selfish as to whisper to me that 'love must be mutual?' I acknowledge the devotion of woman. I know that often she dies of a

broken heart; but I live broken-hearted!'

Bernhardi had finished. I took his hand and pressed it in silence, and came away. The next day I left en route for Italy, accompanied by Dr. O. H. Partridge, then my fellow-student, now a distinguished physician in Philadelphia.

On our return to Paris, after a lapse of more than a year, I made inquiry for Bernhardi, and learned that, several months before, he had left the city with the unfortunate Rosalie, and had gone no one knew whither.

WHEN ALARIC the Goth was defeated at Pollentia and Verona (A. D. 403,) by STILICHO, the general of HONORIUS, and so driven for a time from Italy, the Romans celebrated that event with great rejoicing and magnificence. A triumphal procession and a conflict of wild beasts at once dazzled and gratified the multitude. The shows of gladiators were then forever brought to an end by TELEMACHUS, an Asiatic monk, whom the people stoned to death in the amphitheatre for attempting to separate the combatants. HONORIUS was thus reminded of his duty as a Christian emperor, and soon after put forth an edict forbidding all such exhibitions for the future.

THE streets are thronged in mighty Rome,
The gleaming ensigns spread,

While warriors march in triumph home,

With firm and measured tread;

For bowed at last and forced to yield
On rough Pollentia's crimson field,
Stern ALARIC has fled,

And left his ruthless Gothic powers

All crushed beneath Verona's towers.

Those who once quailed at that dire name

May now deride their foe,

And boast as if they shared the fame

Of glorious STILICHO;

Of him who felt no craven fears

Rise at the flash of northern spears,

And struck no feeble blow,

But matched with trophies green and high
The monuments of days gone by.

But when the clear Italian sun
Pours down its noontide fire,

The trumpet speaks the games begun
Which idle crowds admire;

And soon from barred and gloomy caves

Driven howling out by troops of slaves,

In grim and sullen ire,

Beasts, the wild brood of many a land,
Pace with loud rage the level sand.

Gætulia's lion, freshly brought
From scorched and desert plains,
And ravening tigers, newly sought
On Parthia's waste domains;
Bears from the frozen Oder's mouth,
And panthers from the burning South,
Bred in old Nubian fanes,

Make there a stern and ghastly fray
For tribes more savage far than they.

But hark! the trumpet's warning peal
Is sounding as before,

And bondsmen clear, with staff and steel,
The red arena's floor;

The fainting brutes are swept away,
This saved to bleed another day,

That weltering in its gore;

And MEN, of martial frame and race,
Take with slow step the vacant place.

Two, chosen from the warlike throng,
Begin a deadly strife;

One a gray swordsman, scarred and strong,
One in the bloom of life;

This nursed where snows on Homus shine, That torn from hills beside the Rhine,

From children, home and wife;

And high-born matrons hold their breath, All bent to see the work of death.

Their toil was fierce, but short; and now,
Flung bleeding in the dust,

The Thracian waits, with pale cold brow,
The last and mortal thrust;
When rushing forth, till then unseen,
A swarthy pilgrim leaps between,
Strong in a Christian's trust,

And drenched with blood, yet undismayed,
Stays with fixed grasp the uplifted blade.

A light smooth cross of cedar-wood
The gentle stranger bore,

Long worn in holy solitude

On Syria's palmy shore :

'Romans,' he said, for HIM whose birth Gave hopes divine of peace on Earth, Arise, and evermore,

Servants of GOD in act and name,

Cast off these works of guilt and shame!'

He ceased: a scowl like noon's eclipse
Spreads fast from seat to seat,
And fourscore thousand hostile lips
Loud words of wrath repeat:
They rave and roar as groves of pine,
Waked on the Etrurian Apennine,

When storms the tall crags beat,
Till, heaved and troubled furiously,
Breaks in one surge that living sea.

PORTER PIPER was a genius; but do n't imagine for a moment, reader, that Porter was a man addicted to poetry, romance, or stargazing of any kind. Porter was a man of far too much solidity to rise into the airy regions of fairy-land. On the contrary, he looked on poets, novelists and romancers with the same feelings of mingled admiration, contempt and fear with which an old owl, surprised by the return of light, regards the noisy tribe of robins, jays and wrens that flutter and twitter around him. Neither was Porter a philanthropist, nor world-improving schemer, with a noddle full of Utopias. He could see neither profit, utility, nor beauty in universal benevolence, and never were the gates of Paradise more firmly closed upon an unbeliever than were the eyes, ears and pockets of our friend against all attacks from that source. No peripatetic caterer for the stomachs and backs of the poor found grace in the eyes of Porter. No sooner did he bring his prodigious mental machinery to bear upon the gist of their mission, than they prudently vanished from his door, without waiting for verbal warning. Porter was neither historian, theologian, logician, philanthropist, statesman, philosopher, poet, painter, nor sculptor. What then was he? Porter was a mathematician. From the day of his birth he was no common

being. Omens attended his natal day, and a few weeks before that momentous occasion his mother dreamed she was delivered of a triangle. At the precise moment of his arrival ad superas,' or rather ad externas, aures,' all the lead pipe fell from the roof and sides of the house, and the owls in the neighboring grove struck up a most appalling hoot, accompanied by the tenor-cawing of a flock of crows that flew over the house at that time. The meek and patient ass, who had stood until then quietly in his stall, and had always been noted for the singular gravity of his deportment, commenced kicking most furiously against the sides of his stable, accompanying his exertions with a most terrific and prolonged bray; while a paper fools'- cap, which had long decorated the paternal walls in terrorem' to the juvenile and boisterous fry that thronged the mansion, fell suddenly down as the new-born babe was borne beneath it to the bath, and, as if directed by some unseen hand, encircled his infantine brow.

