another; and this proved to be young Chewton, the lawyer's son. He

saw Ailsa, and pulled up.

"Have you been there, Ailsa? I did not see you." "No."

"This is a horrible thing, is it not?"

"Has there been any accident?" demanded Ailsa.

"Good Heavens! have you not heard? Tom Hardwick's killed." Ailsa, strong man that he was, shook in every limb. He drew back, and leaned against the door-post for support.

"Is he dead?" he gasped.

"He was not dead when I left," replied young Chewton, "but they say he cannot survive the night. His back is broken."

Ailsa shuddered: as if something supernatural were creeping over him.

"Why Ailsa, the news has startled you indeed! you are as white as

"One would think you were going to faint," continued Mr. Chewton. "Can't you speak? Are you insensible?"

At that moment he was, to all outward things. A prayer was ascending from his heart to the throne of Heaven for forgiveness of the sinful wish he had that morning uttered as Hardwick passed him, and which had been so strangely fulfilled.

"By the way, Easthope has got his arm broken-or leg; I forget which," resumed Chewton.

"You forget which!"

"I really do. Minor accidents are lost sight of before such a calamity as Hardwick's. The poor horses, for instance, nobody has cast a thought towards them. Chiselem was thrown twice, and got stunned; and Flannagan was flung into Beech Pond. I don't know whether he's out yet."

But Tom Hardwick!" uttered Ailsa, incapable of listening to any other topic; "I would sacrifice my own life to save his."

"What a vain wish!" exclaimed Chewton. "By the way, have you

heard that Gaunt's dead?"

"Gaunt! was he there?"

No, no; news came this morning to the Manor House. He died in

town."

"Oh, goodness me! there never was such a steeple-chase before!" squeaked little Tuck, Mr. Winninton's new apprentice. "Mamma need not have said I shouldn't go, for fear I should get a liking for them. I'll never go to another. It's dreadful. You should have heard Tom Hardwick's groans. If you please, sir, can they set a broken

back?"

"Not exactly," said young Chewton, answering for Ailsa, as he rode

away.

Master Tuck was right. There never had been such a steeple-chase before, at least in the recollection of Ebury. Lord Chiselem was thrown, and picked up insensible, Mr. Easthope's shoulder was dislocated, and Tom Hardwick's back was broken. Two of the horses were killed, one was lamed, and another had disappeared altogether.

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Well," exclaimed Mr. Winninton, throwing himself back in his easy

chair, after perusing a flowing account of the steeple-chase in one of the local papers, 66 men are greater fools than they are generally taken for, to risk a rush into eternity every time they venture at these insane steeple-chases."

"But this was a particularly insane one," rejoined his gentle sister, who had invariably a kind and excusing word for everybody in the village, old maid though they all called her. "And I think the authorities should have interfered beforehand, and not have allowed these poor, thoughtless lads to risk their necks."

But the authorities had not done so, and the "thoughtless lads" had the consequences of their own temerity.

to reap

THE FAIRIES' HOME.

BY J. E. CARPENTER.

[In Ireland, it is said, the fairies have power to punish those who intrude upon their haunts, and that they disappear altogether when their dwellings are encroached on by the homes and habitations of man.]

IN
many a silent moonlit dell
The fairy people used to dwell,
But none so gay as those erewhile

Who made their home in Erin's isle.
On sweet Killarney's flower-clad hills,
Or down by Mallow's gurgling rills,
Or where sweet Shannon's waters roam,
Be sure the fairies made their home.

The bright, the mystic Elfin band
There made their home in Erin's land.

They dwelt where voice was never heard
Save whispering wind, or warbling bird;
And ah! that was a rueful day

When herdsman led his kine that

For if within the fairies' ring

way,

His wandering flock he'd chance to bring,

In danger's path 'twas his to roam,

Who crush'd the flowers of the fairies' home!

Such mystic powers that Elfin band
Possess'd of old, in Erin's land.

But now, where stood those lovely dells,
How many a busy household dwells;
The mystic, dream-like, fairy past
Was all too pure, too bright to last.
'Tis thus in life-can age restore
Youth's beauteous fairy scenes of yore?
No! but in dreams again we roam
Those sunny realms, the fairies' home!

There only meet that gentle band
That bless'd young Erin's sunny land!

