I

monstrous rent-roll-a princely pedigreea handsome person, and stately mannersI was no longer to refuse at discretion. Lord Evesham insisted on a reason. could give none. He settled the matter: I was engaged to the Duke of G——. I had not arranged the matter, but so it was; and I could no more refuse my consent than the sovereign of a constitutionally governed country can refuse assent to a bill for which nine-tenths of his subjects are clamoring. The Duke was, I believe, the proudest man who ever lived. My father cautioned me never to mention to my affianced what had been told of my history; and indeed the Duke's manner little invited such confidence. He loved me I think next to his family grandeur; he spent much time with me; long mornings, when I was often weary as "Mariana" must have been in her "moated grange." He told me of the magnificence of his ancestors, of his vast possessessions, of the immense antiquity of the family diamonds, which I should have the inestimable honor to wear. In the evenings we were always out. He wore me on his arm, as an appendage to his mighty magnificence. He expected all to admire and honor where he had deigned to throw the handkerchief. The loveliest woman, the fleetest horse, the richest furniture, the most sumptuous table, where his by incontestible right. He was the Duke of G. In saying that, one said all that was necessary to establish his right to the best the world affords. He adored his rank and title, his consequence of name and position, so much that I think he would never have respected himself again had he been proved a changeling, and no duke. This man was my betrothed. My evident coldness did not vex him. He was cold himself. My respectful and distant manners were complimentary to his high birth. Even his wife must not be too familiar with him. He was too grand and too proud to display the knowledge he might have; a dignified silence was his most frequent behavior. To me he unbent, and told me of the former Dukes of G. I submitted to my fate; I resigned myself to a dim, moon-light kind of life, in which happi

ness was softened into absence of suffering, and love into toleration. A strong flavor my existence was not to have. I was to be Duchess of G-; could any woman expect more? Alas! an hour with Lorely and the flower-sprites, an hour of sweet quarrelling and sweeter reconciliation, was better than a year of this tame, purposeless existence. But Montague was dead! there was no hope to the contrary. I might as well be Duchess of G-, and please my father; for in that case-and he must be dead-I had no personal hope in life. Thus I debated, and submitted, and wore the golden fetters of the Duke of G——. He escorted me everywhere; he liked to have his vassal near him. He forbade me to dance but with himself. I was for him only, and all the must see that he was master of the acknowledged beauty, Lady Helena, who had refused so many excellent matches. The period of our return to England was appointed, and the marriage day was fixed.

One morning he came to me, pale, and for him unusually moved. I asked him gently what ailed him? He said that he had heard a slander which vexed him beyond measure-it concerned myself! I did not for the moment think of Montague; and I expressed surprise.

"I know it is false," he said, "your father has told me in what strict retirement you were educated. But this fellow, a roué of the first water, declares that you have clandestinely accepted his addresses that he has your own handwriting to prove your love for him!"

"Good God, it is Montague!"

These words were wrung from me in a moment, and almost without my consent. I felt my blood recede from cheek and lips: I was deadly cold, and, having started from my seat, stood like a statue. The Duke of G- was petrified into a moment's silence. Then he exclaimed in a voice whose accent of wounded pride I shall never forget-" You know him, then madam; and I am the victim of a base deception ?"

I recalled my scattered senses, and asked the name of the person who had thus openly mentioned me. It was he, and my

exclamation saved me the trouble of owning that I had known him. I told, in a simple and truthful way, the exact story of my childhood, and how I had met with Montague; how ignorant of the world I was; how he had won my girlish heart; how suddenly he had left Audley End; how I had concluded him dead. "But could he, did he add, to the cruelty of leaving me thus, the meanness to boast of my love for him? Why did he desert me? Where is he? Let me see him, and he must repent!" Thus I exclaimed in my bewildered frenzy.

"He is beyond repentance, no doubt, madam. We met this morning an hour ago, and I shot the villain through the heart. Is it possible that you, the chaste and pure, still feel an interest in this wretch? Do you know what he was?"

