had been on the Zug Spitz. They all laughed at him, for no one believed it. This, it seems, hurt the poor fellow very much; so off he set, and after being absent several days, came home again, and told the people he had been up the Zug Spitz, and that if they looked they would see a pole at the top. No one believed the tale now more than before; yet when they looked with their glasses, there, sure enough, was the pole stuck on the very highest point. The poor fellow carried up this pole barefooted, with only a penny roll for food, and he slept on the ice. This appears to be the proper kind of character to undertake such perilous ascents; for it is quite evident there is less danger to those whose sensibilities are deadened, as in the case of an idiot, than to those in whom every faculty is keenly alive to every new impression and every trifling difficulty and danger.

So incessant is the tension wrought upon the nerves by these dangers, that our author tells us the chamois hunter's eye acquires a peculiar expression-it is dilated, it is wide open and prominent, the lids are drawn back, and the pupil is seen in a large surrounding space of white. A man who had been three days on the mountains wore all the appearance depicted in Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Ugolino."

But, on the other hand, there are the pleasures and excitements before alluded to: there is the wondrous scenery, enhanced to the highest degree when the adventurer reaches the sky line or crest of a range. The excitement in this last instance is increased by the uncertainty of what is to come. The hunter may look down on a wide plain, with distant cities, and roads, and tortuous rivers, or his view may be limited to a sea of snow-clad peaks. The author describes the sensations experienced in such a position as most exquisite-the vastness of the scene has an overwhelming effect. It does not require to be a Moore to be aroused to a sense of magnificence and sublimity.

There is also the excitement of the chase-not that of killing the quarry, which Mr. Boner especially eschews, but the pursuit, the varying chances, the hope deferred, and the climacteric point of the short exquisite second before death. There is the empty Alm Hütte, or chalet, clean and nice as if prepared for a visitor, a stack of logs for fuel, household utensils, and a loft with hay to sleep in. Below, there is the Senn Hütte, where there are kindly peasants and foresters, food and rest, laughing, music, and merriment, and, as at the Solachers', most sweet and lovely village maidens.

It appears that there is a great drawback to the pleasures of the chase in Bavaria in the innumerable poachers, who not only carry on incessant war against stags and chamois, but also against all foresters and gamekeepers, not sparing, sometimes, the amateur, who is neither the one nor the other. The author relates a case in which he was adventurous enough to attempt the capture of a poacher with his friend Berger, but they had to run for their lives down precipices and hanging by latschen, with an occasional ball to quicken their progress. Between the poachers and foresters deadly affrays are of very frequent occurrence. Mr. Boner had only the foresters' side of the story, and according to them their acts of prowess are truly extraordinary:

It was to the young forester's assistant, Kothbacher, that the adventure happened. He was going along the ridge of the mountain-the Geidauer Eibel June-VOL. XCVIII. NO. CCcxc.

N

Spitz it is called--and looking down, what should he see but twenty-three men standing by the hut. There is a single hut there, you know, on a green alm at the foot of steep wild rocks. Well, he looked at them a long time, and watched what they did, and thought, and thought, "If I could only get a shot at one of them-only at one!" And so he kept on thinking how it would be possible to manage, and did not go away from the place, but observed them through his glass, until at last they began to move. There is a little path that leads from the hut right over the Eibel Spitz, and he saw that they were coming up, one behind the other; so he lay still among the latschen, and waited till they approached. By-and-by-perhaps it was three-quarters of an hour, or maybe an hour after-he heard their voices. Presently he saw them winding up the path that led towards him. He allowed them to advance till they were about eighty yards distant, and then let fly at the foremost he hit him in the middle of the breast, and the man dropped down on the spot, stone dead. When they heard the shot, they all stopped, and ran back some distance, and grasped their rifles. They were exceedingly astonished, for they saw no one, and could not tell where the shot came from. Kothbacher, as he lay among the latschen, could hear them talking together, and deliberating what they should do. Some were for going back, when one of them said, it was a shame to think of going away without knowing more about the matter. If even there were six or seven foresters there, what should they mind? there were twenty-three of them, and it would be a cowardly thing to turn back for a mere handful of men. Come what might, he said, he would go on, and as to the others, they might follow if they liked. So with rifle in hand all ready to fire, on he went alone, straight towards the place where Kothbacher was lying concealed. He let him come on to about sixty paces, and fired: the shot turned the fellow quite round on one side; he stopped short and then fell, and when the others saw this they all turned, and were off as fast as they could go. Kothbacher now crept down the mountain among the latschen on the opposite side, keeping in the bushes, and passing through the woods so that nobody might see him. I don't know how it was, but when he came down by the Gems Wand, instead of going the way he always did, he took the path that led to Baierisch Zell. It leads, you know, over the mountain stream, and there is a very narrow path along it, and across it is a bridge-you passed it when you came down from the Roth Wand on your road to the Solachers'. Well, when he came here he stopped to load his gun; while he was doing so -it was dusk already-he thought, as there was no knowing what might happen, he would load one barrel with shot; so in one barrel he put a ball, and a handful of shot in the other. He then sat down among the bushes to watch if any one came, for he fancied it was not unlikely that the fellows he had met on the mountain might take that path downward, and if so, they would then have to cross that narrow plank, and as they came on he might give them another welcoming.

