V. Yes! Ellen will forgive the fond desire TRISTAN THE GRAVE, A German Story. Dulcior risu tum mihi fletus erit. Ov. IBIS. Among the many authenticated tales of such as from profane curiosity or distress have been led into improper commerce with evil agents, to the loss of their peace of mind on earth, and the eminent jeopardy of their immortal souls, the following instance, related to me by an intelligent Englishman, as having taken place in his own family, some time before the Hanover rats, much to the disquiet of Squire Western, made their way over the channel, deserves never to be forgotten. In the Duchy of Bremen, in Lower Saxony, there lived, at the period referred to, a very respectable baron and his lady, whose name, as it is still extant, in their posterity, I shall conceal from motives of delicacy. I shall not describe the extent of their territory, the number of their vassals, or the grandeur of their baronial castle. Whoever has read the Barons of Felsham may form to himself a pretty accurate picture of their state and pageantry. The baron traced his ancestry up to Bruno the First, and his lady was lineally descended from Cuniza of Suabia. Noble in blood, and agreeable in their persons, the torch of Hymen burnt brightly at their wedding, in the shape of a large bonfire; and ere the chaste planet, that silvered the towns and turrets of their ancient castle, had waxed and waned through the cycle of the sacred number, a third person appeared in the family, as the lawful heir of all its wealth and dignities. On this occasion another bonfire was made, bells were rung, till the towers tottered; and the baron, as was thought proper in that age, got particularly drunk, in honour of the new comer. Tristan, so this important person was named, after his grandfather, was in truth a comely child; perfect in his parts and proportions; with a sober and serene countenance, which seemed to indicate that he was born to be a great dignitary in the church, or in the state. His lady mother, and her attendants soon noticed, however, a strange idiosyncrasy in the hopes of the family; which was, that he never laughed, nor indeed did his features assume the faintest appearance of smiling. He could cry, as other babes are wont to do, and shed as many tears as are usual in the period of childhood; but after the squall was over, and the cloud cleared away, no sunshine illumined his face, and sparkled in his eyes. He looked as sedate as a little stone angel on a monument; his lips were as rigidly fixed; and his gaze expressed but little more intelligence. In vain they tickled and toused him: instead of chirruping and smiling, he showed his dissatisfaction at this appeal to his cutaneous sensibilities, by sneezing and snarling; and if it was prolonged, by obstreperous lamentation. In vain did the maids snap their fingers, distort their countenances, and make every variety of grimace and ridiculous posture before him. He seemed to look upon their monkey tricks with an eye of compassion, and relaxed not a whit the composed arrangement of his muscles. This unseasonable and imperturbable gravity of little Tristan was a thorn in the flesh of his mamma, who had noticed a suspicious looking beldam about her premises, shortly before he was born, and began to fear that some charm had been wrought upon him, which would make him unhappy all his life. She communicated the matter of her anxiety to the Baron; who, since his jollification at Tristan's advent, had taken little or no notice of him; being better employed in harrying his tenants, catching poachers, and hunting such game as was left on his domains. When he found it rather sparse there, he sometimes got by accident into those of his neighbours. He treated the subject of his wife's uneasiness with unbecoming levity; and swore that when his son was old enough to understand Dutch, he would make him laugh till his sides ached, with the tales of the Fox and the Lion, the Devil and the old woman, and many others, of which he had a choice collection. To prove their virtue he offered to tell them to his wife, who civilly told him to go about his business. The learned Hieronymus Marascallerus, a great astrologer, who superintended at present the baron's kennel, and was to take charge of his son's education, when he should arrive at a suitable age, also stoutly denied the agency of any diablerie in the matter; but said that Tristan's sober demeanour was purely the result of natural causes, he having been born when Saturn and Jupiter were in conjunction in Libra. His temperament was therefore that of a generous melancholy; but whether he would make a great poet or politician or captain, Marascallerus could not yet decide, as part of his ephemeris had been eaten by the rats, and he could not adjust the horoscope to his satisfaction. I am no philosopher; and cannot therefore say from the want of what particular bump or organ, or from what metaphysical obliquity it proceeded,-but certain it is, that as Tristan grew up to be a tall boy, and verged to man's estate, the same utter insensibility to ludicrous exhibitions and associations displayed itself in his physiognomy and character. He was not unsocial in his disposition; but very condescendingly joined with the younger fry of the village; and in all sports and games, where violent exercise, or that dexterity which is called manual wit was concerned, he was distinguished for length of wind and ingenuity. When any one of his playmates tumbled head over heels, broke the bridge of his nose, or put any of his articulations out of joint, he saw nothing but the detriment done to the body of the suffering individual, and was incensed by the boisterous, and to him inexplicable merriment of the others. When he had clandestinely appropriated to his own use any chattel that belonged to his neighbours, he acted with as much nonchalance as a Spartan, or one of our own Aborigines would have exhibited on the same occasion. And he showed himself a true son of his excellency the baron in this, that the idea of restitution never seemed to enter into his conceptions as a possible contingency. Of abstract wit or humour, as the cause of risibility, he had no notion at