cry, even now, offends her ear, and threatens to whet the appetite of the blood-thirsty monsters; she seizes it with an involuntary motion, and, before the mother is conscious of what she is doing, it is cast out,—and -enough of the horrid tale!

The last cry of the victim still sounded in her ear, when she discovered that the troop, which had remained some minutes behind, again pressed closely on the sledge. The anguish of her soul increases, for again the murder-breathing forms are at her side. Pressing the infant to her heaving bosom, she casts a look on her boy, four years old, who crowds closer and closer to her knee: "But, dear mother, I am good, am I not? You will not throw me into the snow, like the bawler." "And yet! and yet!" cried the wretched woman, in the wild tumult of despair; "thou art good, but God is merciful! Away!" The dreadful deed was done. To escape the furies that raged within her, the woman exerted herself, with powerless lash, to accelerate the gallop of the exhausted horse.

With the thick and gloomy forest before and behind her, and the nearer and nearer tramping of her ravenous pursuers, she almost sinks under her anguish. Only the recollection of the infant that she holds in her arms, only the desire to save it, occupies her heart, and with difficulty enables it to bear up. She did not venture to look behind her. All at once, two rough paws are laid upon her shoulders, and the wide-open, bloody jaws of an enormous wolf, hung over her head. It is the most ravenous beast of the troop, which, having partly missed its leap at the sledge, is dragged along with it, in vain seeking, with its hinder legs, for a resting place, to enable it to get wholly on the frail vehicle. The weight of the body of the monster draws the woman backward; her arms rise with the child: half torn from her, half abandoned, it becomes the prey of the ravening beast, which hastily carries it off into the forest. Exhausted, stunned, senseless, she drops the reins, and continues her journey, ignorant and careless whether or not she is delivered from her pursuers.

Meantime, the forest grows thinner, and an insulated farmhouse, to which a side road leads, appears at a moderate distance. The horse, left to itself, follows this new path: it enters through an open gate; panting and foaming it stands. still; and, amid a circle of persons, who crowd round with good-natured surprise, the unhappy woman recovers from her stupefaction, to throw herself, with a loud scream of anguish and horror, into the arms of the nearest human being, who appears to her as a guardian angel. All leave their work; the mistress of the house, the kitchen,—the thrasher, the barn,—the eldest son of the family, with his ax in his hand, the wood which he had just cleft, to assist the unfortunate woman; and, with a mixture of curiosity and pity, to learn, by a hundred inquiries, the circumstances of her singular appearance. Refreshed by whatever can be procured at the moment, the stranger gradually recovers the power of speech, and the ability to give an intelligible account of the dreadful trial which she has undergone.

The insensibility, with which fear and distress had steeled her heart, begins to disappear; but new terrors seize her; the dry eye seeks in vain a tear; she is on the brink of boundless misery. But her narrative had also excited conflicting feelings in the bosoms of her auditors; though pity, commiseration, dismay, and abhorrence, imposed alike on all the same involuntary silence. One only, unable to command the overpowering emotions of his heart, advanced before the rest; it was the young man with the ax: his cheeks were pale with affright; his wildly-rolling eyes flashed ill-omened fire. "What!" he exclaimed, "three children? thy own children? the sickly innocent, the imploring boy, the infant suckling, all cast out by the mother, to be devoured by the wolves? Woman, thou art unworthy to live!" And, at the same instant, the uplifted steel descends, with resistless force, on the skull of the wretched woman, who falls dead at his feet. The perpetrator then calmly wipes the blood from the murderous ax, and returns to his work.

The dreadful tale speedily came to the knowledge of the magistrates, who caused the uncalled avenger to be arrested, and brought to trial. He was, of course, sentenced to the punishment ordained by the laws; but the sentence still

wanted the sanction of the emperor. Alexander caused all the circumstances of this crime, so extraordinary in the motives in which it originated, to be reported to him, in the most careful and detailed manner. Here, or nowhere, he thought himself called on to exercise the God-like privilege of mercy, by commuting the sentence passed on the criminal, into a condemnation to labor, not very severe. ANONYMOUS

LESSON CLXXVII.

THE MANIAC.*

STAY, jailer, stay, and hear my woe!
She is not mad who kneels to thee;
For what I'm now, too well I know,
And what I was, and what should be.
I'll rave no more in proud despair;
My language shall be mild, though sad:
But yet I'll firmly, truly swear,

I am not mad; I am not mad.

My tyrant husband forged the tale,
Which chains me in this dismal cell;
My fate unknown my friends bewail;
Oh! jailer, haste that fate to tell;
Oh! haste my father's heart to cheer:
His heart at once 't will grieve and glad
To know, though kept a captive here,
I am not mad; I am not mad.

He smiles in scorn, and turns the key;
He quits the grate; I knelt in vain;
His glimmering lamp, still, still I see;
'Tis gone, and all is gloom again.
Cold! bitter cold! no warmth! no light!
Life, all thy comforts once I had;
Yet here I'm chained, this freezing night,
Although not mad; no, no, not mad.

*It is said, that a gentleman in England, in order to gain possession of his wife's property, confined her in a mad-house, under pretence of insanity, until she became really a maniac.

'Tis sure some dream, some vision vain ; What! I, the child of rank and wealth? Am I the wretch who clanks this chain,

Bereft of freedom, friends, and health? Ah! while I dwell on blessings fled,

Which never more my heart must glad, How aches my heart, how burns my head; But 't is not mad; no, 't is not mad.

Hast thou, my child, forgot, ere this,
A mother's face, a mother's tongue?
She'll ne'er forget your parting kiss,

Nor round her neck how fast you clung;
Nor how with me you sued to stay;

Nor how that suit your sire forbade;
Nor how-I'll drive such thoughts away;
They'll make me mad; they'll make me mad.

His rosy lips, how sweet they smiled!

His mild,blue eyes, how bright they shone!
None ever bore a lovelier child:

And art thou now for ever gone?
And must I never see thee more,
My pretty, pretty, pretty lad?
I will be free! unbar the door!

I am not mad; I am not mad.

Oh! hark! what mean those yells and cries?
His chain some furious madman breaks;
He comes; I see his glaring eyes;

Now, now my dungeon grate he shakes.
Help! help! He's gone! Oh! fearful woe,
Such screams to hear, such sights to see!
My brain, my brain,-I know, I know,
I am not mad, but soon shall be.

Yes, soon ;-for, lo you!—while I speak—
Mark how yon Demon's eye-balls glare!
He sees me; now, with dreadful shriek,
He whirls a serpent high in air.
Horror!-the reptile strikes his tooth
Deep in my heart, so crushed and sad;
Ay, laugh, ye fiends;-I feel the truth;
Your task is done!-I'm mad! I'm mad!
M. G. LEWIS.

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