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man was discovered hanging under the eaves of a house, close by the trellis of a window. A thin silken cord tightly twisted round his throat, had done the hangman's work. The scene quickly attracted all the curious and the idle. The noble, aristocratic features of the dead, the delicate white hands, plainly shewed that the unfortunate man had at one time occupied a higher position than the tattered clothes in which he was concealed would lead one to suppose. His person was searched for papers that might throw some light upon the event; nothing was found, how ever; he had kept everything to himself like a true philosopher. Passers-by at length identified him. This suicide in rags was one of the most distinguished and brilliant geniuses of modern French literature, whose wit threw every saloon and boudoir into ecstasy-Gerhard de Nerval. In order that he might live, he also had grasped the pen, and had looked hopefully forward to recognition and distinction. He had been living a long while dissatisfied and miserable; by night, he roamed through the streets of the great city like a runaway dog; his desk and seat were the table and bench of the commonest tavern ; he frequently sought sleep and oblivion in the most wretched dens, side by side with thieves and the most reprobate of beings, the scum of humanity. Thus had he been thrust about till, all hopes being now at an end, he bethought him that dying was perhaps a little better than living. He had looked for a home, and now the great quartermaster, death, had at length assigned him an abode.

Whatever may be thought of this suicide, it is unquestionably the nobler heroism which enables a man to endure, without rest or weariness, to the last. That Jean Paul, in his darkest hours when crushed to the lowest extremity by the miseries of the world, never lost faith in himself, never listened to the gloomy tempter, but laughed so long in the face of fortune that it began to smile upon him in return'-this indeed commands admiration as a rare and worthy heroism.

He left Leipsic in 1784, and went to live with his mother, in Hof: here he found a night's lodging, at least free of cost, and here he could go about without being pointed to as a beast broken loose from a menagerie, when he walked the streets without a wig, with open breast, and no neck-tie. In this respect, the people of Hof were more tolerant than a certain Leipsic magister, who-probably not remembering how the cynic Diogenes, in tattered garb, had trodden the pride of Plato under foot-had written to the wigless and collarless youth in peremptory terms, demanding the immediate discontinuance of the public nuisance.

A student has to accommodate himself to his needy circumstances as well as he can. "Nowhere,' as we read in Richter's own day-book, 'does one collect poverty's siege-coins more merrily and philosophically than at the university. The academic citizen proves how many humorists and cynics Germany contains.' But it is doubly painful when the man of mature age has to pass year after year enduring the same, or it may be even greater hardships; of this, Jean Paul had a torturing experience after his settlement at Hof. On the posts of his doors he wrote in large characters: ‘Dear Christian friends, you perceive that I have not much money, what inference do you draw from it?' On passing the door, one entered a narrow chamber; at the window, sitting on a wooden stool, was our hero, thinking and labouring; the rest of the apartment was occupied with the washing his mother had taken in. At another time, the mother is seen busily plying her distaff. An account of what mother and son earned in this way was carefully kept; a little account-book, relating how much we gained by spinning,' has been preserved. According to this, the receipts of the family, in March 1793, amounted to 2 florins, 51 kreutzers,

3 pence; in April, to 4 florins, 3 kreutzers; in May, to 4 florins, 9 kreutzers, 3 pf., &c., &c. Against the entry of 2 florins, 1 kreutzer, the sum received in September 1794, it is observed that, on the 9th of this same month of September, a new pair of boots was purchased for the youngest son Samuel, 'which cost 3 thalers, about the whole quarter's income.'

A writer will be pardoned for anything but tediousness. I fear I shall become tedious, or shall weary the patience of the reader, if I devote one page to tell how the tears of Richter's mother fell down upon her web or into her wash-tub-how affliction and silent grief preyed upon the heart of the aging woman like a gnawing worm, as her first-born son, whose laborious industry she watched, began to sicken; the lion who fought with royal courage became a lamb; her son had discontinued his usual and regular walks, his pleasure in life seemed to be extinguished, and the mirthful sally with which he used to deal out consolation was silent; the gentry of Hof affirmed that he was half-crazy, and the judgment was rapidly and universally endorsed.

