her boudoir, he seemed to want but little of take a step out of the path of charity; but Marie, perfect contentment. While he was smoking notwithstanding all her virtues, was woman. a friend of hers came in, and Madame de Mont-She had deeply loved the poor blind youth, whose jeu desired nothing better than to exhibit her conquest. The friend, a very discreet woman, remained but a few minutes, but during the conversation something was naturally said of the suicide. "It appears that your blind friend has hung himself-à propos of what?" "À propos de bottes," replied Madame de Montjen. This careless witticism, on the very evening of the day the poor blind man who loved her so much had hung himself, described Madame de Montjeu completely. The student laughed heartily. Such is man! But had the thing been told him, he would have been profoundly indignant. suicide had been caused by Madame de Montjeu; and in learning the miserable condition of this her enemy, she could not repress a sentiment of joy, the joy of gratified vengeance. An irresistible attraction drew her toward the sick woman; she wished to contemplate her in her misery and humiliation; and though she reproached herself for this temptation, she could not resist it. She, therefore, went up to the second floor; the key was in the door, and the door itself, half opened, seemed to give a new pretext to the temptation of Marie, and to invite her entrance. She entered softly, and on her toes, like one Every day Marie saw the student and lady who is committing a reprehensible act. The drive out together, as if determined to make apartment seemed empty and uninhabited. the most of a mutually pleasant acquaintance. There was neither carpet on the floor nor curThe gayety, happiness, and insolence of this tains to the windows; some articles of furniture woman seemed to urge Marie on to her projects white with dust, scattered here and there withof vengeance; but in what manner to accom-out any kind of order, testified to the abandonplish these projects passed her comprehension.ment of the room. She had money at her command, that great and facile instrument of so much crime and virtue, and she knew the power of this talisman. She said to herself, "The day will come when she will want money, and then I shall be the strongest. I will await for the proper opportunity, which always comes for the person who knows how to seize it." A month passed away, when, after a series of pleasures more extravagant each day, Madame de Montjeu was taken sick. Her indisposition increased, and soon assumed a dangerous form. It is then that we regret we have no friend, without regretting, perhaps, we have never been a friend to any one! For the first few days the student would make inquiries for her health, and, indeed, tender his services. But soon his visits became very rare, under one pretext or another-and at the end of eight days ceased altogether. The only bond of union between them had been the reckless pursuit of pleasure, and that bond was broken asunder by her inability longer to contribute her share to the common fund. "The moment approaches," said Marie to herself. As she never left the house, she easily discovered all that passed within it. She saw Madame de Montjeu's woman carry away daily some article of furniture or dress which she never brought back. Under pretense of being repaired, heavy pieces of furniture disappeared in their turn. These premonitory symptoms of approaching destitution seldom deceive. One day, as the old woman came down grumbling, Marie accosted her, and asked how her mistress was? "I have left," replied the hag, "the key in the door. Any one who pleases may take care of her. She has no money left, and the physician says nothing more can be done for her." Providence had undertaken to avenge the blind man without Marie being compelled to She passed through two or three rooms, one as desolate as the other; and although she had become bolder from what she had seen, still, on reaching the last apartment, of which the door was partly opened, she did not dare to enter. It was because there came from this retreat an awful rattle of the throat which would have congealed with fear a feebler heart, and at the same time there escaped a mephitic and infectious odor. After some moments of hesitation, Marie put her head in and looked round. In a corner of the unfurnished chamber she saw a bed in neglected disorder, from which arose a pestilential vapor; and upon this bed, covered with filthy sheets, a human being, or living corpse, which three or four diseases, each more dreadful than the other, were contending for, like famished dogs. It was all that remained of the beautiful, the cruel, and insolent Madame de Montjeu. At such a sight the heart of Marie, forced down for a moment under the weight of an inferior passion, rose up again, and she became what she had been. She went out, descended the stairs, two or three at a time, and sent for a nurse to clean and take care of the dying woman. The best room of the apartments was in a few minutes swept out and washed, and purified with perfumes and fire. The sick woman, cleansed of her dirt, dressed in nice linen, was carried by Marie and the nurse into the well-aired room, and placed upon a soft bed with white sheets. When human nature has arrived at such a state of disorganization, cleanliness becomes the first of all remedies. Madame de Montjeu gave no sign of life but respiration. She could not see, understand, or move the least; but Marie had said: "I wish to save her, that she may repent and be forgiven." The kind-hearted girl had installed herself at the pillow of the sick person, and watched her alternately with the nurse. Her health, before robust, suffered from her confinement, and, to add to