you not that they are proud of their distinction? On their tall tremulous stems they stand, as it were, on tiptoe, to look down on the less favoured flowers that grow miscellaneously rooted in the uncanopied beds of the common garden. Sheltered and shielded are they from the broad eye of day, which might gaze on them too rudely; and the vigour of their life seems to be from the sweet vanity with which they drink in admiration from human eyes, in whose milder light they live. Go forth into the fields and among the green hedges; walk abroad into the meadows, and ramble over heaths; climb the steep mountains, and dive into the deep valleys; scramble among the bristly thickets, or totter among the perpendicular precipices; and what will you find there? Flowers-flowers-flowers! What can they want there? What can they do there? How did they get there? What are they but the manifestation that the Creator of the universe is a more glorious and benevolent Being than political economists, utilitarians, philosophers, and id genus omne? Flowers of all things created most innocently simple and most superbly complex playthings for childhood, ornaments of the grave, and companions of the cold corpse in the coffin! Flowers-beloved by the wandering idiot and studied by the deep-thinking man of science! Flowers-that of perishing things are most perishing, yet of all earthly things are the most heavenly! Flowers-that, in the simplicity of their frailty, seem to beg leave to be, and that occupy, with blushing modesty, the clefts, and corners, and spare nooks of earth, shrinking from the many-trodden path, and not encroaching on the walks of man; retiring from the multitudinous city, and only then, when man has deserted the habitation he has raised, silently, and as if long waiting for implied permission, creeping over the grey wall and making ruin beautiful! Flowers-that unceasingly expand to heaven their grateful, and to man, their cheerful looks; partners of human joy, soothers of human sorrow; fit emblems of the victor's triumphs, of the young bride's blushes; welcome to crowded halls and graceful upon solitary graves! Flowers -that, by the unchangeableness of their beauty, bring back the past with a delightful and living intensity of recollection! Flowers over which innocence sheds the tear of joy; and pe nitence heaves the sigh of regret, thinking of the innocence that has been!Flowers are for the young and for the old; for the grave and for the gay; for the living and for the dead; for all but the guilty, and for them when they are penitent. Flowers are, in the volume of nature, what the expression, “God is love," is in the volume of revelation. They tell man of the paternal character of the Deity. Servants are fed, clothed, and commanded; but children are instructed by a sweet gentleness; and to them is given, by the good parent, that which delights as well as that which supports. For the servant there is the gravity of approbation or the silence of satisfaction; but for children there is the sweet smile of complacency and the joyful look of love.— So, by the beauty which the Creator has dispersed and spread abroad through creation, and by the capacity which he has given to man to enjoy and comprehend that beauty, he has displayed, not merely the compassionateness of his mercy, but the generosity and gracefulness of his goodness. What a dreary and desolate place would be a world without a flower!It would be as a face without a smilea feast without a welcome. Flowers, by their sylph-like forms and view less fragrance, are the first instructors to emancipate our thoughts from the grossness of materialism; they make us think of invisible beings; and, by means of so beautiful and graceful a transition, our thoughts of the invisible are thoughts of the good. Are not flowers the stars of the earth, and are not stars the flowers of heaven? Flowers are the teachers of gentle thoughts-promoters of kindly emotion. One cannot look closely at the structure of a flower without loving it. They are emblems and manifestations of God's love to the creation, and they are the means and ministrations of man's love to his fellow-creatures; for they first awaken in the mind a sense of the beautiful and the good.Light is beautiful and good; but on its undivided beauty, and on the glorious intensity of its full strength, man cannot gaze; he can comprehend it best when prismatically separated and dispersed in the many-coloured beauty of flowers; and thus he reads the elements of beauty-the alphabet of visible gracefulness. [For conclusion of the Cream of the Annuals see the accompanying Sheet.] THE pestilence was spreading widely at Berlin, and hourly were new victims offered up at the altar of Despair, but in the Palace of Rosenheim all