The countess opened her bright eyes to their | The Norwegian received this avowal with a full extent. profound inclination, and said with a mingled "Judith, expression of surprise and veneration: "This indeed is sudden," she said. lead the dance-let there be loud music." Then to Merlin: "Enchanter, receive my hand and lead me apart, that we may speak without reThe approaching wings of a sad hour darken the air of my enjoyment." serve. 66 "Sir, some wandering thoughts have heretofore assailed me of your majesty's higher condition." "Perhaps you will permit me to confer upon you," said Augustus, "those honours to which you were just now reluctant." Merlin led the countess Hermione into an embayed recess of the deep wall. There, with "I am not at all proved by action sir," Merlin their speech drowned to other ears, they con- answered, "and it must be a subject of comversed. At length they came forth. The coun-plaint to the illustrious men who are enrolled in tess seemed pensive. She said to Sir Ludwig: your order of the White Eagle, to bring into You are aware that I have practised a de- their ranks a stranger of no fame." ception upon this gentleman. He has discovered it. Perhaps it is well that he has done so. It is his purpose to depart, as he informed you, tomorrow. You must therefore to-night bestow upon him the honour which I besought for him of your goodness." "Besought, countess ? You rather com- supposed, to go through this matter. Take care manded!" "Be it so then. But you will yield to me in this. Make this wronged gentleman a knight, and a member of your renowned order of the White Eagle." "Certain observances are necessary," answered Sir Ludwig, "which require time." 66 They can be put aside," the countess insisted. "It is a case of emergency. Dub him a knight, and avow him of your order, as you might do in the crisis of a battle." "Your modesty, brave gentleman, is good proof of worth," said Augustus. "Moreover this countess insists, and we are inferior in obstinacy to some other princes." Then he muttered to the Chevalier D'Imhoff-"I am a little unsteady. I shall find it more difficult than I D'Imhoff-give me the sword of Duke Hildebrand. By gallant St. George, if my legs are at fault, the potations have at least improved the vigour of my arms. I could cleave the fellow to the chine." Do not mistake so far as to do so, sire," said the chevalier." The Norwegian, to whom a freak of fortune proffered such an honour as brave men of high rank might contend to reach as the recompense for life-long toils, perils, and self-denials, deter"As you choose, madam," Sir Ludwig replied. mined, whatever might be the circumstances at"The last received members were a traitorous tending the bestowal of it, to receive it. He prince, and a Jew banker. If this stranger is knelt before the Elector. The Countess Hernot worth a thousand of them, I am not able to mione, folding her arms, repressed by her impejudge a man of worth and mettle by his exterious demeanour a disposition on the part net rior." only of the spectators, but of Augustus himself, Merlin, wondering at this dialogue, said with to make a jest of the grave ceremony. some earnestness: Her frown daunted the dancing girls, and put the Elector upon his guard. He performed his part with only one deviation from dignity. One of the ornaments, swinging from the ceiling above him, was a silver saint holding a demon, of baser metal, by tail and feet. This with "Who are you, sir, that undertake to dispense high honours? I have already been made the butt of masquerading practices in this castle. I believe that a man of honour, as I take you to be, will not lend his aid to a renewal of such practices-practices only to be forgiven in a beau-other cressets of quaint device lighted the apart tiful woman." "You will find me in dead earnest," said Sir Ludwig. Then to an attendant: "Bring me the great sword of Duke Hildebrand." ment; for from the upturned face of the su pended demon, flaring out at eyes, nostrils, and mouth, flames issued. The unnecessary vigor with which the Elector wielded the gigantic The sword, an immensely large weapon, with sword severed saint and devil from the ceiling. a blade of dim blue steel, was brought. and brought them down first upon his own shoulders and then, by rebound, amongst the damsels who were grouped behind him. With this exception, Merlin Brand was dubbed knight with suitable decorum. He was subsequently made, by a brief process, and recognised "You desire, Monsieur," Sir Ludwig resumed, "to know me. I see no good cause for keeping you in ignorance, as our fellowship is presently to end, and our travel to diverge. I am that dethroned King of Poland of whom you have spoken in terms of exaggerated approbation. I am in a formula rather fantastic for the age, a men Frederick Augustus." ber of the knightly brotherhood of the Whe Eagle. D'Imhoff, an officer of that order, re-me in your love as Hermione, in your prayers as ceived the Elector's command to attend to the the Countess of Konigsmark." enrolment. The ensign of the order, a white rosette with a central medallion bearing the image of an eagle, Augustus took from his own bosom, where he had worn it concealed, and suspended it by its cordon upon the breast of the Chevalier Merlin. The Norwegian heard this avowal of the identity of the countess with the most celebrated woman of her times, with scarcely a mark of surprise. "To speak the truth madam," he said, "I have imagined as much, since I learned the true "We do these things hastily, and with some rank of the knight of Felseck. Fame has uniomissions," said the Elector, "but with none so ted your proud names inseparably. But still, fatal as marked a former ceremony to which you have I not reason to be incredulous? Can you were subjected. You are more surely a knight, be indeed that lady whose fidelity, to an unforand a brother of our order, my dear