He had sat about an hour when he heard voices; they came nearer, and presently he saw men across the water, and could just make out that they all were armed. That's right, he thought, they are the same; and when near, just as they were all crowded together, about to cross the bridge, he fired his shotbarrel into the midst of them. You may suppose their consternation, after having had two of their comrades shot on the mountain without seeing who it was that fired, now in the darkness to have the same thing happen once more. Kothbacher went leisurely through the bushes, and walked quietly home; but they were terrified almost out of their senses, and did not know what to do, for they never thought themselves safe, and could not tell if another shot might not come peppering in among them a moment after.

'Did he kill one with the last shot?" I asked.

"No; he said he heard quite well the shot falling among them after he fired. He hit one only in the breast; of course he wounded him badly, but the man recovered."

"And the two he shot on the mountain ?"

"One only was dead-the first he fired at: he fell directly, and never moved after. The other he hit in the shoulder, and broke his arm, so that it was obliged to be taken off."

And here is another remarkable instance :

One of the keepers, while out on the mountain, saw three Tyrolese cross the Inn. He at once suspected what was their intention, and instantly set off for a pass among the rocks, where, if he were right in his conjecture, he knew they would surely come. For an hour or more he waited, without hearing or seeing anything of them. At length, however, he espied the poachers advancing up the mountain, and, keeping close to avoid being seen, let them approach. The place where he stood was a narrow path, with rocks rising on one side, and on the other a precipice. When the men were a short distance from him, he stood forth and called to them to lay down their rifles. As they did not obey, he shouted that, cowards as they were, he would lay down his, and challenged them, if they dared, to do the same and come on all three of them armed only with their poles. They did so, and the three advanced upon him. Calm and collected, he watched his opportunity, and, as they approached, thrust his ironshod pole two inches deep into the breast of the foremost man, and sent him toppling down into the abyss. The others, terror-stricken, sprang back to seize their rifles, but the keeper was too quick for them: he had already grasped his own, and, levelling it, threatened to send a bullet through the first who should dare to raise his weapon. There was nothing left them now but to retreat; and as they did so the keeper fired at one, sending a charge of coarse shot into his back and wounding him badly.

The keepers, on the other hand, well know that should they fall into the power of their enemies, the retribution will be terrible.

But we were most of all struck with the following strange account of a man shot with the rifle at such a distance, that there is every probability, with the vast space there exists between mountains for sound to lose itself the wave propagating itself downwards as well as upwards and forwards a thing that cannot take place on a flat surface or level country, that he never heard the discharge of the gun that slew him— was, in fact, killed without knowing it:

"Do you see yonder green knoll?" said Neuner, pointing to a rock rising out of the valley, and behind which a path seemed to lead from the lower pastur"Well, just on that spot a poacher was shot."

ages.

"Who shot him?" I asked.

"One of the under-foresters. The fellow was a noted poacher, and had already fired several times at the keepers. He was the most desperate in the whole country, and being well known as such they had often tried to get hold of him, and bring him in dead or alive. The young forester was quite alone, and standing just about where we are now, when he saw him from afar coming up the path; so he sat down and waited for him. He knew the path would lead him to yonder hillock, and presently sure enough he saw his head appear, and then his shoulders, and then the whole fellow. He was aiming at him all the while, but it was not until the man had reached the top of the rock, and stood before him at his full height, that he fired. The ball hit him in the centre of his chest. It was rather strange, but when struck the poacher pulled open his shirt as if surprised, looked at the shot-wound, and then falling forwards on his face, dropped down dead."

LITERARY LEAFLETS.

BY SIR NATHANIEL.

No. VIII.-EDWARD QUILLINAN.

EDWARD QUILLINAN is a name not much known out of literary circles. Even within them, it is not a name known and read of all men. The son-in-law of Sir Egerton Brydges, and afterwards of Wordsworth-the assailant of Mr. Savage Landor, in retaliation of the Southey and Porson dialogue the occasional contributor to quarterly and monthly periodicals-and the accomplished Portuguese scholar-all this Mr. Quillinan was known to be, and this was about all. Nor has his biographer, in the sketch prefixed to the present edition of his Poems,* added much to this sum total of knowledge. Mr. Johnston has been cautiously mindful of his friend's opinion, that there is on the part of candid biographers a danger that they may tell the public more than the public have a right to know. The memoir, however, so far as it goes, is interesting and in good taste-so much so, that it stimulates the reader's appetite to grow by what it feeds on.