was still the same uninterrupted festivity. Guests disappeared from the banquet, and revellers from the wassail board; but Herman of Rosenheim blanched not at their absence, and the laugh and the wine-song were heard echoing through the lonely square long after the midnight chimes. Ida, the beautiful Ida, was ever the splendid mistress of the feast, till the revel began to grow warmer and wilder, and she fled away to her chamber, and casting aside her glittering robes and braiding pearls, wept long and sadly for the coming VOL. VIII. Ꮓ See page 355 ruin of her House; every festal exclamation of her father struck harshly on her, for she knew the Demon of Gaming was in his heart, and in every laugh there seemed to her a tone that sounded like the echo of its fiendish mockery; yet she silently bore the loss of the ancestral jewels of her race, though she knew the diamonds and sapphires, the opal and jacinths, which had adorned the departed beauties of Rosenheim, were nightly cast away by her father as lightly as her own fair hands would shake off the dewdrops from a rosebud. One string of pearls (a Rosary of the Virgin) alone remained to deck the last daughter of the House of Rosenheim, when she presided at her father's table, but many there thought the rich gleam of her ringlets, pouring like a veil of golden silk over brow and bosom, and the vio let light of her modest eyes, were lovelier in their unadorned beauty, than when pearls were gathered in her hair like snow amid sunshine, and diamonds clasped her robe from ancle to bosom. Ida had remarked that Otto of Wolf 219 stein, to her the most disagreeable of her father's associates, had lately become peculiar in his attentions and distressing in his assiduities; she saw her father smile as her white hand trembled in the eager grasp of Otto's, as he led her to her seat, or knelt before her (as she touched her lute) with an air of romantic gallantry. Love, the lost Elysium of the soul, the true Paradise which fled our first parents as they shrunk beneath the primal curse, had never yet touched the pure heart of Ida; it was the theme of all around her, the burthen of the songs her own sweet sighing voice poured forth to the responses of her lute, but to her it was yet the ideal of the passion-a word of enchantment, having no master power over the talisman of her thoughts. Count Otto had a face and form calculated at the first glance to call forth a feeling of admiration; his courtly address and easy gaiety seemed as if they might win him the world; but a careful observer of his faultless face could see all was not bright beneath, and his large and sin gularly radiant eyes, had an indescribable meaning in their glance at times, from which the gazer shrunk, and knew not why; his addresses soon became too pointed to be mistaken even by the simplicity of Ida; but Love, the angel of Eden, came not to brighten her heart with his celestial visiting. She was seated alone one night, listening with an evil divining spirit, to the frantic mirth of the group in the banquetting room, when hurried steps were heard in the corridor, and her father suddenly entered the chamber, and closing the door, looked upon her in silence; he was pale, and his high and haughty features had a strange sternness in them: the thick heavy curls were shaken back from his lofty forehead, and Ida trembled as she met his fixed and fearful glance. Pushing aside her embroidery frame, she rose to meet him, but with a rapid step he approached, and, seizing her hands, exclaimed "Ida!-my daughter, tremble not; thou art my only child; thy beauty is my pride! my idol! born to preserve thy father, should I not triumph when I look upon thee?" "Thou art my fate, father," murmured Ida; "I understand thee not-thy looks are strangely altered." "Looks, girl? I tell thee my destiny is changed. The Lord of Rosenheim is a beggar! and thou and I are outcasts; to-night we must go forth alone and unattended;-thou hast no longer a home, Ida, but in a father's heart! Shrink not maiden, thou hast taken pearls from thy hair and rubies from thy bosom at my bidding, knowest thou for what purpose? they were offerings to ruin, to that destruction which has reached us both :-to-night I have lost all, name, fame, home, and honour! I saw my last possession pass from me, and when I looked upon the smile of my destroyer, the frend awoke in my heart-What hell has the gambler to fear? he can bear that of his own heart, and how could the malice of a demon invent a subtler torture? I sought by fraud--nay, sink not girl-thy father, Herman Rosenheim, sought by fraud to win again what he had lost-was detected--and yet he lives!" As he spoke thus, he cast aside the dark folds of his cloak and drew a pistol suddenly from his belt, his