was a woman of great delicacy of person, manners, and dress: her lace was the finest, her silks the richest, her muslin the most immaculate. She was in breeding a lady, in position an aristocrat, in feeling an exclusive. And yet, one day, as she walked forth, and chanced to turn the corner, close to the central meeting-house, wending her way homeward, she came suddenly upon the village Vulcan, above mentioned. He was in front of his shop, and being a man of full habit, and having just put down the heel of an ox, which he was shoeing, he was damp with perspiration. Nevertheless, the faith was strong within him: "Greet one another with a holy kiss!" rushed to his mind, and he saluted Mrs. W. R., as in duty bound. She, a saint in profession, but alas, in practice a sinner, as doth appear-returned not the salute! Had she been of another sect, abstinence would have been a virtue, but in this, it was of course a crime. Upon this incident rocked and quaked the whole Sandimanian church for some months. At last the agitation subsided, and the holy kiss was thenceforward either abandoned or given with discretion. THE WEBSTER AT BUNKER HILL. [From the Same.] HE first time I ever saw Mr. Webster was on the 17th of June, 1825, at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument. I shall never forget his appearance as he strode across the open area, encircled by some fifty thousand persons-men and women-waiting for the "Orator of the Day," nor the shout that simultaneously burst forth, as he was recognized, carrying up to the skies the name of "Webster!" "Webster!" "Webster!" It was one of those lovely days in June, when the sun is bright, the air clear, and the breath of nature so sweet and pure as to fill every bosom with a grateful joy in the mere consciousness of existence. There were present long files of soldiers in their holiday attire; there were many associations, with their mottoed banners; there were lodges and grand lodges, in white aprons and blue scarfs; there were miles of citizens from the towns and the country round about; there were two hundred gray-haired men, remnants of the days of the Revolution; there was among them a stranger, of great mildness and dignity of appearance, on whom all eyes rested, and when his name was known, the air echoed with the cry-"Welcome, welcome, Lafayette!" Around all this scene, was a rainbow of beauty such as New England alone can furnish. I have seen many public festivities and ceremonials, but never one, taken all together, of more general interest than this. Everything was fortunate all were gratified; but the address was that which seemed uppermost in all minds and hearts. Mr. Webster was in the very zenith of his fame and of his powers. I have looked on many mighty menKing George, the "first gentleman in England;" Sir Astley Cooper, the Apollo of his generation; Peel, O'Connell, Palmerston, Lyndhurst -all nature's noblemen; I have seen Cuvier, Guizot, Arago, Lamartine -marked in their persons by the genius which has carried their names over the world; I have seen Clay, and Calhoun, and Pinkney, and King, and Dwight, and Daggett, who stand as high examples of personal endowment, in our annals, and yet not one of these approached Mr. Webster in the commanding power of their personal presence. There was a grandeur in his form, an intelligence in his deep dark eye, a loftiness in his expansive brow, a significance in his arched lip, altogether beyond those of any other human being I ever saw. And these, on the occasion to which I allude, had their full expression and interpretation. In general, the oration was serious, full of weighty thought and deep reflection. Occasionally there were flashes of fine imagination, and several passages of deep, overwhelming emotion. I was near the speaker, and not only heard every word, but I saw every movement of his countenance. When he came to address the few scarred and time-worn veterans-some forty in number-who had shared in the bloody scene which all had now gathered to commemorate, he paused a moment, and, as he uttered the words "Venerable men," his voice trembled, and I could see a cloud pass over the sea of faces that turned upon the speaker. When at last, alluding to the death of Warren, he said "But ah, Him!-the first great martyr of this great cause. Him, the patriotic victim of his own self-devoting heart. Him, cut off by Provi dence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom : falling ere he saw the star of his country rise-how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name!" Here the eyes of the veterans around, little accustomed to tears, were filled to the brim, and some of them "sobbed aloud in their fulness of heart." The orator went on: "Our poor work may perish, but thine shall endure: this monument may moulder away, the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to the level of the sea; but thy memory shall not fail. Wherever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall claim kindred with thy spirit!" I have never seen such an effect, from a single passage: a moment before, every bosom bent, every brow was clouded, every eye was dim. Lifted as by inspiration, every breast seemed now to expand, every gaze to turn above, every face to beam with a holy yet exulting enthusiasm. It was the omnipotence of eloquence, which, like the agitated sea, carries a host upon its waves, sinking and swelling with its irresistible undulations. GOOD NIGHT. [Poems. 