all. He listened to a droll story, as he would to a tragical one; taking an apparent interest in the incidents, but finding no farther relish in their strange combination, than as they might have been mere matters of fact. In a bull he saw nothing but the ignorance of the maker; and he did not detest puns, (if he ever heard any,) because he never suspected the jest. He heard his father's crack-joke without any other expression than that of wonder, as if he half thought the old gentleman was crazy. The baron, accordingly, set him down as of shallow capacity, and abused Marascallerus, in no gentle strain, for neglecting the culture of his mind. The latter, however, in his double capacity of dog-keeper and tutor, was used to hard work, and occasionally to hard kicks; and satisfied with the wisdom of his own predictions, he trained his pupil as he physicked his quadrupeds, upon astrological princi ples. He was, indeed, no very promising lecturer on the na ture and essence of wit; and as for the simple ludicrous, no one who could contemplate the astrologer's odd figure without laughter, was like to be moved to the exercise by any thing he could utter. The baroness, having made other additions to her family, took little heed of her first born. She heard from bis master and her gossips, that he was to make a great judge; and she hoped it might be so. Meantime Tristan was by no means easy in mind, at finding out that he wanted one of the common properties of his species. He was vexed at always hearing himself called Tristan the Grave, and at discovering in repeated instances, that his company was by no means considered an acquisition in jovial society. A face all rosy and radiant with unquenchable laughter,' though like those of Homer's divinities, was to him like that of a baboon; and the roar of convivial mirth from his father's hall or cellar, fell on his ear as if in tones of derision and mockery of one who could not sympathise in its meaning. He learnt from his master the four simple rules of arithmetic, the names of the planets, and, what was more valuable, his letters, by means of which he taught himself to read. In an old closet in the castle were a few books, which the baron neglected, as he said reading hurt his eyes; but it is believed he was never sufficiently versed in the belles lettres to have claimed the benefit of clergy. All these, however, his son and heir perused with deep interest. They consisted of legends of fabulous history, and lives of saints. Unfortunately there was one on the nature of devils, their powers and feats; but whether it was written by Paracelsus or Alexander ab Alexandro or Cardan, or by some body else, I am unable to state. In all these works, Tristan found nothing about the risible faculties or their use. Mr. Hazlitt had not then published his lectures; and if they had been then extant, it may reasonably be doubted if they would have assisted the inquirer in his search. He once asked Marascallerus, whether he supposed any of the heroes, knights and kings, recorded in ancient chronicles, ever wrinkled their faces and made hysterical noises, in the manner of those who were said to be laughing? The astronomer scratched his head, and cogitated much; after which double labour he came to the conclusion, that the worthies in question, after winning their spurs, could have no occasion for such levity. This was some consolation, though not altogether satisfactory to the pupil. He had several times practised before a mirror the detested corrugations which he had noted on the countenances of others; but on such occasions he succeeded in producing no other expression, than that which a Dutch toy for cracking nuts would wear, without any paint; while his eyes seemed looking out above, in wonder and scorn at the performance of his lower features; and he turned with disgust from the image of himself. Time who travels on at his jog-trot pace, whether men turn the corners of their months upwards or downwards, had now carried Tristan along with him, into the twenty-first year of his serious existence; when his excellency the baron received a letter from one of his old friends at Stade, a brother Freiherr, as nobly decended and accomplished as himself. The messenger was treated with as much Rhenish as he thought proper to consume; and Tristan was called to interpret the despatch; the baron complaining of the crabbed hand which his friend wrote in his old age. Much to his astonishment, and not a little to his satisfaction, for ennui was beginning to prey upon his youth, Tristan found that he was himself the person principally interested in the contents of this communication. The noble writer stated that he was waxing old, and that the dearest object of his heart was to establish his only child, the fair Cunegunda, comfortably and according to her rank, in the world, before he went out of it. He had heard much of the wisdom and good qualities of his old friend's son; and if other matters could be arranged to their mutual accommodation, nothing would give him greater satisfaction than the union of their two illustrious houses. Tristan professed himself ready to set forward on such a mission forthwith. After driving round among his vassals for a few days, the baron presented him with a purse but slenderly filled, and lent him the least carrion-like looking steed his stables could furnish. Provided with a suitable answer to the dignified epistle which had summoned him, dictated by the baron and written by the bearer himself, the latter, after tenderly embracing the baroness, and receiving her blessing, mounted his Rosinante; the baron advising him, if he meant to succeed, to put on a pleasanter visage, and not look as if he were going to a funeral. He also offered him a stirrup-cup, which Tristan refused. Marascallerus stood by, wiping away his tears with the end of a dirty apron, which he wore at his more servile occupations, and beseeching his pupil not to go for three days longer, as the planetary influence was just then most malign to all about commencing a journey. Tristan put spurs to his wind-galled charger, and in a short time reached the boundary of his father's domains. Here the beast came to |