middle of which latter year I judge myself to have been a happy man; and the elements of that happiness I have endeavored to place before you, in the above sketch of a scholar's library,-in a cottage among the mountains on a stormy winter evening.

But now farewell, a long farewell to happiness, winter or summer! farewell to smiles and laughter! farewell to peace of mind! farewell to hope and to tranquil dreams, and to the blessed consolations of sleep! For more than three years and a half I am summoned away from these; I am now arrived at an Iliad of woes, for I have now to record THE PAINS OF OPIUM.

Now follows a portion of the "Confessions" distressing in the extreme to contemplate, when we consider the fine mind so nearly wrecked by the pernicious drug but lately dwelt upon with the most extatic pleasure, the author becoming nearly helpless, the energies of both body and mind paralyzed. For "nearly two years, ," he read but a single book; and speaking of this period in his history, he says:

companied by deep seated anxiety and gloomy melancholy such as is wholly incommunicable by words. I seemed every night to descend, not metaphorically, but literally to descend, into chasms and sunless abysses, depths be low depths, from which it seemed hopeless that I should ever re-ascend. Nor did I, by waking feel that I had reascended. This I do not dwell upon: because the state of gloom that attended these gorgeous spectacles, amounting at least to utter darkness, as of some suicidal despondency, cannot be approached by words.

The sense of space, and in the end, the sense of time were both powerfully affected,

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The minutest incidents of childhood, or forgotten

said to recollect them; for if I had been told of them,

they were before me, in dreams, like intuitions, and panying feelings, I recognized them instantaneously.

I

scenes of later years, were often revived; I could not be when waking. I should not have been able to acknowl edge them as parts of my past experience. But placed as clothed in all their evanescent circumstances and accomwas once told by a near relative of mine, that having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very reached her, she saw in a moment her whole life, in its verge of death but for the very critical assistance which in a mirror, and she had a faculty developed as suddenly minutest incidents, arrayed before her simultaneously as for comprehending the whole and every part. This have indeed seen the same thing asserted twice in modfrom some opium experiences of mine, I can believe, I ern books, and accompanied by a remark which I am convinced is true, viz: that the dread book of account which the scriptures speak of, is, in fact, the mind itself of each individual. Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions in the mind: accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveilthe inscription remains forever, just as the stars seem to withdraw before the commom light of day, where as in fact we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil; and that they are waiting to be re vealed when the obscuring day-light shall have withdrawn."

"The opium-cater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations: he wishes and longs as earnestly as ever to realize what he believes possible, and feels to be exacted by duty; but his intellectual apprehension of what is possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution only, but even of power to attempt. He lies under the weight of incubus and night-mare; he lies in sight of alied, he would fain perform, just as a man forcibly confined to his bed by the mortal languor of a relaxing disease, who is compelled to witness injury or outrage offered to some object of his tenderest love:-he curses the spells which chain him down from motion: he would lay down his life if he might but get up and walk; but he is powerless as an infant, and cannot even attempt to rise.”

Elsewhere in the "Suspiria," our author beautifully compares the human brain to a palimpsest, a membrane, or roll of vellum, "cleansed of its manuscript by repeated successions." Listen to him on this point:

But

four centuries have gone by since the destruction of the of another class, has founded a different empire; and

ins he persundes himself) the heathen's tragedy, replac

About this period in his experience, commenced those phantasies of vision, upon which he dwells at length-that "painting as it were upon the darkness all sorts of phantoms"-"a theatre"he says "seemed suddenly opened and "Here, for instance, is a parchment which contained a lighted up within my brain, which preGrecian tragedy, the Agamemnon of Eschylus, or the Phoenisse of Euripides. This had possessed a value alsented nightly spectacles of more than most inappreciable in the eyes of accomplished scholars, earthly splendor," and "whatsoever I continually growing rarer through generations. happened to call up and to trace by a Western Empire. Christianity with towering grandeurs voluntary act upon the darkness, was some bigoted, yet perhaps holy monk, has washed away, very apt to transfer itself to my dreams;ing it with a monastic legend; which legend is disfigured so that I feared to exercise this faculty; with fabies in its incidents, and yet, in a higher sense is for as Midas turned all things to gold, the sublimest of Christian revelations. Three, four, five that yet baffled his hopes and defraud-centuries more, find man still devout as ever; but the ed his human desires, so whatsoever things capable of being visually resented I did but think of in the dark ness, immediately shaped themselves into phantoms of the eye; and by a process no less inevitable, when thus once traced in visionary colors like writings in sympathetic ink, they were drawn out by the fierce chemistry of my dreams into insufferable splendor that fretted my heart." He continues:

t us, because interwoven with Christian morals and with

votion a new era has arisen, throwing it into the chanlanguage has become obsolete, and even for Christian derep-membrane now is wanted for a knightly romance-for nel of crusading zeal or of chivalrous enthusiasm. The my Cid," or Coeur de Lion; for Sir Tristram or Lybæus istry known to the medaival period, the same roll has Disconus. In this way, by means of the imperfect chemserved as a conservatory for three separate generations of cially adapted to the wants of the successive possessors. The Greek tragedy, the monkish legend, the knightly romance, each has ruled its own period. One harvest after another has been gathered into the garners of man chinery has distributed through the same iuarble founthrough ages far apart. And the same hydraulic matains, water, milk, or wine, according to the habits or

"For this and all other changes in my dreams were ac

flowers and fruits, all perfectly different, and yet all spe

training of the generations that came to quench their thirst.

Such were the achievements of rude monastic chemis try. But the more elaborate chemistry of our own days

has reversed all these notions of our simple ancestors, with results in every stage that to them would have realized the most fantastic amongst the promises of thuma turgy. Insolent vaunt of Paracelsus, that he would restore the original rose or violet out of the ashes settling from its combustion that is now rivalled in this modern achievement. The traces of each successive hand writ ing, regularly effaced, as had been imagined, have, in the inverse order, been regularly called back; the footsteps have been unlinked and hunted back through all their

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"battlements that

on their restless fronts bore stars." Then came visions of "lakes and silvery expanses of wa ter"-then "seas and oceans." The face of a Malay became "a fearful enemy for months," as through the memory of one he was "transported into Asiatic scenes.

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of the game pursued, wolf or stag, in each several chase, doubles and as the chorus of the Athenian stage unwove through the antistrophe every step that had been mystically woven through the strophe, so by our modern conjurations of science, secrets of ages remote from "Under the connecting feature of tropical heat and each other have been exorcised from the accumulated vertical sunlights, I brought together all creatures, birds, shadows of centuries." beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearWhat else than a mighty palimpsest is the hu- ances, that are found in all tropical regions, and assemman brain? Such a palimpsest, O reader is my brain; bled them together in China or Indostan. From kindsuch a palimpsest, O reader, is yours. Everlasting lay-red feelings I soon brought Egypt and all her gods under ers of ideas, images, feelings, have fallen upon your the same law. * Over every form, brain softly as light. Each succession has seemed to and threat, and punishment, and dim sightless incarcer bury all that went before. And yet in reality not one ation, brooded a sense of eternity and infinity that drove has been extinguished. me into an oppression as of madness. Into these dreams, only, it was with one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances of physical horror entered. All before had been moral and spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, or crocodiles, espe‐ cially the last. The cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horor than almost all the rest. I was compelled to live with him, and (as was always the case almost in my dreams,) for centuries. I escaped sometimes and found myself in Chinese houses with cane tables, &c. All the fo of the tables, sofas, &c., soon became instinct with life; the abominable face of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me multiplied into a thousand repetitions, and I stood looking and fascinated. And so often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams, that many times the very same dream was bro ken up in the very same way: I heard gentle voices speaking to me, (I hear every thing when I am sleeping) and instantly I awoke; it was broad noon, and my children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside; come to show me their colored shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them dressed for going out. I protest that so awful other unutterable monsters and abortions of my dreams,