chevalier, tunate prince, has been held to redeem a pasthan you ever were a husband. And now that sionate error, and to give the veil of virtue to a we have finished this business, the night is not mere union par amours? The dame of the so late but that we may return to our amuse- bright wit-of the wonderful eloquence trained ments. Is the Fool never awake with the hub- in the music of many tongues-the saint of bub! We have knighted a soldier, and saint adoring poets, and the chosen friend of philosoand devil have been by the ears, and he still phers-the sparkling creature, full of beauty, sleeps. He has drunk the draught of Iamblicus grace, and generosity beyond praise or computaand his six brothers. Touch his crown with a tion-such has fame spoken the Countess of torch. Perhaps he may awake mirthful after Konigsmark; and you, lady, may seem to me slumbers so remarkable." all this. But the Countess of Konigsmark is reAs the paper circlet blazed, the countess, find- ported to have maintained her constancy to her ing that the Norwegian was no where visible, lover and lord with a fervour that grew with his went swiftly in pursuit of him. The unwedded misfortunes. You hurried into involvement with pair were presently together with none near to a mere adventurous soldier-a stranger. I bewitness their meeting. A lamp, expiring on the lieve, but am full of wonder.” wall near them, struggled with the moonlight, "If you have not penetrated the mystery of which entered at a machicolle, or shot-window. my nature," said the Countess of Konigsmark— The countenance of Lady Hermione was visi-"if you have not learned to account for its conble, with its many blended expressions, in this tradictions in our experience as husband and light. "Assure me before we part," she said, with a tone not a little touching, "that you will, at times, remember me gently and forgivingly." wife, a few words now cannot possibly enlighten you. Suffice it that I do retain an affection as profound as affection can be where right does not consecrate it, for another, and yet have "I cannot fail to do so," the Norwegian an- wasted and still waste some tenderness upon swered. "In truth, but for a heart preoccupied, yourself. Remember, my friend, that he whom I could have forgotten the world in the delights I for a time seemed to desert has placed no saof this Capua. Surely I shall have many ro- cred pale about my heart, but left it like a wild bird mantic and tender thoughts of this our extraor- with the privilege of roaming. Would that I had dinary union, mysterious Hermione." been his true wife as I have been your feigned How staunch would I not have been in "Yes-call me Hermione," said the countess one. with a sigh. "It possesses a pleasant sound glory or sorrow! But now we must part. When from your lips. Chevalier Merlin, there are times, and perhaps this is one of them, when I regret that we cannot forever be Merlin and Hermione, and shut the troubled world, with its iron duties and dark passions, quite out from our castle of love." we meet for a few brief moments to-morrow, we meet as the Chevalier Merlin and the Countess of Konigsmark. Have you now, at this parting moment, no kiss for the lips of Hermione?" This gentle ceremony of love was enacted. "I have urged you hitherto," said the Norwe- Merlin pressed the dewy lips of the lady. In a gian, “to be frank with me, and to let me know moment after, she had flitted like a shadow from your true name. This I may sometimes have her place, and he stood alone. urged from mere curiosity. I do not urge it now; but, assuredly, I do desire to know, without mystery or reservation, this bright lady who has been 30 near to me, and who must so frequently visit my reflections during the remainder of my life." "Sir Merlin," replied the lady, "remember VOL. XV-61 ANSWER TO CANNING'S ENIGMA. Cares is a noun of plural number, AFFLICTIONS. BY SIDNEY DYER. There are moments that come in their sombre array Less joyous, 'tis true, for a time may appear These hours of affliction and pain, constraint were a disgraceful badge of colonial vassalage, and as if American innovations upon the English Language were a suitable concomitant or necessary consequence of American reforms in the principles of government. It has recently become notorious that the Harpers of New York, the most considerable of the American publishers of books, have been for years engaged in a systematic and most impudent attempt to level all writers, whether English or Ameri Than the "daughters of music" whose song charms the ear can, to their own favorite Yankee standard of As the Syren's bewildering strain. But O! to the humble these moments of night Are dearer than all that may shine, For they see through the darkness the dawn of that light, There's a beam still remaining when darkness is near, In glory it waits till the planets appear, A melody lingers awhile in the sky, When the shock of the thunder is o'er, And the wave leaves a murmur of music on high, And the harp struck to sorrow awakens a strain, The friendships of earth may appear for awhile But O! how they change with Prosperity's smile, There's a friend who remains in adversity's night HE beams on the lowly with smiles of delight orthography. It is difficult to say whether efforts to Americanize the English language are more deserving of ridicule or of reprehension. That noble language has now become the heritage of the world. It is spoken not merely by the people of the British Islands and of the United States, but by those of the extensive British provinces and colonies on this continent, in the West Indies, in Asia, Africa and Australia. The common care of the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world should be to preserve the English language in its purity, and transmit it pure to the countless millions destined to speak it in another age. But even were it desirable (as it is not) to impress upon