"I know only that he was a man who professed to love me; ihat he was a scholar, and taught me; that he was a traitor, and left me. But you-what is this pallor-you are bleeding

"Yes I am wounded-I had not thought it so deep as I feel it. Tell me, for Heaven's sake, that you knew nothing of this man's antecedents."

"I have told you so. I swear it to content you. But let me call assistance, you are bleeding so fast."

"What matters? My honor-your honor is mine-has been assailed, let me bleed on. This Montague, Helena, was the vilest wretch in Europe-a man married twenty times over, if vows of love held good in law-a gamester-a profligate the son of your mother's temp

"Do you know her sad story!" I groaned.

"Yes, and had overcome disgust for your sake. O, Helena, you have given me my death-blow!"

With or without his permission I was compelled to call for help! He was laid on my father's bed and a surgeon was summoned immediately. The bleeding was very great and was difficult to stay. Life seemed halting between this world and the next. His high sense of honor, so quickly wounded on my behalf, gave him a new interest in my eyes; his very

pride, contrasted with Montague's want of principle, became a virtue. I watched over him and prayed for his life. All night it was doubtful, towards morning he became insensible. His broken wanderings were full of my name-full of defiance to those who would injure me. I began to doubt whether I had quite fathomed the character of the cold Duke of G——. I had a shudder when I thought of Montague's fate, but the base cruelty with which he had flung me aside, and the meanness which had revealed my love for him, had effectually cured me of any tender sentiment. The Montague I had loved was forever buried with the pasthe was the creature of my own imagination. The Duke could not be moved for many weeks, and my position as his affianced wife gave me a right to see and watch over him. I discovered that this man-this idolator of his own grandeurhad yet one soft place in his heart-he could love and he could pity me. This I found from the language of his delirium. One blessed morning he regained his senHe was pale and weak, but he knew His illness had changed us both. He called me to him.

ses.

me.

I sat down by the bed and took his hand. "Poor child!" he said tenderly, as he felt my hand tremble, "do not be afraid of me; I am not going to blame you. Lord Evesham was very wrong to leave you so poorly protected. But I have often seen that I am not the man you can love; and now, Helena, having avenged you, I will be generous—how generous, you can never know. I cannot speak much; but you are free, my dearest love."

I was dumb for several minutes. When I had a little collected my sensations, I said: "Do not cast me off without hearing that ever since that fatal morning I have looked to your protection as a safeguard from every ill of life; that your delirious wanderings have told me you once loved me; that your suffering from this frightful wound-incurred for my sake-has won my interest, my pity, and my love. Free you cannot make me, unless you restore to me the heart which indeed your pride and high principle does

to well to scorn; for I am all unworthy of the honor you once destined to me."

"What do I hear?" he cried, struggling to speak; "my Helena loves me? Come nearer-no, you shall not kneel; rise, my love: I command you to rise. Have you been nursing me? Tell me again."

"O, I have, and so anxiously!" replied I, kissing the cheek he held towards me: "but "

"Dearest Helena, trust me, trust my

love: forget the past, as I forgive it. We will be one forever and ever!"

In compliance with his earnest wish, our marriage was privately celebrated within a week or two; and every day shows me some fresh trait of tenderness and excellence in the man I once thought so cold and proud. But I often shudder to think in what position a few more months of neglect at Deansdale, with Montague's presence, might have found

me.

