though worn down with sickness, but when they were all assembled on a plain in front of the castle, Menendez, with his sword, drew a line round them on the sand, and then ordered his troops to fall on and make an indiscriminate massacre. The bodies were not only covered with repeated wounds, but cut in pieces, and treated with the most shocking indignities. A number of the mangled limbs of the victims were then suspended to a tree, to which was attached the following inscription :- Not because they are Frenchmen, but because they are heretics and enemies of God.' When intelligence of this barbarous massacre reached France, it excited an almost universal feeling of grief and rage, and inspired a desire for vengeance of corresponding intensity. Though Charles IX. was invoked in vain, by the prayers of fifteen hundred widows and orphans, to require of the Spanish monarch that justice should be awarded against his murderous subjects, there was in the nation itself an energy which provided an avenger. Dominique de Gourgues determined to devote himself, his fortune, and his whole being, to the achievement of some signal and terrible retribution. He found means to equip three small vessels, and to put on board of them eighty sailors, and one hundred and fifty troops. Having crossed the Atlantic, he sailed along the coast of Florida, and landed at a river about fifteen leagues distance from the May. The Spaniards, to the number of four hundred, were well fortified, principally at the great fort, begun by the French, and afterwards repaired by themselves. Two leagues lower towards the river's mouth, they had made two smaller forts, which were defended by a hundred and twenty soldiers, well supplied with artillery and ammunition, Gourgues, though informed of their strength, proceeded resolutely forward, and, with the assistance of the natives, made a vigorous and desperate assault. Of sixty Spa escaped from the fort with about twenty others, who concealed themselves in the woods. In this extremity, six of them ventured to throw themselves on the mercy of the Spaniards; but they were cruelly massacred in sight of their companions. Laudonnière, seeing no way of escape but by getting over the marshes to the ships at the mouth of the river, led the way, and several of his men followed him through the swamp into the water. Unable to proceed, he sent two of them, who could swim well, to the ships for help. At length he was carried on board of a French shallop, which was in search of them, and, having picked up the remaining fugitives, who were concealed among the reeds, carried them to a little ship at the mouth of the river. In this they undertook to reach their native country. On their voyage they encountered want, cold, hunger, and thirst, but they ultimately entered, in a miserable state, the port of Bristol, where they met a hospitable reception. A more tragic end awaited Ribault; all his vessels were dashed to pieces (as we have before observed) in the tempest, which lasted some days. With great difficulty the crews succeeded in reaching the shore, and directed their steps towards the fort. After a toilsome journey of nine days through a rugged country, what was their amazement and grief to find the fort in the hands of the inveterate enemies, alike of their enterprise and their faith! Many of them were for enduring the worst extremity, rather than fall into the hands of the Spaniards; but Ribault, judging their situation otherwise wholly desperate, determined to open a treaty with Menendez, who received them in the most courteous manner, and pledged himself, on the faith of a soldier and a gentleman, that they should be well treated, and sent back to their country. Upon this pledge, the French delivered up their arms; niards in the first fort, there escaped but fifteen; and all in the second fort were slain. After a company of Spaniards, sallying out from the third fort, had been intercepted and killed on the spot, this last fortress was easily taken. All the surviving Spaniards were led away prisoners, with the fifteen who escaped the massacre at the first fort; and, after having been shown the injury that they had done to the French nation, were hung on the boughs of the same trees on which the Frenchmen had been previously suspended. Gourgues, in retaliation for the label Menendez had attached to the bodies of the French, placed over the corpses of the Spaniards the following declaration I do not this as to Spaniards, nor as to mariners, but as to traitors, robbers, : and murderers.' Having rased the three forts, he hastened his preparation to return; and on the 3d of May embarked all that was valuable in the forts, and set sail for La Rochelle. In that Protestant capital he was received with the loudest acclamations. At Bordeaux these were reiterated, and he was advised to proceed to Paris, where, however, he met with a very different reception. Philip had already an embassy demanding his head, which Charles and Catherine were not disinclined to give, and had taken steps for bringing him to trial; but they found the measure so excessively unpopular that they were obliged to allow him to retire into Normandy. Subsequently he regained royal favor, and found employment in the service of his country." It metes us hour by hour, Felt and confess'd by man;- Wov'n by a hand unseen, Day is the time for toil; Night balms the weary breast; Stars have their vigils, seas awhile Will sink to peaceful rest: But round and round the shadow creeps Of that which slumbers not-nor sleeps! Effacing all that's fair, Hushing the voice of mirth Into the silence of despair Around the lonesome hearth,And training ivy garlands green O'er the once gay and social sceno. In beauty fading fast, Its silent trace appears,And-where, a phantom of the past Dim in the mists of years,— Gleams