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was, she slipped down from mother's lap, and scrambling up on the music-stool, began to play the tune which had been taught her in private hours, and which the father had not heard for many months. Wonderfully the little creature touched the keys with her tiny fingers, and ever and anon her weak but flexible voice chimed in with a pleasant harmony. Alessandro raised his head, and looked and listened. "God bless her dear little soul!" he exclaimed; "can she play it? God bless her! God bless her!" He clasped the darling to his breast, and kissed her again and again. Then seeing the little overturned chair, once so sacred to his heart, he caught it up, kissed it vehemently, and burst into a flood of tears. Dora threw her arms round him, and said softly, "Dear Alessandro, forgive me that I spoke so unkindly." He pressed her hand, and answered in a stifled voice, "Forgive me, Dora. God bless the little angel! Never again will father push away her little chair." As they stand weeping on each other's necks, two little soft arms encircle their knees, and a small voice says, "Kiss Fietta." They raise her up, and fold her in long embraces. Alessandro carries her to her bed, as in times of old, and says cheerfully, "No more wine, dear Dora; no more wine. Our child has saved me."

But when discord once enters a domestic paradise, it is not easily dispelled. Alessandro occasionally feels the want of the stimulus to which he has become accustomed, and the corroding appetite sometimes makes him gloomy and petulant. Dora does not make sufficient allowance for this, and her own nature being quick and sensitive, she sometimes gives abrupt answers, or betrays impatience by hasty motions. Meanwhile Alessandro is busy, with some secret work. The door of his room is often locked, and Dora is half-displeased that he will not tell her why; but all her questions he answers only with a kiss and a smile. And now the Christmas morning comes, and Fioretta rises bright and early to see what Santa Claus has put in her stocking. She comes running with her apron full, and gives mother a package, on which is written, "A merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to my beloved wife." She opens it, and reads "Dearest Dora, I have made thee a music-box. When I speak hastily to my loved ones, I pray thee wind it up; and when I see the spark kindling in thy eyes, I will do the same. Thus, dearest, let memory teach patience unto love." Dora winds up the music-box, and lo, a spirit sits within, playing the beloved tune! She puts her hand within her husband's, and they look at each other with affectionate humility. But neither of them speak the resolution they form, while the voice of their early love falls on their ears, like the sounds of a fairy guitar.

Memory,thus aided, does teach patience unto love. No slackened string now sends discord through the domestic tune. Fioretta is passing into maidenhood, beautiful as an opening flower. She prac tises on the guitar, while the dear good father sits with his arm across her chair, singing from a manuscript tune of her own composing. In his eyes,

this first effort of her genius cannot seem otherwise than beautiful. Ever and anon certain notes recur, and they look at each other and smile, and Dora smiles also. "Fioretta could not help bringing in that theme," she says, "for it was sung to her in her cradle." The father replies, " But the variations are extremely pretty and tasteful;" and a flush of delight goes over the expressive face of his child. The setting sun glances across the guitar, and just touches a rose in the maiden's bosom. The happy mother watches the dear group earnestly, and sketches rapidly on the paper before her. And now she, too, works privately in her own room, and has a secret to keep. On Fioretta's fifteenth birth-day, she sends by her hands a covered present to the father. He opens it, and finds a lovely picture of himself and daughter, the rose and the guitar. The sunlight glances across them in a bright shower of fine soft rays, and touches on the manuscript, as with a golden finger, the few beloved notes, which had made them smile. As the father shrined within his divine art the memory of their first hour of mutual love, so the mother has embalmed in her beautiful art the first musical echo from the heart of their child.

But now the tune of life passes into a sadder mode. Dora, pale and emaciated, lies propped up with pillows, her hand clasped within Fioretta's, her head resting on her husband's shoulder.

All is still-still. Their souls are kneeling reverently before the Angel of Death. Heavy sunset guns, from a neighbouring fort, boom through the air. The vibrations shake the music-box, and it starts up like a spirit, and plays the cherished tune. Dora presses her daughter's hand, and she, with a faint smile, warbles the words they have so often sung. The dying one looks up to Alessandro, with a deep expression of unearthly tenderness. Gazing thus, with one long-drawn sigh, her affectionate soul floats away on the wings of that etherial song. The memory that taught endurance unto love leaves a luminous expression, a farewell glory, on the lifeless countenance. Attendant angels smile, and their blessing falls on the mourners' hearts, like dew from heaven. Fioretta remains to the widowed one, the graceful blossom of his lonely life, the incarnation of his beloved tune.