We give place this month to an article from a graduate of the University, in reply to certain portions of the able and elaborate paper on the "Character and Wants" of that institution, published in our April number. We do not altogether like the tone of the respondent, but feel bound in fairness to lay his remarks before our readers. A communication in the Richmond Enquirer of the 21st May seemed to us conceived in a similar spirit of unkindness towards the author of the original essay, and we might have deemed it proper to vindicate his motives and purpose against the censure therein contained, had there not subsequently appeared in the same journal a letter from "Another Alumnus" doing the fullest justice to our contributor. The complainants in the premises proceed upon the supposition, wholly gratuitous in our judgment, that the writer in the first instance was inspired by some unfriendly sentiment to the University, and sought to discover or even invent defects in its organization in consequence. We may say therefore with perfect propriety that no man in Virginia, outside of its walls, could possibly feel a greater interest in

the University's prosperity and widening influence than our contributor, or has a better right to discuss any questions connected with the enlargement of its plan of instruction. A scholastic residence of some years there, terminating in the highest honours that could be conferred upon a graduate, it may be fairly supposed, not only enabled him to become fully acquainted with the University model, but imbued him with that deep and abiding affection for the seat of learning which the student always feels for his Alma Mater. Nor can the Editor of the Messenger be suspected of not feeling tenderly towards a spot where his own collegiate apprenticeship was performed, and which is brightened in the retrospect with the mellowest and holiest sunshine of his life. But it is altogether a mistaken friendship which refuses to recognise imperfections in the object we would benefit, as it is a false diagnosis which does not reveal the true cause of disease. The University is now at a point of popularity which justifies in us the confidence that it will attain the full proportions foreshadowed in the dream of its illustrious founder, as from the heights

of Monticello, he looked down, through the summer atmosphere, and saw its walls rising in the midst of that beautiful amphitheatre of mountains-provided the proper steps are taken by those to whom its interests have been committed. These steps, we think, were clearly and judiciously pointed out by our contributor and we cannot understand how he could, for one moment, be thought unfriendly to the institution.

The Board of Visitors, at a recent meeting, we are pleased to see, carried into effect two of his suggestions, by dividing the duties of the Chair of Ancient Languages and establishing a Professorship of History and General Literature.

Apropos of the University, we have seen a Prospectus for a Literary Magazine to be published there under the auspices of the Literary Societies. We regret that it is not proposed to give it the name of the periodical which shed a monthly light along Range and Lawn, during the days of our own novitiate, as we should have gladly welcomed once more "The Collegian," redivivus, but in whatever form it may appear, it will receive at our hands a hearty recognitiou and we trust it will enjoy a much longer period of radiant existence than did that fleeting luminary.

We find the following letter in the Savannah Republican and transfer it to our pages as indicating the useful purposes of an historical Society. No more excellent Association of this kind exists than that of the State of Georgia, and in its Corresponding Secretary it possesses an officer, who, for the zeal he brings into historical research and the orderly arrangement of the facts he collects, is a remarkable specimen of the philosophic antiquarian, while the amenity of his manners and the purity of hio character challenge the respect and win the esteem of all who know him. We learn, with reference to the point sought to be established in the letter, that the pension of a venerable lady at this moment really depends upon it, which will sufficiently show how important it is that the past annals

of the country should be fully and accurately known.

MACON, May 1, 1856.

MESSRS. EDITORS:-In a number of your paper, published a week or two ago, I remarked the appeal which you made to correspondents, to furnish you with some historic or documentary evidence of the date of the evacuation by the British troops, of your town and garrison. I had thought that so important an event in our revolutionary annals, could easily be established. I have not found it so. McCall's history makes an error of one whole year; General Green's Southern Campaign has not the official authority for the event, nor has Holmes' Annals, as quoted by Mr. Mallard of Liberty county, who replied to your inquiry.

I have to-day been pleased to observe in your edition of yesterday, a full and complete answer to your appeal from the pen of I. K. Tefft, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the Georgia Historical Society. When you confidently said that the Historical Society was "in honor bound" to prove, by official documents, the exact time at which the evacuation took place, I felt equal assurance, that Mr. Tefft was the man to sustain the reputation of the Society. I had long known the wide reputation of Mr. Tefft, as a collector of autograph letters; and as he possesses an extraordinary quantity of the correspondence of the heroes of the Revolution, I had expected, that he would have satisfied your inquiry by some original letter of General Greene, or Wayne.

