one.

young Count, I should insist that the father or family repay || she would, abandon the boy, and if it cooled her maternal the evil done him by such injudicious associations, by now feelings towards him, he thought it was as much gain for providing him with proper schooling and means of earning all parties." a livelihood by the education thus bestowed-I should The ensuing winter passed very unlike the preceding appeal to their every sentiment of humanity and justice. Pavel was active in the forest, picking up wood, Even as it is, I might, perhaps, feel tempted to make an lading the sledges, and guiding one occasionally himself→ appeal of the kind in the child's behalf, if I but knew in fact, showing a decided inclination to sharing Peter's where the application should be made, though I much duties. In the house, too, his knowledge of reading and doubt its success; but, as matters stand, it is better to|| writing made him useful in inditing of letters and keeping keep the books out of his way. How many vassals' children accounts, and he frequently accompanied Peter in his have been thus made toys to be flung aside the moment || excursions to the nearest towns. Whenever his aid was they became wearisome, or another whim had taken pos- wanted, he now gave it cheerfully, seeming to take a sort session of their patron's mind. The great think but of of pride in defying fate; but his kindlier feelings were their own passing gratification-and, after all, what is a seldom brought into activity, for though Salome was gentle vassal a thing that belongs to another who is free to do and motherly, and her children quiet and inoffensive, there with it as he likes! No one has a right to inquire-no was something in the total want of education, in the dirty, one need ever know how he has been trifled with! Under penurious habits, and, above all, in the difference of religion, such a system what is the human heart-its agonies, its that put a bar between them and his affections; besides pleasures? as immaterial as the struggles of the bird in that youthfulness of feeling that might have made Salome's the fowler's net. A thousand times better than have to young family playmates for him-that freshness, which is do with the caprices of such beings, to live unnoted, un- || early life's sweetest portion, seemed faded within his breast known by them. He who is not of them should beware of | | for ever. them-keep aloof from them as he would keep his treasure from the spoiler's hand. No, no," continued Noah, "he will not remain long thus idly brooding-he will come round of himself-he will soon ask to share in our humble avocations, and they will brace his mind and his body.”

One morning-it was Saturday and market day-Noah having business in town, proposed to Pavel to accompany him. It being a half holiday, and, moreover, fair time, all the country folks in the neighbourhood, clad in their best and brightest habiliments, would be on the road. Noah had received from his wife for his birth-day, not a week back, a new gown of rich silk, trimmed with fur of the red fox, a luxury very unusual with him who, like most Jews of that low class, cared but little for the proprieties or dress. Still, as a present from his wife, and a costly one, the first, indeed, of price she had indulged in since their union, Noah valued it extremely, and strutted about not a little proud of it. His children surrounded him with capering delight, and Salome's soft, dark eyes beamed with honest affection. Noah's features, ordinarily obscured by || the negligence of toilet and the slavish humility of his air, were originally fine and bold; and as he stood thus in the bosom of his family, with no one before whom to quail, in the full dignity of man, father and master, no one could have believed that those features and that mien could, at times, be debased with the cringing servility peculiar to the Polish Jew.

It was impossible, indeed, on recruiting his full strength, that total want of all occupation should not fall heavily on Pavel. He first familiarised himself with the stable-boy,|| Peter, the only other Christian in the establishment, for an old attraction made him feel more comfortable in the stable than in the tap-room. By degrees he became less surly with the host and hostess themselves, and the ensuing summer decided the question. There is something in the || occupations of the country so natural to man, and, especially, so congenial to boyhood, that Pavel took heartily to them. He never was asked by Noah or his wife to perform any menial office; but in the fields, in the distillery and stable, he voluntarily made himself useful. Early in spring he received a visit from his cousin, who asked to speak with the boy alone, and then explained that Jakubska || had been detained so long from him by illness, and that now being deprived of the use of her limbs, she desired passionately to see him. If you will come along with me," added the man, "I think you could sit with her an hour without the neighbours becoming aware of it." Pavel resolutely refused.

"She is your own mother," said the cousin, coldly. "No" said Pavel; "she is a wicked witch who has cast an enchantment upon me!" "It is a strange one," replied the cousin, "for she has pay for it; it is she who pays your pension; are you aware of that?"