Tadmor o'er Oblivion's waves, Like wrecks above their ocean graves Before the ceaseless shade That round the world doth sailIts towers and temples bow the head— The pyramids look pale: The festal halls grow hush'd and cold, The everlasting hills wax old. Coeval with the sun Its silent course beganAnd still its phantom race shall run, Till worlds with age grow wan;Till Darkness spread her funeral pall, And one vast shadow circle all. MODERN ULYSSES. No sooner was the hatchment mounted over the portico of Beechwood Hall, announcing that its late proprietor, Sir John Denyers, was dead, and that his widow had succeeded to the splendid mansion and broad lands, than it was hailed, as the signal for attack, by all the un head about "first love," "respect for the memory of the dead," &c. which, although, no doubt, extremely silly, had the effect of disinclining her from a second speculation in the hazardous adventure of matrimony. As the number of suitors increased, their individual chances of success, of course, diminished, and their audacity being in the exact ratio of their despair, her own mansion was no sanctuary against the intrusion of her unbidden guests. The matchless impudence of one of her visiters deserves particular record. It happened that one day the widow went out for several hours, to call on a friend at some distance, leaving only two male domestics, the butler and a footboy, in the house. Towards evening, a horseman rode up to the hall door, and applied himself with more than ordinary energy to the knocker. He was a tall, military-looking personage, with a cast of features which might have been termed handsome, but for a certain cynical expression, which much detracted from their pleasing effect. The stranger flung his rein to the boy, desiring him to take his horse to the stable and have it well fed and littered down for the night, and then stalked into the house, and, notwithstanding reiterated announcements from the servants in chorus of "Mistress is not at home, sir," stopped not until he reached the dining-parlor, when, turning to the butler, who had followed him, he said, "Here, let that valise be taken up into her ladyship's chamber, and let a fire be lit there, for it's rather cool." "Very cool indeed," said the domestic, applying the epithet to the speaker and not to the weather, and was meditating some impertinent observation, when the stranger, carelessly, as if it had been his handkerchief, drew a pistol from each pocket, and placed it on the table before him. The butler, who had a mortal dread of fire-arms, quitted the apartment in haste, as if to do the stranger's bidding, but, in reali married men within a circumference of twenty miles. They flocked to her by scores, arrayed in the mourning cloak of condolence, endeavoring to smuggle in their love under the disguise of sympathy. Her lawyer, a hale bachelor of sixty, requested she would do him the honor to consider him less in the light of a professional adviser than a friend zealous for her interests, and would fain have presented her with a title to his services in his shriveled hand: but he had already given her a surfeit of parchment; and the man of law discovered that, although his suit had frequently been successful in those courts where the presiding goddess is represented to be blind, it was quite another thing to plead his cause before a woman with her eyes open. In fact, ere she had worn the weeds of widowhood for six weeks, her paths were beset, and her dwelling besieged; and never, certainly, had woman a better chance of mending her luck, for there was not one of the whole five and forty lovers who was not willing to stake his life upon the sincerity and disinterestedness of his affections. She could not open a window in her house, but a myriad of billet-doux came showering into it like a snow-storm. She could not take a walk in her most private grounds, but a lover started from behind every bush, and flung himself upon his knees in the path before her. Others, again, affecting bucolies, would wander forth into the fields, crook in hand, and carve her name upon every tree, to the great endangerment of her timber. Every domestic in her household was bribed by one or other of her suitors, and she was under the consequent necessity of changing her establishment twice a-year, from the lady's maid to the stable-boy. While, however, there exists not a rebel in the citadel of the heart, the fortress will hold out long against external assaults; and the widow had got some antediluvian notions into her ty, to communicate to his fellowdomestics, the females, his suspicions of the character of the guest. Their conversation was, however, soon interrupted by the violent ringing of the bell; and it was some time before Geoffry could summon courage to answer it. "Your pleasure, sir?" said he, re-entering the dining parlor. "Some dinner!" responded the other. The butler paused, but, at length, said, "Very sorry, sir, but we have not got anything in the house." "Then look in the poultry yard," was the reply, and let me have a broiled chicken in half an hour." The other started, but the stranger's eyes happening to fall upon the pistols, Geoffry seemed to understand the appeal, and, being anxious to go off first, hurried out to counsel the sacrifice of a chicken to their common safety. In the course of the half hour, the dish was smoking before the guest, who, having no notion of glasses being placed on the table for the mere purpose of ornament, pronounced the monosyllable "Wine." "If you please, sir," said Geoffry, we can't get at any, for mistress has got the key to the wine-cellar "Nonsense! in her pocket." exclaimed the other, "who ever heard of a wine-cellar with only one key why, keys in a great man's house are like pistols, there are always two of a pattern.' The allusion