His quietness, however, which pained his mother, was not an unstringing of his spirits or the submissiveness of despair, nor was his resignation the coldness of apathy; he had made a bargain with the longings of his heart, had made his peace with the world. Agony has ceased to make him complain. There is not a case in which I have not deserved my affliction. Every unpleasant sensation is an indication that I am untrue to my resolutions. Epictetus was not unhappy.' What does it matter to him what may be the opinions of his worship the mayor, or of his reverence the parson? Men for the most part judge very pitifully; why are you so anxious for the praise of children or of fools? No man honours you in a beggar's coat; be not therefore proud of the respect that is shewn to your clothes.' How just! Wo to the man who has no appeal from the judgment of the world! he is a lost man! 'Let one,' as a certain critic remarks, 'observe the public in a theatre: the life of a man is here compressed within a period of three hours; it is played upon the open stage with brilliant lights and with all the appliances that human art and oratory can suggest to render it clear and simple, and still, after the curtain falls, how diversified are the opinions the public pass upon both the hero and the play.' But now let it be supposed that the drama is not concluded in three hours, but that it lasts during a man's whole lifetime, that it is not represented with any effort towards clearness, that upon many episodes no streams of gaslight fall, and that we have no clue to many situations, no motive for many actions; and that the world or the critical public during the representation is occupied in divers ways, bestowing its attention for a moment now here, and now there. Where is the wonder, then, if that world condemns where the drama cannot be reviewed according to the common gauge of the three Aristotelian unities, but must be measured by its own particular rules-or, metaphor aside, when the object of criticism is a man of original genius and character?

The soul of the Doric hero rose all the clearer and more unconquerable from the depth of its sorrows and oppressions, its humiliation and deprivations, after the twelve labours. The angry goddess is appeased; on Eta commences the apotheosis of the son of the gods. For Jean Paul, also, the hour strikes when the inexorable forces of destiny at length cry 'Hold!' In the year 1796, the startling story of Hesperos issued from the little washing and spinning chamber: it obtained for its author, in all the states of Germany, that for which he had laboured-recognition. What a god-genius,' writes the octogenarian Gleim, 'is our Friedrich Richter! Here is more than Shakspeare, I say to myself, in more than fifty passages I have

underlined. I am perfectly enraptured at the genius from which these streams, these rills, these Rhine-falls, these Blandusian springs issue and irrigate humanity, and if I am displeased to-day at some sentences such as the muses have not inspired, or even with the plan itself, I shall not be so to-morrow.'

The fight for existence and recognition is fought out; sunshine breaks through the clouds; henceforth the star of Jean Paul shines brightly in the heavens.

YOUNG BENGA L.

AMIDST all the shortcomings of our western civilisation in British India, but more especially in Bengal-amidst all our disappointments, and our regrets at the barren crop of results from the labours of a century, we may point to one small section of the native community, who, if they be not with us, are certainly not against us: we allude to Young Bengal.' Readers who have heard of 'Young England,' of 'Young France,' and other juvenile embodiments of national movements, will at once perceive who are intended by the term Young Bengal; though they may hitherto have been in complete ignorance of the existence of such a class of persons in this part of British India.

same undying hate for every 'dog of a Christian,' for every unbelieving Feringhee, as of old; and though they may seldom find it convenient or prudent to make manifestation of their true feelings, we must not the less be on our guard against these fanatics, who deem it a matter of high and holy merit to murder an unbeliever. There are scores, nay, hundreds of such men as these who have gained much learning at the government expense, who are tolerably deep-read in much of our literature, and to some extent in science; but all this is coveted merely tions. In this they have been wondrously successful, as a means of obtaining employment in official posiand the Indian executive have for a long time past

omitted no opportunity of promoting these fluent Christians. Well, the government have sown the plausible Mohammedans even to the exclusion of storm, and they have reaped the whirlwind. The foremost men in the present murderous rebellion are Mohammedans. Every Mussulman official in Upper Bengal and in the North-west Provinces has turned against us, has obeyed the dictates of his faith, and shall look in vain amongst this class of men for one drawn his sword upon us 'dogs of unbelievers.' We to join the swelling ranks of Young Bengal.

