A SUMMER TORNADO IN THE WEST. [In June of the Summer of 1860, a wild and destruc. tive hurricane swept over a wide track in the Western States, and its ravages were especially felt in Iowa, causing wide-spread loss of growing crops, frame houses, trees, &c., and much individual distress. An entertainment was given in the Chicago Wigwam for the benefit of the sufferers from the storm in Iowa. The following beautiful ode was read. In order to understand the fine stanza by which the poem is preluded. it should be said that Handel's Grand Chorus of The Oreation immediately preceded the reading of the Ode.] Like the sighing of leaves When the winter wind grieves, Like the rattle of chariots driving afar— Like the wailing of woods, Like the rushing of floods, Like the clang of huge hammers a forging a star! Like a shriek of despair In the shivering air, Like the rustle of banners with tempest abroad, Like a soul out of Heaven, Like a tomb trumpet riven, Like a syllable dropp'd from the thunder of God! Then these to their weeping, And those to their sleeping, And the blue wing of heaven was over them all! Oh, 'sweet south' that singeth, Oh, flower-girl that bringeth The gushes of fragrance to hovel and hall! Oh, blue bird, shed Spring With the flash of thy wing, Where December drifts cold in the bosom of June Set our hearts to the words, Dear as songs of first birds: Burton, or one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern tale or adventure, whereof our common readingtable is daily fed with assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teases me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She must have a story-well, ill or indifferently told-so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction-and almost in real life-have ceased to interest, or operate but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions-heads with some diverting twist in them-the oddities of authorship please me most. My cousin has a native disrelish for anything that sounds odd or bizarre. Nothing goes down with her that is quaint, irregular, or out of the road of common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever.' can pardon her blindness to the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici; but she must apologize to me for certain disrespectful insinuations which she has been pleased to throw out We are BROTHERS at night that were Strangers at noon! latterly, touching the intellectuals of a dear BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. MACKERY END IN HERTFORD SHIRE. [To his sister, with quiet devotion, CHARLES LAMB gave his life. She was the Bridget of his essays of Elia, which began to appear in The London Magazine in August, 1820, and ceased to appear in November, 1824.] Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountain with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits-yet so, as "with a difference." We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood than expressed; and once, upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was altered. We are both great readers in different directions. While I am hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old favorite of mine, of the last century but one the thrice noble, chaste and virtuous -but again somewhat fantastical and original-brained-generous Margaret New castle. It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps, than I could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, freethinkers, leaders and disciples of novel philosophies and systems; but she neither wrangles with nor accepts their opinions. That which was good and venerable to þer when a child, retains its authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with her understanding. We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this-that in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, it turns out that I was in the right and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points; upon something proper to be done, or let alone; whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out with, I am sure always in the long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking. I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an awkward trick, (to say no worse of it) of reading in company, at which times she will answer yes or no to a question, without fully | understanding its import, which is so provoking and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. Her education in youth was not much attended to, and she happily missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old maids. In a season of distress she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life, she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; but best when she goes a journey with you. We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that fine corn country. The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackerel End; or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly in some old maps of Hertfordshire; a farm-house, delightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been on a visit there to a greataunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grandmother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The Glad. mans and the Brutons are still flourishing in that part of the country, but the Fields are almost extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and for the greater portion of that period we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery End-kindred or strange folk-we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore. By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in our way from Saint Albans, we arrived at the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not experi enced for many a year. For though I had forgotten it, we had never forgotten being there together, and we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the aspect of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to that, which I had conjured up so many times instead of it! Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart of June," and I could say with the poet, But thou, that didst appear so fair Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered her old acquaintance again-some altered features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; but the scene soon reconfirmed itself in her affections-and she traversed every out-post of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown)—with a breathless impatience of recognition, which was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But Bridget in some things is behind her years. The only thing left was to get into the house-and that was a difficulty which to me singly would have been insurmountable; for I am terribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without me; but she soon returned with a creature that might have sat to a sculptor for the image of Welcome. weakling infancy I was her tender chargeas I have been her care in foolish manhood since-in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. CHARLES LAMB. PLINY'S TUSCAN VILLA. [PLINY, the younger, was born A. D. 62. In A. D. 79 he witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius. In the following year he commenced practice as an advocate in Rome. In A. D. 100 he was Consul. He belonged to the College of Augurs. We know nothing of him later than His chief works are his "Epistles."] PLINY THE YOUNGER TO DOMITIUS APOL- "I sincerely thank you for your kind concern in trying to dissuade me from passing the summer on my Tuscan property, under the impression that it is an unhealthy part. It is