her perplexities, her income was not sufficient for the extraordinary expenses her undertaking had imposed upon her. The nurse cost a great deal, and clean linen was needed every day, to say nothing of the prescriptions and visits of the physician. Besides all these, the rent became due. Marie sold her silver, paid for her rooms and those of the sick woman, and met the daily expenses bravely. But for Marie this woman never could have returned to life. Friends and hirelings had abandoned her. Marie, the soft and kindhearted girl, overcame death and saved her enemy. At the expiration of two months Madame de Montjeu could rise, and even walk; but she was no longer young. The ravages of disease were but too deeply inscribed upon her face. Her hands, those once so charming hands, now dried up, could not serve to gain her a livelihood. Her fingers, closed by convulsions, would no longer open; the nerves had been drawn terse, sparkling, witty; it must be complete and distinct in idea; clear and sharp in expression, and faultless in versification. To the epigrammatist there is no "poetic license" to excuse defects of art; the law is prohibition. Dirit Apollo. The body of an epigram, that it may have the soul of wit, must be brief. In respect to size, it is no paradox to say that, of two epigrams, cæteris paribus, the longer is the less. Four lines are better than six, and two are better than four. Eight is the outer limit; if it goes beyond that, it goes further to fare worse, and, violating the first law of its existence, ceases to be an epigram at all. With every other requisite, it must have wit or humor; failing which, it has the deficiency of "Hamlet" with the part of the Prince omitted. Like a needle, an epigram without a point is worthless. Of epic poems, it is judged by the critics, there are not more than six good ones extant, including “Festus," to give it the benefit of a doubt. Of epigrams that deserve the same epithet, there are not over six hundred in the six thousand (and more) that have been written; and of these not more than sixty that are positively admirable. Three or four by Voltaire, an equal number by Piron, and two or three by each of the other most famous epigrammatists, with a dozen or so by that versatile and prolifie wit, "Anonymous," embrace the whole number that approach perfection. Martial, who wrote fourteen books of epigrams, in the first century, had so high an opinion of the art, and was so well convinced of his own deficiencies, that upon revising his epigrams, he said, with equal truth and candor: "Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura :" -an epigrammatic confession which may be rendered with sufficient accuracy thus: "A few are good; some well enough; But most, I own, are wretched stuff." Here are a couple of his epigrams that deserve a place in the first class. What is odd enough, they are rather mended than marred in the translation, by Addison: "TO A CAPRICIOUS FRIEND. A GOOD epigram is a good thing-but, like a good toast, a very rare one, considering "In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow, the vast number of epigrams that have been written from the time of Martial until now. The reason of the paucity of good epigrams is sufficiently apparent. Though the conditions necessary to success in this sort of literary enterprise are not so many as those which are demanded by what are called "sustained poems," such as odes, elegies, and the like; yet this simple versicle, which we call an Epigram," is in some respects as ambitious and exacting as an epic. Its very brevity is a warrant that it shall be something, or nothing. In an Iliad of twenty-four books the poet may not only be permitted to "nod" now and then, but he may fairly set his readers a-nodding, without reproach to his genius or prejudice to his art; but neither dullness nor carelessness can be winked at in an epigram. It must be brief, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow- The closing line has been often quoted and variously applied. The next, "To an Ill-favored Lady," is exceedingly subtle and sarcastic: "While in the dark on thy soft hand I hung, It is little creditable to the gallantry of the poets that so many of their sharpest sayings are leveled at the women. One would suppose that the French epigrammatists would have observed the usual politeness of the "grand nation" toward the gentler sex; but, in fact, the Gallic wits are as unsparing as the Roman. The following elegant couplet was pronounced | grams, of which only six are preserved. He is by Boileau to be the best epigram on record: "Ci git ma femme; ah! qu'elle est bien As an epigrammatic epitaph it is certainly perfect. A literal translation quite spoils the charm of the rhyme and rhythm; and any paraphrase in English verse must vary the sense and mar the delicacy of the original. The following couplet may serve, for want of a better version : "Here lies my wife; what better could she do For her repose, and for her husband's too!" the author of the following Bacchanalian sentiment, which Horace Smith erroneously attributes to Anacreon: "If with water you fill up your glasses, Which carries a bard to the skies!" Philonides, a dramatic poet of reputation, in the time of Aristophanes, was a voluminous author, of whose writings nothing can now be found but a single epigram. It contains a noble sentiment, and is fairly rendered in the fol After Peter Corneille, the great dramatist, of lowing quatrain : whom Pope said, 66 -his noble fire Shows us that France has something to admire,' had established his reputation, and had come to be thought a very prodigy of poetical genius, his brother Thomas attempted the same career, but with very ignoble success. His vanity, however, was not at all piqued