The fact, however, not being contained in his original letters, Mr. Tefft has reproduced evidence, from the official printed correspondence of General Greene with the Congress at Philadelphia, and he made his extract from "Scot's Magazine" printed at the period in question, at Edinburg.

This is, unquestionably, good evidence, for such official papers could not have been invented or forged. But the fact, that the Historical Society has been compelled to resort to a Scotch Magazine, to prove an event of American history, suggests the curious circumstance, that there is no American collection of historical papers, to quote as authority in this case.

I should be obliged to you, or Mr. Tefft, for information on this subject. Has Congress never published the military correspondence of the Revolution? Does Force's collection of State papers omit military and naval correspondence? Congress has published many folio volumes,

called "Archives" which pertain to foreign relations, military and naval affairs, and land claims. But they do not embrace, I think, revolutionary correspondence. If Congress has not made such a publication, it is certainly a great neglect of national interests.

I have known the claims of revolutionary soldiers to depend upon the establishment of just such facts as the one in question, and valuable inheritances might equally be governed by them. It is gratifying to know, that the Georgia Historical Society is a valuable depository of the books and manuscripts, which illustrate the annals and res geste of this State. I have always regarded with pride the consideration which the Legislature has given to the Society, and the materials which it may furnish for future legislation will yet be fully appreciated. It will be well if a successor to Mr. Tefft, should be found.

****

The approaching National Anniversary will be celebrated with great spirit at Lexington in this State, where His Excellency Gov. Wise is to deliver an Oration, and Hubard's bronze cast of Houdon's Washington is to be inaugurated within the walls of the Virginia Military Institute. Mr. Hubard has achieved a noble triumph over all the difficulties attending the execution of his work, and has produced a perfect fac simile of Houdon's wonderful statue, in a bronze of great brilliancy. We consider the whole country indebted to him for having thus preserved so invaluable a work of art against utter loss, and we trust he will be abundantly rewarded for his indefatigable labours. Every State of the Union should have a copy of this statue to adorn its capital, and we cannot doubt that orders will come in upon the artist thickly, as soon as his first success has been publicly acknowledged.

A correspondent sends us a long list of errata, in some sketches of his recently published in the Messenger, and complains bitterly of the mutilation he has received at the hands of the devil. Another, the accomplished author of "Some Thoughts on Social Philosophy" in the April number, desires us to repair the omission of

quotation marks in the last paragraph of his article, lest he may be unjustly suspected of drawing without acknowledg ment upon Bolingbroke. We cry peccavi in the matter of the blunders, but invoke a clearer manuscript, and refer our friends for sympathy to Mr. John Esten Cooke, the popular author of the Virginia Comedians, who being about to appear in a new novel, "The Last of the Foresters," has had the pleasure of seeing the forthcoming volume announced, in a California paper, as

THE LASH OF THE TEAMSTERS.

This, however, is not so bad as what befel the former work, which, having been entitled "The Virginia Comedians, or Old Days in the Old Dominion, by a Lawyer of Richmond," was heralded as

THE VIRGINIA COMEDIAN,

or

OLD DOGS IN THE OLD DOMINION; By

A SAWYER OF RICHMOND.

The Courrier des Etats Unis occasionally indulges in some very humorous whimsicalities, as the following droll anecdote, translated from that journal, will show

Madame L, a famous beauty, was in the habit of whitewashing herself, so to speak, from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair.

One day she was alarmed to discover that certain little pimples, like a cluster of small volcanoes, were becoming visible through the coating of white powder, and threatened to cover her arms with pathological arabesques.

Under the advice of her physician she ordered a medicated bath, and, with the irresolution of a lady of delicate nerves, plunged therein her fine person. That divine plaster-cast had no sooner disappeared beneath the sulphurous waters than suddenly, from head to foot, the perfect whiteness of milk gave place to the ebony blackness of an Ethiop.

The physician, who was immediately summoned, laughed heartily.

"Madame," said he, "you are not ill; you are a chemical product. You