“A handsome boy,” at length remarked Mr. | led out to sudden execution by an enormous Jack Simpson. “It's a pity that he has n't different Ketch with red hair and a frightful squint, and colored hair !”

that his friend Puckford was the chaplain read“ A pity !” exclaimed the lady : “I think it ing the funeral service. Gradually, however, beautiful! And,” added she, looking the as- his brain cleared, and he grew cooler and more tonished man somewhat sternly in the face, “I collected. Upon reflection, his position did not should be well pleased if all our children had hair appear so very desperate. As to Mrs. Frazer, all of the same color!”

that was of course over, past praying for, and he This was a climax ! Simpson leaped to his must dismiss it from his mind as speedily as posfeet as if impelled by the shock of a galvanic sible. The lady beside him, who he could see battery. “ Our children! Well, after that. But was almost as discomposed as himself, was, he I must be dreaming,” thought the fastidious iron- had no doubt, a sensible person-her letter was monger, as he wiped the perspiration from his sufficient evidence of that; and when he had exteeming forehead ; “ laboring under some horrid plained the unfortunate mistake that had occurred, enchantment."

which he would by and by take a quiet opportunity Dreaming indeed, and to be swiftly and rudely of doing, would no doubt release him from an enawakened. The door opened, and a gentleman gagement he had never intended to contract. He entered, whom Mrs. Frazer immediately intro- would, moreover-Simpson was anything but a duced with—"Mr. Simpson, my husband, Mr. churlish or ungenerous man—bestow upon her a Frazer!"

marriage-portion of, say, four or five hundred The blow was terrific ! Simpson staggered pounds, which would doubtless enable her to marry back as if he had been shot. He glared alter- respectably, and thus console her for her present nately at the husband and wife for a few seconds ; disappointment. Thus philosophizing and reasonthen, pale as his shirt-collar, tottered to a chair, ing, Mr. Simpson's spirits, considering the suddenand sinking into it, ejaculated with white lips, ness of the shock he had endured, rallied wonder" Oh!”

fully, and he was enabled to address a few words “What is the matter, sir? you look ill !” said of course to Miss Fortescue in almost a cheerful Mr. Frazer.

voice and manner. The lady's answer was uttered The bewildered man made no reply. His brain in the gentlest, sweetest tones he had ever listened was whirling “ Who, on earth, then had he been to; and Mr. Simpson was a connoisseur in voices. courting ?"

The conversation continued ; became general ; and A loud knock at the street door somewhat the dinner, commenced so inauspiciously, passed aroused him. My sister, I daresay,” exclaimed off, considering all things, remarkably well. After Mrs. Frazer.

dinner, Miss Fortescue—her friends, who greatly Her sister ! Possibly his Mary might be the esteemed her, generously drawing forth her powers brunette ; and yet- There were but three fe- -appeared to great advantage. Her mind, of a males present on that fatal evening, besides Mrs. superior order, had been well cultivated, and her Puckford, that he distinctly remembered ; and conversation was at once refined, sparkling, and perhaps- Vain hope! the door opened, and sensible. Mr. Simpson was surprised, pleased, the brunette and two gentlemen entered—“Mr. almost charmed. Music was proposed, and she and Mrs. Holland, and Mr. Alfred Gray.” sang several songs admirably. Mr. Simpson de

All illusion was now over. He, Robert Simp- termined to postpone his explanation—necessarily son, wealthy tradesman, respected fishmonger, and an unpleasant one—till the next day, when he common councilman, was the betrothed husband would do it by letter. The party separated about of a red-haired damsel with a decided cast, with nine o'clock; long before which hour it had sevwhom, moreover, he had never exchanged a sen- eral times glanced across the ironmonger's mind, tence! His first impulse, as the certainty of his that a dislike of any particular colored hair was, miserable fate flashed upon him, was to strangle after all, a very absurd prejudice ; as to the cast, Alfred Gray out of hand as the author of his de- that, he was satisfied, was so slight as scarcely to struction, when fortunately another rap-tap arrested deserve the name. It had been arranged that they his fell intent.

