I am thy husband-nay, thou need'st not shudder ;— A marriage thus unholy-unfulfilled A bond of fraud-is, by the laws of France, I bōre thee, bathed in blushes, from the altar, Conduct this lady (she is not my wife She is our guest, our honored guest, my mother!) E'en villains dared to mar! Now, lady, now, Melnotte. Speak not, but go. Melnotte [sinking down.] Hush! hush! for mercy sake: [WIDOW ascends the stairs; PAULINE follows weeping-turns to look back. All angels bless and guard her! LYTTON. Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, youngest son of the late Gen. Bulwer, of Heydon Hall, Norwalk, England, who has assumed the surname of his mother's family, was born in 1805. He exhibited proofs of superior talents at a very early period, having written verses when only five or six years old. His preliminary studies were conducted under the eye of his mother, a woman of cultivated taste and rare accomplishments. He graduated with honor at Trinity College, Oxford, having won the chancellor's medal for the best English poem. In 1826 he published "Weeds and Wild Flowers," a small volume of poems; and the following year his first novel, "Falkland," appeared. Since that time he has been constantly before the public as an author, both in prose and verse. Of his early novels, perhaps, "Rienzi" is the most complete, high-toned, and energetic: of his more recent ones his "Caxtons," and "My Novel, or Varieties in English Life," are regarded as the best. About 1832, he became editor of the "New Monthly Magazine; and to that journal he contributed essays and criticisms, subsequently published under the title of "The Student." Of his dramas, "The Lady of Lyons," ," "Richelieu," and "Money," are, perhaps, three of the most popular plays now upon the stage. The first of these, from which the preceding extract is taken, seldom fails of drawing tears when well represented. Few authors have displayed more versatility. His language and imagery are often exquisite, and his power of delineating certain classes of character and manners superior to that of any of his contemporaries. He commenced his political life in 1831, when he entered parliament, where he became conspicuous for his advocacy of the rights of dramatic authors, and for his liberal opinions on other questions. His speeches in parliament, and his addresses, have served to raise his reputation. His inaugural address as rector of the University of Glasgow, in particular, has been greatly admired. TH SECTION XIX. I. 106. A GREAT MAN DEPARTED. HERE was a festive hall with mirth resounaing; The sparkling glass!-till slow the hand descended- Without a previous cloud, and with no rolling thunder. Prosperity was perfect, while Death's hand was falling. We build our ship in strong security A Finger, from the dark, points to the trembling sea. 6. Man, like his knowledge, and his soul's endeavor, Is framed for no fixed altitude; but ever Moves onward; the first pause, returns all to the Giver. 7. Riches and health, fine taste, all means of pleasure; Success in highest efforts-fame's best treasureAll these were thine-o'ertopped and overweighed the measure, 8. But in recording thus life's night-shade warning, We hold the memory of thy kind heart's morning Man's intellect is not man's sole nor best adorning. B II. 107. DANIEL WEBSTER.' PART FIRST. ORN upon the verge of civilization, his father's house the furthest by four miles on the Indian trail to Canada,—Mr. Webster retained to the last his love for that pure fresh nature in which he was cradled. The dashing streams, which conduct the waters of the queen of New Hampshire's lakes' to the noble Merrimac; the superb group of mountains3 (the Switzerland of the United States), among which those waters have their sources; the primeval forest, whose date runs back to the twelfth verse of the first chapter of Genesis, and never since creation yielded to the settler's ax; the gray buttresses of granite which prop the eternal hills; the sacred alternation of the seasons, with its magic play on field and forest and flood; the gleaming surface of lake and stream in summer; the icy pavement with which they are floored in winter; the verdure of spring, the prismatic tints of the autumnal woods, the leafless branches of December, glittering like arches and cor'ridors of silver and crystal in the enchanted palaces of fairy-land-sparkling in the morning sun with winter's jewelry, diamond and amethyst, and ruby and sapphire; the cathedral aisles of pathless woods,-the mournful hemlock, the "cloud-seeking" pine,--hung with drooping creepers, like funeral banners pendant from the roof of chancel or transept over the graves of the old lords of the soil;-these all retained for him to the close of his life an undying charm. 