cut was deep and dangerous. Julian's fingers bear no such mark. Mon. (Evincing great emotion, and involuntarily drawing his glove closer over his hand.) A wound? mere fable! Lud. Nay, more. The same blow struck from off one of the assassin's finger's, a jewel! It glittered as it fell. I snatched it from the grass; I thrust it within my bosom, and have ever since preserved it next my heart. I now produce it; 'tis here; a ring; an amethyst set with brilliants! Alb. (Rising hastily.) What say you? An amethyst set with brilliants? Even such I gave Montaldi. Let me view it. (As Ludovico advances to present the ring to the duke, Montaldi rushes with frantic impetuosity between, and attempts to seize it.) Mon. Slave! resign the ring! Lud. I will yield my life sooner! Mon. Wretch! I will rend thy frame to atoms. (They struggle with violence, Montaldi snatches at the ring, Ludovico catches his hand and tears off the glove; the wound appears.) Lud. Thank God! murder is unmasked. The bloody mark is here! Montaldi is the assassin! (All rush forward in astonishment; Julian drops upon his knee in mute thanksgiving.) Mon. Shame! madness! death! Alb. Eternal providence! Montaldi a murderer! Mon. Ay! accuse, and curse! idiots! dupes! I heed you not. I can but die! triumph not, Alberti, I trample on thee still! (Draws a poniard and attempts to destroy himself; the weapon is wrested from his hand by the guards.) Alb. Fiend! thy power to sin is past. Mon. (Delirious with passion.) Ha! ha! ha! my brain scorches, and my veins run with fire! disgraced, dishonored! oh! madness! I can not bear it-save me-oh! Alb. Wretched man! bear him to his chamber: his punishment be hereafter. (Montaldi is led off.) Jul. Oh! my joy is too full for words! Alb. Let this day, through each returning year, become a festival, on my domain. Heaven, with peculiar favor, has marked it for its own, and taught us, by the simple moral of this hour, that however guilt may vail itself in darkness, an omniscient Judge will penetrate each hidden sin, and still protect the good! Jul. The peasant boy, redeemed from fate, He dares not trust decrees of state, Alb. Then gentles! prithee grant our prayer, CLXXXIX.-ORATOR CLIMAX. MR. PRESIDENT. Happiness is like a crow, perched upon the neighboring top of a far distant mountain, which some fisherman vainly strives, to no purpose, to ensnare. He looks at the crow, Mr. President,-and-Mr. President, the crow looks at him; and, sir, they both look at each other. But the moment he attempts to reproach him, he banishes away like the schismatic taints of the rainbow, the cause of which, it was the astonishing and perspiring genius of a Newton, who first deplored and enveloped. Can not the poor man precipitate into all the beauties. of nature, from the loftiest mounting up to the most humblest valley, as well as the man prepossessed of indigence? Yes, sir. While trilling transports crown his view, and rosy hours allure his sanguinary youth, he can raise his mind up to the laws of nature, incompressible as they are. We can view the lawless storm that kindleth up the tremenjious roaring thunder, and fireth up the dark and rapid lightnings, and causeth it to fly through the intensity of space, that belches forth those awful and sublime meteors, and roll-abolly-aliases, through the unfathomable regions of fiery hemispheres. Sometimes, seated in some lovely retreat, beneath the shadowy shade of an umbrageous tree, at whose venal foot flows some limping stagnant stream, he gathers around him his wife and the rest of his orphan children. He there takes a retrospective view upon the diagram of futurity, and casts his eye like a flashing meteor forward into the past. Seated in their midst, aggravated and exhaled by the dignity and independence coincident with honorable poverty, his countenance irrigated with an intense glow of self deficiency and excommunicated knowledge, he quietly turns to instruct his little assemblage. He there endeavors to distill into their young youthful minds, useless lessons to guard their juvenile youths against vice and immortality. There, on a clear sunny evening, when the silvery moon is shining forth in all her indulgence and ubiquity, he teaches the first sediments of gastronomy, by pointing out to them the bear, the lion, and many other fixed invisible consternations, which are continually involving upon their axeltrees, through the blue cerulean fundamus above. From this vast ethereal he dives with them to the very bottom of the unfathomable oceans, bringing up from thence liquid treasures of earth and air. He then courses with them on the imaginable wing of fancy, through the boundless regions of unimaginable either, until, swelling into impalpable immensity, he is forever lost in the infinite radiation of his own overwhelming genius. CXC.