should all dine with the Frazers the day after the “Miss Fortescue at last !” cried Mrs. Frazer, next; and as Mr. Simpson handed Mary Fortescue as if announcing glad tidings.

into the cab, in which Mrs. and Mr. Frazer were “Oh!" ejaculated the accepted suitor, dropping already seated, she whispered, “ Oblige me by nervelessly back into the seat from which he had coming on Sunday half an hour before the time just risen—" Oh!”

appointed : I have something of importance to say He was seized with a sort of vertigo ; and what to you.” Mr. Simpson bowed, and how could occurred, or how he behaved for a considerable he do less ?-raised the lady's hand to his lips. interval, he never distinctly remembered. He was, The carriage drove off, and the worthy man was however, soon seated at table by the side of his left in the most perplexing state of dubiety and affianced bride, Mr. Puckford saying grace. This irresolution imaginable. He began to think he was the actual state of affairs ; but poor Simpson's had gone too far to recede with honor ; and, what impression at the moment was, that he had been was very extraordinary, he felt scarcely sorry for

:

it! At all events, he would not act rashly; Sun-erous offer, contemplated marriage—but she was day was not far off : he would defer his expla- even now fully resolved never to do so unlessnation till then.

unless' Mary Fortescue paused in her parMr. Simpson, punctual to his engagement, found rative, and her timid, inquiring glance rested anxMiss Fortescue awaiting him alone. He felt on iously upon the varying countenance of her auditor. this occasion none of the violent emotions he had Mr. Simpson was not made of adamant, nor of experienced on the previous Friday. His heart, iron, though he traded in the article ; and no woninstead of knocking and thumping like a caged der, therefore, that the graceful manner, the modest, wild thing, beat tranquilly in his bosom; yet it pleading earnestness, the gentle tones, the filial was not without a calmly-pleasurable emotion that piety of his betrothed, should have vanquished, subhe met the confiding, grateful smile which beamed dued him. Her features, plain as they undoubtedly on his entrance over the lady's features. Seating were, irradiated by the lustre of a beautiful soul, himself beside her, he, with respectful gentleness, kindled into absolute beauty! At all events Mr. requested her to proceed with the matter she wished Simpson must have thought so, or he would not have to communicate. She blushingly complied, and caught the joyfully-weeping maiden in his arms speedily beguiled him, if not of his tears, which and exclaimed, in answer to her agitated appeal, I am not quite sure about, of something, under the “ Unless your home may be theirs also ?" Be it circumstances,

far more valuable. “Her family, so: I have, thank God, enough and to spare for all.” not many years before in apparently affluent cir- Thus was oddly brought about, and finally decumstances, had been, by reverses in trade, sud- termined on, one of the happiest marriages, if Mr. denly cast down into extreme poverty. The only Simpson himself is to be believed—and he ought surviving members of it, her mother and youngest to know—that holy church has ever blessed. sister, had been long principally dependent on her Should he attain, of which there is every reasonexertions for support. The assistance she had able prospect, the dignity of lord mayor, he will, fortunately been able to render had hitherto sufficed I am quite sure, attribute that, as he now does all them ; but of course, if she married, that source fortunate events, to his supreme good-luck in havof income must fail ; and she never would marry ing unwittingly fallen in love with another man's -indeed she had never, till surprised by his gen- / wife!

HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY.

erable tree typifying such liberty as the French ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT completed his could plant in 1848 and Lamartine “immortaleightieth year on Friday the 14th instant, and the ize ;” but beyond, borne on the wings of time, announcement of his continued health and una- whose stream cannot be turned back, is the liberty bated faculties is hailed with delight in every which despots cannot hinder and revolutionists canland. Few spectacles can be more cheering to not snatch. Sitting in the narrow circle of his the sight than the aged philosopher, wise, happy, king's court, Humboldt expounds the laws of the and venerated. Humboldt is a living triumph Kosmos, and proclaims the future consummation over impossibilities, a reconciler of the irrecon- of human science in the free government of man. cilable.