the language the stamp of American innovations, the history of colonization in every period of the world shews that it would be impossible to accomplish such a result. Physi cal force and political power may shift from the mother country to the colonial settlement, and the latter may equal or surpass the former, in wealth, in luxury, and in general refinement; yet in all changes and revolutions, the standard of the common language remains immovable, and every question about the purity or legitimacy of a word or phrase is solved by an appeal to the usage of the educated and the polite in the mother country. Sicily, Grecian Italy, Macedonia and Grecian Egypt, became successively more powerful than Greece, the mother country of them all; but all of them, and all other countries colonized from old Greece, always retained and acknowledged their inferiority and dependence. It does not follow that because there are no so far as related to the common language. The provinces in the United States, no provincialisms mother country, and Athens the capital of t are to be found among the people. Social pecu- civilization, continued to the last to dictate the liarities of phraseology, precisely analogous to laws of the Greek language, wherever in its wide those which in England would be denounced as diffusion that language might be spoken. And provincialisms, are to be met with here in rich so it must be in regard to the English language. abundance. But there is a strong disposition on The standard of its purity must always be foun the part of our countrymen to think their own in England, and American innovations must alpeculiarities of this kind entitled to higher res-ways be contemned and rejected, by the over pect than they would themselves accord to those whelming majority of the people who speak the of the Scotch and the Irish. Freed from the language. as mere corruptions, as mere loca domination of the English government, they cant and provincialism. For His love which alone has the power to save, PROVINCIALISMS. seem determined also to emancipate themselves I have often heard it remarked, and sometimes from the shackles of the English dictionary and by northern men, that in the Southern States the grammar, as if submission to even that species of English language is spoken and written by the well educated with greater purity and correct- or servant, couched in terms like these :—“ Sir, ness, than by the corresponding class of persons in view of Sabbath, it is time for you to pour in the Northern States. Whether the remark is some water on to your fists and face, and get on upon the whole a just one, I do not know. Yet to your beast's back." it is countenanced by several peculiarities of dic- In a book called "The Wonders of the Heation prevalent among our brethren of the North, vens," by Alden Bradford, published about a some of which are constantly to be met with in dozen years ago, (in Boston, I think, though in the writings of men of literary pretension, and that particular my recollection may be erroneous, even of literary eminence, and seem to be em- as it is long since I saw a copy of the work) the ployed by them with the most exemplary and compiler introduces a short mythological account undoubting faith in their legitimacy. The few of the signs of the zodiac, and of the constellathat I now proceed to specify, however firmly tion Gemini, or "The Twins," among the rest. they may be rooted in the Yankee dialect, will scarcely be considered by an educated Southron or Englishman as properly belonging to the English language. ry might he learn, or by mere conjecture conclude, that the thing which John Smith conducted with great gallantry, was no other than the gallant John Smith's own proper self. These twins, he informs us, were Castor and Pollux, who, while they sojourned upon earth, were engaged in the famous Argonautic expedition, in which they conducted with great galA reverend doctor of divinity, well known in lantry." And nothing is more common than to Philadelphia, in an essay on christian baptism, see in the writings and to hear in the conversapublished a few weeks ago, (that is to say, some- tion of Northern men a similar use of the verb time in June 1849,) in the newspaper called "The conduct. A Southron, who had learned at school Christian Observer," says that pouring water on and college that this verb is active, and that it to the fists is the proper translation of a phrase grammatically requires an express noun substanin the Greek, usually rendered pouring water upon tive following, would naturally, upon hearing the hands. He thus evidently employs the par- from a northern man that upon some occasion, ticles on to as equivalent to upon; and the same John Smith the ubiquitous had conducted with use of the same particles is exceedingly common great gallantry, listen in expectation of being among writers of even greater reputation than forthwith informed what it was that John Smith the reverend essayist. That it is a mere provin- had so gallantly conducted,-whether himself, cialism. unworthy of an educated man, can or a troop of horse. or another man's wife. But scarcely be questioned: for though correct speech he would listen in vain. Only by specific enquiadmits the same combination of the same particles, it is with a signification wholly different from that imposed by the reverend doctor and his northern brethren, whether literary or illiterate. A Southern minister of the Gospel, walk- I once knew a gentleman from one of the Noring to church in company with this learned theo- thern States, who, on being asked at table what logian of Philadelphia, might simply and natu- he would choose to eat, was in the habit of rerally say, if he thought they were in danger of sponding, "I've a notion to an egg," or "to a being too late, "Come, let us get on to the church"; potato," or to anything else he might happen to and no Englishman