Ah! that glorious dream-life season never will return to me,

Ne'er with eyes undimmed, unfearing, springtide I

again shall see,

For a rude hand grasped my treasure, and a rude voice seemed to say,

'All the sweet beliefs of childhood harder creeds shall

sweep away."

Yet around their vanished beauty still a hallowed brightness lies,

Still, as from long-faded roses, doth a lingering sweetness rise,

And I know that I have caught a fleeting glimpse of Paradise.

Oh! that golden age that memory traces in Hesperian prime,

Like to some rare ancient painting mellowed by the hand of Time;

When the cherry-tree seemed laden with a freight of fairy snow,

And the blushing apple-blossoms set the orchard all aglow;

When the waxen flowered syringa peeped above the garden walls,

And the lilac matched its clusters 'gainst the guelderrose's balls;

When I half believed the river was some wild enchanted tide,

And at moonlight on its waters elfin fleets were seen to glide;

River winding through the sedges 'neath the bending willow trees,

Sparkling, glinting in the sunlight, rippled by the perfumed breeze;

Creeping through the clover meadows, through the thyme-sweet valleys borne,

Where the poppy plants its banner scarlet-bright among the corn;

Narrowing, deepening, darker growing as it steals its

onward way,

Through the woods where I have spent full many a merry holiday;

When the leaves were turning yellow, when the nuts were ruddy brown,

Or when Spring, with budding blossom, wandered forth the woods to crown;

When each bird from bush and bramble carolled gaily to its mate,

Little dreaming thoughtless boyhood meant its home to desolate;

When amidst the topmost branches cooed the dove in murmurs soft,

And the crow's shrill note resounded from his rocking

home aloft ;

Blackbird, thrush, or skilful chaffinch with its lichenspangled nest,

Wren or graceful water-wagtail, each the object of my quest;

Through the fields, adown the fallows, where peewits and corncrakes hide,

Or by reedy streams whereon the water-hens so proudly glide;

Like a warrior carrying warfare into some fair peaceful land,

All intent upon the booty tempting my too eager hand, Forth I wandered, little heeding days of ceaseless patient toil

That had formed the curious structure destined soon

to be my spoil;

Little recked of birds made homeless, little recked of wrong or right,

All the wrong had faded, vanished in the blaze of glory's light.

Boyhood e'en has its ambition, I was brave and lithe and young,

And I felt my blood all glowing as from bough to bough I swung;

Up the gnarled old trunk I clambered, up its dizzy height I scaled,

Never once my foothold faltered, never once my spirit failed;

Dauntless then I seized the treasure, proudly bore it to the ground;

But another claimant met me, angrily on me he frowned;

He had marked the nest, and therefore held it as his lawful prize,

Should he now submit to see it carried off before his eyes?

I had stolen a march upon him, 1 my booty must resign;

I was strong, but he was stronger, and the battle was not mine.

MY FRIEND THE GARIBALDINO.

WE are told in all "good" story books (I ought rather to say "goody ") that there is a certain equality in the circumstances common to all lives; that all has been so equitably arranged, that the same actual amount of happiness is bestowed on all, though the proportions may be distributed in various sums and at different times. Charlotte Bronté did not believe so. Did Thackeray? No, not here, at all events. In the next world we may understand why men are subject to such various apprenticeships in this life, but here the mystery is inscrutable. I was led to think of the disparities of human fate by having been suddenly brought to a knowledge of the most unhappy life, take it for all in all, I ever heard of,-altogether the unhappiest, and the most undeservedly so.

I was spending a dull winter in a small town in Tuscany in the year 1863. My

ostensible occupation was connected with a railroad, but an hour or two of dilatory occupation, conducted on the old Talleyrandian maxim, "Surtout, point de zèle," satisfied the claims of my employers. The rest of the time was at my own disposal. I will frankly own I was bored to death. I had the usual amount of mental resources peculiar to young men of two-and-twenty. There was the theatre; but the prima donna sang through her nose, and expired every evening as "La Traviata," with a cough which seemed more likely to result in apoplexy than to be caused by consumption; and she nightly lamented her "premature" and "sinful" end, when every movement of her obese form, every expression of her large flat face, certified her as a respectable matron of fifty. There was society, but sugar-andwater, dominoes and Italian conversation had no great attractions for one who had a tendency to hydrophobia, a love of billiards, and a very confused notion of Italian parts of speech. Besides these difficulties, I like to talk to girls (they always understand one's philological efforts, while married women are always so talkative or so preoccupied), and girls are an unknown quantity in the constituents of an Italian conversazione.

I therefore idled away my time at a caffé in the Piazza, or varied it by sundry feeble and abortive attempts at painting. N.B.-If sculpture be the American vice, I think painting is likely to become the mania of Young England. What insane attempts I have seen "executed" (the term is no misnomer) by my friends and by myself! But I will not be abusive or discursive.