A STREET SCENE.

FROM LETTERS FROM NEW YORK.

THE other day, as I came down Broome-street, I saw a street musician, playing near the door of a genteel dwelling. The organ was uncommonly sweet and mellow in its tones, the tunes were slow and plaintive, and I fancied that I saw in the woman's Italian face an expression that indicated sufficient refinement to prefer the tender and the melancholy, to the lively "trainer tunes" in vogue with the populace. She looked like one who had suffered much, and the sorrowful music seemed her own appropriate voice. A little girl clung to her scanty garments, as if afraid of all things but

her mother. As I looked at them, a young lady of pleasing countenance opened the window, and Degan to sing like a bird, in keeping with the street organ. Two other young girls came and leaned on her shoulder; and still she sang on. Blessings on her gentle heart! It was evidently the spontaneous gush of human love and sympathy. The beauty of the incident attracted attention. A group of gentlemen gradually collected round the organist; and ever as the tune ended, they bowed respectfully toward the window, waved their hats, and called out," More, if you please!" One, whom I knew well for the kindest and truest soul, passed round his hat; hearts were kindled, and the silver fell in freely. In a minute, four or five dollars were collected for the poor woman. She spoke no word of gratitude, but she gave such a look!" Will you go to the next street, and play to a friend of mine?" said my kind-hearted friend. She answered, in tones expressing the deepest emotion, "No, sir, God bless you all-God bless you all," (making a courtesy to the young lady, who had stept back, and stood sheltered by the curtain of the window,) "I will play no more to-day; I will go home, now." The tears trickled down her cheeks, and as she walked away, she had ever and anon wiped her eyes with the corner of her shawl. The group of gentlemen lingered a moment to look after her, then turning toward the now closed window, they gave three enthusiastic cheers, and departed, better than they came. The pavement on which they stood had been a church to them; and for the next hour, at least, their hearts were more than usually prepared for deeds of gentleness and mercy. Why are such scenes so uncommon? Why do we thus repress our sympathies, and chill the genial current of nature, by formal observances and restraints?

UNSELFISHNESS.

FROM THE SAME.

I FOUND the Battery unoccupied, save by children, whom the weather made as merry as birds. Every thing seemed moving to the vernal tune of "Brignal banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green."

To one who was chasing her hoop, I said, smiling, "You are a nice little girl." She stopped, looked up in my face, so rosy and happy, and laying her hand on her brother's shoulder, exclaimed earnestly, "And he is a nice little boy, too!" It was a simple, child-like act, but it brought a warm gush into my heart. Blessings on all unselfishness! on all that leads us in love to prefer one another. Here lies the secret of universal harmony; this is the diapason, which would bring us all into tune. Only by losing ourselves can we find ourselves. How clearly does the divine voice within us proclaim this, by the hymn of joy it sings, whenever we witness an unselfish deed, or hear an unselfish thought. Blessings on that loving little one! She made the city seem a garden to me. I kissed my hand to her, as I turned off in quest of

the Brooklyn ferry. The sparkling waters, swarmed with boats, some of which had taken a big ship by the hand, and were leading her out to sea, as the prattle of childhood often guides wisdom into the deepest and broadest thought.

FLOWERS.

FROM THE SAME.

How the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb. The Persian in the far East, delights in their perfume, and writes his love in nosegays; while the Indian child of the far west clasps his hands with glee, as he gathers the abundant blossoms the illuminated scripture of the prairies. The Cupid of the ancient Hindoos tipped his arrows with flowers, and orange buds are the bridal crown with us, a nation of yesterday. Flowers garlanded the Grecian altar, and they hang in votive wreaths before the Christian shrine.

All these are appropriate uses. Flowers should deck the brow of the youthful bride, for they are in themselves a lovely type of marriage. They should twine round the tomb, for their perpetually renewed beauty is a symbol of the resurrection. They should festoon the altar, for their fragrance and their beauty ascend in perpetual worship before the Most High.

THE SELF-CONSCIOUS AND THE UN

CONSCIOUS.

WITH Whizz and glare the rocket rushed upward, proclaiming to all men," Ló, I am coming! Look at me!" Gracefully it bent in the air, and sprinkled itself in shining fragments; but the gem-like sparks went out in the darkness, and a stick on the ground was all that remained of the rocket.

