pitious to love; and the very occasion of the meeting would put matrimony in every one's head. In short, the young ladies wishing to win husbands, and the old ones still loving to display their stock of finery and experience, to work they went. Old dresses were newly trimmed, new dresses made up in the last fashion; cosmetics duly prepared from the most approved recipes in the old family book; and every accomplishment brought into frequent display before the lady mamas, who, in starched kerchief and steeple-built head-gear, sat bolt upright, watching the evolutions of a fan, or the adjustment of a hoop. Thus, through the influence of their selfish feelings, the lovely young duchess soon found herself established in the good graces both of her old and youthful neighbors; and, too amiable to look behind the mask of politeness all put on, she gave them full credit for an abundance of virtue and good-nature, and felt her heart warm with gratitude to the countrywomen of her husband for their attention to a stranger. The duke knew human nature a little better than his Magdaline; and, though not prone to judge harshly of others, could exactly measure the depth of that regard which a duchess inspired. Feastings and revelry were kept up at Alton for several weeks; and, as the young ladies had anticipated, some weddings arose out of the one they met to celebrate. In due season, the duchess was presented at court, where her beauty, romantic history, and, above all, her splendid jewels, caused the usual nine days' wonder; when (being neither a card-player nor an intriguante) she was most benevolently permitted to retire into that shade so dear to her chaste spirit and holy dispositions. Nothing worth noting happened in the duke's family for some length of time after his marriage. The seasons were alternately divided between their town-house and country-seat, at which latter place the duchess's arrival was always an event of importance, and anxiously looked forward to both by her poor and her genteel neighbors, the first anticipating all those blessings which the great should and she did delight to dispense, and the second longing to hear all about the fashions;-whether the Isabella kincob gown was still the vogue, and cherry-colored stays most prevailing, with blue or silver trimmings. Then, when the duchess actually arrived, with what eager eyes the young ladies devoured her new furbelowed scarf and spotted hood! To work they went, to make out of their wardrobe something, though but the shadow of such elegances. But when Magdaline displayed upon her pretty diminutive feet a pair of Spanish leather shoes, lined and bound with gold, despair took possession of every youthful breast, and London was declared to be the only place where people of fashion could possibly live; till worried and wheedled alternately, the poor mothers agreed to send, by the first opportunity, for shoes so exactly matching those of the duchess, that it would be impossible to tell one from the other. Oh, how selfish is the young heart! Yes, youth is all selfishness; wilfully wasting, by its endless wants and retrograde movements, the holy oil of the maternal lamp, that shines only for its use. At last a cloud came over Magdaline's wedded life. Her brother, the marquis, having upon the peace of Utrecht quitted the imperial army, came to England. The duke and his duchess were not wanting in every outward show of kindness and attention, though they lamented his visit as likely to lead to many evils, particularly gaming, for which London afforded such fatal facility. Paleotti was much pleased with the splendor and elegance that surrounded his sister, whose assistance he now stood in need of; for his pleasures and extravagance had almost beggared him. He had long since converted his estates into ready money, upon which he hoped to be able to keep up appearances till fortune should throw something in his way. The rank and personal appearance of the marquis won him immediate admittance into the first society, and all Magdaline's fashionable friends vied with each other in paying court to the handsome Italian. Balls were given in honor of him; dinner and evening parties made solely on his account; and all the pretty court belles put on their most bewitching smiles, and most becoming and gayest ornaments, to attract his notice. "Twas true, he had more the look of some haughty sultan than of a gentle gallant; but then it was so romantic to be frightened into love, that, in short, it was impossible to keep their eyes off his handsome mysterious face, till his large brilliant eye acknowledged the favor, and then a pretty confusion had a charming