had its effect; Geoffry vanished in an instant, and shortly reappeared as Ganymede. In a few minutes afterwards, the noise of wheels announced the return [of Lady Denyers, who, on being informed of the stranger's arrival, like a woman of spirit, went straight into the dining-room to demand an explanation. On the next instant, the servants heard a loud scream from their mistress, and, concluding that she was murdered, they, very dutifully, ran out of the house, and set off, at full speed, each in a different direction, for the doctor. It seemed that no sooner had the lady cast her eyes upon the visiter, than she uttered a piercing shriek, and sank upon the carpet. Now, when a man faints away, the approved method of treatment is to kick and cuff him till he recover; but with a woman the case is somewhat different. The stranger raised her in his arms, threw half a glass of water in her face, and poured the remainder down her throat, and, at last, succeeded in restoring the patient. "And is it really you, Sir John?" exclaimed the lady, when she became somewhat tranquil. "Ay, in very deed, Caroline," was the reply; "ghosts do not drink Madeira and devour chickens." "Then you were not killed and eaten by those frightful Ashantees?" "You greatly wrong that very respectable and much-slandered people," said Sir John; "they have better tastes, and preferred my society to my flesh, insomuch that I had some difficulty in escaping from their hospitalities." "I hope, my dear," said the lady, "you were duly sensible of their attentions?" "I was very nearly being insensible to them and everything else, for the worthy gentleman who did me the honor to engross my society, seeing me determined on quitting him, followed me as far as he could, and then fired a parting salute from his musket, into which he had, inadvertently, put a bullet, and left me with half an ounce of lead in my shoulder." "O dear," exclaimed the lady," how very horrid ! and did you walk all the way in that state?" "I did not walk two hundred yards, my love, for I fell into a bush, exhausted from loss of blood, when I was picked up by an Ashantee damsel of sixty, whose charms would have made your ladyship jealous, and who extracted the ball, put a plaster of herbs to my wound, and smuggled me down to Cape Coast Castle, where I found the report of my death so well authenticated, that I was challenged by an Hibernian brother officer for presuming to doubt it." "And were you so rash as to fight with him ?” "No, for I had not time, being anxious to embark for England, to relieve your anxieties and to save my executors as much trouble as possible. But how is my nephew?" "O, in high health and spirits, and inconceivably vain of the title." "I am sorry for that, because I have not quite done with it." At this moment a noise was heard in the passage, occasioned by the return of the domestics, bringing with them the posse comitatus and fourteen of the lady's lovers, who, taking it for granted that the ferocious ruffian would have escaped before their arrival, valiantly rushed to her rescue. When, however, they heard the voice of the intruder in the parlor, it became a point of precedence among them which should enter first. At length a clown, in the back ground, pressing forward to get a glimpse of what was going on, inadvertently applied the stimulus of a pitchfork to the rear of the man before him, who communicating the impetus to the next, it passed on to the van, and they all blundered into the room, where, to their utter astonishment, they beheld the living_Sir John tête-à-tête with his lady. Doubtless, you will conclude the baronet enacted Ulysses on the occasion, and drove out his rivals at point of sword. Credit me, reader, he did no such thing. He was a man of the world, and knew better than to make enemies of fourteen blockheads; so he ordered up a dozen of claret, and they made a night of it. NOTES FROM THE NOCTES. Shepherd.-WHICH O' us, I wonner, looks best at the settin' in o' another wunter? I suspeck it's me-for you're getting mair and mair spinnleshankit, sir-ilka year. As for your hauns, ane may see through them and a'thegither you're an interesting atomy o' the old school. -I fear we're gaun to lose you, sir, during the season. But dinna mind, sir-ye sall hae a moniment erected to you by a grateful nation on the Calton-hill-and ships comin' up the Firth-steamers, smacks, and ithers-amang them now and then a man o' war-will never notice the Parthenon, a' glowerin' through telescopes at the mausoleum o' Christopher North. North.-I desire no other monument, James, than a bound set of the Magazine in the library of every subscriber. Yes-my immortal ambition is to live in the libraries and liberties of my native land. Shepherd.-A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! North.-James, I KNOW MYSELF. I am neither a great nor a smallbut a middle-sized man Shepherd. What the deevil! dinna ye belong to the Sax Feet Club? North.-No. The Fine Fellows invite me to their Feasts and Festivals-and I am proud to be their guest. But my stature is deficient the eighth part of an inch; and I could not submit to sit at any board below either the Standard or the Salt. Shepherd.-A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! North.-I am not a curious creature, James, but a commonplace Christian. As to my intellectual stature-and it was of that I spoke when I said that I am but a middlesized man-it is, I am satisfied, the stature best adapted for the enjoyment of tranquil happiness in this world. I look along the many levels of life-and lo! they seem to formone immense amphitheatre. Below me are rows, and rows, and rows of well-apparelled people-remember I speak figuratively of the mindwho sometimes look up ungrudgingly and unenvyingly-to where I am. sitting smiling on me as on one be |