High above the horizon a radiant star shone in quiet glory, making the night time beautiful. Men knew not when it rose; for it went up in the still

ness.

In a rich man's garden stands a pagoda. The noise of the hammers told of its progress, and all men knew how much was added to it day by day. It was a pretty toy, with curious carving and gilded bells. But it remained as skill had fashioned it, and grew not, nor cast seed into the future.

An oak noiselessly dropped an acorn near by, and two leaves sprang from the ground, and became a fair young tree. The gardener said to the hawthorn, "When did the oak go above you?" The hawthorn answered, "I do not know; for it passed quietly by in the night.”

Thus does mere talent whizz and hammer, to produce the transient forms of things, while genius unconsciously evolves the great and the beautiful, andcasts it silently into everlasting time."

ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD.

[Born about 1803.]

DR. BIRD was born at Newcastle, in Delaware, and received his classical and professional education in Philadelphia. It is now seven or eight years since, after about as long a period of active and various literary employment, he laid aside his pen, apparently with an intention never to resume it, and retired from the city to the quiet of his native town.

His history is in this respect somewhat peculiar. After the production of three tragedies,* each successful on the stage, and one permanently so, for it has maintained possession of the theatre for nearly fourteen years, and is still acted with applause; with no failure to annoy him and, at that time, no rival; still in youth, and full of resources; with a portfolio filled with plays, written and half-written, and plans, plots, and fables, without number; in the midst of his popularity; he suddenly deserted the drama altogether, resisting the persuasions of his friends, and rejecting numerous liberal offers which were made to him by actors and managers. Turning from the drama to prose fiction, and seeming to be as much at home in one field of composition as the other, he produced in rapid succession his various romances, writing and publishing the fourteen volumes of which they consist within a period of five years, at the end of which he suddenly and without any apparent reason, entirely abandoned the field of letters.†

The first work which Dr. Bird published, for not one of his plays has even yet been given to the press, was Calavar, or the Knight of the Conquest, a Romance of Mexico, which appeared in 1834. The scene was before untried by the novelist, and the events and characters, which are chiefly historical, are admirably adapted to the purposes of fiction. Mr. Pres

The Gladiator, Oraloosa, and the Broker of Bogota. † it is probable that Dr. Bird, like many others in this country, was compelled by the foolish and wicked law

cott, in a note to his History of the Conquest, alluding to this picturesque romance, remarks that the author "has studied with great care the costume, manners, and military usages of the natives," and "has done for them what Cooper has done for the wild tribes of the north,-touched their rude features with the bright colouring of a poetic fancy. He has been equally fortunate in his delineation of the picturesque scenery of the land," Mr. Prescott continues, "and if he has been less so in attempting to revive the antique dialogue of the Spanish cavalier, we must not be surprised: nothing is more difficult than the skilful execution of a modern antique." I quote this as the judgment of the most competent of all critics respecting whatever relates to SpanishAmerican history. Dr. Bird evidently prepared himself in the most thorough manner for his task, and until the appearance of the admirable history of Mr. Prescott, there was perhaps in the English language no work from which could be obtained a more just impression of the subjugation of the empire of Aztecs than from Calavar.

Early in 1835 Dr. Bird published The Infidel, or the Fall of Mexico, a romance in which reappear many of the characters of his earlier work, and which may be regarded as its sequel, although each is independent and complete. The Infidel is marked by the traits which distinguished Calavar, but was apparently written with much more care. A colloquy at its beginning brings all the persons of the drama in a masterly manner before the reader, each with his peculiar lineaments, with his passions, interests, and designs,— and their individuality is happily preserved throughout the work, which abounds in dramatic situations, brilliantly executed dialogues, and graphic descriptions of nature. It has more concentration of action and a more inge

of literary piracy which deprives the foreign author of niously contrived plot than Calavar, and was

copyright, to abandon the field. It will be observed that his latest work appeared about the time of the commencement of the system of cheap publishing, since which there have been comparatively few original books issued in America.

less successful only because the subject had now lost something of its novelty.

The Hawks of Hawk Hollow, a Tradition of Pennsylvania, appeared in the same year,

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and is as different in style as in subject from the romances of Mexico. It contains some vigorous writing, and original and powerful sketches of character; but more of the tumult and brutality of border life than is worth preserving in literature.

