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Most of them were republished in a uniform stereotyped edition by Harper and Brothers in 1835. They constitute, however, only a portion of his writings, which many of them appeared anonymously, and are dispersed through various periodicals and newspapers, among which are the New York Mirror, the Analectic, the Knickerbocker, and Graham's Magazine, Godey's Lady's Book, the Democratic Review, the United States Review, the Literary World, Wheaton's National Advocate, the National Intelligencer, the Southern Press, the Washington Union, &c., &c. He also contributed two articles to a volume by different hands edited by the late Robert C. Sands, whimsically entitled Tales of the Glauber Spa. These contributions were, Childe Roeliff's Pilgrimage, and Selim the Friend of Mankind. The former is a burlesque on fashionable tours, the latter exposes the indiscreet attempts of overzealous philanthropists to benefit mankind. Most of these contributions were anonymous, and many of them gratuitous; to others he affixed his name, on the requisition of the publishers. The collection would form many volumes, comprising a great variety of subjects, and exhibiting almost every diversity of style "from grave to gay, from lively to severe."

A favorite mode of our author is that of embodying and exemplifying some sagacious moral in a brief story or allegory, either verse or prose, specimens of which may be seen in the Literary World under the caption of Odds and Ends, by an Obsolete Author, in the New York Mirror, Graham's Magazine, and other periodicals.

He has also occasionally amused himself with the composition of Fairy Tales, and is the author of an anonymous volume published in 1838 by Appleton, called A Gift from Fairy Land, beautifully illustrated by designs from Chapman. We are informed that only one thousand copies of this work were contracted for by its publisher, five hundred of which were taken by a London bookseller. It appeared subsequently to the stereotyped edition of Harper and Brothers, and is not included in the series, which has never been completed, owing, we are informed, to some difficulties between the author and his publishers, in consequence of which it is now extremely difficult to procure a complete set of his works.

In almost all the writings of Paulding there is occasionally infused a dash of his peculiar vein of humorous satire and keen sarcastic irony. To those not familiarized with his manner, such is the imposing gravity, that it is sometimes somewhat difficult to decide when he is jesting and when he is in earnest. This is on the whole a great disadvantage in an age when irony is seldom resorted to, and has occasionally subjected the author to censure for opinions which he does not sanction. His most prominent characteristic is, however, that of nationality. He found his inspiration at home at a time when American woods and fields, and American traits of society, were generally supposed to furnish little if any materials for originality. He not merely drew his nourishment from his native soil, but whenever "that mother of a mighty race was assailed from abroad by accumulated injuries and insults, stood up manfully in defence of her rights and her honor. He has never on any occasion bowed to the su

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premacy of European example or European criticism; he is a stern republican in all his writings.

Fortunately he has lived to see a new era dawning on his country. He has seen his country become intellectually, as well as politically, independent, and strong in the result he labored and helped to achieve, he may now look back with calm equanimity on objects which once called for serious opposition, and laugh where the satirist . once raged.

Though a literary man by profession, he has, ever since the commencement of the second war with England, turned his mind occasionally tovards politics, though never as an active politician. His writings on this subject have been devoted to the support of those great principles which lie at the root of the republican system, and to the maintenance of the rights of his country whenever assailed from any quarter. His progress in life has been upwards. In 1814 or '15 he was appointed Secretary to the Board of Navy Commissioners, then first established. After holding this position for a few years, he resigned to take the office of Navy Agent for the port of New York, which he held twelve years under different administrations, and finally resigned on being placed at the head of the Navy Department by President Van Buren. We have heard him state with some little pride, that all these offices were bestowed without any solicitation on his part, or that of his friends, so far as he knew.

After presiding over the Navy Department nearly the entire term of Mr. Van Buren's administration, he, according to custom, resigned his office on the inauguration of President Harrison, and soon afterwards retired to a pleasant country residence on the east bank of the Hudson, in the county of Dutchess, where he now resides.

