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she with her own thoughts, that she did not notice the convulsive sobs that shook the confessional, as she described in eloquent words the intensity of her love for Alfred. She depicted her anguish at their separation, the struggle between desire and duty when she received the letters, and finished by praying that it might not impede her entrance into the heavenly world, that purified and holy it was still enshrined in her heart of hearts. As she paused for the benediction, overcome with the exertion, the door of the confessional suddenly opened, and raising her eyes, Rose uttered a shriek of surprise, and sank fainting in the arms of Alfred de Beaujeu! Forgetting all else but that he held his beloved at last within his grasp, he lavished the caresses of affection upon her senseless form, begging that she would grant him but one look in the name of their long cherished love. His voice recalled the spirit from the verge of the unknown world. Opening her eyes, she fixed upon him a look of unutterable affection, murmured his name, and fell back heavily upon his arm - he gazed upon the dead! Once more he saw her, dressed in bridal robes, the orange wreath fastening the veil that concealed her golden hair, the wedding ring upon her finger- all even as he had pictured in his airy visions, there she lay-the bride of Death!

The confessor of the convent (who had been unexpectedly called away, and requested the Superior of the Jesuits to send another brother in his place to the Sacré Coeur, which explained the opportune appear. ance of Alfred,) returned in time to perform the funeral service for the deceased nun, and none dreamed of the mighty agitation that swelled to bursting the heart of the priest who assisted him at the mournful ceremony, and no eye saw the look of intense love that, lingering, took its last fond farewell of the dead novice. The next day Father Alfred petitioned for a transfer to the order of La Trappe, and not a monk of that most severe of severe communities practises more unceasing austerities than Alfred de Beaujeu.

Trust me, gentle reader, many a romance lies hidden beneath the priestly cowl, and the smouldering embers of disappointed affection would ofttimes be found, were the heart of the cloistered nun laid bare to view.

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HEAR, blue-eyed PALLAS! Eagerly we call,
Entreating thee to our glad festival,
Held in the sunny morning of the year,
In this, our rosy isle, to thee most dear.
Thine altar, builded by young maiden hands,

Near the Carpathian's sparkling water stands,
Upon the slant and sunny Rhodian shore,
Gracing the green lawn's undulating floor;

Walled in with trees, which, sweeping wide around,
Rampart the precincts of the holy ground.
Myriads of roses flushing full in bloom,
Send to far Caria surge of rich perfume,

Like the glad incense of our prayer, which floats
Up to the trembling stars. The ringing notes
Of silver flutes roll through the echoing woods,
Startling the Fauns in their shy solitudes.
A hundred boys, each fairer than a girl,
Over the green sward, clad in armor, whirl
In thy wild mystic dance. A hundred maids,

In white and gold, come from the dusky glades —

The loveliest of our beauty-blesséd isle

Their small white feet glittering like stars that smile
In the dark azure of a moonless night:

They bear thy robe of pure and stainless white,
Sleeveless, embroided richly with fine gold,
Where'er thy deeds are told;

Those, chiefly, done of old,

When, bearing in the van, thou didst the Giants fight.

Brain-born of ZEUS, thou who dost teach to men
Knowledge and wisdom, and hast brought again

Science and Art in renovated youth,

And taught fair Greece to love and seek the truth; Thou to whom artist and artificer,

Fearing thy potent anger to incur,

Bend down beseechingly and pray for aid,

In all the cunning mysteries of their trade;
Inspired by thee, young men, immured in cells,
Drink deep of learning at Time's ancient wells,
Forget that Beauty's starry eyes still shine,
And love ATHENA only, the Divine:
Old gray-haired sages pore on antique scrolls,
And feed with wisdom's oil their burning souls:
Inspired by thee, the prophet sees afar
The signs of peace, the portents of grim war,
Foretells the strange and wayward destinies
Of nations and of men, and when the skies
With genial rains will bless the husbandman,
Or vex the earth with hail: Thy favor can

The life of those thou lovest well prolong,
And make hoar Eld youthful again and strong.
Oh, come to us, while glittering with dew
Young Day still crimsons the horizon blue!

Come, PARTHENOS, to thy beloved home,
Though thou afar dost roam,

Where hungry oceans foam,

And there dispensest light barbaric nations through.

Oh, come not to us clad in armor bright,
Intolerable unto mortal sight;

With flashing spear and helm of blazing gold,
Crested with griffin-guarded sphynx; nor hold
Thine ægis, blazing with MEDUSA's eyes,

Wreathed with live serpents! Not in warlike guise,
As when against the giants thou did'st march,
With thy strong tread shaking the sky's great arch,
Terrific in thy panoply of war,

The lightning in thy right-hand flashing far,
Till, struck with fear and overpowering dread,
Heaven's baffled adversaries howling fled.
Come in thy garb of peace, with kindly smile
Breathing new beauty on thy flowery isle;
With mystic veil over thy dazzling brow,
And soft feet, whiter than the mountain snow!
Come to us over the exulting sea,

From thy Tegæan shrine in Arcady,

Thy sacred dragon gliding e'er the waves,

While nymphs, emerging from deep ocean caves,
Float like clear stars upon the misty spray,
And carol round thee many a pleasant lay,
And NEPTUNE, smiling grimly at the strain,
Gives the glad welcome to his vast domain.

And EOLUS bears incense from the shores
Where the mad Ganges roars

And his wild torrent pours

I' the Indian sea, and all the trees rich odors rain.