After wandering about the globe, not in If ever there was a typical man, it is he who the hurried career of the tourist, but in the patient still lives with us; whose new gists are still scrutiny of the naturalist and the geologist-after awaited with expectant gratitude. The universe twenty years spent in literary labors, at Paris, exists, boundless and eternal ; and he has looked that would have blinded stronger men, building upon it—it has been his, mortal thing creeping up books upon an enormous scale-he returns to upon this earth of ours, to look forth upon the find rest in a court; and yet again from that un- universe in time and space, and to open for his genial sphere he pours forth his philosophy in kind that vast and wondrous vision, in all its language unstinted and untarnished.

beauty—not only to their knowledge, but to their Two truths often seem opposed to each other, affections. It has been his to show that the or separately incredible, till they are brought to- political fate of man rests, as to its essential proggether ; it has been Humboldt's function to bring ress, on the changeless laws of that universe ; truths together, and expound their relations in his to show that the wisdom of the seer and the time and space, and thus to rebuke many a need- station of the court minister may be united with less conflict. From him the despot and the revo- the unpretending good-nature, the practical tolerlutionary, the bigot and the sceptic, may learn the ant virtue, of the honest and kindly man. His complement to laws of which they see only a part, own personal success illustrates his philosophy ; and may know that what they are fighting for, to he has succeeded in small things without forfeitbloodshed, is decreed, all in its good time. ing success in great ; he has played his part in

The other day, one of last year's trees of daily life without forgetting eternity; he has served liberty” was blown down in the Place de la Bas- kings, and borne consolation to the humblest and tile—a mournful omen to the soldier of liberty ! most oppressed, by proclaiming the laws that gove Humboldt, looking across long ages, sees the laws ern kings, and discovering in the order of the that govern that blustering wind-he sees the Kosmos the charter of mankind.—Speciator, 2% Bastile swept away, the republic, the restoration, Sept. the dynasty of the bourgeoise, and now this mis-/

From the Britannia. of Othman. He now once more abolished the Ni. RUSSIAN AND TURKISH TREATIES.

zam Jedid.

In 1812 the pressure of Russian affairs by the As the relations of Russia with Turkey are French invasion produced a peace, by which, howagain likely to be brought prominently before the ever, Turkey lost Bessarabia and the principal European eye, we give a sketch of their history mouth of the Danube. for the last hundred years.

The Greek revolt next occupied the troops of The wars between Russia and the Porte had Turkey until the struggle was closed by the ruin existed from the conquest of Western Asia by the of the Turkish fleet at Navarino, in 1827, an act Ottoman monarchs, but generally without results ; of the most obvious impolicy on the part of the the war was an inroad, and the peace was a truce. existing cabinets of Europe, and especially of the The rise of Russia under Peter the Great made whig cabinet. those wars

more inveterate, but with effects The old quarrel between Russia and Turkey equally transitory. It was only in the reign of relative to their share of influence in Moldavia and Catherine II., a woman of masculine mind and Wallachia had been pacified by the treaty of Akermore than Russian ambition, that those barbaric man in 1826. But war recommenced in 1828. conflicts assumed the form of a determination to In the following year Diebitsch crossed the Balconquer, and that every war was followed by a kan and reached Adrianople, while Paskiewitch permanent accession to the dominions of Russia. invaded Asia Minor. The imminent peril of the