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in the calm pursuits of agriculture, lettered ease, and retirement. In a late visit we paid him at Hyde Park, he informs us, he had visited the city but twice in the last ten years, and gave his daily routine in the following cheerful summary. "I smoke a little, read a little, write a little, ruminate a little, grumble a little, and sleep a great deal. I was once great at pulling up weeds, to which I have a mortal antipathy, especially bullseyes, wild carrots, and toad-flax-alias butter and eggs. But my working days are almost over. I find that carrying seventy-five years on my shoulders is pretty nearly equal to the same number of pounds, and instead of laboring myself, sit in the shade watching the labors of others, which I find quite sufficient exercise."

A RURAL LOVER-FROM AN EPISODE IN THE LAY OF THE SCOT-
TISH FIDDLE.

Close in a darksome corner sat
A scowling wight with old wool hat,
That dangled o'er his sun-burnt brow,
And many a gaping rent did show.
His beard in grim luxuriance grew;
His great-toe peep'd from either shoe;
His brawny elbow shone all bare;
All matted was his carrot hair;
And in his sad face you might see,
The withering look of poverty.
He seem'd all desolate of heart,
And in the revels took no part;

Yet those who watch'd his blood-shot eye,
As the light dancers flitted by,
Might jealousy and dark despair,
And love detect, all mingled there.

He never turn'd his eye away
From one fair damsel passing gay;
But ever in her airy round,

Watch'd her quick step and lightsome bound.
Wherever in the dance she turn'd,
He turn'd his eye, and that eye burn'd
With such fierce spleen, that, sooth to say,
It made the gazer turn away.
Who was the damsel passing fair,
That caus'd his eyeballs thus to glare ?
It was the blooming Jersey maid,

That our poor wight's tough heart betray'd.

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By Pompton's stream, that silent flows,
Where many a wild-flower heedless blows.
Unmark'd by any human eye,
Unpluck'd by any passer-by,

There stands a church, whose whiten'd side

Is by the traveller often spied,

Glittering among the branches fair
Of locust trees that flourish there.
Along the margin of the tide,
That to the eye just seems to glide,
And to the list'ning ear ne'er throws
A murmur to disturb repose,
The stately elm majestic towers,
The lord of Pompton's fairy bowers.
The willow, that its branches waves,
O'er neighborhood of rustic graves,
Oft when the summer south-wind blows,
Its thirsty tendrils, playful throws
Into the river rambling there,
The cooling influence to share
Of the pure stream, that bears imprest
Sweet nature's image in its breast.
Sometimes on sunny Sabbath day,
Our ragged wight would wend his way
To this fair church, and lounge about,

With many an idle sunburnt lout,
And stumble o'er the silent graves;
Or where the weeping-willow waves,
His listless length would lay him down.
And spell the legend on the stone.
"Twas here, as ancient matrons say,
His eye first caught the damsel gay,
Who, in the interval between
The services, oft tript the green,
And threw her witching eyes about,
To great dismay of bumpkin stout,
Who felt his heart rebellious beat,
Whene'er those eyes he chanced to meet
As our poor wight all listless lay,
Dozing the vacant hours away,
Or watching with his half-shut eye
The buzzing flight of bee or fly,
The beauteous damsel pass'd along,
Humming a stave of sacred song.
She threw her soft blue eyes askance,
And gave the booby such a glance,
That quick his eyes wide open flew,
And his wide mouth flew open too.
He gaz'd with wonder and surprise,
At the mild lustre of her eyes,
Her cherry lips, her dimpled cheek,
Where Cupids play'd at hide and seek,
Whence many an arrow well, I wot,
Against the wight's tough heart was shot.
He follow'd her where'er she stray'd,
While every look his love betray'd;
And when her milking she would ply,
Sooth'd her pleas'd ear with Rhino-Die,
Or made the mountain echoes ring,
With the great feats of John Paulding;—
How he, stout moss-trooper bold,
Refus'd the proffer'd glittering gold,
And to the gallant youth did cry,
“One of us two must quickly die!"
On the rough meadow of his cheek,
The scythe he laid full twice a week,
Foster'd the honors of his head,
That wide as scruboak branches spread,
With grape-vine juice, and bear's-grease too,
And dangled it in celskin queue.
In short, he tried each gentle art
To anchor fast her floating heart;
But still she scorn'd his tender tale,
And saw unmov'd his cheek grow pale,
Flouted his suit with scorn so cold,
And gave him oft the bag to hold.