Wordsworth, avowedly slow to admire, and, as Mr. Johnston says, "by no means forward to express approbation even when he felt it," and "scarcely condescending to the language of mere compliment," many years ago affirmed his conviction that Mr. Quillinan had it in his power to attain a permanent place among the poets of England; that his thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and judgment in style, and skill in metre, entitled him to it; and that if he had not then (1827) succeeded in gaining it, the cause apparently lay in the choice of subjects. We fear that the ensuing quarter of a century closed without the success in question being realised. Feeling, contemplative ease, and what himself somewhere calls the "bland pressure of judicious thought, and chaste constraint of language," mark Mr. Quillinan's verse; but we nowhere recognise, positively (as Wordsworth hoped) or potentially † (as Wordsworth asserted), the hand of the MAKER-the poietes, whose poiesis

* Poems by Edward Quillinan. With a Memoir by Wm. Johnston. Moxon. 1853.

The Lusiad of Luis de Camoens. Books I. to V. Translated by Edward Quillinan. With Notes by John Adamson. Moxon. 1853.

Wordsworth's criticism, however encouraging to the subject of it, was, we should suppose, infinitely less flattering than that of the aspirant's first father-inlaw was likely to be, if we may judge from extant specimens. Mr. Gillies, for instance, however valuable to literature as a translator and magazine sketcher, is nowhere, to our knowledge, accepted as an original bard. Yet to this gentleman's quite forgotten effusions in verse could Sir Egerton Brydges apply (and doubtless with entire sincerity) such panegyric as the following, in letters addressed to the amiable verse-maker: "It is perfect inspiration! It is as far superior to any the best composition of any living poet [N.B. This was in 1813], as Shakspeare, and Milton, and Spenser are to the dead. All the compositions of other living poets will appear comparatively as nothing to me. If I could attend to any minor delight in the delirium of pleasure which this fragment gives me,” &c., &c. And again: "You have fixed yourself on my mind, beyond all competition, the greatest genius of the age. Do not accuse me of fulsome compliment. I am incapable of saying what I do not think." This "Curiosity of Literature” is to be found in R. P. Gillies' "Memoirs of a Literary Veteran,” vol. ii.

guarantees a permanent place among the poets of England. His brightest passages shine with a reflected light from Rydal's bright particular star -for Wordsworth had been, from his youth upwards, and under circumstances ill adapted to foster any such predilection, the venerated object of his poetical studies and musing sympathies.

Mr. Quillinan was a soldier by profession, but literature was his lifelong pursuit. He was born at Oporto in 1791, of Irish parents, from whom he was parted in his seventh year, in order to receive an English school education. At fourteen he returned to Oporto; but everything was changed-his mother dead-his father married again-and the counting-house to which he was introduced so heartily sickened him ("for my passion," he says, "was for books very unlike ledgers"), that he speedily left for England, settled awhile in London, and in 1808 purchased a cornetcy in the Heavy Dragoons." With some brother officers he engaged in certain satirical brochure writing, which "brought him in" a dividend of three duels at once. The latter part of the Peninsular campaign he passed with his regiment in Spain. After the peace, he published a poem called "The Sacrifice of Isabel" (1816), which he described as an endeavour to portray with energy and simplicity, natural feelings in trying situations. It was dedicated to Sir Egerton Brydges, whose daughter, Jemima, he married in the following year. In 1821, being quartered at Penrith, he went over to Rydal with a letter of introduction to Wordsworth; but, Mr. Johnston tells us, "singularly enough,* as Mr. Quillinan approached Rydal Mount he became ashamed of presenting himself with a letter which he was aware spoke of him in rather flattering terms, and he rode back again to Penrith with the specific object of his journey unaccomplished. He soon, however, retraced his steps, and made a friend for life. About the same time he quitted the army, and took a cottage on the banks of the Rotha-a stream whose name he gave to his second daughter, just as Coleridge gave that of the Derwent to his second son. He lost his wife in the following year, and went abroad in bitter anguish," endeavouring to dissipate by change of scene the burden of sorrow which it had pleased Heaven to lay upon him." It is, perhaps, to the "shock and passion of grief" by which his spirit was then rent, and afterwards again when bereaved of his second wife (Dora Wordsworth), that we owe the most impressive and affecting

*Not absolutely without precedent, however. Twice seven years before this date, a far more profound and impassioned admirer of William Wordsworth undertook on two occasions a long journey expressly for the purpose of paying his respects to that great poet; and on each occasion he tells us, "I came as far as the little rustic inn at Church Coniston-and on neither occasion could I summon confidence enough to present myself before him. ... I was not deficient [he adds] in a reasonable self-confidence towards the world generally. But the very image of Wordsworth, as prefigured it to my own planet-struck eye, crushed my faculties as before Elijah or St. Paul. Once I absolutely went forward to the very gorge of Hammerscar," within sight of the poet's cottage, and, "catching one hasty glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated like a guilty thing, for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faint-heartedly to Coniston, and so to Oxford, re infectâ. And thus far,

from mere excess of nervous distrust in my own powers for sustaining a conversation with Wordsworth, I had, for nearly five years, shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond all things under heaven, I longed."-Lake Reminiscences: by the English Opium-eater.