Sheppard Lee came out anonymously in New York in 1836, and though never claimed or acknowledged by Dr. Bird, I have reasons for being confident that he is its author. The hero, when first introduced to the reader, is a New Jersey farmer, in moderate circumstances, envious of every one richer or happier than himself, and dreaming of wealth and ease which he lacks the industry and wit to acquire. He at last resolves to search for buried treasures, and just as he fancies that a fortune is within his grasp, an accident stretches him a corpse upon the scene of his labours. His spirit enters into the body of a sporting squire, who had broken his neck just in time, and who had been, when living, the object of Lee's especial envy. He soon finds that some things in his new sphere are less agreeable than he had supposed; and that he may have the largest experience of conditions, his soul is adroitly shifted into new forms, until, having been a dandy, a miser, a quaker philanthropist, a slave, and a planter, he once more becomes plain Sheppard Lee, with thirty acres of the soil of New Jersey, and enough skill as a ploughman to turn it to good account. The book abounds with whim and burlesque, pointed but playful satire, and felicitous sketches of society. The various metempsychoses, in the end, are declared by the hero's sister to be the result of delirium, occasioned by harassing pecuniary difficulties; but Mr. Lee has some doubt upon the subject, and determines to make public his own version of the matter, with a view of letting everybody decide for himself.

In the spring of 1837 Dr. Bird gave to the public, through his regular publishers in Philadelphia, Nick of the Woods, or the Jibbenainosay. It is a tale of early border life, the period of its incidents being about ten years before the admission of Kentucky to the Union; and its characters present such motley contrasts as are brought together in the tessellated society of our extreme western frontier. One of them is Roaring Ralph Stackpole, a wild, lawless fellow, and the original, as the author surmises, of a race since very numerous, and known on the Mississippi as creatures of the

half horse and half alligator species, or “ringtail roarers from Salt River." The Indians of Dr. Bird are very different from those of Mr. Cooper, and it may be, as has been often contended, that they are more accurately drawn; but I think not. Brown gave us glimpses of Indian life; and they were remarkably picturesque and truthful. Since he wrote, Cooper's

Indian characters are the most natural as well as the most interesting that have appeared in our fictitious literature, unless the tribes of the Mississippi region are essentially unlike those of the St. Lawrence and the Mohawk. Bird's Nick of the Woods is, however, a singularly original and bold conception, executed with remarkable ability.

Under the title of Peter Pilgrim, or a Rambler's Recollections, Dr. Bird, in 1838, published a collection of magazine papers, among which are an account of the Mammoth Cave, and various stories illustrative of life on the western border.

In 1839 appeared the last of his novels, The Adventures of Robin Day. The hero, who relates his own story, came ashore with the wreck of a schooner, one wild night in the month of September, 1796, upon the coast of New Jersey, and lives a life

"Of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,” until he is enabled by some happy accidents to settle in peace and affluence, and write his "travel's history."

Dr. Bird's historical romances have the merit of truthfulness, a phrase which implies fidelity, not merely of narrative, but of impersonation, feeling and manners, and a nice observance of all the elements which contribute to the costume and develope the spirit of an age. His characters are well sketched and shaded, and his scenes have an air of verisimilitude that impresses the reader with an idea that he is perusing a narrative of real events. There is in each of his novels a plot, ingenious, intricate, and so managed as to produce an intense curiosity, and a succession of surprises in its development. His style is varied with the nature of his subjects. In Calavar and The Infidel it has a certain stateliness and occasional pomp which is suitable to scenes so grand and romantic, and to the characters of the time and country. Of his other works, the diction is simple and familiar, and sometimes needlessly careless and inelegant.

FIRST APPROACH TO MEXICO FROM THE MOUNTAINS.

FROM CALA VAR.

"I HAVE heard that the cold which freezes men to death, begins by setting them to sleep. Sleep brings dreams; and dreams are often most vivid and fantastical, before we have yet been wholly lost in slumber. Perhaps 'tis this most biting and benumbing blast, that brings me such phantoms, Art thou not very cold?"

"Not very, señor: methinks we are descending; and now the winds are not so frigid as before."

"I would to heaven, for the sake of us all, that we were descended yet lower; for night approaches, and still we are stumbling among these clouds, that seem to separate us from earth, without yet advancing us nearer to heaven."