AMERICAN AUTHORSHIP.

BY SIR NATHANIEL.

No I.-WASHINGTON IRVING.

FEW, it may be reasonably affirmed, will demur to the judgment which assigns to Mr. Washington Irving the most distinguished place in American literature. Meaning thereby, not the distinction of incomparable genius in general, nor of pre-eminent superiority in any special department of authorship; but without present reference to his personal or intrinsic claims, however great-the distinction of extrinsic, popular renown, the external evidence of long-established and worldwide recognition. Wherever America is known to have a literature at all, she is known to rejoice in one Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., as its representative. If an unreading alderman presiding at a public dinner wished to couple with a toast in honour of that literature the name of its most distinguished scion, Washington Irving's, we presume, is the name he would fix on; not, perhaps, that the alderman may have read that author much, but that he has read his brother authors less, or not at all, and, in short, proposes the toast in an easy, conventional, matter-of-fact way, as paying a compliment the legitimacy of which will be impeached by no compotator at the civic board. The alderman's private opinion, he being "no great things" as a student and critic in the belles lettres, may be valued at zero; but his post-prandial proposition, as the mouthpiece of public opinion, as the symbol or exponent by which society rates a name now to be toasted with all the honours, is of prime significance. There may be American writers who, either in the range, or the depth, of literary power, or in both combined, are actually the superiors of the author of "Rip Van Winkle" and the "History of New York." He may yield in picturesque reality to Fenimore Cooper-in dramatic animation to Brockden Brown-in meditative calmness to Cullen Bryantto Longfellow in philosophic aspiration-to Holmes in epigrammatic ease-to Emerson in independent thought to Melville in graphic intensity-to Edgar Poe in witching fancy-to Mayo in lively eccentricity to Prescott in accurate erudition-to Hawthorne in subtle insight-to Mitchell in tender sentiment. He may, or he may not, do all this, or part of it. But, notwithstanding, his position remains, either way, at the top of the tree. Thitherwards he was elevated years ago, by popular acclamation, when as yet he stood almost alone in transatlantic literature; and thence there has been little disposition to thrust him down, in favour of the many rivals who have since sprung up, and multiplied, and covered the land. Mrs. Beecher Stowe is of course infinitely more popular for the nonce, or, indeed,

It may be for years, and it may be for ever;

but, recurring to that distinction which is traditional, conventional, and thus far "well-ordered in all things and sure," Washington Irving holds it in possession, and that is nine points of the law.

In effect, he is already installed on the shelf as a classic. His sweet, smooth, translucent style, makes him worthy to be known, and pleasant

66

to be read, of all men. Be his theme what it may-and in choice of themes he is comprehensive enough-whether a Dutch "tea and turnout," or a Siege of Granada ;" a full-length of " Mahomet," or a crayon sketch of "Jack Tibbetts;" a biography of "Goldsmith," or of "Dolph Heyliger;" a "prairie on fire," or a "Yorkshire Christmas dinner;" night on the "Rocky Mountains," or a morning at "Abbotsford"—to each he brings the same bello stile che, as he may say, and has said,* m'ha fatto onore. His style is indeed charming, so far as it goes. That is not, possibly, very far, or at least very deep. For it is not a style to compass profound or impassioned subjects, or to intone the thrilling notes which "sigh upward from the Delphic caves of human life." It has not, speaking generally, and "organically," more than one set of keys, and can give little meaning to passages demanding diapason grandeur, or trumpet stop. It fluently expresses ballad and dance. music; or even the mellifluous cadences of Bellini, and the gliding graces of Haydn; but beyond its range are such complex harmonies as a Sinfonia Eroica, such tumultuous movements as a Hailstone Chorus. And therefore is it not what one sometimes hears it called, a perfect style-unless the perfection be relatively interpreted, quoad rem, which of itself is a "pretty considerable" concession. But in its proper track, it is eminently delightful, and flows on, not in serpentine, meandering curves, but straightforward, "unhasting, yet unresting," with musical ripple as of some soft inland murmur. Hence a vast proportion of the favour vouchsafed to its master, who has made it instrumental in popularising subjects in the treatment of which he had scarcely another advantage, or even justification. Quiet humour, gentle pathos, sober judgment, healthy morality, amiable sentiment, and exemplary professional industry, have done the rest.

