records of a filthy feast of a barbarian Greek | pegs, and this manœuvre he performed in a or Roman, if such record should happen to manner so skilful, that it was only the steady be, this year or the next, dug up from the and disinterested eye of an overlooker that ruins of Herculaneum or Pompeii, and would could discover it. The cards were begrimed pronounce the description classical, interest- with dirt, and the spectacle was altogether ing, and commendable, a detail of the feasts disgusting. The chief mate and the superof the heroes of the deep would gain no bet- cargo at first contented themselves by lookter epithet than that of bestial and revolting. ing on and betting, but this soon ceased to Yet, could the facts be accurately known, I furnish them with sufficient excitement. have no doubt that Jason aud his officers at Chalk and a still dirtier pack of cards were their mess-table, a description of which produced, and they were soon deeply engagwould make the fortune of a modern book-ed in cursing each other and in the myster seller and the reputation of a modern author, ies of the game of put. They showed no mo. would be found in their feeding not to be ney in these transactions, but booked their a bit the more cleanly than the exhibition losses and their winnings as they occurred, which usually took place about two o'clock for they were playing for the anticipated proin the afternoon on board the "Lively Sally." fits of their voyage.

Still, as it is a difficult matter to describe This scene was too revolting, too brutal, to disgusting things, without being disgusting, fear that it could do harm upon my sister. I and as I am unable to throw either an air perceived, at once, that no familiarity could of antiquity or classicality over the sym- render it supportable to her, and thus have a posia of the oil-saturated guests, I will merely tendency to blunt her perceptions of refinesay, that until appetite had nearly assumed ment and delicacy. She looked upon it the character of famine, neither Honoria nor shrinkingly, and with mute astonishment, and, myself were able to partake of the rancid ere the orgies commenced, she besought me, and luscious pork or the steaming dog's-body in Spanish, to take her on deck. To this Í that was set before us. Even the bread hesitated, as I did not wish thus early to exwas filthy. Everything partook of the asperate my new companions by any undue nature of grease. There was but one appearance of fastidiousness. I quietly told course, and that a slippery one. A Russian would have been in his own peculiar heaven at our repasts.

The captain, the surgeon, the supercargo, or an individual that seemed to unite in his person the functions of that officer, and of a purser, with the chief-mate, formed the usual party in the cabin. Loud conversationists, enormous eaters, tremendous swearers, and intrepid liars, were these four high priests of the "Temple of Benevolence." I could pardon Captain Darkins for his long grace whilst the pea-soup or the lobscouse was growing cold, for the sake of the cleanly set-out and the decorum that it sanctified. But here was neither grace before, at, or after meals; indeed, there was not much to be thankful for, unless a man could have enjoyed himself upon food very like blubber, and rum very like liquid fire.

her, in reply, that as she was growing a stout and spoiled boy, she must do as spoilt and stout boys did, and seem, at least, to enjoy her grog. I also cautioned her against ever, excepting when she slept, being from my side, in order that she might be sure of my protection in the event of any accident. I also let her understand, that, though her extreme youth might afford her some plea for deserting the table, it would not serve myself, and every annoyance was better than that of being separated.

lurch.

As the captain knew I had nothing to lose, he did not press me to play with him, so I was allowed to remain in the quiet contemplation of the scene before me. I remained below as long as I thought that common civility required, and long enough to see that the skipper kept himself in an admirable state of coolness, whilst the temper and property As the characters in this vessel were no of his antagonist were running a desperate otherwise connected with my fate than assist-race to try which should leave him first in the ing to remove me to the great, to the final destination in which I enacted so much, and that has stamped my soul with impressions so indelible, I shall content myself with but a slight and rapid sketch of their peculiarities and their occupations. The demon of avarice in his worst form had seized this whole party, and no sooner were the relics of our greasy repast removed by a servant equally greasy, than the other bottle of rum and the cards and cribbage-board were called for.

Nathaniel Willis, I observed, commenced operations by displaying a long moral sentiment, and concealing the fives of hearts and of diamonds. His opponent, the surgeon, less nimble than the skipper with his tongue, but infinitely more so with his fingers, when he scored his game had a trick of leaping the

As I handed Honoria on to the narrow and lumbered quarter-deck, a new and singular scene burst upon my view. The wind was fair, the breeze steady, and but little labor and not much attention were required in the navigation of the craft. The afternoon was sunny, and the sea tolerably smooth. All this was well, and approached the beautiful. Indeed, everything above and beyond the decks of the vessel was cheerful and lovely, but, on the decks, what a contrast! It was as if a huge cage full of demons was being conveyed through the quiet realms of paradise. All around were brawling, wrangling, and scoffing. Every nook and corner of the deck contained a nest of noisy gamesters. The variety of gambling going on at once was quite astonishing. From the simple odd

and even, and the hustle-cap of the charity boy, to the aristocratic piquette, all were in operation. The crew was numerous, as it generally is in vessels of this description, and thus gave an animation and a spirit to the scene that was peculiar and singular.

mable piece of dark friendship, our Jugurtha, is a gambler-look you there."