Amongst the natives of Hindostan, whether Hindoo or Mussulman, we find men of all ages who The government of the East India Company found are advanced in their ideas, who have imbibed certain themselves assailed, some time since, for sluggishness notions more or less tinctured by civilisation, who in the cause of education. They resolved that the possess a certain taste for European things. There reproach should no longer attach to them, and accordare many rajahs of Bengal who ape European life ingly an order went forth for large grants for educaand habits, who are driven by English coachmen, tional purposes. Colleges were built, philosophical furnish their mansions in English style, read Englishchairs' were established, professors with strange books and newspapers, and seek English society. The rajah of Bithoor, the Nena Sahib of infamous notoriety, was one of this class of men. Civilisation had indeed reached him, but it had come too late; it had exerted no softening influence on his heart or his mind: he was the same fanatical, bigoted Mussulman as ever. Civilisation had not even taught him worldly wisdom, or he must have felt how unequal, how hopeless the contest with British power.

Such as these are not comprised in the term Young Bengal. The class of Hindoos we allude to, though perhaps not of more promise to a superficial observer than such as the above, are, in our opinion, the men who shall hereafter do much for India; men who cannot stand still, who must progress, even though not in the true path. This class of young men is by no means small, nor contemptible; and though they have as yet made but small demonstration, though they must be sought for if to be found, it is beyond a doubt not an unimportant part they will enact at no distant day.

Whence come they? Of what class are they? They have sprung from the class-rooms of the government colleges. They are of no particular caste, or class, or section of native society; amongst them may be found the sons of rajahs, of zemindars, of baboos, of shroff's, of brokers and traders. But this one fact must be borne in mind-they are all descended from the Brahminical race. Not one Mussulman, not a single follower of the Prophet of Mecca is to be found in their ranks. Those stiff-necked, stubborn disciples of the Koran remain as they were a thousand years ago, and as they will be found a thousand years hence. They never change or progress; they are neither softened nor civilised; they have still the

names and huge beards were imported, highly paid inspectors were appointed, and annual reports drawn up and placed in type for England's satisfaction; and the cry is now: 'See what we have done!' Well, they have at least succeeded in rearing Young Bengal; but beyond that one first result, it is hard to lay one's hand upon any perceptible effect upon the vast masses of the people of India. The bulk of the population, indeed, has not been reached; we, and our schools, and our books, are as much strangers to them as we were fifty years since.

But what of Young Bengal? The government colleges and their professors have between them wrought a great change in the thoughts and dispositions, and even in the career of most of the young students. At a cost of about eighty or ninety pounds sterling per annum for each pupil, the Company has managed to instil large quantities of classical and British literature into the minds of the Hindoo scholars. An acquaintance with pure science has been less general, very many young lads contenting themselves with a knowledge of general literature, devouring with much zest Shakspeare, Milton, Byron, Moore, and our long range of prose writers, from Dr Johnson to Douglas Jerrold. Anything more solid than this they appear to have systematically eschewed as indigestible food. They were content to catch ideas, to be able to quote freely high-sounding sentences, without any practical application.

The peculiar qualities of the Bengalee mind-its elasticity, its pliability, its susceptibility-fitted it especially for the reception of theories, for the appreciation of poetical adornments; and thus at the end of a student's career in the chief Calcutta college, he came out in no way fitted for an active career,

in no way prepared to become a useful member of in, and they will not hesitate to tell you how comsociety, even as so-called society there exists, but pletely they despise the old creed of Siva and replete with much to render him discontented, and too | Vishnu; how thoroughly their European studies have frequently unhappy. taught them the folly and absurdity of faith in any such vain religion; and that they attend the Hindoo festivals merely to please their mothers or their wives.

Nothing could possibly exceed the magnificence and extent of the government educational establishments in Calcutta for rearing Hindoo atheists. The ease, the comfort, the luxury of the spacious apartments and halls of these godless colleges,' cannot by any means be excelled. The audiencechamber of the ancient Mogul kings of Delhi, the spacious courts of the old Assyrian palaces, the dwelling-places of Belus and Nimrod, the amphitheatres of Athens and Rome, were not more noble than the great halls and lecture-rooms of the City of Palaces. There, in those cold shady recesses, far removed from the glare, the dust, and the scorching heat of a Bengal day in September, the young rajahs and incipient baboos reclined beneath grateful punkahıs, upon soft inviting cushions, listening with halfclosed ears, with drowsy eyes and nodding head, to the oft-repeated verses, the well-conned chapter, but too glad when the hour approached for their departure, when the evening drive and the nightly carouse came to wind up the daily routine of their listless student-life.