daughter sunk with a faint shriek upon her knees, and, catching his arm, looked up into his face with the wild helplessness of terror, her fair hair breaking from its silken fillet streamed over her white garments to the very floor of the chamber, and as the clear light of the silver lamp shone upon the pale and sculpture-like beauty of Ida and the dark, convulsed features of her father, they seemed like the impersonations of Pity and Revenge. There was a moment's pause, and Rosenheim, throwing aside the pistol, suddenly raised his daughter from the ground, clasped her passionately to his heart, burying his face in the profusion of her tresses, as he wept upon her shoulder. "Ida! Ida!" he whispered, "my daughter, wilt thou not save thy father? my fate is in thy hands-Otto of Wolfstein he alone knows my guilt-he alone is the possessor of mine inheritance, and he asks but thy hand, Ida-thy love, Ida! answer me what, am I the murderer of my child!" he exclaimed, as her head fell powerless on his arm, and her cold white hands released their clasping hold. Calling loudly for help, he laid her on a couch near him, and pouring curses on himself, he knelt by her side till, by the assistance of her maidens, the blue eyes of the devoted girl once more opened to consciousness, and bursting into tears, she threw herself fondly into his trembling arms. Some days passed away, and Ida, whose sweet and lovely nature could not resist her father's pleadings, faintly gave her consent to receive Otto as her future husband; but she soon found there must be no delay, and the ardent lover himself fixed the day and hourto Ida, whose nameless apprehensions of her future lord increased every moment, it came too soon. On the eve of her bridal, as she sat attired for the banquet, awaiting her father's summons, the death bell struck upon her ear, and from her attendant she heard it was for the Baroness Theresa, the cousin of Count Otto, who had that day sunk in the freshness of her youth, beneath the destroying pestilence. Ida felt a cold chill at her heart as she listened to the words, and in the splendour of the festival they were not forgotten. Count Otto presented her to the assembled guests as his intended bride, and, with courtly grace, as she entered, he knelt at her feet, and clasping a diamond bracelet on her white arm, murmured, Ida, may this bridal gift be with thee even in death, unchanging as the love of Otto!" she smiled, and the accompanying blush gave to her innocent beauty a radiance with which it seldom sparkled; as soon as she reached her chamber she unclasped the bracelet, to examine its gorgeous yet delicate workmanship, and amid the rich fillagreed gold of its enamelled clasp read the name of Theresa of Wolfstein! Morning came, bright and glorious, and early was the hour when Ida of Rosenheim was to plight her faith to the gallant Otto, and her tire maidens entered her chamber with smiles and eager steps, bearing the bridal garments and aerial veil; the lady sat upon a low couch seemingly asleep, her head resting on its arm, she still wore the white satin robe in which she had been attired the preceding evening, but its full and graceful folds were much disordered, the jewelled clasps of her boddice were torn asunder, and the delicate lace which shielded her fair neck seemed as if rent from it in a convulsive struggle, her hair had fallen from its confinement and hid her face as she lay; her favourite maiden gathered up the long curls, and looking down, uttered one thrilling shriek and fell senseless on the ground. Decay and death were on the features then disclosed, and the angel of the pestilence had poured fourth the vial of its wrath on the last descendant of the House of Rosenheim. E. S. CRAVEN, AVE MARIAS. For the Olio. With mingled piety and grace, Towards the setting sun; No eye more radiant ever shone, Or beam'd with livelier feeling: To see her ardour you would say, Few naids there are so young and gay Such pious thoughts revealing. But could the watchful mother know From whence these strong emotions flow, And that Louisa's thoughts then rove, To meet a cherish'd, absent loveThat, when he breath'd his last adieu, Both promised ev'ry eve to gazeThe sun's departing beams to view, And mutual watch his parting rays. 