BEATRICE.

BY DANTE.

THIS

HIS most gentle lady reached such favor among the people, that when she passed along the way persons ran to see her, which gave me wonderful delight. And when she was near any one, such modesty took possession of his heart, that he did not dare to raise his eyes or to return her salutation; and to this, should any one doubt it, many, as having experienced it, could bear witness for me. She, crowned and clothed with humility, took her way, displaying no pride in that which she saw and heard. Many, when she had passed, said, "This is not a woman; rather is she one of the most beautiful angels of heaven." Others said, "She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord who can perform such a marvel!" I say that she showed herself so gentle and so full of all beauties, that those who looked on her felt within themselves a pure and sweet delight such as they could not tell in words; nor was there any who could look at her and not feel need at first to sigh. These and more wonderful things proceeded from her, marvellously and with power. Wherefore I, thinking on all this, proposed to say some words, in which I would exhibit her marvellous and excellent influences, to the end that not only those who might actually behold her, but also others, might know of her whatever words could tell. Then I wrote this sonnet:

So gentle and so modest doth appear
My lady when she giveth her salute,

That every tongue becometh trembling mute,
Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare
And though she hears her praises, she doth go
Benignly clothed with humility,

And like a thing come down she seems to be
From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.
So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh,

She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes,
Which none can understand who doth not prove.
And from her lip there seems indeed to move
A spirit sweet and in Love's very guise,
Which goeth saying to the soul, "Ah, sigh!"

DERED A BLESSING TO THE SUFFERERS; AND TWO ORPHANS LEFT, THOUGH NOT DESTITUTE, YET FRIENDLESS.

MR

Love built a stately house; where Fortune came,

And spinning fancies, she was heard to say
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame;
Whereas they were supported by the same.

But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.
HERBERT.

RS. DOVE was the only child of a clergyman who held a small vicarage in the West Riding. Leonard Bacon, her father, had been left an orphan in early youth. He had some wealthy relations by whose contributions he was placed at an endowed grammar-school in the country, and having through their influence gained a scholarship, to which his own deserts might have entitled him, they continued to assist him—sparingly enough indeed - at the University, till he succeeded to a fellowship. Leonard was made of Nature's finest clay, and Nature had tempered it with the choicest dews of heaven.

He had a female cousin about three years younger than himself, and in like manner an orphan, equally destitute, but

*Southey always intended to complete this story, but he did not live to fulfil his purpose. It is here brought together for the first time in America, from the pages of that admirable work which has now taken its place as an English classic, "The Doctor."

far more forlorn. Man hath a fleece about him which enables him to bear the buffetings of the storm;-but woman when young, and lovely, and poor, is as a shorn lamb for which the wind has not been tempered.

Leonard's father and Margaret's had been bosom friends. They were subalterns in the same regiment, and, being for a long time stationed at Salisbury, had become intimate at the house of Mr. Trewbody, a gentleman of one of the oldest families in Wiltshire. Mr. Trewbody had three daughters. Melicent, the eldest, was a celebrated beauty, and the knowledge of this had not tended to improve a detestable temper. The two youngest, Deborah and Margaret, were lively, goodnatured, thoughtless, and attractive. They danced with the two lieutenants, played to them on the spinnet, sung with them and laughed with them, till this mirthful intercourse became serious, and, knowing that it would be impossible to obtain their father's consent, they married the men of their hearts without it. Palmer and Bacon were both without fortune, and without any other means of subsistence than their commissions. For four years they were as happy as love could make them; at the end of that time Palmer was seized with an infectious fever. Deborah was then far advanced in pregnancy, and no solicitations could induce Bacon to keep from his friend's bedside. The disease proved fatal; it communicated to Bacon and his wife; the former only survived his friend ten days, and he and Deborah were then laid in the same grave. They left an only boy of three years old, and in less than a month the widow Palmer was delivered of a daughter.

In the first impulse of anger at the flight of his daughters, and the degradation of his family, (for Bacon was the son of a tradesman, and Palmer was nobody knew who,) Mr. Trewbody had made his will, and left the whole sum, which he had designed for his three daughters, to the eldest. Whether the situation of Margaret and the two orphans

might have touched him, is perhaps doubtful, for the fam ily were either light-hearted or hard-hearted, and his heart was of the hard sort; but he died suddenly a few months before his sons-in-law. The only son, Trewman Trewbody, Esq., a Wiltshire fox-hunter, like his father, succeeded to the estate; and as he and his eldest sister hated each other cordially, Miss Melicent left the manor-house, and established herself in the Close at Salisbury, where she lived in that style which a portion of £ 6,000 enabled her in those days to support.

The circumstance which might appear so greatly to have aggravated Mrs. Palmer's distress, if such distress be capable of aggravation, prevented her perhaps from eventually sinking under it. If the birth of her child was no alleviation of her sorrow, it brought with it new feelings, new duties, new cause for exertion, and new strength for it. She wrote to Melicent and to her brother, simply stating her own destitute situation, and that of the orphan Leonard; she believed that their pride would not suffer them either to let her starve or go to the parish for support, and in this she was not disappointed. An answer was returned by Miss Trewbody, informing her that she had nobody to thank but herself for her misfortunes; but that, notwithstanding the disgrace which she had brought upon the family, she might expect an annual allowance of ten pounds from the writer, and a like sum from her brother; upon this she must retire into some obscure part of the country, and pray God to for give her for the offence she had committed, in marrying beneath her birth, and against her father's consent.

Mrs. Palmer had also written to the friends of Lieutenant Bacon, her own husband had none who could assist her. She expressed her willingness and her anxiety to have the care of her sister's orphan, but represented her forlorn state. They behaved more liberally than her own kin had done, and promised five pounds a year as long as the boy should