The caffe to which I devoted my spare minutes was a very humble and seedy-looking one. The persons who principally frequented it were the second or third-rate employés of the town-the lower bureaucracy. They loitered there over their cups of black coffee till it was time to go to the theatre. After eight o'clock, and until eleven, it was almost entirely deserted, and that was why I gave it the honour of my custom. One other person seemed to have chosen it for the same reason. I generally found him there when I entered, and we usually left about the same time, before it was again thronged after the close of the theatre.

During the hours I sat at the table next his, endeavouring to spell out the news of the "Nazione," I had ample opportunities of observing him. There was a nameless something about him which at once excited curiosity and baffled it.

He was a small, plain man, of common appearance, with dark hair and dark complexion. Dark is not, perhaps, the right

word. He was slate-coloured from head to foot, like an elongated slate-pencil. The contour of the face was young, and so were the step and bearing. The expression was worn and haggard. A cup of black coffee, a tumbler of water, a small saucer filled with sugar, and one of those oblong rolls called semele-so familiar, even to untravelled eyes, from the various prints of the Last Supper, in which, with entire disregard of the anachronism, they are invariably introduced-were always placed before him. He diluted his coffee as if quantity and not quality were his object, and devoured every crumb of bread and every lump of sugar.

I

In spite of an air of affected dandyism, caused by his invariably wearing a tail-coat and white waistcoat, I had a conviction that the man was starving. Every time I saw him his face looked thinner, and his whole appearance more poverty-stricken: and there was a sort of hollow appearance about the chest and stomach, which was unmistakeable. especially noticed one fact concerning him— he was rarely, if ever, addressed by his own countrymen. None of the daily guests at the caffé ever spoke to him. A stray dropper-in might speak to him; but if their visits became regular, they left off doing so. I saw that he was universally ostracised. At first I suspected he might be a spy, but spies do not waste their time day by day in an empty coffee-room, or keep constant to one alone. Besides, if he spoke little, he listened still less. He would sit for hours absorbed in the newspaper. Once or twice there had been a slight discussion among those present about some incident of the campaign at Naples in 1860; and, after a pause, one of the disputants appealed to him. He started as if he had been brought back from the clouds; but when the question was explained to him, he distinctly and with martinet precision placed the whole scene clearly before them.

"You were there?" exclaimed one of the bystanders. He bowed, a dark flush passed over his swarthy cheek, and he turned away; but I saw that an unwonted light lingered in his eyes for some minutes afterwards. Whatever might be his occupation or calling, it was not (however abnormal) lucrative. I observed he looked paler and paler, that the poor thin tail-coat was more and more threadbare, that the seams seemed to keep together by force of habit, and not through strength of stitches, and the edges of the waistcoat were ragged and torn, and hung like a limp rag over the hollow chest. I had once or twice tried to commence a conversation with him, but his answers were curt and few, and my own stock of Italian words was so limited that I soon

ceased that ineffectual attempt. It was impossible to offer assistance when it was not only unasked, but when the whole manner of the man kept aloof all indiscretion and forwardness.

Yet why should a man starve who has sound brains and whole limbs? I looked at him. There was nothing mean or weak in his face. About the veins of the forehead and beneath the eyes there was a certain tension, which bespoke great sensitiveness, and in the expression of the mouth and lips a feminine softness which I interpreted as betokening a great natural recoil from mental or physical suffering; but the other features, though sharp and attenuated, were firm and frank-looking. In the sombre, sunken eyes there was sometimes that look of searching wistfulness with which a dumb animal, when in pain, explores the faces around for sympathy or affection; but this was not the abiding look. Usually they wore a kind of dogged defiance, yet helpless withal, as one might fancy the eyes of some poor slave would look while under the lash. I must confess that I had gradually worked up my imagination very romantically about him. I had an instinctive feeling that he deserved interest, and the instinct was a true

one.

It

One evening, shortly after I arrived at the café, a violent storm broke over the town. The windows rattled, the rain poured outside, and oozed from under the door, inside. It was a Libeccio with a vengeance. went on, without intermission, all the evening. Instead of going to the theatre, every one remained in the caffe, which was soon overflowing with dripping umbrellas and reeking coats. Tobacco and damp, rum and perspiration, made the air suffocating.

My friend, if I may so call him, had arrived before I did. I saw him, after the first hour or so, make a move, as if he thought it best to return to his home. He rose, evidently for that purpose; but the noise of the rain was so violent, that he paused, and, with a glance at his thin coat, which would have been literally washed off his back had he dared to brave the aggressive fury of the weather, he sat down again beside his marbletopped table, and took up his newspaper. He was extremely short-sighted, and held it up to his nose. This short-sightedness was of use to him. It prevented his being aware of many looks and gestures which would have been painful to him. Insulting glances and significant signs were often turned in his direction, which made my blood positively boil, but which were happily ignored by

him.