"Bah! she gets the money elsewhere," answered the boy.

66

May luck attend thee," said Salome, handing Noah the apples of paradise, without which a Jew in those countries seldom stirs out, and having seen him deposit them under the well-beloved ten commandments in his breast pocket, she added :-:--"Take care of your new gown; I shall be older and more ugly when I offer you another." "But not less dear," said Noah.

The day was mild and cheering. Pavel and his companion chatted of one thing and another as they went along, and the plain good sense of the Jew made ample amends for what he might want in learning. Having got a lift by the way, they arrived in good time at the town gate, where they were stopped by the police there stationed to answer || the usual inquiries.

This was too true. Pavel's cousin knew not how to parry an attack so direct, and shrugging his shoulders, he left the house without another effort towards softening the young heart that was hardening under his eyes. On the whole, he thought it advisable that he should not appear in his vicinage, and considered Jakubska's request as sheer folly, to prevent the repetition of which he took care to report Pavel's undutiful answer with every erucl addition he could invent. He knew the old woman dared not, if licensed indweller without paying toll.

"Your name?" There was no necessity for the other interrogatories, Noah's costume sufficiently attesting the race to which he belonged-" then pay your tax.'

At that moment a man pressed forward, thrusting Noah

*No Jew was suffered to enter any town where he was not a

rudely aside, to pay entrance duty for his pigs; it was exactly the same amount per head as that demanded for the Jew. Noah waited with his usual enforced meekness till the pig-driver had paid his toll; but when about to deliver his money a new-comer pushed him arrogantly aside, expectorating as he did so, and crossing himself by way of shield against the contamination with which the very presence of a Jew tainted the air. Noah bore all calmly, like one inured by long habit to every possible form of insult. His cheek neither flushed nor paled. He preserved a passiveness which might have been mistaken for apathy by those who knew him not; but Pavel instinc-|| tively knew it to be stoicism.

“And that boy?—a Jew of course?" said the toll collector. At that question the blood mounted into Pavel's cheeks. He was horrified at being mistaken for a Jew. "He is a Christian," answered Noah.

and think you that they fail to instil those principles and sentiments into the hearts of their pupils? You are too young, Pavel, to understand what I mean; but one day yon will more easily feel that it was as impolitie as it was cruel to refuse so long placing us on a par with the rest of the world. Now, before looking in at the fair, I must go and see if certain debtors of mine cannot be brought to feel that I have a right to my money. I lent it to them at a time when no Christian would have advanced a stiver-of course, I take an unusual interest on it, for if nothing had tempted me to take upon myself so onerous a bargain, what should have induced me to run the risk?"

Emerging from the Jewish quarter into a street of fine appearance, Noah entered one of its most showy houses, leaving Pavel the whilst outside. When he again made his appearance, his face was sadder, and he looked about him with a more timid air than before.

"Then I can't tax him," said the man, "and yet I feel "I have been paid, as usual, with threats," he said. "It sure you are cheating us of our due; however, let it pass is one of those many houses that indulge in a criminal ex-I have no time to-day to examine into the matter. || penditure which is to be covered by any means, lawful or Don't you see that your betters are waiting? March!" unlawful, that can be devised; but even whilst yon proud General spoke to me with such contempt, and in so high a tone, and with such coarse words, and would have me thrown down stairs, forsooth, I read on his pale brow and in his anxious eye cares worse than those that hover round my board. I would not change conditions with him.”'

The Jew, glad to get off without further insult, now glided and shuffled through the country people that crowded the gate, like an eel, but not one bold shove dared he give. The children needed no explanation of the silk robe and long black curling beard of Noah, and by raising their fingers to their chins, and various other graceful motions expressive of infantine and popular derision, and with dry imitations of Jewish expression of pain and disappointment, disturbed the equanimity of the wayfarers. Not once did Noah turn towards them other but reproachful glances "for how can I be angry with them," he said, "who know not what they do? They are taught no better. It is their parents, their schoolmasters, who are cruel and unjust, not these young hearts which they train to be as hard as their own. But the oppressive laws, not merely enacted at earlier periods, but constantly renewed and enforced against us, have most to answer for. It is they that incite to aggression the unthinking and uncharitable. How foolish, then, to quarrel with the effect instead of the cause! Against the cause we should direct the whole force of our resentment. The example of the great works for good or for evil—and it is to them that all lessons should be addressed-for the sins of this world, like the devastating hail, fall from above."