Young Bengal is not so very young but that he has a wife. In India, however, marriages take place at about the age at which in England young gentlemen would be breeched; and young Hindoo ladies are not unfrequently betrothed immediately after cutting their last teeth, so that it does not amount to much to say that all our college students of the first and second classes are married. Most of them drive to college in carriages that would not discredit Hyde Park; some few drawn by valuable 'pairs;' but some also borne along by the real Hindoo hack, all bone and skin, whilst tattered red curtains are fluttering wildly from the windows. With this singular race, there is but one step from the magnificent to the mean, from the princely to the paltry. They recognise nothing like respectability; they know nothing but the extremes of luxury and dirt.

We have said that these young students-the hope of their country-are married; and in this we at once find one certain evil result of their own highly finished half-education. Cultivated as their tastes may be far above the old-caste prejudices of their race, these men have all married women utterly unlettered; for to this time, education is all but unknown amongst the females of the higher classes of natives; it has made some way amongst lower castes, but there it has remained. So long accustomed to the highly seasoned intellectual food of the colleges, Young Bengal turns with indifference, if not with disgust, from her who should be his best and constant companion and helpmate, to find the solace, the wit, the thought, the knowledge of passing events in some less legitimate acquaintance-in one who has made it her study to minister to the vitiated tastes of the frequenters of the gay mansions in Durrumtollah and the Circular Road. The wife who was good enough for one of this class of Hindoos before education lifted him from his former place in native society, is no longer to be tolerated; hence a wide schism in the houses of the race, where the evenings and the nights of Young Bengal are but too seldom passed.

It is not difficult to ascertain the creed of this school of Hindoos. Amongst their own families and friends, they are still disciples of Brahma and Vishnu. The Rhat Jattra, the Doorga Poojah, and other great Hindoo festivals, find them foremost in the ranks of devotees: they are still the same faithful, constant attendants at the temples of their forefathers. But question them on their belief in the scenes and ceremonies they are taking a part

No member of the fraternity of Young Bengal has yet found courage to speak out boldly before the world and tell their unbelief. They shrink from the consequences; they dare not take a step which, whilst it would assuredly entail upon them the anathemas of their families, and banishment from all Hindoo society, would at the same time procure them no admission within European circles. In British India, the line of demarcation between white and black, between European and Asiatic, has been so unmistakably drawn, so rigidly enforced, as to be impassable. There is something, however, more fatal even than colour or caste tending to exclude Young Bengal from any sympathy from Europeans: it is their scepticism. With but very few exceptions, these young men are atheists, and to us openly, avowedly so. The teachings of the government professors have indeed destroyed the old superstitions of the land, but they have failed in replacing them with anything more worthy of belief. They have learned so thoroughly to despise the ancient creed of their ancestors, that knowing nothing of the one living faith, they have flung themselves into the arms of unbelief, swearing by the words of Voltaire and Tom Paine.

No Epicureans of the ancients ever revelled in more enervating luxury and voluptuous ease and idleness than the upper ranks of Young Bengal. Their private life reads like the chronicles of Nineveh, the diary of some imperial Roman. The early indolence of the morning; the late and costly breakfast; the mid-day bath; the lounging on soft couches, and listening to melodious poetry; the evening drive; the lamp-lit meal, the music and gay female company, the late wine-cup and midnight song-such is but a faint though truthful picture of the everyday life of Young Bengal.

But let us not forget to except some few more honourable men than such as these. We can count up half a score of names of Hindoos who, amidst all their learning, have not run wild, nor rushed into vicious excesses, who ply their pens, and though not as rightly so as we could wish to see, still use them honestly and vigorously. One of the most able weekly journals of Calcutta is not only conducted, but written throughout by a young Hindoo pupil of the government college. The articles from his pen, though sometimes errant, are, on the whole, able and instructive. He is a Brahmin of high family, and has to this time remained true to his family faith.