While the cavalier was yet speaking, there came from the van of the army, very far in the distance, a shout of joy, that was caught up by those who toiled in his neighbourhood, and continued by the squadrons that brought up the rear, until finally lost among the echoes of remote cliffs. He pressed forward with the animation shared by his companions, and, still leading Jacinto, arrived, at last, at a place where the mountain dipped downwards with so sudden and so precipitous a declivity, as to interpose no obstacle to the vision. The mists were rolling away from his feet in huge wreaths, which gradually, as they became thinner, received and transmitted the rays of an evening sun, and were lighted up with a golden and crimson radiance, glorious to behold, and increasing every moment in splendour. As this superb curtain was parted from before him, as if by cords that went up to heaven, and surged voluminously aside, he looked over the heads of those that thronged the side of the mountain beneath, and saw, stretching away like a picture touched by the hands of angels, the fair valley imbosomed among those romantic hills, whose shadows were stealing visibly over its western slopes, but leaving all the eastern portion dyed with the tints of sunset. The green plains studded with yet greener woodlands; the little mountains raising their fairy-like crests: the lovely lakes, now gleaming like floods of molten silver, where they stretched into the sunshine, and now vanishing away, in a shadowy expanse, under the gloom of the growing twilight; the structures that rose, vaguely and obscurely, here from their verdant margins, and there from their very bosom, as if floating on their placid waters, seeming at one time to present the image of a city crowned with towers and pinnacles, and then again broken by some agitation of the element, or confused by some vapour swimming through the atmosphere, into the mere fragments and phantasms of edifices,

these, seen in that uncertain and fading light, and at that misty and enchanting distance, unfolded such a spectacle of beauty and peace as plunged the neophyte into a revery of rapture. The trembling of the page's hand, a deep sigh that breathed from his lips, recalled him to consciousness, without however dispelling his delight.

"By the cross which I worship!" he cried, "it fills me with amazement, to think that this cursed and malefactious earth doth contain a spot that is so much like a paradise! Now do I remember me of the words of the Señor Gomez, that no man could conceive of heaven, till he had looked upon the valley of Mexico,'-an expression which, at that time, I considered very absurd, and somewhat profane; yet, if I am not now mistaken, I shall henceforth, doubtless, when figuring to my imagi nation the seats of bliss, begin by thinking of this very prospect."

A NIGHT VIEW IN MEXICO.

FROM THE SAME.

«TURN, señor, from these pigmy vases to the great censers, which God has himself raised to his majesty!"

As De Morla spoke, he turned from the altars, and Don Amador, following with his eyes the direction in which he pointed, beheld a spectacle which instantly drove from his mind the thought of the idolatrous urns. Far away in the southwest, at the distance of eight or ten leagues, among a mass of hills that upheld their brows in gloomy obscurity, a colossal cone elevated its majestic bulk to heaven, while the snows which invested its resplendent sides glittered in the fires that crowned its summit. A pillar of smoke, of awful hue and volume, rose to an enormous altitude above its head, and then parting and spreading on either side through the serene heaven, lay still and solemn, like a funeral canopy, over its radiant pedestal. From the crater, out of which issued this portentous column, arose also, time by time, great flames with a sort of lambent playfulness, in strange and obvious contrast with their measureless mass and power; while ever and anon globes of fire, rushing up through the pillar of vapour, as through a transparent cylinder, burst at the top, and spangled the grim canopy with stars. No shock creeping through the earth, no heavy roar stealing along the atmosphere, attested the vigour of this sublime furnace; but all in silence and solemn tranquillity, the spec tacle went on,-now darkling, now waxing temporarily into an oppressive splendour, as if for the amusement of those shadowy phantoms who seemed to sit in watch upon the neighbouring peaks.

"This is indeed," said Don Amador, reverent

ly, "if God should require an altar of fire, such a high place as might be meeter for his worship than any shrine raised by the hands of man. God is very great and powerful! The sight of such a spectacle doth humble me in mine own thoughts: for what is man, though full of vanity and arrogance, in the sight of Him who builds the fire-mountains?"

"Padre Olmedo," said his companion, “will ask you, what is this fire-mountain, though to the eye so majestic, and to appearance so eternal, to the creeping thing whose spark of immortality will burn on, when the flames of yonder volcano are quenched for ever?"

"It is very true," said the neophyte, "the moun

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