"Most of the negroes are," was my cold reply, as I cast my eyes in the direction that Honoria pointed out. Half concealed beneath a mass of canvass was Jugurtha and another, I must, however, do this strange ship's com- playing with a greasy pack of cards, every pany the justice to say, that neither the offi- one of which, from the innumerable marks cer of the watch, nor the man at the wheel, upon its back, must have been better known were gambling; but, for some time, my eyes to the American than the prayer for his daily in vain looked round for some other person bread. The game, as well as I could judge who might not be thus interestingly engaged. from the distance was all-fours. There were I could not help smiling when I saw one of several Spanish dollars upon the deck bethese assiduous wooers of Fortune, when or- tween them. More fortunate than the Perdered aloft on some trifling duty, throw his sian king, who, history tells us, offered so hand of cards into his bosom, and do his duty great a reward for it, the negro had found a with more alacrity than the cat could have new pleasure. His upper and lower railing, begotten, in order to hasten down to resume or large white teeth glistened in his enjoyhis favorite game. As every one about us ment, through the night of his countenance. seemed to be a little or a great deal plunged I looked on for some time in silence, and half in this insanity, Honoria, in her quiet and in- sorrowfully, when I discovered that he was telligent way, asked me for an explanation of winning. all that was going on around, observing, that anything would be better than to converse and think on the past.

"And now, Ardent," said Honoria, “since Jugurtha has become a gambler, will he be no longer brave, and good, and affectionate and true towards us?"

To this I assented from the depths of my heart, and placing ourselves upon the taffrail, "All who game are not gumblers, but all I then commenced that lecture on gaming who game much are in sad danger of becomwhich I have since extended into three vo- ing so. It is an excitement, this gaming, pelumes, post octavo, and to publish which I culiarly adapted to the fire of the African wait only for a sufficient number of subscri- temperament, and the laziness of African habers from the gentlemen who frequent the bits. Jugurtha is now under the process of clubs in St. James's, to warrant me against inoculation, and, by my soul, he seems to take loss on going to press. As I wound up one the virus kindly. Did you mark with what of my well-turned phrases, by saying, that unsophisticated delight he swept that coin into "this passion, when it once gets firmly en- his hat? This will never do." I lifted up grafted in the human breast, is, like the can- my voice, and called him. cer, not to be extirpated whilst there remain life and strength to feed it; for, though dramatists and novelists have fancied a reformed gamester, they have fancied what history has never produced," she observed,

"Will not, my dear brother, the fear of death conquor this passion?"

He bounded from off the deck and was in a moment before us. It appeared that Captain Darkins, as he went down the side on leaving us, had given him a handful of dollars, and these having been discovered by the wily and grasping American, the latter had resolved first, to amuse himself with his victim, and a then to fleece him. But I soon understood Jugurtha was no novice at cards, draughts, dominoes, or any other of the low games prevalent among seamen. Without meaning a pun, my friend was something of a black-leg; and I am sadly afraid that the childish delight, and the ignorance of the game that he had exhibited, were nothing more than so many decoys, by which he intended to lead his unwary opponent into loss. Owing to the imperfect state of communication between us, this latter suspicion I could not verify.

"It will restrain, but not conquer it, for genuine fear is all-powerful; but when the fear ceased, the passion would again show itself in all its pristine energy. The prospect of death will not deter a thorough gambler, for many have gamed on their death beds, and have shaken the dice-box, whilst their mind's eye has shown them the grim monster, as if in mockery, shaking his glass with their last sands in it; and many have gambled away their lives."

"I shudder whilst I listen to you. It is a passion, Ardent, that I cannot comprehend. What can be the fascination in what appears to me as childish and ignoble amusements, judging from all I see around."

"The means, as you observe, are unworthy, from their unintellectual nature, of a child of five years of age, but the ends are terrible, which are nothing less than concentrated avarice run mad. Each of these gamblers envies, and passionately desires, the property of the other."

"And this is incurable, you say?" "Incurable."