It is impossible not to regard this enlarging class of young men with interest. It remains to be seen what their children will become, and whether, feeling their own want of sympathy from uneducated wives, they will have courage to give their daughters instruction not less than their sons. This is already happening in some few instances; let us hope the example may be widely followed; and from that time may be dated a new and brighter era for British India. None save they who have dwelt in the far east, and who have known the Hindoo in his home, can say truly how servile and debased is the career of such a man's wife. Her mind left a barren waste without one single elevating or generous principle, what can be expected from her, and what can be hoped from the rising generation intrusted to her care for so many long years!

The great work of enlightenment, of Christianising, must be done through the wives and daughters of

Young Bengal. Once admit the light of day into the private chambers of the Hindoos, and we shall quickly behold a wondrous change. Until that can be done, we but labour in vain-we do but as yet sow the seeds of unbelief, of domestic discord and unhappiness.

DIPSOMANIA.

IN the progress of events, new scientific terms are continually making their appearance; the last is perhaps Dipsomania-a craving for intoxicating liquors which partakes of the character of insanity; the term being compounded of the Greek words for thirst and madness. Whether thirst, in the usual meaning of the word, has anything to do with the maddened propensity for drinking, is of no consequence. The name now given to the disease will do as well as any other; and under whatever phraseology, we are glad to find that the medical world is at length concerning itself with one of the most distressing forms of mental derangement.

Tipplers, hard-drinkers, men who go off on a drunken ramble, as it is called, for days or weeks, are nothing singular. We have all seen or heard of such persons-an annoyance they are to society, a discredit to themselves. These, however, are not dipsomaniacs. Applying to the subject the nomenclature of natural history, the genus drinker consists of two specieshe who, with intervals of common-sense, relieved at worst with short fits of delirium, still puts a good face on affairs, and conducts himself on the whole pretty fairly; and he who, by a peculiar condition of brain, sinks under a chronic and uncontrollable appetite for intoxicants: this last being the dipsomaniac proper. The law, which always drags heavily at the heels of general intelligence, has not yet been able to make any distinction in the drinking species; and accordingly, however far a man be gone in dipsomania, however confirmed in this kind of madness, and however incapable of thinking or acting correctly -in fact, if he should fall into ruin himself, and ruin all about him-still, legally, he is not insane; and in defiance of common sense, he goes at large, no magistrate being authorised to grant a warrant for his apprehension and confinement.

So very extraordinary a stretch of respect for the liberty of the subject' is beginning to attract attention. An improved knowledge of mental disease now makes it evident that the dipsomaniac is as completely an irresponsible being as he who is affected by other forms of lunacy. It may be that, in the first instance, he has brought his disease on himself; he has, perhaps, in that eager pursuit of business and desire to be rich, which is the scandal of the present age, greatly overtasked his brainworked hard all day, mistimed his meals, sat up late, taken no outdoor exercise, kept his mind on the rack, and to sustain nature, resorted to stimulants. So much may be admitted: we may look on the victim as self-immolated; but what then? From whatever cause men become maniacs, it is surely the duty of society to see that they are restrained from committing grievous wrong, and subjected to a humane and remedial mode of treatment.

A perusal of the lately issued pamphlet of Dr Alexander Peddie of Edinburgh,* ought to remove any doubts which may be entertained respecting the actual nature of the drinking insanity. Speaking of the diseased state of the dipsomaniac, this writer observes: 'I consider that his condition is strictly one of combined moral and mental insanity, and the consequence of a vicious impulsive propensity-for I cannot in such a case denominate it simply as a vice;

The Necessity for some Legalised Arrangements for the Treat ment of Dipsomania. By Alexander Peddie, M.D. 1858.