effect; at least so thought the fair gazers: but what the marquis himself thought, his dark and reserved countenance never revealed. There was staying with the duchess at this time, as a sort of humble companion, a young girl, the orphan daughter of a poor Irish curate. Ellen Conway (for so she was named) could not boast of any of those accomplishments the companions of the idle great ones of our day require, as the confidantes of the boudoir. She had a neat and delicate hand in all sorts of fine needle-work, and a sweet, untutored voice, that gave effect to one of her wild native melodies, and pathos, the pathos of nature, to those tales of fancy and feeling which she read to the duchess. But though the list of Ellen's acquirements was so scanty, her gifts of mind, heart, and person, were not small. Sensible, though too romantic, in the first, affectionate in the second, and more than commonly lovely in the third, she soon became an object of deep interest to Paleotti, whose proud nature was softened by her gentleness, and flattered by her plainly discoverable though respectful admiration of him. There is nothing, perhaps, so favorable to the growth of a tender attachment between two persons of the opposite sex as that intimate footing upon which people meet when living under the same roof. The social meal, As the duchess was sitting alone one evening in her dressing-room, the duke being then at the House of Lords, Paleotti suddenly opened the door, and stood before her, with looks so wild and disordered as to startle her not a little. His hair was unpowdered and dishevelled, his linen soiled, and his whole appearance slovenly, and different from what she had ever before seen it. Magdaline! I must have cash-instantly, or I'm eternally ruined." 66 "Good heavens, Ferdinand!" said the duchess, much alarmed; "what can be done? The duke, you know, is not at home, and I cannot indeed I cannot-command more than fifty at this moment; but if that will do, you shall have it." with all its accompanying little courtesies, marquis's way of life must come from his interchange of sentiments, and freedom of own servant, Claude, who frequently called intercourse, the morning walks and evening to chat an hour with his country woman, pastimes, all combine to open a wider field Agnes. of enjoyment and better knowledge of character, in a few weeks, than years could accomplish in the usual meetings of lovers. It was some time before the duchess had her eyes opened to the mutual passion that existed between the marquis and her beautiful protégée; the pride of Paleotti and the modesty of Ellen equally throwing a veil over the truth. But at last, one of those kind friends that generally haunt the dwellings of the great, (ay, and the little too,) vaporing about like ghosts, to tell of some evil deed which will not let their unquiet spirits rest, made Magdaline acquainted with the secret; in consequence of which an éclaircissement took place, painful, though in different ways, to the lovers. Paleotti was much too proud to take the curate's daughter to wife; and Ellen Conway, mortified and wounded at a proposal, secretly made by the marquis, to live with him in the lawless state of unwedded love, threw herself into the arms of the duchess, and implored her to send her back to Ireland, to an aunt of her father's—the poor but tender foster-mother of her helpless childhood. Her kind protectress reluctantly acceded to her request; and in a few days Ellen set off, unknown to the marquis, for her native Erin, carrying with her the prayers and loaded with the presents of the duchess; and as Paleotti, when she was gone, never once mentioned her name, his sister had good hope that he would soon entirely forget her. For some months the marquis had sojourned under the roof of Shrewsbury, neither adding to nor greatly diminishing from the domestic felicity of the noble pair; but on a sudden he intimated to his sister his intention of taking lodgings in another part of the metropolis. The duchess was too well acquainted with her brother's character to attempt anything like opposition to his wishes, though she foreboded nothing but sorrow from his being thus thrown upon his own hands in such a place as London. Paleotti departed to his new abode, taking with him his faithful Italian valet, with whom Agnes, the duchess's maid, was so much in love, that her mistress had no small trouble to soothe and pacify the poor damsel after the departure of Claude, whose lively manners, pleasant temper, and sweet guitar, had won him favor with all the duke's domestics. As she spoke, Magdaline rose to go to her escrutoire ; but Paleotti, laying his