1851.] HE sun has sunk behind the hills, THE The shadows o'er the landscape creep; A drowsy sound the woodland fills, And nature folds her arms to sleep: The chattering jay has ceased his din- The sunlit cloud floats dim and pale; The rose, so ruddy in the light, Bends on its stem all rayless now, A sister shadow, seems to bow: The bat may wheel on silent wing- The boding owl his dirges sing; JUST John Neal. BORN in Portland, Me., 1793. DIED there, 1876. THE MIDNIGHT FOE. [Logan. A Novel. 1821.] UST at this time-it was midnight-another council-board had just been dismissed-there stood, without being announced, without. preparation, before the governor of the colony, in his very presencechamber too, a man of gigantic stature, in the garb of an Indian. The governor was leaning his face upon his hands. His thin gray locks were blowing about his fingers, in the strong night wind, from an open window that looked toward the town. That he was in some profound and agitating inquiry with himself, could be seen by the movement of the swollen veins upon his forehead, distended and throbbing visibly under the pressure of his aged fingers. . . . It would have made the heart of such a being as Michael Angelo himself swell to study the head of the old man: the capacity and amplitude of the brow; the scattered and beautiful white, thin locks of threaded silver; the trembling hands; the occasional movement of a troubled expression, almost articulate, over the established serenity of the forehead: all so venerable, placid, and awful, as in the confirmed discipline and habit of many years, and all yielding now to the convulsive encroachment of emotion. The stranger contemplated the picture in silence. He was greatly wrought upon by the aged presence, and felt perhaps somewhat as the profaning Gaul did when he saw what he took to be the gods of Rome -her old men sitting immovably in their chairs. The governor at length, like one who is determined, resolved, and impatient for action, lifted his head, smote the table heavily with his arm, and was rising from his scat-why that pause?-he gasps for breathcan it be can the proportions, the mere outline of humanity so disturb a man, an aged man, familiar for half a century with danger and death? He fell back upon his chair and locked his hands upon his heart, as if -for it grew audible in its hollow palpitations-as if to stifle its irregularity forever, if he could, even though he were suffocated in the effort, rather than betray the unmanly infirmity-a disobedient pulse. He gazed steadily upon the being before him, but with an expression of doubt and horror, like that with which the prophet dwelt upon the sheeted Samuel, as doubting the evidence of his own eyes, yet daring not to withdraw them, though the cold icy sweat started from the very ends of his fingers, lest something yet more terrible might appear. The Indian stood before him like an apparition. His attitude was not entirely natural, nor perhaps entirely unstudied. He stood motionless and appalling; the bleak, barren, and iron aspect of a man, from head to foot strong and sinewed with desperation, and hardened in the blood and sweat of calamity and trial. He stood, with somewhat of high and princely carriage, like the fighting gladiator, but more erect and less threatening, more prepared and collected. Indeed it was the gladiator still-but the gladiator in defence rather than attack. The governor was brave, but who would not have quaked at such a moment? To awake, no matter how, when the faculties, or the body and limbs are asleep, in a dim light, alone, helpless, and to find a man at your side, an Indian!—it would shake the nerves, ay, and the constitution too, of the bravest man that ever buckled a sword upon his thigh. "Great God!" articulated he at last, in the voice of one suffocating and gasping-"Great God! what art thou? speak!" No answer was returned-no motion of head or hand. The governor's terror increased, but it was evidently of a different kind now, the first shock of surprise having passed-"Speak!" he added in a tone of command-"speak! how were you admitted? and for what?' A scornful writhing of the lip; a sullen, deadly smile, as in derision, when the bitterness of the heart rises and is tasted, was the prelude to his answer. The Indian was agitated-but the agitation passed off like the vibration of molten iron when it trembles for the last time before it becomes solid forever. Then he smiled. "Hell and furies! who are you? what are you? whence are you? what your purpose?" The Indian slowly unwrapped his blanket, and then as slowly, in barbarous dalliance with the terrors of the palsied old man, extended a bayonet toward him reeking with blood. The governor was silent. It was a fearful moment. His paroxysm appeared to abate at his will now-and by his manner it would appear that some master-thought had suddenly risen in its dominion, and bound hand and foot all the rebellious and warring passions of his nature. Did he hope for succor? or did he look, by gaining time, to some indefinite advantage by negotiation? It would be difficult to tell. But however it might be, his deportment became more worthy of him, more lofty, collected, imposing, and determined. . . . In desperate emergencies our souls grow calm, and a power is given to them to gaze, as dying men will sometimes, upon the shoreless void before them with preternatural composure. Here was an enemy, and one, of all enemies the most terrible, dripping with recent slaughter, and so situated that he could not escape but by dipping his hands anew in blood. The governor dared not to call out, and dreaded, as the signal of his |