by his failure, and he had his portrait painted and hung up for the admiration of the public. On seeing this, Graçon, a satirist, wrote under the picture the following lines: "Voyant le portrait de Corneille, The epigram, which is only quotable as a smart impromptu, is well stated in the following free paraphrase: "Ye who gaze on this portrait, I pray you take care, The Greek epigrammatists have left us little more than their names; but as the Hellenic epigram was, for the most part, merely a versified sentiment, or, at the best, a pretty poetical conceit, the loss to the world of wit is not great. One of Plato's epigrams is worth quoting, as affording a piquant commentary on that modern invention, "Platonic love." What Plato would have thought of it, one may guess from the following passionate rhapsody to his inamorata: "Why dost thou gaze upon the sky? Oh, that I were yon spangled sphere! To wander o'er thy beauties here!" In another quatrain, entitled "The Kiss," the poet represents his soul as passing through his lips and" soaring away." Alas! that the great philosopher should have lost his soul for a kiss. Anacreon could have done no worse. It was reading these erotic specimens of genuine Platonism that lately occasioned the following very natural reflection, in the form of a verbal impromptu : "Oh, Plato!-Plato! If that's the way to Teach the art to cool us, It were as wise To take advice From Ovid or Catullus!" "Because I fear to be unjust, forsooth, Am I a coward, as the fools suppose? Meek let me be to all the friends of truth, And only terrible among its foes!" Most of the epigrams of the British poets, from Chaucer to Byron, are too hackneyed to be worth repeating. Pope, who is facile princeps among English wits, and the most epigrammatic of poets, has given us few epigrams which are printed as such in separate stanzas. To find Pope's chef-d'œuvres in this kind, one must read the "Dunciad," the "Moral Essays," and the "Prologue to the Satires," in which epigrams are as plenty as couplets, and good ones abundant on every page. "If on a pillory, or near a throne, He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own," is as terse and keen an epigram as ever was written by Piron or Voltaire. The couplet in the " 'Prologue"-supposed to be personal to Lady Montague, whom the poet had loved, eulogized, and, finally, quarreled with and denounced-is as sententious and witty as it is truculent and mordacious: "From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate, Pd by her love or poisoned by her hate! The satires of Young are scarcely less abundant in sparkling epigrams. His verse is not so graceful as that of the great satirist, but in terseness and point he is not surpassed by any English poet. The following, from his satire on "The Love of Fame," are samples of his epigrammatic talent: "Fame is a bubble the reserved enjoy; Who strive to grasp it, as they touch, destroy. "Tis the world's debt to deeds of high degree; But if you pay yourself, the world is free!" "I find the fool when I behold the screen; For 'tis the wise man's interest to be seen." "As love of pleasure into pain betrays, So most grow infamous through love of praise." "Tis health that keeps the Atheist in the dark, A fever argues better than a Clarke; If but the logic in his pulse decay, The Grecian he'll renounce, and learn to pray." "Some go to church, proud humbly to repent, Nicanetus, a Thracian poet, wrote many epi- They'll find that their religion has been one." Lavina is polite, but not profane, To church as constant as to Drury Lane; Untaught to bear it, women talk away Canning, the orator, poet, and wit, whose "Needy Knife Grinder" alone would have made him famous, was the author of several clever jeu d'esprit in the form of epigrams. The two following are attributed to his pen: "As Harry, one day, was abusing the sex, As things that in courtship but studied to vex, That he never would marry at all!'" lines, the last of which, though very smooth and delicate, was strong enough to hang him: "Ward has no heart, they say; but I deny it; He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it!" How does it happen that epigram writing has so nearly gone out of vogue? Quien sabe? It is the best possible form for a single stroke of wit, and was once an acknowledged and formidable force in literature. It was at one time a favorite weapon of personal and political controversy; and as decisive battles have been fought with the rifle-like epigram as with the clumsy club of the pamphleteers, which came next into use; or by the heavy "charges" of newspaper "columns," which is the fashion of the present day. French wit in this form has gone extinct with the French wits; and of English writers only Punch writes epigrams; and not many good ones at that; though he has a happy knack at a parody, and is the author of the best prose facetiæ afloat. Since the death of the incomparable Hood, America can boast the most successful humorous poets now living; This is much in the manner of the other, and but they either do not write epigrams, or they equally brilliant : As in India, one day, an Englishman sat, Do they burn? That they do!' the gentleman said, #gly Beelzebub took all occasions To try Job's constancy and patience. But cunning Matan did not take his spouse. But Heaven, that brings out good from evil, Tuo-fold all he had before; His servants, horses, oxen, cows phurt sighted devil! not to take his spouse!" Hors, the banker-poet, the most caustic of lal jokers, has left a single epigram in print, which Byron pronounced "the best ever written Ha lines." One Ward, a fluent magazine ddar, and a flippant Parliamentary orator, incised the poet's "Italy" with great vioRogers, learning the name of the rearch, and hearing the current talk that his Tim was more than suspected of declaiming hea from memory-a practice then and timbal by the House as a disgraceful imFans down upon his adversary in two Oth do not print them in their books. Not more than "Ah, well! 