A little further on a drove of cattle blocked the way, and sun-compelled Noah and Pavel to step beneath a gateway. Whilst waiting patiently the moment when they could resume their peregrinations, they heard two voices, one raised in anger, the other in a tone of supplication, issuing from the courtyard, and, turning round, they sawa young man, in a military costume, belabouring to his heart's content, about head, face, and neck, a gigantic young peasant, who held the reins of two powerful horses. To effect this piece of brutality, the young officer had been obliged to mount upon the wheel of the vehicle. One touch of the whip on the fiery animals, and the tormentor would have been flung to the earth, but the young peasant, even whilst howling beneath his master's blows, instinctively tightened the reins. One thrust of his iron hand might have proved deadly to the effeminate-looking being who indulged in this paroxysm of despotism, and yet that strong hand stirred not. Pavel could not endure the sight. Ile who, a couple of years previous, had coolly witnessed the flogging of men, and, for that matter, of women too, in the General's stable-yard-nay, had himself struck older children than himself, as confident in their passiveness as was now the elegant officer in that of his victim-he covered his eyes in disgust, and ran from the But he then ranked among the strikers, and was now likely to rank among the struck, and this change had quickened his sensibilities.

"Are you not afraid of speaking thus here?" said the boy. "This street," replied Noah, "is occupied by those who suffer and feel like me-i -it is a Jew street."

"It is here, then, that Salome wishes she could live ?" inquired Pavel, "that the boys may go to school-synagogue as you call it? It would not tempt me, though-spot. it is a villanous, dirty street."

"We are allowed to live in no other, and I prefer God's free air in the open country to moping myself up in this narrow, unwholesome place. Many and many a weak brother has been induced by the frivolous consideration of possessing a fine house in a fine quarter of the town, to renounce the God of his fathers-renegades that make but false Christians! Traitors to the new as to the old faith, they have gradually brought doubt and scepticism into the enemy's camp, more formidable weapons far than any other we could devise. Think you that a little sprinkling of water can efface from the hearts of those Christianised professors to whom the youths of rank are entrusted, the principles and sentiments inherent in their Jewish blood?||

"It was a shocking sight!" he said, as soon as the Jew rejoined him; "I wonder that strong man could endure se much from such a puny fellow; methinks had I been the peasant, I should have struck him dead at my feet."

Ay, but the peasant knew better-his life is dear to him, serf though he be."

"Serf-serf,” repeated the boy, and not all the gaiety of the fair could dissipate the idea connected with that word, which haunted him throughout the day. At last their purchases were made, and Pavel was most eager to return home, for to him the pain of witnessing the deep humiliation of Noah, part of which was reflected upon him

self, was as exqusite as it was new. Turning down the singly is but a criminal. It's only when one can, by his principal street leading to the town gate, they passed be- example, effect a useful progress-gain a general aim, that neath a scaffolding erected against one of the houses, and any deed of violence can be excused-it were otherwise the boy chancing to raise his head, encountered the ma- but an instance of private vengeance which a man cannot licious glances of a couple of young house-painters engaged justify even to his own conscience. It were, moreover, in their avocations immediately above him. With a cry totally useless. It would only embitter the condition of of derision the youths flung down on poor Noah's bright || the rest. But what are we talking of?-subjects far benew silk dress and cap as much of their white paint as yond your years, if not beyond your discretion. I wish my their brushes could contain. For the first time that poor Salome had not so set her heart on this dress-ay, it day Pavel saw the meek being wince under hard usage, is a sad thing to be a Jew! You have seen but little to-day and as the boys in the street echoed the hoarse laugh- of the humiliation it is our lot to encounter. I was once ter of those on the scaffolding, two hot tears stole down present with some friends, at grand review in Warsaw, Noah's subdued countenance. Pavel felt his blood boil, and to command a better sight we got up into a tree. partly for the unmerited aggression, and partly at what Would you believe it?-under pretence of inadvertency, he considered the unmanliness of Noah's resignation. He we were fired at, and one or two of us dropped to the was on the point of giving utterance to his feelings in ground, more hurt, I will own, by the fall-and the shouts gentle expressions, when the Jew, guessing by his heighten- of merriment with which the incident was witnessed by the ing colour and flashing eye what was passing in his mind, Christian spectators, ay, even by fine ladies in their car seized him by the arm, and hurried him away; nor did he ||riages-than by the shot; but blood flowed, and a limb was loosen his hold until they had left the town gate behind broken." them.