· The peace of Kuchuk-Kaimarji, in 1774, the sultan now brought the ambassadors of England result of a succession of victories won by the cele- and the continental powers to his protection. But brated names of Romanzoff, Suwaroff, and Kamen- by the peace of Adrianople, in 1829, Mahmoud ski, gave Russia almost the entire of the Turkish acknowledged the independence of Greece, and fortresses to the north of the Danube, the co-pro- paid five millions of ducats for the expenses of the tectorship of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the Russian army. still more important right of protectorship over all The insurrection in Egypt under Mehemet Ali the Greek churches in the Turkish dominions. again mutilated the dominions of the sultan, who The Crimea also was declared independent of marched an army against the pasha, but was deTurkey, which was equivalent to its future pos- feated in 1831. The Egyptian troops under Ibrasession by Russia. This peace was regarded by him Pasha reached within 130 miles of ConstanEuropean statesmen as laying Turkey finally at tinople, when they were stopped by the Russian the feet of Russia. It was, unquestionably, a ambassador, who had ordered a Russian army to severe blow. But history is full of the follies of march for the defence of the capital. The recompolitical prophecy.

pense for this service was the treaty of Hunkiar Russia suddenly seized on the Crimea in 1787, Skelessi, by which the passage of the Dardanelles and war again began. The Turks fought stub- was in future to be closed to all the enemies of bornly, but, through inferiority of means, lost Russia. every battle; until the war was concluded by the In 1839 war broke out again with Mehemet Ali, peace of Jassy in 1792. The Crimea was sur-who defeated the Turkish army, and drove it into rendered to Russia, and the Dneister was made the defiles of Mount Taurus. In this period of the frontier.

national calamity Mahmoud died, in 1810, a man At this period Selim III. was sultan. He was of great natural ability and general good conduct, a man of intelligence and vigor, and, from his but rash in his reforms, and exposing his country melancholy proofs of the superiority of European to hazards, by enfeebling the attachment of his discipline, he took advantage of the interval of people to their old institutions before he had firmly peace to reform the Turkish armies. He now established new. established a new force, named the Nizam Jedid. England now interfered, and Abdel Mejid, the This establishment threatened the power of the present sultan, was delivered from the Egyptian Janizaries, who rose in insurrection and threw the army by the English squadron on the coast of sultan into a dungeon.

Syria. Tyre, Sidon, and Acre were gallantly Mustapha IV., the cousin of Selim, began his captured ; and Ibrahim Pasha was driven out of reign in 1807. Bairactar, a pasha and friend of Syria with the loss, by climate, the sword, and the deposed sultan, marched at the head of an want of provisions, of nearly 50,000 men. Syria army into Constantinople to restore him. Mus- was thus restored; but a treaty confirmed the tapha, to render this impossible, put him to death, Pasha of Egypt in his government, which was but was himself deposed, and Mahmoud II., his made hereditary on the condition of acknowledgbrother, placed on the throne in 1808, by the aid ing the sultan's supremacy and paying an annual of Bairactar. The Nizam Jedid was now restored. tribute. But the Janizaries revolted again, stormed the The question of peace and war with Russia will seraglio, and drove Bairactar, then grand vizier, naturally bring into view, and possibly into action, into a tower, which he defended with his charac- the political interests connected, in every European teristic bravery, until he blew himself up, rather country, with the security of the great barrier than fall into the hands of his enemies. Mahmoud against northern encroachment.

Austria may, was spared, only as being the sole adult descendants from recent obligations, remain only a spectator.

THE BERMONDSEY HORROR.

But England and France, and, by a scarcely in- made for themselves in Punch a chosen organ. ferior necessity, Prussia and Western Germany, In calculating the probable future of the nation, it must take a part in sustaining the Turkish cause were better to leave out the Court of Arches and as the fortress of the south and west.

the chancellor, if not the queen herself, than to But, even if Turkey rested on the Mahometan leave out Punch. powers alone, her conquest might demand both The extract we give below has been cut by us remarkable force and remarkable good fortune on at second hand from the columns of some mislaid the part of her antagonist. With a warlike pop- exchange paper. Its dense and powerful words ulation of perhaps twelve millions ; with the will be read with a thrill by all who read them. acknowledged right to call on Mahometanism It has something in it of the awfulness of the throughout all Western Asia and the Mediter-thunder-cloud. It will demonstrate of itself that ranean for her defence; with the armies and fleet Punch is sometimes other than a joker. Its closof Egypt at her direct command ; and with the ing reference is to the capture of a fugitive from general voice of Europe, in this instance, on her justice, who had murdered his friend and eluded side, she could not be broken down in a day. the officers, and was supposed to be on his pas