Thou who the daring Argonauts did'st guide
Over the stormy sea's rebellious tide,

By Lemnos and by sunny Samothrace

Fair isles that sit the waves with stately grace—
By Troas and the dark Symplegades,
And sentest them, with favorable breeze,
Through the wide Euxine unto Colchis-hear,
Oh virgin goddess! and come smiling_near,
While we do wait upon the silver sands,
And stretch imploringly our suppliant hands!
Then shall our maidens, of long summer eves,
Embowered among the overshading leaves,

(While taught of thee, their sweet task they fulfil,
Plying the distaff with a curious skill,)
Tell of the time when, brighter than a star,
Approaching on the azure sea afar,

Thou did'st our humble ceremonies bless,

And smile upon their budding loveliness:

When new flowers sprang in every sunny vale,
New odors breathed in every pleasant gale,
And whiter corn, and richer wine and oil
Thenceforward paid the husbandman's glad toil,

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And blander breezes and serener skies

Thenceforward blessed the isle. Oh, good and wise!

Oh, radiant goddess! shall this sacred day
Pass mournfully away,

And fade to evening gray,

And thou not deign to glad our anxious, longing eyes?

ON BEARDS.

NUMBER TWO.

ALBERT PLEK.

LORD, worshipp'd might He be! what a beard thou hast got!

-His beard grew thin and hungerly, and seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking!' - WHY should a man whose blood is warm within, sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?' - WITH beard of formal cut.'

SHAZOPERE.

grave

TOWARD the termination of my Essay of the last month on this and momentous topick, O thou bright and courteous Editor of the rising and extending KNICKERBOCKER! I had perceived myself to be suddenly falling into the gay and discursive humour that doth alas! so easily beset me; and that is so adverse to, and subversive of a nice and logical consideration of the grave social enormity to which the population of this metropolis is becoming prone: -I can only mean the enormity of Beards.

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I therefore closed, after the expression of a few hasty thoughts; intending to resume the subject when I should bring myself to a more quiet and philosophick tone and frame of mind. I thought also of the familiar Latin proverb, which is not however (as I am classically informed) the proverb of an ancient date, but which nevertheless, whether ancient or modern, carries the judicious purport on its front, that it does not become us to dispute on matters of Taste; and I desired thereupon to examine the other side of the proposition, and to know whether countervailing thoughts might not arise in my breast in favour of this imitation as a matter of taste by civilized man, of the proper appendage of the goat.

Alas, that I should say so! like so many wiser and better men, the longer the time may be that I spend in reflection, the more fixed and perfect is the conviction that I, I only if it must be so, I only am altogether in the right.

Taste! say I, TASTE! Suppose a wretch should decide upon going home and shooting his father and mother-shall it be considered a matter of Taste whether of the two he shall first plump over?

Suppose a man found guilty of having eaten a potato with a woodcock; or of having dismissed his plate during the autumnal months with the head of that delicious bird untouched upon it-is he ever thereafter to be permitted to make use of the word TASTE?

Suppose a Gentleman upon a Summer day to receive from the gar

den of a kind friend at HELL-GATE, (pardon the word, I believe it to
be legitimate,) a delicious head of Lettuce in the cool of morning for
his sallad of the day. He has placed it in a dish apart from the ice, on
one of the stone shelves of his upright Refrigerator. He takes it forth
at the right moment to be dressed by his own hands for the dinner. He
first divests it of the outer leaves. He arrives at the cool, white, elas-
tick, crisp inner-coatings, edged with the most delicate hue of sea-
green
-he cracks them off the central stalk, close to the stalk that bore
them, and this discloses an inner layer of leaves yet more delicate and
pure, with a dreamy imagination, at the topmost border, of what might
in time have mingled into green. He cracks these also off; and be-
hold! the budding leaves that were never intended to be touched by
colour! These also, these infant foliations of this delicious offering of
nature for the recreation of man, these too, are yet more carefully taken
from the parent stalk to delight and crown the bowl.

Now slowly, leaf after leaf, all cool, all spotless, all dewy, all moist, all invigorated, all crisp, leaf after leaf, has been gently folded, tenderly sheltered, in a pure white damask napkin, (O call it dried, absorbed, not wiped !) and quietly, deftly, gracefully, daintily placed into the cool glass bowl; the hollow of each leaf lying upward to receive (from a box-wood or Swiss-poplar spoon) a small quantity of the dressing immortalized by the pen of the late Reverend and distinguished Sydney Smith in the following lines:

'Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the sallad give;

Of mordent mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon,
But deem it not, Lady of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of sult.

Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
True flavour needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onions' atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole,
Then lastly in the flavoured compound toss
One magick spoonful of anchovy sauce.
O great and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
"Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his weary soul,
And plunge his fingers in the Sallad Bowl!"

Our judicious host, mindful that much of the day's happiness of his guests is now at stake, wields artistically his wooden fork and spoon, and while he distributes the contents of the bowl among his friends with the justice and liberality of the gods, takes care to see that each part of each leaf enjoys its due proportion of the dressing. He accomplishes this without in the least degree bruising or discomposing or diminishing the crispness of even the most tender of the leaves, and hardly disturbs its repose until he has deposited it in the centre of the plate of the convive."

Now suppose this convive, this guest, instead of transferring it unbroken unbruised unruffled into the penetralia of his mouth, by means of rolling it gracefully around his silver fourchette, should proceed to mince and chop and hash it up upon his plate with his steel knife, destroying all the lacteal veins and vessels of the tortured plant that at

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