and I regard it as rendering him incapable of the exercise of social duties and civil rights; and not merely so, but as lessening and altering the nature of his culpability in reference to crime, and thereby his liability to punishment of the same kind, or to the same extent, as the other members of the community. That the excessive incontrollable desire for intoxicating drinks is a disease, and that it is symptomatic of some abnormal cerebral condition which gives it the character of a form of insanity, cannot be doubted; and it should be always kept in mind that this condition is not so much produced by intoxicating drinks, as it is by that which created the desire for them.' As to the manifestation of insanity, it may be addictedness to drinks, as well as to hallucination of ideas. To declare whether it is so, or not, is as much a question for medical skill in the former case as in the latter. But medical observation has declared that dipsomania is a physical proof of mental disorganisation, and therefore it appears to me that such cases stand exactly on the same footing as other forms of insanity; and that, as it never has been questioned that government may deal with insanity, it seems to be equally within its province to deal with dipsomania. Surely, viewed in the light of common sense, and sifted and scrutinised by the strictest rules of induction, the confirmed dipsomaniac ought to be regarded as of "unsound mind," or, as I would rather call it, "diseased mind," non compos mentis, and should be taken care of for his own sake, for the welfare of his family, and for the good of society.'

The remarkable thing about the dipsomaniac is his want of power to restrain himself. With certain faculties still active, he knows that he ought not to drink, yet he cannot help drinking. In medical language, the crave is upon him. The main desire of his life is how to obtain liquor; his capacity for business is confined to the means of gratifying his leading desire; moral control has lost its sway over him; he has no power to resist the propensity whenever gratification is within his reach; he has, in fact, become the involuntary slave of the vice, and would sacrifice his last sixpence or his shirt, or sell his soul to the devil, for one drop more, rather than be disappointed. Yet, strange to say, the poor creature, in this condition, has no pleasure in drinking. He takes it, not sippingly and with gusto, enjoying it as the bon vivant does, socially or convivially, but gulps it down in large quantities, away from society and observation, and even as it were a drug; and the only satisfaction derived from the act is, that it secures blunted feeling, insensibility to the wretched state of mind which prompts the desire, and an escape from the fancied miseries of his existence. When this has gone on for some time, although a suspension of the use of stimulants be imposed by the interference of friends, or by the occurrence of an attack of either of the two resulting forms of delirium, yet his mind has suffered so materially, that, unless continued control be exercised over him, and this for a very considerable time-which is not often practicable in the present usages of society, and is contrary, as I have shewn, to the common law of the land-he returns immediately like the dog "to his vomit, and like the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire;" and his progress towards some incurable form of insanity, or to an early death from some other superinduced disease, is certain. His moral faculties become more and more diseased, his intellectual powers weakened, disturbed, or at last even annihilated. He becomes either facile or wasteful, or incapacitated for transacting the ordinary business of life, or he is mischievous, and commits homicide or suicide; these various results being induced according as his natural disposition and passions may urge, or his hereditary predisposition may incline, or some previous injury of the head or

disease of the brain may precipitate him. That such, more or less, is the condition of the dipsomaniac, and that these consequences may, and do, frequently result, cannot be disputed. And yet, because the unhappy victim of this disease does not fall strictly under the present legal definition of unsoundness in mind, he is permitted to go at liberty; any interference in the shape of control is illegal, and his nearest and best friends, and he himself, are deprived of the only means by which his cure could be effected, and his restoration as a useful member of society accomplished. He is thus permitted, without any barrier being placed, or allowed to be placed, in the way, to hurry himself on to ruin, reducing his own family, it may be, to beggary, perhaps even to disgrace, and at last to accomplish his own sad death, or be convicted and punished for some criminal act committed in an hour of intoxicated madness, for which he is nevertheless held responsible in the eye of the law. In the latter case, indeed, the total neglect of the law to provide for this humiliating disease, is well illustrated by its viewing that very circumstance, which had deprived the criminal of self-control, to be, not a palliation, but an aggravation of his guilt.'

An effort-a stern determined effort-and the throe was over Firmly bracing my nerves-firmly grasping the branches-I clung to my seat, resolved to know more.

That was a fortunate resolution. Had I at that moment given way to the wild impulse of passion, and sought a reckless revenge, I should in all likelihood have carved out for myself a long lifetime of sorrow. Patience proved my guardian angel, and the end was otherwise.

Not a word-not a motion-not a breath. What will they say?-what do?

My situation was like his of the suspended sword. On second thoughts, the simile is both trite and untrue: the sword had already fallen; it could wound me no more. I was as one paralysed both in body and soul-impervious to further pain.

Not a word-not a motion-not a breath. What will they say?what do?