AN EVENING WALK IN VIRGINIA-FROM THE LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH.

In truth, the little solitary nook into which I am just now thrown, bears an aspect so interesting, that it is calculated to call up the most touchingly pleasing exertions, in the minds of those who love to indulge in the contemplation of beautiful scenes. We are the sons of earth, and the indissoluble kindred between nature and man is demonstrated by our sense of her beauties. I shall not soon forget last evening, which Oliver and myself spent at this place. It was such as can never be described -I will therefore not attempt it; but it was still as the sleep of innocence-pure as ether, and bright as immortality. Having travelled only fourteen miles that day, I did not feel tired as usual; and after supper strolled out alone along the windings of a little stream about twenty yards wide, that skirts a narrow strip of green meadow, between the brook and the high mountain at a little distance.

You will confess my landscapes are well watered, for every one has a river. But such is the case in

this region, where all the passes of the mountains
are made by little rivers, that in process of time
have laboured through, and left a space for a road
on their banks. If nature will do these things, I
can't help it not I. In the course of the ramble
the moon rose over the mountain to the eastward,
which being just by, seemed to bring the planet
equally near; and the bright eyes of the stars began
to glisten, as if weeping the dews of evening. I
knew not the name of one single star. But what
of that? It is not necessary to be an astronomer,
to contemplate with sublime emotions the glories of
the sky at night, and the countless wonders of the
universe.

These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their living nights,

whom the ever-rolling wave of life dashed away from him for ever-he will recall her voice, her eye, and her form. If any heavy and severe disaster has fallen on his riper manhood, and turned the future into a gloomy and unpromising wilderness; he will feel it bitterly at such a time. Or if it chance that he is grown an old man, and lived to see all that owned his blood, or shared his affections, struck down to the earth like dead leaves in autumn; in such a night, he will call their dear shades around, and wish himself a shadow.

A TRIO OF FRENCHMEN-FROM THE SAME.

My good opinion of French people has not been weakened by experience. The bloody scenes of St. Domingo and of France, have, within the last few years, brought crowds of Frenchmen to this land of the exile, and they are to be met with in every part of the United States. Wherever they are, I have found them accommodating themselves with a happy versatility, to the new and painful vicissitudes they had to encounter; remembering and loving the land of their birth, but at the same time doing justice to the land which gave them refuge. They are never heard uttering degrading comparisons between their country and ours; nor signalizing their patriotism, either by sneering at the land they have honoured with their residence, or outdoing a native-born demagogue in clamorous declamation, at the poll of an election. Poor as many of them are, in consequence of the revolutions of property in their native country, they never become beggars. Those who have no money turn the accomplishments of gentlemen into the means of obtaining bread, and become the instruments of lasting benefit to our people. Others who have saved something from the wreck, either establish useful manufactures, or retire into the villages, where they embellish society, and pass quietly on to the grave.

Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Men may be too wise to wonder at anything; as they may be too ignorant to see anything without wondering. There is reason also to believe, that astronomers may be sometimes so taken up with measuring the distances and magnitude of the stars, as to lose, in the intense minuteness of calculation, that noble expansion of feeling and intellect combined, which lifts from nature up to its great first cause. As respects myself, I know no more of the planets, than the man in the moon. I only contemplate them as unapproachable, unextinguishable fires, glittering afar off, in those azure fields whose beauty and splendour have pointed them out as the abode of the Divinity; as such, they form bright links in the chain of thought that leads directly to a contemplation of the Maker of heaven and earth. Nature is, indeed, the only temple worthy of the Deity. There is a mute eloquence in her smile; a majestic severity in her frown; a divine charm in her harmony; a speechless energy in her silence; a voice in her thunders, that no reflecting being can resist. It is in such scenes and seasons, that the heart is deepest smitten with the power and goodness of Providence, and that the soul demonstrates its capacity for maintaining an existence independ-breaking its peace by ferocious and bloody brawls eat of matter, by abstracting itself from the body, and expatiating alone in the boundless regions of the past and the future.