"Then I declare, Ardent, that our inesti

But

I exhorted, and Honoria entreated, yet few words were needful, for, when he understood our wishes, his compliance was immediate and most cheerful. He ran and offered to return the money that he had just won. the Yankee was too proud to receive it, or else he had some sinister motive in his refusal. This ready acquiescence on the part of Jugurtha much gratified, and, in some degree, amused Honoria; for she remarked to me, smiling, "that there must either be some defect in my theory of gambling, or that Jugurtha must be a paragon of virtue."

As we were thus standing aft, conversing, I

indeed, I ought to rejoice to see the watch on
deck so happily employed at cards, dice, and
dominoes, that it would be but a waste of
time to wash the decks, coil down the falls of
the ropes, and point their ends. But let us
speak of yourself. You seem to be but thin-
ly clothed, and the nights in these high south-
ern latitudes are sometimes, even at this sea-
son, very cold. How does this happen?"
"An almighty run of bad luck at cards."
"And you have lost everything that belongs
to you?"

holding the dollars that I had determined | it must be confessed that a trifle of repair should not be appropriated by Jugurtha, a de- would do them no harm. It can be neither sponding-looking and miserably-clad young my business nor my inclination to find fault; man slouched by near us, with that reckless and shuffling step, which so plainly shows that all self-respect has gone from the man who uses it. He had every appearance of a sturdy sea-beggar. All the crew were, more or less, greasy and dirty; but, excepting this man, I had seen none that were ragged and scant of dress. His hair was matted together with pitch and oil, his red worsted banyan, or rather shirt, was full of holes, and discolored with patches, not of repairs, but of oil. Stockingless and shoeless, his canvass trousers shone with a dark polish of accumulated filth, excepting in those parts that were broken up into rents. As he drew his body listlessly past us, at the gingling that I made with the dollars as I shook them about in my hand, he pricked up his ears like the charger who hears the call of the trumpet, and he eyed the coin with that ferocity of desire, that, till then, I thought only belonged to famine.

"This man," said Ï, to Honoria, in Spanish, "is a victim."

"Speak to him, my brother, and reclaim him. He will not be more obdurate than Jugurtha. There is something in his countenance that vice has not wholly made her

own."

And so there was, for the man's brow was lofty, and the upper part of his face was fine. The chin, however, was too little prominent, and there was an evident want of the indications of determination in the muscles about the mouth.

"My good friend," said I carelessly, yet nodding to him kindly, "this seems to be a happy, a very happy ship."

He shrugged up his shoulders, and looked a thousand ridiculous denials.

"You don't mean to deny it, certainly," I continued; every one seems so amused, and so animated. It seems to me that all play and no work is the order of the day."

Everything-past, present, and to come everything but what I stand in."

We

"Well, well, such a state of happiness as this ship seems to enjoy cannot be purchased without a little individual suffering. can't all win, you know. I always do. I have the infallible secret, but I am a humane man; therefore, now that I have attained this certainty of success, I spare my fellows and never use it."

At this, his eyes glistened with rapture, and an air of involuntary respect pervaded his countenance. "And will this secret, sir, bring you into the right soundings at all games

"All games of mere chance."

"O, I wish I knew it-I wish I knew it-then should I be able to meet the face of my poor wife-then should I be able, with a swelling bosom, to fondle my children and invite them to their father's knees: but now, death or the gallows would be less painful to me than to cross the threshold of my own home. What a blessing you would confer on me-on the innocent sufferers for my wickedness, if you would teach me this secret!"

"I paid a great penalty for it—you must do the same. But first you must acquire selfcontrol; without this, you will never be able rightly to make use of the intricate calculations that I can teach you. Have you noth

"And the night too, I guess, said he, speaking to receive for this voyage?" ing for the first time.

"Not a cent, and it has been so prosperous

The night too?-well, and so much the too. Not to mention the seal furs, and the better. To be sure," said I, "if this quarter-sea elephant oil that we have on board, we deck was well scraped, or that rent was have taken more fish than any of our conmended in the spanker, it might be as well; sorts. I have lost everything-my three but of course, when you are all so happily years' labors have been in vain. O sir! teach employed, it would be only throwing time me but this secret." away to exhaust it upon such trifles."

"I'm just speculating, Mr. Britisher, that you are doing a pretty considerable laugh at us, and that you are folding it up in your heart that we are a precious set of scampsand so in God's truth we be; but everybody's not born to ride on alligators, though they may have a tarnation cute notion of a silver saddle."