"I will tell you," said Pavel, "your chief sin lies in submitting as you do-it is your tameness that makes you the scorn of the Christians."

"Does the savage vindictiveness of the gipsey, a wanderer and an outcast like ourselves, cause him to be respected? An oppressed people who have no hold on the sympathies of the rest of the human race would be misunderstood in their just resentment as they have been in their

"You mean it well, you mean it kindly, Pavel, I know," he said, "but you might have brought us to a fearful pass -child that you are! You know not yet what it is to be mobbed; you know not what it is to be a Jew! Ah!" he added, heaving a deep sigh as he gazed on his besmeared vestment, "it is not for this foolish stuff that I grieve; it is for my Salome's vexation. But what right have we to wear fine, or even clean things? No other joys are per-resignation." mitted us but those we conceal. We are obliged to hide our every pleasure, however innocent, and people accuse us of mystery! They laugh at our innocence, and shudder at our imagined crimes! Ay, it's a hard lot to bear; I know but of one which at all resembles it-it is that of the vassal."

"But I—I—” said Pavel; he stopped short, his breathing became thick, his voice husky, "I-I am no vassal?”

The inflection of doubt which he gave those words went to Noah's very heart. There were suppressed tears, there was a poignant anguish, in the tremor of that voice.

46

You, my poor boy," said Noah, "I know it not for sure, but have been told so by your cousin-you are registered as such on the estate on which you were born." "I may be so inscribed, but I am not!" said the boy, proudly.

"Of that I have not the means of judging," Noah || replied. "Many a lord's son is his own brother's vassal; many a nephew has mounted behind the carriage in which his aunt sat; it all depends which side the relationship

"But, then, the peasants complain," said Pavel, "that you get possession of all their lands, and the workmen of the towns that you monopolise all the trade."

"Even that charge I will not deny. No one could buy or sell there were no traffic in Poland or in Gallacia without our aid-the whole activity of the land is ours. But why is it? Because we are more industrious, more active than the people of the soil. Where we have found competition, as in Russia, have we been able to supersede the natives? No! Besides, are we not also children of the soil? have we not been born upon it for centuries? Take away a heartless prejudice which the priesthood, in times past, created, and envy has fanned, and have we not a right to call ourselves Poles, and to flourish as part and parcel of the nation? You know, Pavel, you yourself were delighted the other day with the account given us by a learned brother of my creed, of a distant country called America; well, do you think that the foreign settlers there will not, in fewer centuries than we have dwelled in Europe, call that land their own, and consider themselves part of the nation? Is it not madness to treat us as strangers or mere sojourners who have, generation after generation, been born on the land, and have no other to go to? Why should we not be Poles or Germans; because we do not believe in the Divinity of Christ? Are there not thousands of Poles and Germans who share that heresy? And if we could be crushed into a hopeless poverty-if the laws should increase in severity, what might not be feared from our numbers and our despair?"

"But you have no wish to return to Jerusalem," said Pavel. "What should we do there?"

"That's it," said Pavel; "the moment you cannot carn money you will have nothing to say to anything. I'll be bound you would not care to enter into paradise if you could not traffic there, and, what's morc-cheat !”

"We are what people have made us," answered Noah, i selves, or do without. And think you that hate begets darkly. "Before casting our sins in our teeth, let them love-oppression, cheerful acquiescence? Go ask the serf do something towards improving us. No one pays higher how he feels towards his lord?" And thus was Pavel taxes to the state; and yet does Government give us taught early to enter upon the most dangerous social quesschools, hospitals, a clergy, asylums, or the benefit of any tions, and to view them in the darkest light." public institution? All these we have to provide for our(To be continued.)