The light is full upon Maümee; I can see her from head to foot. How large she has grown—a woman in all her outlines, perfect, entire. And her loveliness has kept pace with her growth. Larger, she is lovelier than ever. Demon of jealousy! art thou not content with what thou hast already done? Have I not suffered enough? Why hast thou presented her in such witching guise? O that she were scarred, hideous, hag-like-as she shall yet become! Even thus to see her, would be some satisfaction-an anodyne to my chafed soul.

But it is not so. Her face is sweetly beautiful— never so beautiful before. Soft and innocent as ever

The remedy proposed for this deliberate injustice and inhumanity, is the establishment of asylums, distinct altogether from those for ordinary lunatics, to which, by medical certificates under proper authority, the unfortunate class of dipsomaniacs may be consigned. It is believed that in a variety of instances, a short retirement would have the effect of so restoring a healthy state of brain that the maniacal-not a line of guilt can be traced on those placid appetite for liquor would disappear, and the patient be either sent home effectually cured to his friends, or allowed to assume the management of his affairs within the limits of the asylum. When the public mind is more fully awakened to the benefits of this mode of treatment, we may expect that legislation will be brought to bear on the subject.

OCEOLA:

A ROMANCE.

CHAPTER XLIV.-AN ECLAIRCISSEMENT.

THESE were the shadows upon the water promised by Haj-Ewa-black shadows upon my heart.

Mad queen of the Micosaucs! what have I done to deserve this torture? Thou too my enemy! Had I been thy deadliest foe, thou couldst scarcely have contrived a keener sting for thy vengeance.

Face to face stood Maumee and her lover-seduced and seducer. I had no doubt as to the identity of either. The moonbeam fell upon both-no longer with soft silvery light, but gleaming rude and red, like the chandeliers of a bagnio. It may have been but a seeming-the reflection of an inflamed imagination that influenced me from within; but my belief in her innocence was gone-hopelessly gone; the very air seemed tainted with her guilt-the world appeared a chaos of debauchery and ruin.

I had no other thought than that I was present at a scene of assignation. How could I think otherwise? No signs of surprise were exhibited by either, as they came together. They met as those who have promised to come-who have often met before.

Evidently each expected the other. Though other emotions declared themselves, there was not the slightest sign of novelty in the encounter.

For me, it was a terrible crisis. The anguish of a whole life compressed into the space of a single moment could not have been more unendurable. The blood seemed to scald my heart as it gushed through. So acute was the pang, I could scarcely restrain my self from crying aloud.

features-not a gleam of evil in that round, rolling eye! The angels of heaven are beautiful; but they are good. Oh, who could believe in crime concealed under such loveliness as hers?

I expected a more meretricious mien. There was a scintillation of cheer in the disappointment.

Do not suppose that these reflections occupied time. In a few seconds they passed through my mind, for thought is quicker than the magnetic shock. They passed while I was waiting to hear the first words that, to my surprise, were for some moments unspoken. To my surprise: I could not have met her in such fashion. My heart would have been upon my tongue, and my lips

I see it now. The hot burst of passion is pastthe spring-tide of love has subsided-such an interview is no longer a novelty-perhaps he grows tired of her, foul libertine that he is! See! they meet with some shyness. Coldness has arisen between them-a love quarrel-fool is he as villain-fool not to rush into those arms, and at once reconcile it. Would that his opportunities were mine!-not all the world could restrain me from seeking that sweet embrace.

Bitter as were my thoughts, they were less bitter on observing this attitude of the lovers. I fancied it was half-hostile.

Not a word-not a motion-not a breath. What will they say?—what do?

My suspense came to an end. The aid-de-camp at length found his tongue.

'Lovely Maumee! you have kept your promise.' 'But you, sir, have not yours? No-I read it in your looks. You have yet done nothing for us!'

'Be assured, Maumee, I have not had an opportunity. The general has been so busy, I have had no chance to press the matter upon him. But do not be impatient. I shall be certain to persuade him; and your property shall be restored to you in due time. Tell your mother not to feel uneasy: for your sake, beautiful Maumee, I shall spare no exertion. Believe me, I am as anxious as yourself; but you must know the stern disposition of my uncle; and,

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