"Upon my word I do not understand you. If you mean to insinuate the English proverb that I mean to ride a high horse, though others are more deserving of that honor, you quite mistake me. I have nothing to complain of. The ship lies her course, the sails are properly trimmed and draw well, though

"Well, well, all in good time. I am going now to give you the first preparation for ityour first lesson in control. Here, take these twelve, thirteen, fourteen dollars. I give them to you for the express purpose, and for none other, of going to your purser and your supercargo, and purchasing with them the clothing and necessaries that you stand in need of. Spend the whole, and bring me the gentleman's receipt. Give me no expressions of gratitude-you don't know what service I may, in return, require of you. Perhaps it is my intention, through you, to win one half of the property in this craft, and let you win the other; but, as I said before, I must prepare you, by showing you how to prepare your

self. With that money in your hand, before | A shroud has veiled from his eager sight you go to the purser, you must seat yourself The world of verdure, of flowers, and light. down for three minutes at least, and overlook the play of every party that is now going on. Omit not one. Then, if you get safely to your destination without hazarding your money, and bring me the receipt of the whole, I shall find that you have sufficient firmness and self-control about you to receive my next lesson. Depart now, on your errand, and for the sake of your family at home, may you prosper."

He departed on his trial, all animation, joy, gratitude, and hope. Jugurtha looked after him very gravely; but, before the tyro in my new system of winning was out of hearing, Jugurtha opened his black monster mouth with the most terrific yaw-yaw of a laugh that I had ever before heard. Of course, we looked at him; for, after such a summons, who could help doing so? He then went through the antics of playing cards, pointed towards my new friend, and, with a chuckle, turned his pockets inside out, showing us, to use an expression of my friend Rory O'Rourke, "a very palpable repletion of emptiness."

"What does Jugurtha, and what do you mean, Ardent?"

"Jugurtha knows human nature, and means that the man will lose his money immediately; and I mean, if the man have resolution, to teach him, by degrees, to resist temptation; if the man have not, he and the money are lost, and I have proved my theory, Honoria, that a confirmed gambler is irreclaimable; for what can be more decisive of this insanity, if a man cannot desist, for a short time, from the habit of gaming-in order to obtain the summit of his ambition-the becoming an ever successful gambler ?"

Jugurtha was right. Long before he reached the purser, he thought that he could deceive me he began to play, won, and then lost all. For some days he hid himself from my sight; and, at length, crept up to me all confusion, in the same tattered dress in which I had first seen him, and said to me, "Ah! sir, Yankee as I am, I am a born fool-I could not master the first lesson in the art of being a successful gamester, so I have taken a solemn oath, and forsworn gaming altogether."

(To be continued.)

THE DARKENED CAGE.

BY MRS. ABDY.

HE wakens from sleep-that blithesome bird,
The leaves are by gentle breezes stirred,
And he longs to look on the streams and
bowers,

That oft have solaced his prisoned hours:
But the scene before him is dark and dim,
Morn and its glories are not for him,

Hark! a slow melody, soft and clear,
Strikes, in his sorrow, his grateful ear,
Perchance he had valued not that lay,
Had he heard it amid the smiles of day;
But now, he learns for the sounds to wait,
And he strives the notes to emulate,
Daily he masters some mystic tone,
Till the whole sweet strain becomes his own.
He sings it in full free notes at last-
Now has the time of his darkness past,
The veil is raised, and again he sees
The dancing waters, and blossomed trees:
Not in oppression was placed that shade,
It was meant his toilsome task to aid,
And that task accomplished-that purpose

won,

His cares are over-his trials done.

Have we not oft, like that drooping bird,
Lessons of truth in our sadness heard,
And felt their wisdom, and blessed their
worth,

Though we prized them not in our days of
mirth?

To those hidden meanings in grief we turn,
Which the worldling deems too hard to learn;
And we rise all human themes above,
Telling alone of our Saviour's love.

Like the bird, we may not hope to gain
Immediate ease from our passing pain;
That bird is from future joys debarred,
And earth alone can his toils reward;
But though darkness reign o'er our mortal
day,

A scene of light we shall yet survey,
When the shroud is raised from our longing

eyes

By the hand of God in the blissful skies.

CLEVELAND.*

In an obscure and dirty suburb of London there stood, at the time of which we write, a very large and old-fashioned house. The court-yard before it was overrun with weeds, its walls were moss-covered, the numerous narrow windows were darkened by accumulated dust and the products of Arachnean industry and labor, and the large garden in the rear had the desert and desolate aspect proper to a place which had long been unconscious of the tending hand of man.