would perceive any thing approve at the time. Whether this very odd remarkable in the exhortation; he would under- phrase is common among the better educated of stand it as simply meaning, "Let us get forward, the Northern people, I have never learned. The or onward, to the church." Yet the reverend gentleman in question, like the reverend doctor Philadelphian would doubtless halt in great as- already mentioned, was both theological and tonishment, and stare at his clerical ally as if he literary. deemed his reason unsettled, thinking he had pro- "In view of these facts-these circumstancesposed the unseemly exhibition of bestriding the these considerations," or the like, is a form of roof of the sacred edifice. The luckless South- speech that I suspect is not indigenous, but borron might find great difficulty in making it un- rowed, though I have little doubt that it was first derstood that he had been speaking English, and received in the Northern part of the Union, and not Yankee, and that he had no intention to in- thence diffused through the other portions. So dulge in irreverent or unbecoming levity. And common has it now become, that scarcely a State if the same reverend doctor should chance to be paper, petition, or memorial of any sort, scarcesubject to a failing very common among learned ly a dissertation on any subject, whether moral, men, that of forgetfulness, and should unduly political, theological or miscellaneous, scarcely lelay his preparations for keeping an appoint- even an editorial article of half a column in a nent to preach at a station somewhat remote, lis ears would no doubt give smooth and appro ing admittance to an admonition from a relative newspaper, can be concocted in these United States, without pressing this everlasting phrase into the service. Were it the very best of all SONNET. No wind, not even a fluttering breath had given P. possible or imaginable phrases, such incessant | religion, morality, and in all the virtues, accomrepetition would suffice to render it wearisome plishments and good gifts of human nature, that beyond endurance. But instead of being the we should be worse than infidels if we entertainbest, it seems to me the worst, or among the ed a single doubt of the fact. Under the humilworst; worthy to be expelled from our own lan-iating sense of inferiority in matters so numerous guage, even if indigenous, rather than to be adop- and important, it is a comfort to discover that ted and incorporated into ours by translation out there are still some things, few and trivial though of another. My chief objections to the phrase they may be, in which the imitation of our betare the following. First, It is justly liable to ters would not be for the better, but for the exception for ambiguity. We know indeed that worse. men have eyes and the faculty of viewing, and that facts have not, and therefore, when a man says that in view of certain facts he draws certain conclusions, we infer his meaning to be, that he himself is the viewer, and that the facts are merely objects to be viewed; though the reverse of that meaning would suit the words just as well. Secondly, When a man is said to be in view of a certain object, it is not clearly or necessarily imported that he is viewing or looking at the object, but only that the object is within his range or scope of view. Perhaps the latter meaning would most commonly, as it might with at least equal propriety, be attributed to those words; yet in the phrase under consideration, the other meaning must be arbitrarily imposed upon them, in order to repel the danger of flagrant nonsense. Thirdly. When it is said that a man, in view of certain facts, (that is, viewing or considering certain facts) draws a certain conclusion, we are only informed that he views those facts and draws that conclusion; not that he draws the conclusion because he views the facts. The dependence of the one act upon the other, the consequence of the one from the other, is nowise asserted; and though we assume or infer such dependence and consequence to be intended by the speaker, and do so without difficulty or hesitation, it is only because his words would of themselves import a mere absurdity. In point of logical precision and grammatical propriety, it is no better to say that a man eats his dinner in view of hunger, than to say that he does the same act in view of a church. Fourthly, I incline to believe that the phrase in question is an idiom adopted from the French language, though even there it seems to be ambiguous and worthless. Boyer in his French dictionary, under the word Vue, gives the following examples of the use of that word: "Etre à vue de terre, to be in sight of land: Etre en vue de la terre, to be seen from the land without discovering land." We of the South have been so often and so earnestly assured by our northern brethren (who of course should know best) that they are immeasurably superior to us in industry, energy, enterprise, commerce, agriculture, manufactures, prolification, arts, sciences, literature, theology, AGLAUS. THE SELDENS OF SHERWOOD. CHAPTER IV. In common worldly things 'tis call'd ungrateful Shakspeare Two years had elapsed, since Mr. Selden's permission had been so reluctantly obtained for Charles' entering the ministry, if his resolation remained unchanged after a probationary term of six months. These six months had been spent by Charles, in strict accordance with his father's wish, in active employment, and more frequent intercourse with society, and as a last remedy, which Mr. Selden trusted would be par ticularly efficacious in his diseased state of mini he had paid a visit of many weeks to his aut Mrs. Lennox. This lady was a sister of Mr. Selden's, who had married early in life, and settled in May land. and though Mr. Selden and herself had se dom met since her marriage, he still remembered her with affection, and was likewise proud |