-THE ART OF PUFFING. VI-VA VO-CE; with the living voice. (Enter Puff on one side; and Dangle and Sneer on the other.) Puff. My dear Dangle, how is it with you? Dang. Mr. Sneer, give me leave to introduce Mr. Puff to you. Puff Mr. Sneer is this? Sir, he is a gentleman whom I long have panted for the honor of knowing; a gentleman whose critical talents and transcendent judgment— Sneer. Dear sir Dang. Nay, don't be modest, Sneer: my friend Puff only talks to you in the style of his profession. Sneer. His profession! Puff. Yes, sir. I make no secret of the trade I follow, among friends and brother authors. Dangle knows I love to be frank on the subject, and to advertise myself viva voce. I am, sir, a practitioner in panegyric; or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing, at your service, or anybody else's. Sneer. Sir, you are very obliging! I believe, Mr. Puff, I have often admired your talents in the daily prints. Puff. Yes, sir. I flatter myself I do as much business in that way as any six of the fraternity in town. Very hard work all the summer. Friend Dangle! never worked harder! Sneer. But I should think, Mr. Puff, that authors would in general be able to do this sort of work for themselves. Puff. Why, yes, but in a clumsy way. Besides, we look on that as an encroachment, and so take the opposite side. I dare say, now, you conceive half the very civil paragraphs and advertisements you see, to be written by the parties concerned, or their friends. No such thing. Nine out of ten, manufactured by me in the way of business. Sneer. Indeed! Puff. Even the auctioneers, now, the auctioneers, I say, though the rogues have lately got some credit for their language, not an article of the merit is theirs! Take them out of their stands, and they are as dull as catalogues. No, sir; 'twas I first enriched their style; 'twas I first taught them to crowd their advertisements with panegyrical superlatives, each epithet rising above the other, like the bidders in their own auction-rooms! Sneer. But pray, Mr. Puff, what put you on exercising your talents in this way? Puff Sir, sheer necessity, the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention. You must know, Mr. Sneer, that from the first time I tried my hand at an advertisement, my success was such, that, for some time after, I led a most extraordinary life indeed. Sneer. How, pray? Puff. Sir, I supported myself two years entirely by my misfortunes. Sneer. By your misfortunes? Puff. Yes, sir, assisted by long sickness, and other occasional disorders. And a very comfortable living I had of it. Sneer. From sickness and misfortunes! Puff. Hark ye! By advertisements, "To the charitable and humane!" and "To those whom Providence hath blessed with affluence!" Sneer. Oh, I understand you. Puff. And, in truth, I deserved what I got. For I suppose never man went through such a series of calamities in the same space of time. Sir, I was five times made a bankrupt, and reduced from a state of affluence, by a train of unavoidable misfortunes. Then, sir, though a very industrious tradesman, I was twice burnt out, and lost my little all, both times. I lived upon those fires a month. I soon after was confined by a most excruciating disorder, and lost the use of my limbs. That told very well. For I had the case strongly attested, and went about collecting the subscriptions myself. Dang. I believe that was when you first called on mePuff What! in November last? O no. I was, when I called on you, a close prisoner, for a debt benevolently contracted to serve a friend. I was afterward twice tapped for a dropsy, which declined into a very profitable consumption. I was then reduced to--O no-then I became a widow, with six helpless children, after having had eleven husbands, who all died, leaving me in depths of poverty. Sneer. And you bore all with patience, I make no doubt. Puff. Why, yes. Well, sir, at last, what with bankruptcies, fires, gouts, dropsies, imprisonments, and other valuable calamities, having got together a pretty handsome |