hand upon her arm, said hurriedly, "No, no, it will not do; I must have at least five hundred pounds." "You cannot have what it is not in my power to give you," said she, mildly but firmly. "Then take the consequences!" said the marquis, drawing a stiletto from his breast. Magdaline screamed: "Oh, Ferdinand! dear Ferdinand! what do you mean?" "To have the money I require, or destroy myself before the unnatural sister who will not help me in my need. Once again, hear me, Magdaline! my necessity for that sum is more than pressing. I must have it, or die; for I will not survive my dishonor. You have jewels :-give me them :—I can raise money upon them to answer my present purpose." Magdaline was silent. Paleotti smiled bitterly. "You pause betwixt your love for those baubles and my life. Come, no trifling!Yes, or no!" and he extended his hand that grasped the stiletto. "Indeed, indeed, you should have the jewels," cried the agitated duchess; "with the duke's sanction, I would most freely give them; but in his absence, to-to—” "Will you give me them or not?" cried the marquis impatiently, and elevating his voice; "this delay maddens me;" and his dark eye flashed, like the red lightning on the stormy deep. The duchess spoke not; but going into an adjoining closet, returned immediately with a little ivory casket in her hands. Paleotti put forth his hand to take it. Months rolled away, and the marquis seldom visited his sister but when he wanted "Stop," said Magdaline, "I must open it cash; and when he did come, his abstracted first." Then applying a small key that hung manner and haggard looks made Magdaline at her watch chain, she lifted up the lid and fear all was going wrong, and that, left to his displayed to the eager eyes of her brother own reckless way, he was leading a life of the splendid set of diamonds with which the dissipation and ruinous extravagance. She duke had presented her on her marriage. A knew that her brother had repeatedly bor-superb tiara of brilliants, necklace, earrings, rowed large sums of the duke, besides fre- stomacher, and breast-knots of the same prequent supplies from her own private purse. cious gems, Magdaline took out, one by one, Agnes, too, by hints and significant shakes of the head, often roused her sisterly fears, as she knew that any information touching the and gave into Paleotti's hand. At the bottom of the casket lay the miniature likeness of the duke, set round with a triple row of brilliants. The marquis took it up: "This will fetch a | In joyous hour, or wordly strife, "I cannot part with that," said Magdaline, hastily taking the picture out of his hand. "Why not?" asked the unfeeling brother, and her look mildly reproved him, as she said, tears standing in her eyes, "I would as soon part with my life." he. "But you shall have it again," continued "No, Ferdinand," said the duchess, replacing the precious treasure in the casket, and turning the key; "No; that will never go out of my possession until all things go." "Well!" said Paleotti, "you were always a strange romantic creature!" Then taking up the blue morocco box in which Magdaline had placed the jewels, he advanced to the door, when turning his head, he said, "Remember, you will have them all back again when I can get money to redeem them; so you need not tell the duke." (To be continued.) THE BRIDE. SHE stood before the altar screen, Of morning's richest sunny smile: To earth she seemed not to belong; Yet she was pale-and sooth a tear Was trembling in her lucent eye, On kindness past, or mem'ry shun. For she had left the home of years, The nestling place of infant days; And she had set her foot where tears Too often mar sweet woman's ways; And she had laid a fond warm heart As ever beat, at love's bright shrine, With murmured vows "till death do part, Devotedly, thine, only thine." The chain of gold around her flung, Cast shade on jewels, gems, and gold. An angel in the paths of life, To scatter blessings from her hand. LOITERINGS OF TRAVEL. CHARLECOTE. BY N. P. WILLIS, ESQ. ONCE more posting through Shottery and Stratford-on-Avon, on the road to Kenilworth and Warwick. I felt a pleasure in becoming an habitué in Shakspeare's town-in being recognised by the Stratford post-boys, known at the Stratford Inn, and remembered at the toll-gates. It is pleasant to be welcomed by name anywhere; but at Stratford-on-Avon, it is a recognition by those whose fathers or predecessors were the companions of Shakspeare's frolics. Every fellow in a slouched hat-every idler on a tavern bench-every saunterer with a dog at his heels on the highway, should be a deer-stealer from Charlecote. You would almost ask