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SCENE III.-A STREET.

Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog. Laun. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab, my dog, to be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father-no, this left shoe is my father;-no, no, this left shoe is my mother;-nay, that cannot be

so, neither;-yes, it is so, it is so,-it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on't! there 'tis: now, sir, this staff is my sister; for, look you, she is as white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I am the dog-no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog, oh, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to my father; "Father, your blessing!" now, should not the shoe speak a word for weeping: now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother-oh, that she could speak now! -like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her;-why, there 'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word: but see how I lay the dust with my tears.

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It was the schooner Hesperus

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
With his pipe in his mouth,

And watched how the veering flaw did blow

The smoke now west, now south.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish main:

"I pray thee put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

9-VOL. I.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.
Colder and louder blew the wind,

A gale from the north-east;

The snow fell hissing in the brine,

And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,

And do not tremble so,

For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat, Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,

And bound her to the mast.

"Oh, father! I hear the church-bells ring, Oh, say, what may it be ?"

""Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast;" And he steered for the open sea.

"Oh, father! I hear the sound of guns, what may it be ?"

Oh, say,

"Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea."

"Oh, father! I see a gleaming light,

Oh, say, what may
it be?"

But the father answered never a word-
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,

With his face to the skies,

The lantern gleamed, through the gleaming snow, On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands, and prayed That saved she might be;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the waves On the lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,

Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept,
Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever, the fitful gusts between,
A sound came from the land:
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts, went by the board;

Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank-
Ho! ho! the breakers roared.

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair

Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,

In the midnight and the snow!

Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe.

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AT Paris, just after dark one gusty evening, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library. For one hour, at least, we had maintained a profound silence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G—, the Prefect of the Parisian police, who said that he had called to ask the opinion of my friend about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble.

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"And what is the difficulty now? I asked. "The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, because it is so 'odd.""

"Simple and odd?" said Dupin.

"Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all been puzzled, because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us."

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"Oh,

roared our visitor, profoundly amused. Dupin, you will be the death of me yet." "And what, after all, is the matter on hand?" "Why, I will tell you," replied the prefect. I have received personal information, from a very high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is known; this is beyond a doubt: he was seen to take it. It is known, also, that it still remains in his possession."

"How is this known ?" asked Dupin.

"It is clearly inferred," replied the prefect, "from the nature of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results which

Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing would at once arise from its passing out of the which puts you at fault," said my friend.

robber's possession; that is to say, from his

THE PURLOINED LETTER.

employing it as he must design in the end to employ it."

"Be a little more explicit," I said.

"Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable." The prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy. "Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin. "No! Well, the disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honour of a personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honour and peace are so jeopardised."

"But this ascendancy," I interposed, “would depend upon the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare

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"The thief," said G-, "is the minister D--, who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question-a letter, to be frank-had been received by the personage robbed, while alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage, from whom especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavour to thrust it into a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture enters the minister D- His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper, recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses for some fifteen minutes upon the public affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not call attention to the act in the presence of the third personage, who stood at her elbow. The minister decamped, leaving his own letter, one of no importance, upon the table."

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand to make the ascendancy complete the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber."

"Yes," replied the prefect; "and the power thus attained has, for some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced every day of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this cannot be done openly."

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"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still in possession of the minister, since it is this possession, and not any employment of tho letter, which bestows the power. With the employment the power departs."

"True," said G-; "and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first care was to make thorough search of the minister's hotel; and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger of giving him reason to suspect our design."

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But," said I, "you are quite au fait in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often before."

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'Oh, yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a distance from the master's apartment, and being chiefly Neapolitans, they are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months, a night has not passed during the greater part of which I have not been engaged, personally, in ransacking the DHotel. My honour is interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself."

"But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may be in possession of the minister, as it doubtless is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than on his own premises ?"

"This is barely possible," said Dupin. "The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which D— is known to be involved, would render the instant availability of the document-its susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice-a point of nearly equal importance with its possession."

“True,” I observed; "the paper is clearly, then, upon the premises. As for its being on the person of D we may consider that out of the ques

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"Entirely," said the prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by footpads, and his person rigorously searched, under my own inspection."

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Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your search."

"Why, the fact is we took our time, and we searched everywhere. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building, room by room, devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We examined first the furniture of cach apartment. We opened every possible drawer; and I presume you know that to a properly-trained police agent such a thing as a secret drawer is im

possible. Any man is a dolt who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk—of space-to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the tops. Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in the same way."

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'Certainly not; but we did better-we examined the rung of every chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of furniture, by the aid of a powerful microscope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance, we should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an apple. Any disturbance in the glueing, any unusual gaping in the joints, would have sufficed to ensure detection."

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'That, of course; and when we had absolutely completed every particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We divided the entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so that none might be missed; then we scrutinised each individual square inch throughout the premises, including the two houses adjoining, with the microscope, as before."

"You include the grounds about the houses?" "All the grounds are paved with brick: they gave us little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it undisturbed."

"You looked among D--'s papers, of course, and into the books of the library ?"

"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel. We not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of some of our police-officers. We also measured the thickness of every book-cover with

the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed longitudinally with the needles."

"You explored the floors beneath the carpets?" "Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with the microscope."

"Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose."

"I fear you are right there," said the prefect. "And now, Dupin, what would you advise?" "To make a thorough research of the premises." That is absolutely needless," replied G"Yet I am not more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is at the hotel."

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"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You have, of course, an accurate description of the letter?"

"Oh, yes!" And here the prefect, producing a memorandum book, proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and especially of the external, appearance of the missing document. Soon after finishing the perusal of this description he took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman before.

In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair, and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said—

"Well, but, G- —, what of the purloined letter? I presume that you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the minister?"

"Confound him, say I!-yes. I made the reexamination, however, as Dupin suggested; but it was all labour lost, as I knew it would be."

"How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked Dupin.

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Why, a very great deal-a very liberal reward. I don't like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I would give my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who could obtain me that letter. The fact is, that it is becoming of more and more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done."

"Well, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his meerschaum, "I really-think, G, you have not exerted yourself to the utmost in this matter. You might employ counsel in the matter, eh?"

"But," said the prefect, a little discomposed,

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