But by the hour of death, but by fever, but by the
searchings of opium, all these can revive in strength.
They are not dead, but sleeping. In the illustration
imagined by myself, from the palimpsest, the Grecian tra-
gedy had seemed to be displaced, but was not displaced;
and the monkish legend had seemed to be displaced, but
was not dispiaced, by the knightly romance. In some
potent convulsion of the system, all wheels back into its
earliest elementary stage. The bewildering romance,
light tarnished with darkness, the semi-fabulous legend,
truth celestial mixed with human falsehoods, these fade
even of themselves as life advances. The romance has
perished that the young man adored; the legend has gone
that deluded the boy; but the deep, deep tragedies of in-
fancy, as when the child's hands were unlinked forever
from his mother's neck, or his lips forever from his sis-
ter's kisses, these remain lurking below all, and these
lurk to the last. Alchemy there is none of passion or
disease that can scorch away these immortal impresses.
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We alluded in the first part of this article to the power possessed by De Quincy of painting his visions as these appeared to him--that others might dream perhaps as magnificently under like influences, yet be unable to record their impressions. Take, for instance, the following outlines, culled from those given by him.

"Often I used to see, after painting upon the blank ladies, and perhaps a festival and dances. And I heard it said or I said to myself, "these are English ladies from

darkness a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, a crowd of

the unhappy times of Charles I. These are the wives and daughters of those who met in peace, and sat at the same tables, and were allied by marriage or by blood; and yet after a certain day in August 1642, never smiled upon each other again nor met but on the field of batte and at Marston Moor, at Newbury, or at Naseby, cut asunder all ties of love by the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood the memory of ancient friendship?" The ladies danced and looked as lovely as at the Court of George IV. Yet I knew, even in my dream, that they had been in the grave for nearly two centuries. This pageant would suddenly dissolve; and at a clapping of hands, would be heard the heart-quaking sound of "Consul Ro manus;” and immediately came "sweeping by," in gorgeous paludements, Paulus or Marius, girt round by a company of centurions, with the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, and followed by the alalagmos of the Roman legions."

was the transition from the damned crocodile, and the to the sight of innocent, human, natures and of infancy, that in the mighty and sudden revulsion of mind,

wept, and could not forbear it, as I kissed their faces.

A fearful record of horrors is the

foregoing, and no one will question, after dwelling upon it, the reality of the "pains of opium."

He concludes this portion of the "confessions" with the following remarks on abandoning, after what appears a desperate struggle-the use of opium.

even

my sufferings were ended; nor think of me as of one sit-
"I triumphed; but think not, reader, that therefore
when four months had passed, still agitatod, writhing,
ting in a dejected state. Think of me as of one
throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and much perhaps, in
the situation of him who has been racked, as I collect the
accounts of them left by the most innocent sufferer-
William Lithgow) of the time of James I. Meantime I
derived no benefit from any medicine, except one pre-
(
scribed to me by an Edinburgh surgeon of great emi-
nence, viz: ammoniated tincture of valerian. Medical
account, therefore, of my emancipation, I have not much
to give; and even that little, managed by a man so igno-
rant of medicine as myself, would probably tend only to
mislead.

One memorial of my former condition still remains; my dreams are not yet perfectly calm; the dread swell and Then followed dreams of "architec-gions that encamped in them are drawing off, but not all agitation of the storm have not wholly subsided; the leture "such pomp of cities and pala-departed: my sleep is tumultuous, and like the gates of ces as was never yet beheld by the afar, it is still (in the tremendous line of Milton)waking eye unless in the clouds"-of

to our first parents when looking back from

"With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms."

LA BELLE LIMEUIL.

[Catherine de Medicis, wishing to put the League" in possession of the plans of the Hugonot leaders, selected a fascinating girl of her train, La Belle Limeuil-one of two sisters-distinguished for her fine figure, her taste in dress, her beauty and her wit, to entrap the affections of Condè, relying upon the influence thus to be acquired, to draw from him all she desired to know. Entering into the scheme with thoughtless glee, the young girl indeed achieved the purposes of Catherine; but in the encounter lost her own heart to the personal beauty and varied accomplishments of the gallant Prince. Jeered at by the Court for being caught in her own snare, she at length retired from the eyes of the world, as her health began to sink. She was passionately fond of music; and on one occasion, she desired her Page to play her a melancholy air, where "tout est perdu," is the burden of the song. When this had been

once or twice repeated, she called on him to play it over again, with increased emphasis, until she should desire him to leave off: he did so for some minutes, and she seemed to join in the chorus; but suddenly her voice ceased; and, on looking round, the Page perceived that his lovely mistress had breathed her last.]