To-night the caffe was so crowded that

every table was full, and some chairs were drawn up to his. The conversation around him-though, as usual, he was absolutely silent-became very loud and fast, and as is generally the case, when a number of persons are cooped up together in an unwholesome atmosphere, there were some irritable and quarrelsome tones. At last, as every moment added to the number of the refugees from the storm, the whole place was blocked up, and two men were driven, by the pressure around them, close up to him, and leaned, with their cigars in their mouths, over the table at which he sat. Through the thick vapour which now encircled the spot, I saw him lean back as he sat, and try to move his chair away from them.

66

Scusa, signore," began one of the men, with the courtesy of his nation; but he was stopped by his friend, who whispered something to him. The whisper was loud enough for those around him to hear, for there was a sudden silence, and every head was turned towards my friend. I could see, through the swaying to and fro of the figures around, that he was livid. I saw him stoop forward, and putting aside the first speaker with his thin hand, address himself to the other. I caught the words, "I will not put up with an unprovoked insult; you must answer to me for your words."

The man he addressed laughed contemptuously.

"It is a lesson, however, you must have learned by this time. You have borne, if all be true, worse than a puff of tobacco smoke in your face, for traitors are spat upon."

The man he addressed sprang to his feet, and, with an effort of which I should have thought that slight frame incapable, he flew at his throat. There was a general rush to the spot, and after a while the two were separated, but with difficulty. There was a storm of invectives, of which I could only make out one word, repeated by every mouth, traditore, and the uproar was stunning.

I, of course, interfered, and with some effect; having sent some of the most pugnacious to the other side of the caffe, with an impetus due to my proficiency in one at least of our national accomplishments, and I tried, but very uselessly, with my crippled phrases, to explain how cowardly it was for numbers to struggle with one. After a while there was a pause, and a small space was cleared around us. I stood my ground beside him and waited. The others all surrounded the man who had been so insolent, and all talked and inveighed at once. It was a per

fect Babel.

The master of the caffe had disappeared at

the beginning of the fracas, and the waiters were streaming and creeping about, picking up broken cups and prostrate chairs, when suddenly the doors of the caffe opened gently, and, in the midst of the confusion, walked in two gensdarmes. They addressed themselves to the host, who, in some unaccountable way, appeared in front of them, and requested an explanation of the disturbance, and in the same breath said that, after such a breach of the peace, it was best to close the caffé at once, for that night at least. To my surprise, after a few attempts to relate the affair, to which they refused to listen, they were obeyed. Great-coats and cloaks were put on, umbrellas were clutched, and after a great deal of defiant spitting, lighting of cigars, murmurs, and execrations, they filed out. My friend stood, with his hands on the back of a chair, and with his eyes fixed on his enemies. I shall never forget their expression as he watched them out.

After the last had left, he turned to the host, and put a few "centesime," the price of his nightly cup of coffee, into his hand. "I shall not return here," he said, and went out. The rain still fell in torrents. I got to the door as soon as he did.

"Pardon me," I said; "let us walk together as far as our way is the same. I have an umbrella, which will shelter both."

"Thank you."

We walked on. It was a difficult achievement, as our steps slipped repeatedly. Just as we entered the street in which I lived, my companion stumbled, and reeled against the wall.

"I must stop," he said, and gasped for breath. Like a brute, I had rushed on with my strong, English, well-fed limbs, while he, already thoroughly overcome by the exertion and pain of the previous scene at the caffé, was fairly knocked over by my rapid walking and the boisterous wind. I went up to him, and saw that in another moment he would have fallen down. I drew his arm in mine, and tried to lead him on; but his limbs shook, and his teeth chattered as with fever. I did not pause then, but lifted him as I would a woman-Heaven knows, he was as light as a feather!-and carried him to my rooms.

after I had heaped every cloak and cover I could find on the insensible sufferer, I proceeded, by a tea-spoonful at a time, to put a little between his lips. The warmth without and within gradually revived him.

"Where am I?" he said, starting up. "With me.' He stared vaguely in my

face.

"We walked home from the caffé," I said, "and the wind and rain nearly choked you." "I remember." He could scarcely turn paler, but his whole frame shuddered.

'You would have fallen had I not brought you here."

"You have been very kind, but now I must leave you."

"Nothing of the kind; do you not hear the rain and the wind. I would not turn a dog out in such weather. No; here you must stop." Before I had finished, his head had sunk back again on the pillow, and I saw his eyes close. He was thoroughly exhausted. I drew the curtains of the bed, and having partially undressed him, let him sleep. His boots were literally in holes, though there were traces of their having been mended and remended. His shirt was in rags, his coat threadbare. I never saw a man so emaciated. I felt certain that that miserable meal-if meal it could be called-that he took every night at the caffe, was all the sustenance he had had for weeks.

There was no rhodomontade in the tone with which he said these words. They evidently escaped from him involuntarily.

"You must oblige me," I continued, as if I had not heard his exclamation, “by remaining here a few days; you are not aware how weak you are."

He looked at me thoughtfully.

one.