A battery at the northern end of the Bosphorus sage across the seas when the steam-frigate was might shut up the Russian fleet in the Euxine, sent to stay him. while a proclamation would find the whole body of those gallant and able leaders who have fought

God's lightning pursuing murder is become a so perseveringly at the head of the Hungarian peas- true and active thing. What was a figure of ants crowding to take the conduct of the Turkish speech is now a working minister. We have armies. Even Russia herself might not be beyond brought devastation into servitude ; we have made the reach of invasion. A million sterling sent a bond slave of destruction. Murder has hardly among the Tartar tribes might shake her Asiatic turned from its abomination—scarcely set forth supremacy; a bombardment of Cronstadt might lightning stays the homicide. Marvellous is the

upon its shuddering flight—when the arenging tell her that even St. Petersburg was not safe. poetry of our daily life! We out-act the dreams Poland might receive her own heroic exiles with of story books. The Arabian tales are flat, crude sudden exultation ; and a year of war might sub- gossip, against the written activities of our social vert the empire of centuries.

state. Murder, with its black heart beating thick, England deeply deprecates this scene of con- its brain blood-gorged, reads the history of its fasion ; for peace is not merely her policy, but damnation. Hundreds of miles away from its her principle. But necessity is the first of all ghastly work, murder, in the stupidity of deepest

guilt-for the greater the crime the greater the laws, and the protection of Constantinople is now folly, that ever as a shadow accompanies and bethe first necessity of the civilized world.

trays it-murder, with forced belief in its im

punity, reads its own doings chronicled and comFro.n the Independent.

mented upon in the newspaper sheet ; and—so far

from the victim's grave, the retreat so cunningly PUNCH.

assured, the hiding place so wisely chosen-murThey greatly misconceive of the London Punch der draws freer breath, and holds itself secure who suppose it a mere harmless collection of jokes tric pulse—thrills in the wires, and in a moment

And the while, the inexorable lightning—the elecand bon mots, of funny puns and funnier caricatures. idiot murder stammers and grows white in the face There is no review or magazine in the world that of justice. In the marvellousness that sublimates has a more definite system of thought than Punch the mind of man, our electric tales make poor work has, or that lives and acts for a more definite pur- of the Arabian. Solomon's genii may sleep in their pose ; whose forces all work towards an individual brazen kettles. They are, in truth, the veriest smoke

In the conend more consentaneously. It presses towards compared with the genii of the wires. this with wonderful persistence of resolution, and templation of this last atrocity there is matter for oftentimes with wonderful vividness and energy of abomination is committed, and so wonderful are

sad congratulation, for mournful thanksgiving. An language. Whatever else there may be in Punch the means of apprehension -so sure and so astoundthere is no hesitation, no reserve,” no maskinging in their operation—that guilt has but a few gasps of batteries, no frittering away of differences, no of fancied freedom, and guilt is captive. Considfailing of an object for want of the fearless use at ering the certainty—the fate that travels the wires the right time of a hard word. Its logic may