INERT I sat, and stirr'd the fire,
Or listen'd to the billows;
Upon a bracket hung my lyre-

For here there are no willows;

TO A POETESS.

The mermaids and the sea-gulls scream'd,
While listlessly I dozed, and dream'd.

At length a gold-bedizen'd wight

My revery did dispel ;

He rush'd up to my gate that night,
And fiercely rung the bell:

Yes, fiercely-for I seldom pay him-
And handed in the "Athenæum !"

And there I saw thy well-known hand,
To my great delectation!

I caper'd as if Jullien's band
Had been in operation.

It was a moving sight to see;

I drank thy health with three times three!

The blessings of a bookless bard
Descend upon thy head;
May seraphim keep watch and ward
Where'er thy footsteps tread--

FRAGMENTS IN VERSE.

WERE yonder line where sea and sky embrace
A sweeping are in the perimeter
Of the universe, pois'd on its keen edge,
What should our struggling vision see beyond?

The idealization of the real,
The realization of the ideal,
Is poetry.

Whence comes this river; whither does it flow;
What great design accomplishes its course?
It comes from the paternal ocean deeps;
Back flow its waters to their primal fount;
Benignant, fertilizing all the vales
It greeteth in its filial pilgrimage.
So comes the soul from the divine profound,
Meandereth calmly to its natal source,
And spreadeth verdure o'er the plains of life.

One summer eve I sat in yon wreath'd bower,
Engoldened with the west'ring sun that smiled
A bright farewell upon my pallid cheek,
Where diamond tears were slowly stealing down,
Re-raying towards him prismatic hues,
And speaking something I can ne'er express;
Nor pain nor sorrow raised the crystal sluice,
And yet I wept; no thoughts had I, and yet
I felt unutterable things. All still
And passive lay my soul, melting in sounds
Of sweetest music from the tuned heart,
Exposed, like some wind harp, to the caress
Of every air that sighed from Paradise.
Night, with the voices, fell; lingered the strains
Still in the echoes of the soul, where none
Heard their reluctantly-retreating waves,
Save my own Spirit and the Infinite.

God, Space, Duration, are immutable;
All else is revolution, flux, and change,

DAVID VEDDER.

Men say we live in time, as on the breast
Of a majestic stream that rolls along
The frail fleet vessels of humanity

To the wide waste of the eternal deeps.
Live we not rather in eternity?
Since time, the subtlest of all entities,
Was, is, and ever shall be unity:
Live we not in an everlasting Now,
Th' unepoched life-time of the Deity?
That stormless, waveless, tideless, moveless sea,
That hides no bottom, and that laves no shore-
Unbeginning, endless, unadvancing-
Where Past and Future wholly are submerged
In one vast, graspless, Present infinite.

Yonder is the sea, here a drop of dew,
Both take and give the vivid beams that ray
From th' effulgent monarch of the heavens.
Th' eternal Son is the great ocean glass,
Mect to receive and radiate Deity.
The good man is the morning's lucid sphere,
The mirror-miniature of the Supreme.
Atop yon gloomy hills, a dull morass,
Nor takes nor gives the orbed solar sheen;
The ill man is that turbid watery plain,
No trait of God is ever imaged there,
And life's grand final end is frustrated.

God fills the unwalled amplitude of Space;
God fills Duration's boundless plenitude,
Great attributes of the Universal Mind;
Where, then, amid the thunder-rocked heavens,
The wildly fitful hurricane-vexed air,
The maniac ocean, and the staggering earth
Shall tottering mankind find a home more meet
Than the still bosom of the Deity?, !. +

J. B. D.

THE BURIED BOOK OF SAINT COLUMB: A LEGEND OF ULSTER.

BY FRANCES BROWN.

THE old and widely-diffused belief in ancient books || of Benburb, when he was laid with royal honours and loud capable of communicating mysterious powers, but always injurious to their readers, has long occupied a prominent place among the superstitions of Ulster. Some suppose it to have been like most of the inhabitants of Scottish origin, but the idea is current in the popular faith of all nations, and one of the latest and most curious traditions of the kind, which is still repeated by some lingering || branches of a former generation, regards the notable Bishop of Derry, who acted such a conspicuous part at the period of the Irish Volunteers.