Tradition said that this house had been the scene of a horrible parricide. An aged man of ancient family, and of good property acquired in trade, who had formerly possessed it, had lived here in a miser's seclusion and self-denial. Year by year he added gold to

* Continued from p. 65.

gold; and day by day he and the withered Necessity, it is proverbial, has no law; and crone, who was his sole attendant, mortified our youth's necessity had no resource but their appetites upon the scantiest and coarsest compliance with his father's will. The bond food by which human life could be supported. was duly signed and witnessed, the prodigal This man had but one human creature was released from prison, and, in a few days, connected with him by ties of blood; a son, he was on ship-board, and bounding over the whose wildness and extravagance had caused bosom of the Atlantic. him much anxiety and anger even before his natural parsimony had degenerated into the actual greed and hoarding of the miser. Wearied with the perpetual demands upon his purse, and alarmed at the undutiful and even threatening manner of his son when his compliance with those demands was not so prompt or so liberal as the young man assumed that it ought to be, the father took the occasion of his son being arrested for a very large sum, to make such a bargain with him as he fondly hoped would set him free for the rest of his life from demands which excessive timidity would not allow him absolutely to refuse; and which, at the same time, he could only accede to with an agony which none but with a spirit as niggard and goldhungry as his own could appreciate, and which assuredly no effort of ours would suffice accurately to describe.

Accordingly, on receiving intelligence of his son's imprisonment, coupled with a request, or rather a demand, that he should disburse the large sum necessary for his liberation, the old man sought the jail in which his son was confined, and in the presence of the jailer and his own attorney, upbraided his son with the reckless extravagance and immorality of his past conduct, reminded him of the very large sums with which he had already supplied him, and which had all been expended upon the gaming-table, "the harlot, and the bravo," and positively refused to advance a single shilling in his present and very urgent need, except upon the hard condition that he should forthwith expatriate himself, and accept of an employment which he could procure for him in the West Indies.

Even this elaborate precaution against the further importunities and wastefulness of his extravagant son did not satisfy the anxious father. Disposing of the prosperous and profitable business in which he was engaged in a seaport town, he converted his securities and some houses he possessed into cash, proceeded to London, and, in an assumed name, purchased the suburban house of which we have made mention, and which was even then so old and so squalid in aspect, from having long been the subject of a chancery suit, that he became its possessor for a sum which, even to him, seemed small.

Here, as we have said, he resided for some years, with no domestic but one old woman; and year by year his avarice grew more and more craving.

His solitary way of life, the jealous care with which his doors and windows were secured, and the notorious parsimony of his housekeeping, had the effect which those circumstances usually have; they not only caused his neighborhood to believe him wealthy and a miser, but also to exaggerate the amount of his wealth in exact proportion to the rigid severity of his self-mortification and seeming penury.

Heedless of what his neighbors thought and said, of which, indeed, he would have been wholly ignorant but for the fact that his housekeeper, though equal to himself in dislike of the disbursement of the current coin of the realm, was much prone to self-indulgence in the matter of gossiping, Mr. Atkins as the miser now chose to call himself, vegetated on from year to year, gloating over the gold which he hoarded in useless masses, and Though nothing could have been suggested undisturbed by a single care, save only that less agreeable to the inclinations of our gay the day must come when the weight of his and convivial youth than servitude in a broil-gold could no longer feast his heart, or its ing climate as a certainty, and the yellow glittering beauty delight his eye. Death, the fever as an extremely probable contingency, tyrant tamer, the only soother of the bruised his position with his father was now such as heart-Death, the mighty conqueror, so terto give to the parent the authority which had rible to those who gaze upon his approach, long been undutifully assumed and most and weep above the ruin he has madetyrannically exercised by the child; and, Death, the truest friend of our suffering race, after some ineffectual attempts at remon- agonizing though the path be by which he strance, and a few minutes of sullen and silent snatches us from sorrow, from suffering, and cogitation, young hopeful gave his reluctant from sin, and laps us in the silent and peaceassent to the proposed arrangement. ful earth-DEATH alone gave to the greedy old man a single pang that could remind him that he was yet human, and therefore born to suffer and to grieve. And even the pang inflicted by the certainty that he must diethat certainty over which we may muse until the brain reels and the heart grows sickeven that pang was of rare occurrence and of brief duration. For, clinging to life with equal tenacity as to his gold-and, indeed, only valuing the former as it identified him with the latter- he had long accustomed himself to meet the thought of Death's cer

But with a mere verbal assent the old man would by no means be contented. He had kept an accurate account of all the sums wrung from him by his undutiful son, and he had now come prepared with a bond, in which the son was bound to forfeit the aggregate of those sums to his father's attorney, in the case of his returning to England during the lifetime of his father; and only on condition of his signing this instrument would the now resolute old man advance the money for which the youth was incarcerated. 26

VOL. III.