That Mr. Irving was eminently endowed with the mytho-poeic faculty -the art of myth-making-was delightfully evident in the production of "Knickerbocker's History of New York." In relation to the infant experiences of the city he depicts, he occupies as notable a position from the positive pole as Niebuhr does from the negative; the German's skill in the use of the minus sign, he emulates in dexterous management of the plus; whatever fame the one deserves as a destructive, the other may arrogate as a conservative, or rather a creator; the former immortalises himself because he exhausts old worlds, the latter because he imagines new. All honour, then, to the undaunted historian of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty-being the Only Authentic History of the Times that ever hath been published; which peremptory "only," so far at least as it excludes other claimants, is a terse and tidy challenge, "which nobody can deny." Equally undeniable is it that, for a historian and chronicler, old Knickerbocker is a jolly good fellow;" and that even Sir Robert Walpole might have been tempted to revoke and recant his slander on history at large, had he been familiar with such a dainty dish as this. Every pursuivant of useful knowledge is conciliated in limine, by the honest man's assurance, that if any one quality pre-eminently distinguishes his compilation, it is that

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*In the preface to his "Life of Goldsmith," to whose literary influence over himself he applies the address of Dante to Virgil. April-VOL. XCVII. NO. CCCLXXXVIII. 2 F

of conscientious, severe, and faithful veracity-" carefully winnowing away the chaff of hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge." Inspired by this stern principle, it is beautiful to hear his disclaimer of all records assailable by scepticism, or vulnerable by critical analysis-his sublime rejection of many a pithy tale and marvellous adventure-his jealous maintenance of that fidelity, gravity, and dignity which he accounts indispensable to his order. The heroes of the New York mythological aon swagger before us in memorable guise. Good Master Hendrick Hudson, for instance, with his mastiff mouth, and his broad copper nose-supposed (the latter, to wit) to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighbourhood of the tobacco-pipe; a man remarkable for always jerking up his breeches when he gave out his orders, and for a voice which sounded not unlike the brattling of a tin trumpet, owing to the number of hard nor'-westers swallowed by him in the course of his sea-faring. Walter the Doubter, again, so styled because the magnitude of his ideas kept him everlastingly in suspense-his head not being large enough to let him turn them over, and examine them on both sides; an alleged lineal descendant of the illustrious King Log; hugely endowed with the divine faculty of silence, and loving to sit with his privy council for hours together, smoking and dozing over public affairs, without speaking a word to interrupt that perfect stillness so necessary to deep reflection. Golden age of innocence and primitive blessedness! when tea-parties were marked with the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment-no flirting, or coquetting-no gambling of old ladies, or hoyden, chattering, and romping of young ones-but when the demure misses seated themselves for the evening in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings, nor ever opened their lips, unless to say "Yah, Mynheer," "Yah, ya Vrouw," to any question that was asked them-while the gentlemen tranquilly "blew a cloud," and seemed, one and all, lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles of the fireplace, representing, perhaps, Tobit and his dog, or Haman swinging conspicuously on his gibbet, or Jonah manfully bouncing out of the whale, "like harlequin through a barrel of fire." Then comes William the Testy-that "universal genius" -who would have been a much better governor had he been a less learned man-who was perpetually experimentalising at the expense of the state, and reducing to practice the political schemes he had gathered from Solon and Lycurgus, and the republic of Plato and the Pandects of Justinian-who introduced the art of fighting by proclamation (an art worthy of Mr. Cobden* himself), and wrought out for himself great renown by a series of mechanical inventions, such as carts that went before the horses, and patronised a race of lawyers and bum-bailiffs, and made his people exceedingly enlightened and unhappy. And lastly, we have Peter the Headstrong tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten, leathern-sided, and

*The fellow-feeling between these two great men may be illustrated by the annexed passage from Knickerbocker:-"The great defect of William the Testy's policy was, that though no man could be more ready to stand forth in an hour of emergency, yet he was so intent upon guarding the national pocket, that he suffered the enemy to break its head; in other words, whatever precaution for public safety he adopted, he was so intent upon rendering it cheap, that he invariably rendered it ineffectual."-" History of New York," book iv., c. 4.