-we take hope that from the self-conviction of dis sometimes be covered over with wit, until it is covery-from the disheartening belief that there is concealed; but the sharp edge lies close beneath crime, the miserable wretch tempted to evil will

no escape, no evasion from the consequence of the wreathing flowers. Its parries and thrusts may turn in his mind the many odds, and refrain upon seem to the uninitiated mere scenic displays, the the lowest principle—that of calculation. The flashings of bloodless and unfleshed swords ; but murderer in mind, who would not be stayed in his every one of them is a thrust for reform ; a blow guilt by the thought of after lightning, may pause, at abuses, imagined or real; a keen arrow from awed by the thought of lightning ready—the una full quiver, whistling into the heart of some and awful work begun, when the Fire Queen, with

erring telegraph. It was a solemn business, a stern veteran wrong. It should be distinctly understood her black flag of smoke, stood out from Ports that the choicest wits, the most pointed writers mouth, bound to cross the Atlantic, if need werem and thinkers of the reform party in England, have to stay and overhaul the Victoria, freighted with

a

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the curse of murder. There is a fine, stern lesson Too much horrified to speak, in this, a noble sermon preached extempore to em- They can only shriek, shriek, bryo crime. Justice at the home office makes the

Out of tune, wires speak, saying to a certain admiral"Send In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, a fast-sailing ship to sea, that retribution may be in a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, done to blood-shedders." There is something sol

Leaping higher, higher, higher, emn, awful, in the warning uttered in this. It says

With a desperate desire, to crime—". Though the sea encompass you, though And a resolute endeavor you have balked pursuit, and justice, like a hound

Now-now to sit, or never, at fault, beats and gropes confounded-though you By the side of the pale-faced moon. have begun to count the profits of blood, and how

Oh, the bells, bells, bells ! to make the most of them, how in your new country

What a tale their terror tells to live a life of impunity and ease--nevertheless,

Of Despair! give up the dream ; dismiss the vision, and awake How they clang, and clash, and roar! to horrid truth. There, in the horizon, miles away, What a horror they outpour is a thin dark vapor, the man at the mast has seen On the bosom of the palpitating air! and reported it, and with every ten minutes it be- Yet the ear, it fully knows, comes more distinct ; and now the distant gun is

By the twanging heard across the water, booming command ; the

And the clanging, ship's yards swing round-she lies to ; and how How the danger ebbs and flows; rapid the ceremony-how brief the time! Murder, Yet the ear distinctly tells, aghast and manacled, is made again to turn its face

In the jangling towards the land it has outraged with the sacrifice

And the wrangling, of blood.

How the danger sinks and swells, [bells
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the

Of the bells-
From the Union Magazine for November.

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
THE BELLS.

Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

BY EDGARA. POE.

I.

IV.

II.

Hear the sledges with the bells

Hear the tolling of the bells

Iron bells !
Silver bells !

[compels ! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! What a world of solemn thought their monody

In the silence of the night,
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

How we shiver with affright
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle

At the melancholy menace of their tone.
All the heavens, seem to twinkle

For every sound that floats
With a crystalline delight ;

From the rust within their throats
Keeping time, time, time,

Is a groan.
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

And the people--ah, the people,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells

They that dwell up in the steeple, From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

All alone,

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
Bells, bells, bells-

In that muffled monotone,
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone-
Hear the mellow wedding-bells,

They are neither man nor woman-
Golden bells !

They are neither brute nor human-
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells !

They are Ghouls ;
Through the balmy air of night

And their king it is who tolls;
How they ring out their delight !

And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
From the molten-golden notes,

Rolls
And all in tune,

A

pæan from the bells ! What a liquid ditty floats

And his merry bosom swells
To the turtle dove that listens, while she gloats

With the pæan of the bells !
On the moon !

And he dances, and he yells ;
Oh, from out the sounding cells,

Keeping time, time, time,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells !

In a sort of Runic rhyme,
How it swells !

To the pæans of the bells
How it dwells

Of the bells;
On the Future ! how it tells

Keeping time, time, time,
Of the rapture that impels

In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the swinging and the ringing

To the throbbing of the bells
Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

To the sobbing of the bells ;
Bells, bells, bells-

Keeping time, time, time,
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells !

As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells
Hear the loud alarum bells-

Of the bells, bells, bells;
Brazen bells !

To the tolling of the bells
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells !

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, In the startled ear of night

Bells, bells, bells How they scream out their affright! To the moaning and the groaning of the bella

III.

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