him, "Was Will Shakspeare with you last night?" The Lucys still live at Charlecote, immortalized by a varlet poacher who was tried before old Sir Thomas for stealing a buck. They have drawn an apology from Walter Savage Landor for making too free with the family history, under cover of an imaginary account of the trial. I thought as we drove along in sight of the fine old hall, with its broad park and majestic trees-(very much as it stood in the days of Sir Thomas, I believe) -that most probably the descendants of the more as an offender against the game-laws, old justice fook even now upon Shakspeare than as a writer of immortal plays. I venture to say, it would be bad tact in a visiter to Charlecote to felicitate the family on the honor of possessing a park in which Shakspeare had stolen deer-to show more interest in seeing the hall in which he was tried than in the family portraits. On the road which I was travelling, (from Stratford to Charlecote,) Shakspeare had been dragged as a culprit. What were his feelings before Sir Thomas? He felt, doubtless, as every possessor of the divine fire of genius must feel, when brought rudely in contact with his fellow-men, that he was too much their superior to be angry. The humor in which he has drawn Justice Shallow, proves abundantly that he was more amused than displeased with his own trial. But was there no vexation at the moment? A reflection, it might be, from the estimate of his position in the minds of those who were about him-who looked on him simply as a stealer these once natural foes. The powdered butof so much venison. Did he care for Anne Hathaway's opinion, then? How little did Sir Thomas Lucy understand the relation between judge and culprit on that trial! How little did he dream he was sitting for his picture to the pestilent varlet at the bar; that the deer-stealer could better afford to forgive him, than he the deer-stealer. Genius forgives, or rather forgets, all wrongs done in ignorance of its immortal presence. Had Ben Johnson made a wilful jest on a line in his new play, it would have rankled longer than fine and imprisonment for deer-stealing. Those who crowd back and trample upon men of genius in the common walk of life; who cheat them, misrepresent them, take advantage of their inattention or their generosity in worldly matters, are sometimes surprised how their injuries, if not themselves, are forgotten. Old Adam Woodcock_might as well have held malice against Roland Græme for the stab in the stuffed doublet of the Abbot of Misrule. Yet, as I might have remarked in the paragraph gone before, it is probably not easy to put conscious and secret superiority entirely between the mind and the opinions of those around who think differently. It is one reason why men of genius love more than the common share of solitude-to recover self-respect. In the midst of the amusing travesty he was drawing in his own mind of the grave scene about him, Shakspeare possibly felt at moments as like a detected culprit as he seemed to the game-keeper and the justice. It is a small penalty to pay for the after worship of the world! The ragged and proverbially ill-dressed peasants who are selected from the whole Campagna, as models to the sculptors of Rome, care little what is thought of their good looks in the Corso. The disguised proportions beneath their rags will be admired in deathless marble, when the noble who scarce deigns their possessor a look, will lie in forgotten dust under his stone scutcheon. Were it not for the "out-heroded” descriptions in the Guide-Books, one might say a great deal of Warwick Castle. It is the quality of over-done or ill-expressed enthusiasm, to silence that which is more rational and real. Warwick is, perhaps, the best kept of all the famous old castles of England. It is a superb and admirably appointed modern dwelling, in the shell, and with all the means and appliances preserved, of an ancient strong-hold. It is a curious union, too. My lady's maid and my lord's valet coquet upon the bartizan, where old Guy of Warwick stalked in his coat of mail. The London cockney, from his two days watering at Leamington, stops his pony-chaise, hired at half a crown the hour, and walks Mrs. Popkins over the old draw-bridge as peacefully as if it were the threshhold of his shop in the Strand. Scot and Frenchman saunter through fosse and tower, and no ghost of the middle ages stalks forth, with closed visor, to challenge ler yawns through an embrasure, expecting "miladi," the countess of this fair domain, who, in one day's posting from London, seeks relief in Warwick Castle from the routs and soirées of town. What would old Guy say, or