'tis over! Should I not resign My weaker will to Fate's imperious shall? 'Tis not a boy! yet such as 'tis, 'tis mine; Then let me, thankful, murmur c'est e ‘gal !'"* A similar reason suggested an equally goodnatured rhyme, a few years ago, when an editress announced that, after a marriage of fifteen years, she had given birth to her first child. Whereupon an epigrammatist, who must have been a lawyer, made the following "declaration:" "An honest woman, you may safely bet, Who thus, without the least equivocation, Pays to the world a most important debt, When clearly free by statute limitation !" When Dr. Parsons took the prize for the prologue recited at the opening of the new Boston theatre, there was the usual discussion whether the production was either prize-worthy or praiseworthy. Some person, who seems to have thought the author a better poet than the prologue indicated, expressed his opinion in an epigram entitled: INVITA DENTE. "What Parsons, a dentist? You don't mean to say At a rubber of whist an Englishman grave To say Mr. Brodhead has never a wrong head, But yet Mr. Brodhead has surely a strong head, perception as at the moment of utterance. I can not express what I experienced in this respect better than to say that my own mind, like a mirror, reflected sometimes the consciousness, memory, and volition of another; and this quite independently of effort on my part other than to hold in abeyance disturbing forces. One morning in the middle of July, after a protracted drought, and after the failure of repeated prognostics of rain, the temperature had suddenly descended from little less than a hundred degrees to the vicinity of fifty. The coolness had braced my nerves to a degree of tension which I had rarely felt. I was evolving a plan of action as I stood by the window in the office of my friend Wynn, whose guest I then was, and who, by-the-way, was eminent in the And here is an epigram by an exultant wid- brotherhood of lawyers whose rare acumen and ower, entitled: "THE WORLD, THE FLESH, and the devIL." Was thorough devotion to parties and fashion; sterling good sense form a counterpart to the For I'm clear of the world, and the flesh, and the devil!" had an air of much pretension, wore a large AN EVENING AT EPPING. SUPPOSE that all persons given more to seal ring, a showy breast-pin, and several crossings of heavy gold chain over a bright-patterned vest, all of which decorative trumpery served I suppose that a action have at times been the purpose of varnish to a very ugly picture, conscious of powers undeveloped far transcending all they have ever put forth. In illustration of this assumption, I purpose offering a plain statement of facts. It may be that circumstances equally remarkable occur within the experience of most persons; but if it be so, I believe they excite usually only a transient observation. heightening the distinctness of every bad point. His errand, to obtain the use of the Town-hall for the delivery of a lecture on animal magnetism, being speedily accomplished, he took his leave. "Wynn," said I, as the door closed upon him, “do you remember Mark Tufts, who was convicted of burglary in Charleston, and who afterward escaped from the State Prison?" "Yes," answered Wynn; "and I could not think of whom this man reminds me; yes, it is of Mark Tufts.” "It is Tufts himself," I replied. "I recognized him before he had uttered three sentences. I came across the room just now to look for the scar of a wound on the left cheek, given him by a companion in a drunken broil. The mark is there. And I know that the little finger and the first joint from the one next it are missing from the hand which he carries in a sling, and which he avers to have been hurt in a recent railroad accident." Ten years ago, I was spending the summer in Epping-a quiet, pleasant country town in New England. Unusual demands had been made on my energies, mental and physical, the preceding year, and with scarcely vitality sufficient to enable me to seek rest, I yet thankfully accepted it when offered by chance. A month of absolute repose restored to me a degree of vigor commensurate perhaps with that which I before possessed, but with a difference. Previously I had valued chiefly my uniformity of ability to labor. Now, I had the ability in an equal degree, but interruptedly. Gradually I observed, too, that my own moods were precursors of meteorological changes, so that I became "Pierson E. Leffingwell," was elaborately a sort of conscious barometer. My experiences engraved on the card with which he had inat this time were not all equally pleasurable, troduced himself. I looked from the window; but the most agreeable of them, I think, was a the man had crossed the street and was standfeeling of extreme buoyancy accompanied by an ing on the piazza of the Epping House. Presunusual clearness of perception, apparently coin-ently he entered, and shortly after reappeared, cident with, and, as I grew to believe, dependent accompanied by a showily dressed woman and upon, any extraordinary augmentation of atmos- a young girl; in the appearance of the latter I pheric electricity. At such times, too, I was remarked nothing except perhaps extreme fraconscious of a recognition of traits of character gility. in the individuals around me which I had never before observed; their thoughts, the very words they were about to speak, were as clear to my A programme indicated that at the close of the lecture some interesting demonstrations would be exhibited. Mrs. and Miss Louise |