quite true that the air of the coast is unwholesome, but my house is at a distance from the sea, under one of the Apennines which are singularly healthy. But to relieve you from all anxiety on my account I will describe to you the climate and character of the country, and the lovely situation of my house. I am sure you will read the description with as much pleasure as I shall give it. It was the youngest of the Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six of them, females, were noted as the handsomest young women in the county. But this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all-more comely. She was born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected in early life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to her, climbing a stile. But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, was enough. Those slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hertford- the year 107. He married twice but left no children. shire. In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up together; were familiar, even to the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should call one another. To have seen Bridget and her-it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins! There was a grace and dignity, an amplitude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have shined in a palace-or so we thought it. We were made welcome by husband and wife equally-we, and our friend that was with us.-I had almost forgotten him but B. F. will not so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read this on the far distant shores where the kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was made ready, or rather was already so, as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) to her mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know something more of us, at a time when she knew almost nothing.With what corresponding kindness we were received by them also-how Bridget's memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed into a thousand half-obliterated recollections of things and persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own-and to the astonishment of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not a cousin there,-old effaced images of more than half-forgotten names and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth,-when I forget all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget no more remember, that in the days of 66 The air in winter is sharp and frosty, so that myrtles and olives, and trees which delight in warmth will not grow there. The laurel thrives, and is remarkably beautiful, though now and then it is killed by the cold-not, however, oftener than at Rome. The summers are very temperate, and there is always a refreshing breeze, seldom high winds. To this I attribute the number of old men. If you were to see the grandfa thers and great-grandfathers, and hear their stories about their ancestors, you would fancy yourself born in some former age. The character of the country is very beautiful. Picture to yourself an immense amphitheatre, such as only nature could create. Before you lies a broad plain, bounded by a range of mountains, whose summits are covered with tall and ancient woods, which are stocked with all kinds of game for hunting. The lower slopes of the mountains are planted with underwood, among which are a number of little risings with a rich soil, on which hardly a stone is to be found. In fruitfulness they are quite equal to a valley, and produce as good crops, | goes round the box-hedge and the dwarfthough not so early in the year. Below trees which are cut close." these, on the mountain side, is a continuous stretch of vineyards, terminated by a belt of shrubs. Then you have meadows and the open plain. The arable land is so stiff that it is necessary to go over it nine times with the biggest oxen and the strongest ploughs. The meadows are bright with flowers, and produce trefoil and other kinds of herbage as fine and tender as if it were but just sprung up. All the soil is refreshed with never-failing streams, but though there is plenty of water, there are no marshes; for as the ground is on a slope, all the water which is not absorbed runs off into the Tiber. Translated by W. L. COLLINS. A MAYTIME WISH. [MR. EDWARD CAPERN, originally a postman at Bideford. His charming lyrics obtained for him—not so soon as they should have done some small recognition in the shape of a Government pension, which enabled him to relinquish the severe daily labour, in which his ardent love of Nature must have been a support and consolation. He died in 1888.] I would the world could see thee as I behold thee, May, With eyes like sapphires gleaming through the orchards by the way; With the campion and the crowfoot on thy daisy-jewell'd vest, "This river winds through the midst of the meadows. It is navigable only in winter and in spring, and then conveys the produce of the neighborhood to Rome. In And a wreath of apple-blossoms dropping down upon thy summer it shrinks to nothing, and leaves the name of a great river to an almost empty channel. In autumn, it again claims its title. "You would be charmed by taking a view of the country from one of the neighbouring mountains. You would fancy that you were looking on the imaginary landscape of a first-rate artist; such a harmonious variety of beautiful' objects meets the eye wherever it turns. "My house commands as good a view as if it stood on the brow of the hill. You ap The breast. I would all eyes could see thee as I behold thee now, With the woodruff and the bluebell, and the lily on thy brow; With thy kirtle richly purpled with the gorse's golden boss, And the orchis and the violet, the primrose and the I moss. would all ears could listen to thy merrymaking, May,— Could listen as I listen to thy happy roundelay; Then a louder song would greet us from thy orchestra of leaves, little thieves. A form of life and beauty, I see thee, lovely May, scented spray; From the lilac and the hawthorn, aad the furze upon the down, And the wallflower by the wayside in its dress of cottage brown. Would you see her as I see her, you must be where I have been, proach it by so gradual a rise that you find For fewer birds would break their hearts because of yourself on high ground without perceiving that you have been making an ascent. Behind, but at a considerable distance, is the Apennine range, from which on the calmest days, we get cool breezes. There is nothing sharp or cutting about them, as the distance is sufficient to break their violence. greater part of the house has a southern aspect, and enjoys the afternoon sun in summer, and gets it rather earlier in winter. It is fronted by a broad and proportionately long colonnade, which has a porch of antique fashion, and in front of this colonnade is a terrace edged with box and shrubs cut into different shapes. From the terrace you descend by an easy slope to a lawn, and on each side of the descent are figures of animals in box, facing each other. You then come to a shrubbery formed of the soft, I had almost said, the liquid acanthus. Round this runs a walk, shut in by evergreens shaped into every variety of form. Beyond this is a riding-ring, like a circus, which Where the oak-tree, and the elm-tree, and the beechen tree are seen; Where the bright and silver poplars in their leafy beauty shine, And the bees are quaffing deeply from their chalices of wine. You must linger, as I linger, in the shadow of each nook, You must listen, as I listen, to the prattle of the brook; love, And the maid will stand before you like a vision from above. |