the "noble imp" whose effigy is among the escutcheoned tombs of his fathers, if they could rise through their marble slabs, and be whirled over the draw-bridge in a post-chaise? How indignantly they would listen to the reckoning within their own portcullis, of the rates for chaise and postillion! How astonished they would be at the butler's bow, and the proffered officiousness of the valet, "Shall I draw off your lordship's boots? Which of these new vests from Staub will your lordship put on for dinner?" Among the pictures at Warwick, I was interested by a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, (the best of that sovereign I ever saw,) one of Machiavelli, one of Essex, and one of Sir Philip Sidney. The delightful and gifted woman whom I had accompanied to the castle, observed of the latter that the hand alone expressed all his character. I had often made the remark in real life, but I had never seen an instance on painting where the likeness was so true. No one could doubt, who knew Sir Philip Sidney's character, that it was a literal portrait of his hand. In our day, if you have an artist for a friend, he makes use of you while you call, to "sit for the hand" of the portrait on his easel. Having a preference for the society of artists myself, and frequenting their studios considerably, I know of some hundred and fifty unsuspecting gentlemen on canvas, who have procured, for posterity and their children, portraits of their own heads and dress-coats to be sure, but of the hands of other persons! The head of Machiavelli is, as is seen in the marble of the gallery of Florence, small, slender, and visibly "made to creep into crevices." The face is impassive and calm, and the lips, though slight and almost feminine, have an undefinable firmness and character. Essex is the bold, plain, and blunt soldier history makes him, and Elizabeth not unqueenly, nor (to my thinking) of an uninteresting countenance; but, with all the artist's flattery, ugly enough to be the abode of the murderous envy that brought Mary to the block. We paid our five shillings for having been walked through the marble hall of Castle Warwick, and the dressing room of its modern lady, and gratified much more by our visit than I have expressed in this brief description, posted on to Kenilworth. LINES, BY THE AUTHOR OF "PENCILLINGS BY THE It was a mountain-stream that, with the leap * there It loiter'd in a broad and limpid pool And in the flooding of the autumn rains, You could go up its channel in the shade, Here, when an idle student, have I come, my patron, sent me to Vienna to acquire a Have said that I was indolent, and they play'd The truant in the leafy month of June, In the spring of 17-, I visited Italy, for the first time, in company with the son of Lord L, who was making the grand tour for his amusement; while I followed in his wake, as it were, for the sole purpose of pursuing my professional studies. Our lots in life were as different as our characters, he being born to rank and affluence, and I being the son of a poor and humble musician in one of the smaller towns of Germany. Lord Lwho was a great dilettante, had taken a fancy to me, when in Germany, on account of some juvenile display of musical talent on my part, and having insisted on becoming my interest in his concerns for curiosity, nor my frankness for any undue assumption of familiarity on my part. We remained but a short time at Paris. Augustus longed for Italy and classic ground; and would, I believe, have gone straight to Rome, had he not had many letters of introduction for Milan, which his father particularly wished him to deliver, and which ultimately led to his forming many acquaintances, and passing the whole of the winter in that city. He took up his abode in one of the best hotels, and lodged in the appartamento nobile, while I slept at the top of the house, in a very mean little room, which served as my bedroom and my study. Our arrangements were soon made: they consisted chiefly in this, that we should be troubled as little as possible with one another. We generally met in the morning at breakfast, after which I repaired to the house of the master under whom I studied, and then walked about the town, or did what I pleased till dinner, which we mostly took together; and the evening was spent on his part often, I believe, at the gaming table, and in a variety of amusements; and on mine frequently at the theatre, for the sake of hearing the best music possible. "Have you seen the Adelaide ?" was the first question put to me in one of the coffeehouses that I went to, and which was chiefly filled by musicians and dilettanti, who were |