'Tis Lucio's name her lips repeat,With his idea her bosom glows! No wonder then she turns to greet The sun when sinking to repose. MRS. KENTISH. SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF LOKMAN THE WISE. For the Olio. THE particulars preserved relative to the life of the sage Lokman, prove him to have been a person of extraordinary genius. He was born in Ethiopia, in the reign of King David, and, according to the Arabians, was the son of Baura, a kinsman of the Patriarch Job. Being sold as a slave in Palestine, whither he had been conveyed from his native country, he was employed by his master to tend on flocks, in which occupation he is said to have composed several thousand fables, parables, and proverbs. While in bondage, his conduct seems to have been exemplary; for to the goodness and gratitude of his heart he was alone indebted for his deliverance from servitude. The incident, which produced so desirable an event, is thus recorded: Being requested by his master to eat a bitter melon, he, to the astonishment of the latter, devoured the whole.— "How was it possible for you to eat such a nauseous fruit ?" exclaimed the master; to which Lokman replied, "I have received so many favours from you, that it is no wonder I should, once in my life, eat a bitter melon from your Struck with such greatness of hand." soul, his master forthwith granted him his manumission. In The exact date of Lokman's decease is unknown, but it appears he died in the time of the Prophet Jonah. person he was by no means engaging to the eye, his complexion being black, and his feet exceedingly deformed. By some authors Lokman and Esop have been imagined to be the same individual; a belief which is strengthened by the similitude of their writings, and other concurrent circumstances. On this subject M. Marcel, in his translation of Lokman's Fables, published at Paris, affords some curious information. His observations are as follow: "If he existed at least five hundred years after Lokman, from whom he must have borrowed his Apologues: for Æsop is said to have lived in the time of Solon, the Athenian legislator; and all the oriental writers agree in placing the life of Lokman at the period when David reigned over the Hebrews, and Kai Khosrou over the Persians. The most general and probable opinion appears to be, that Lokman is the same person whom the Greeks, not knowing his real name, have called in their own tongue Aisopos, or Æsop, a term derived from that of Aithiops, or Ethiopian, by a slight change which frequently occurs in a word while passing from one dialect to another. Now, Lokman was an Habesby, or Ethiopian slave; and the oriental writers relate of him almost all the peculiar circumstances that have since been attributed to Æsop." The subjoined anecdote of Lokman is deserving of insertion :-It being inquired of him whence he had derived the knowledge with which he was endowed, he replied, "From the blind, who never place their feet till they have tried the firmness of the soil: I observed before I reasoned, and I reasoned before I wrote." As a specimen of the writings of this fabulist, I annex the following ingenious apologue "A vizier having offended his master, was condemned to perpetual captivity in a lofty tower. At night his wife came to weep beneath his window. Cease your grief,' cried the sage; go home for the present, and return hither when you have procured a live black beetle, together with a little ghee (or buffalo's butter), three clews, one of the finest silk, another of stout packthread, and another of whip-cord ;finally, a stout coil of rope.' When she again came to the foot of the tower, provided according to her husband's commands, he directed her to touch the head of the insect with a little of the ghee, to tie one end of the silk thread around him, and to place the reptile on the wall of the tower. Seduced by the smell of the butter, which he con ceived to be in store somewhere above him, the beetle continued to ascend till he reached the top, and thus put the vizier in possession of the end of the silk thread, who drew up the packthread by means of the silk, the small cord by means of the packthread, and, by means of the cord, a stout rope, capable of sustaining his own weight,― and so at last escaped from the place of his confinement." The above fable admirably exemplifies "the possibility of a great change being produced by very slight beginnings." ARNOLPHUS. SOUVENEZ MOI! For the Olio. There is a silent grave thine eyes This heart can then be never more I will not bid thee mourn us, yet THE VICTIM.* A TRUE STORY. BY A MEDICAL STUDENT [We insert this story, (for which we have to thank an anonymous contributor,) in place of a sketch of greater literary merit, in the hope that any little impression it may create, will serve to swell the general desire for immediate reform in a system which most urgently and fearfully demands it.] SOME years ago, myself and a fellowstudent went to Dawlish for the summer months. An accident, which I need not narrate, and which was followed by a severe attack of pleurisy, chained me a prisoner to my room for several weeks. My companion, whose name was St. Clair, was a young man of high spirits and lively temper; and though New Mon. Mag. |