AIR-"ALLAN PERCY."

Around a courtly pile, in olden days,

Were knightly show, and troops of courtiers rare,
All royal splendor there broke on the gaze,
And haughty music clangor'd on the air,
Guards at each portal paced in stern array,

Where, in proud state, dwelt Queenly Catherine,
And barbed steeds pawed 'neath each arched way,
As in gay crowds swept by each gallant train.

Those "palace splendors,”-bright, indeed, were they,
"The hum of revelry and mirth was heard;
The Seine went bounding on his gladsome way,
And every heart to joyousness seem'd stirr'd.

But from one boudoir came a sad refrain,

As from some soul upon dark visions tost;
Sadly, and brokenly, once and again,

It murmur'd mournfully, all-"All is lost!"

To her, what were the pageants of that hour,
The thousand life inspiring notes around!
She had made shipwreck of her maiden dower,
Her young affections, in a gulf profound:
As the long lashes veil'd her downcast eyes,
With faltering words she did her Page accost-

"Again, again, play that sad air I prize,
Alas! I feel too late, that "All is lost!"

Meekly she bow'd her beauteous head to listen!
With quivering lips once more she sang that strain,
No tear-drop on her pale cheek then might glisten,
As back the past came o'er her heart again.
The sweet tones ceased, the gentle Page look'd round
Like to a bright flower kill'd by deadly frost,

His lovely mistress, low upon the ground,
Had sunk forever-"all,” indeed, was “LOST.”

Selections .

THE STUDENT'S DUEL.

and the reply being equally haughty, a

This duel occurred in a German uni-blow from Zabern's cane struck Ritter to the ground. After some further altercation they parted to meet again in a valley near the town, to fight until

versity town; the names here given are fictitious, the real names being withheld for various reasons, the circumstances, however, are strictly true.

The cause of the following melancholy tragedy was a woman, an opera dancer, possessing but a moderate share of talent in her vocation, but many personal graces; she was also as artful and cunning as she was beautiful.

Her house was open to all the gay and idle, and the wild and dissipated young men frequenting the university she looked upon as her spoil. From them she gleaned a rich harvest, for many claimed to belong to the proudest families in Germany. To her natural beauties she added the capricious and flattering graces of the coquette; and she also possessed the deceitful and dangerous art of inspiring several suitors with violent attachments to her person at the same time. The Jewish King's description of persons of her class cannot be surpassed for fidelity:

"The lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoHer feet go down to death, her steps take hold on

and her mouth is smoother than oil,

edged sword.

hell."

the death.

The following is a description of the murderous affair:-

A circle is drawn upon the ground, the dimensions having been determined upon by the parties.

When the principals are in the circle, they are not allowed to retire from it, nor permitted to fire until the sig nal is given.

Immediately after the signal, they are permitted to fire at discretion, when they like, and also at what distance they like within the circumference of the ring, but on no pretence can they put a foot outside of it without violating the laws of the duel.

Let us suppose the principals armed and in the circle, anxiously waiting for the signal, and glowing with hatred and revenge. Near the circumference of the ring, and opposite to each other, stood the two principals, and upon hearing the word 'fire,' Ritter took aim and shot his ball into Zabern's chest, who staggered a few paces, but did not fall. By an effort almost superhuAmong the many who paid their de- man he turned slowly round, death votions to her shrine were two students strongly marked in his face, and stagnamed Zabern and Ritter, and each be- gered up to the place where Ritter lieved he was the favored object of her stood with his arms folded, who awaitchoice; they of course regarded each ed his fate with apparent composure. other as inveterate foes. These young "With calculating cruelty, Zabern men became her dupes; and she foster-pressed the muzzle of his pistol against ed their mutual dislike, it is supposed, the forehead of Ritter, and grinning a without reflecting upon the results. Ve- ghastly smile of mingled hatred and ry little was requisite to blow their pent-revenge, was in the act of pulling the up and heated rancor into open hostili- trigger, when death arrested his finger, ty--and the crisis soon came. Zabern and uttering one loud agonizing scream meeting Ritter on the stairs leading to he fell back upon the earth, the weapon her apartments, inquired in a haughty exploding harmlessly in the air. manner the nature of his business there;

"Doubtless the advocates of duelling