2. But though he ever clung with fondness to the wild mountain scenery amidst which he was born and passed his youth, he loved nature in all her other aspects. The simple beauty to which he had brought his farm at Marshfield,' its approaches, its grassy lawns, its well-disposed plantations on the hill-sides, 1 Extract from a speech at the Revere House, Boston, Jan. 18th, 1856, in commemoration of the 74th anniversary of Mr. Webster's birth-day. Win., (win`ne pis sök`ki). 'Mountains, the White Mountains, of which Mount Washington is the principal summit. 4 Genesis, chap. i., v. 12, And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind. "Mǎrsh' field, a village on Massachusetts Bay, 28 miles S. E. by S. of Boston. unpretending but tasteful, and forming a pleasing interchange with his large corn-fields and turnip-patches, showed his sensibility to the milder beauties of civilized culture. 3. He understood, no one better, the secret sympathy of nature and art, and often conversed on the principles which govern their relations with each other. He appreciated the infinite bounty with which nature furnishes materials to the artistic powers of man, at once her servant and master; and he knew not less that the highest exercise of art is but to imitate, interpret, select, and combine the properties, affinities, and proportions of nature; that in reality they are parts of one great system; for nature is the Divine Creator's art, and art is rational man's creation. 1 4. But not less than mountain and plain he loved the sea. He loved to walk and ride and drive upon that magnificent beach which stretches from Green Harbor all round to the Gurnet. He loved to pass hours, I may say days, in his little 'boat. He loved to breathe the healthful air of the salt-water. He loved the music of the ocean, through all the mighty octaves deep and high of its far-resounding register; from the lazy plash of a midsummer's ripple upon the margin of some oozy creek to the sharp howl of the tempest, which wrenches a light-house from its clamps and bolts, fathoms deep, in the living rock, as easily as a gardener pulls a weed from his flower-border. 5. There was, in fact, a manifest sympathy between his great mind and this world-surrounding, deep-heaving, measureless, everlasting, infinite deep. His thoughts and conversation often turned upon it, and its great organic relations with other parts of nature and with man. I have heard him allude to the mysterious analogy between the circulation carried on by veins and arteries, heart and lungs, and that wonderful interchange of venous and arterial blood,—that mirăculous complication which lies at the basis of animal life,—and that equally complicated and more stupendous circulation of river, ocean, vapor, and rain, which from the fresh currents of the rivers fills the depths of the salt sea; then by vaporous distillation carries the waters 1 Green Harbor is the name of a small creek on the sea-shore of Marshfield, and the Gurnet is a projection or point on which the Plymouth light-houses are erected. The distance between Green Harbor and the Gurnet is between four and five miles. which are under the firmament up to the cloudy cisterns of the waters above the firmament; wafts them on the dripping wings of the wind against the mountain sides, precipitates them to the earth in the form of rain, and leads them again through a thousand channels, open and secret, to the beds of the rivers, and so back to the sea. III. 108. DANIEL WEBSTER. PART LECOND. ERE I to fix upon any one trait as the prominent trait of disposition, his loving heart. If there ever was a person who felt all the meaning of the divine utterance, "it is not good that man should be ǎlone,” it was he. Notwithstanding the vast resources of his own mind, and the materials for self-communion laid up in the storehouse of such an intellect, few men whom I have known have been so little addicted to solitary and meditative introspection;' to few have social intercourse, sympathy, and communion with kindred or friendly spirits been so grateful and even necessary. 2. He loved to live with his friends, with "good, pleasant men who loved him." This was his delight, alike when oppressed with his multiplied cares of office at Washington, and when enjoying the repose and quiet of Marshfield. He loved to meet his friends at the social board, because it is there that men most cast off the burden of business and thought; there, as Cicero says, that conversation is sweetèst; there that the kindly affections have the fullest play. 3. By the social sympathies thus cultivated, the genial consciousness of individual existence becomes more intense. And who that ever enjoyed it can forget the charm of his hospitality, so liberal, so choice, so thoughtful? In the very last days of his life, and when confined to the couch from which he never rose, he continued to give minute directions for the hospitable entertainment of the anxious and sorrowful friends who came to Marshfield. 4. If he enjoyed society himself, how much he contributed to 'In`tro spěc' tion, a view of the interior or inside. |