But I must turn now to other scenes and more stirring events, having I trust made the reader well enough acquainted with father, mother, and daughter, at least sufficiently for all the purposes of this tale. It is upon the characters of two of them that all the interest if there be any depends. Let them be marked then and remembered, if the reader would derive pleasure from what follows.
[From "The Album." Manchester, November, 1850.]
BY PHILIP JAMES BAILEY, AUTHOR OF "FESTUS," ETC.
Nature in the poet's heart is limned In little, as in landscape stones we see The swell of land, and groves, and running streams, Fresh from the wolds of Chaos; or perchance The imaged hint of antemundane life,-- A photograph of preexistent light,-- Or Paradisal sun. So, in his mind The broad conditions of the world are graven, Thoroughly and grandly; in accord wherewith His life is ruled to be, and eke to bear. Wisdom he wills not only for himself, But undergoes the sacred rites whereby The privilege he hath earned he may promulge, And all men make the partners of his light. Between the priestly and the laic powers The poet stands, a bright and living link; Now chanting odes divine and sacred spells-- Now with fine magic, holy and austere, Inviting angels or evoking fiends; And now, in festive guise arrayed, his brow With golden fillet bounden round--alone, Earnest to charm the throng that celebrates The games now--now the mysteries of life, With truths ornate and Pleasure's choicest plea. Thus he becomes the darling of mankind, Armed with the instinct both of rule and right, And the world's minion, privileged to speak When all beside, the medley mass, are mute: Distills his soul into a song--and dies.
THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[6]
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE ST. GEORGES.
[6: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer & Townsend, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.]
Rightly enough had the young girl been called "The White Rose of Sorrento." Monte-Leone had based on her his most ardent hopes and tenderest expectations. Nothing in fact could be more angelic than the expression of her face. She seemed the _virgo immaculata_ of Rubens, the _virgo_ of divine love. What would first attract attention at Aminta's appearance was a marble pallor, the paleness of that beautiful marble of Carara, in which when Canova had touched it the blood seemed to rush to the surface and circulate beneath the transparent flesh of the great master.