Porter, as he advanced in years, was never seen to shed tears, nor to smile, but ever preserved the same invincible gravity of demeanor. He was remarkable, too, for the slowness and deliberation of his movements. When, in infancy, the maternal breast was presented to him, he usually turned his eyes toward it with a pertinacious stare, and it was only after apparently going through a long and severe mental process that he seemed to have the least idea of the use to which it should be put. When grown somewhat older, and sent, with the rest of his brethren, to the neighboring school, he used to suffer the various tricks and petty persecutions of his more volatile mates with the most stolid and unalterable gravity. Many a time did the mischievous rascals insert pins into him, without his apparently having the least idea of what they were doing. Sometimes, when his tormentors thrust beyond all reasonable depth, he would appear to feel uneasy, and after some deliberation, would apply his hand to the part afflicted; but such demonstrations of excitement were unusual.

While his companions were engaged in ball, leap-frog, wrestling, and various other juvenile sports, he employed himself with the most intense gravity in tracing lines in the sand, seemingly engaged in the deepest meditation. When the curly-headed rogues were indulged in a molasses-candy pulling,' and were devouring their portions with shouts of merriment, he always seated himself in a corner, and with a solemn expression busied himself in constructing various uncouth figures with his portion of the sticks. He never played at marbles, nor any frivolous games of the kind; but he would occasionally watch the proceedings, at such times, with the most intense interest, and taking the first opportunity, would suddenly pounce upon the polished heap, and scooping up as many as he could hold in his hands, would lumber off toward one of his retreats, with an uncouth mixture of chuckle and wheeze, the nearest approach to a laugh he was ever known to indulge in. If successful in retaining his unlawful prize, he would employ himself for hours in counting and variously arranging them.

One day, Porter, while rummaging over his father's books, which

he did, rather to see in how many ways he could combine them on the floor than from any desire to make the acquaintance of their contents, met with an old Euclid. At the first sight of the uncouth figures and hieroglyphical letters that covered its pages, he jumped from the floor and shuffled about in a perfect ecstasy. Never were the fountains of his soul so stirred before. He see-sawed about the room in a grotesque attempt to dance, and tossing his cap in the air, endeavored to give it a playful kick, but failing in the attempt, came sprawling upon the floor, where he lay for some time, exhausted by his saltatory exertions, and grinning hideously.

As soon as this playful ebullition had subsided, he turned to the book, which he opened somewhat hastily, and was immediately absorbed in its contents. The food for which his mind had been craving was found at last, and he was happy. The xalov' was his. From that moment his occupation was decided. His beloved Euclid occupied him night and day. His companions and the old people endeavored to argue him out of his unreasonable and exclusive devotion to this pursuit ; but in vain. They might as well have reasoned with a post. Porter was impervious to argument. In fact he did not appear to comprehend what they were aiming at. He would listen at first, with a dubious air, which would gradually deepen into a stare of the most intense perplexity and wonder, and if the expostulation were still continued, his face would soon lose all expression and exhibit nothing but a dead unmeaning blank. It was useless to contend against such obstacles to conviction, and Porter was allowed to pursue the even tenor of his way unmolested; beside, it was agreed on all hands that he could dive into a proposition and extract its pith and marrow while others were breaking their teeth against the outside. Thenceforth, every table and chair was carved over with all imaginable grotesque figures, and his mother once discovered him hard at work upon her wedding ring, in an obstinate attempt to square the circle. He cleared the Pons Asinorum' at a stride, and plunged headlong into the deepest mire beyond, and wallowed in it as if it had been his native element. Theories, propositions, formulas and solutions, were devoured with the same insatiable relish that the ostrich exhibits while breaking his fast upon his favorite dishes of old leather and iron.

In the mean time his visage elongated; his shirt, whenever he had one, for he sometimes forgot it entirely, or perhaps put it into his pocket for a handkerchief, was beautifully variegated, with here and there a patch of whitish-brown upon what was apparently a grayish black ground, and his sturdy hairs projected from his head in every direction in the most picturesque confusion, like the lances of a troop of cavalry in a furious fight. His frame was built in the most beautiful mathematical proportion. Nearly every figure in Euclid could have been demonstrated upon the different parts of his body. His belly and shoulders were regularly perfect segments of circles; his legs formed a superb ellipse, scraping a most intimate and affectionate acquaintance with each at the extremities, but retreating apparently in huge disgust at the knees; his head was a correct cone, broad at