As I continued strolling forward, there gradually came a perfect calm-and even the aspen-tree whispered no more. But it was not the deathlike calm of a winter's night, when the northwest wind grows quiet, and the frosts begin in silence to forge fetters for the running brooks, and the gentle current of life, that flows through the veins of the forest. The voice of man and beast was indeed unheard; but the river murmured, and the insects chirped in the mild summer evening. There is something sepulchral in the repose of a winter night; but in the genial seasons of the year, though the night is the emblem of repose, it is the repose of the couch-not of the tomb-nature still breathes in the buzz of insects, the whisperings of the forests, and the murmurs of the running brooks. We know she will awake in the morning, with her smiles, her bloom, her zephyrs, and warbling birds. "In such a night as this," if a man loves any human being in this wide world, he will find it out, for there will his thoughts first centre. If he has in store any sweet, or bitter, or bitter-sweet recollections, which are lost in the bustle of the world, they will come without being called. If, in his boyish days, he wrestled, and wrangled, and rambled with, yet loved, some chubby boy, he will remember the days of his childhood, its companions, cares, and pleasures. If, in his days of romance, he used to walk of evenings, with some blue-eyed, musing, melancholy maid,

In their amusements, or in their hours of relaxation, we never find them outraging the decencies of society by exhibitions of beastly drunkenness, or

at taverns or in the streets. Their leisure hours are passed in a public garden or walk, where you will see them discussing matters with a vehemence which, in some people, would be the forerunner of blows, but which is only an ebullition of a national vivacity, which misfortune cannot repress, nor exile destroy. Or, if you find them not here, they are at some little evening assembly, to which they know how to communicate a gaiety and interest peculiar to French people. Whatever may be their poverty at home, they never exhibit it abroad in rags and dirtiness, but keep their wants to themselves, and give their spirits to others; thus making others happy, when they have ceased to be so themselves.

This subject recalls to my mind the poor Chevalier, as we used to call him, who, of all the men I ever saw, bore adversity the best. It is now fifteen years since I missed him at his accustomed walkswhere, followed by his little dog, and dressed in his long blue surtout, old-fashioned cocked hat, long queue, and gold-headed cane, with the ribbon of some order at his button-hole, he carried his basket of cakes about every day, except Sunday, rain or shine. He never asked anybody to buy his cakes, nor did he look as if he wished to ask. I never, though I used often to watch him, either saw him smile, or heard him speak to a living soul; but year after year did he walk or sit in the same place, with the same coat, hat, cane, queue, and ribbon, and little dog. One day he disappeared; but whether he died, or got permission to go home to France, nobody knew, and nobody inquired; for, except the

little dog, he seemed to have no friend in the wide world.

There was another I will recall to your mind, in this review of our old acquaintance. The queer little man we used to call the little duke, who first attracted our notice, I remember, by making his appearance in our great public walk, dressed in a full suit of white dimity, with a white hat, a little white dog, and a little switch in his hand. Here, of a sunny day, the little duke would ramble about with the lofty air of a man of clear estate, or lean against a tree, and scrutinize the ladies as they passed, with the recognizance of a thorough-bred connoisseur. Sometimes he would go to the circusthat is to say, you would see him lying most luxuriously over a fence just opposite, where, as the windows were open in the summer, he could hear the music, and see the shadow of the horses on the opposite wall, without its costing him a farthing.

In this way he lived, until the Corporation pulled down a small wooden building in the yard of what was then the government-house, when the duke and his dog scampered out of it like two rats. He had lived here upon a little bed of radishes; but now he and his dog were obliged to dissolve partnership, for his master could no longer support him. The dog I never saw again; but the poor duke gradually descended into the vale of poverty. His white dimity could not last for ever, and he gradually went to seed, and withered like a stately onion. In fine, he was obliged to work, and that ruined himfor nature had made him a gentleman.-And a gentleman is the caput mortuum of human nature, out of which you can make nothing, under heaven-but a gentleman. He first carried wild game about to sell; but this business not answering, he bought himself a buck and saw, and became a redoubtable sawyer. But he could not get over his old propensity-and whenever a lady passed where he was at work, the little man was always observed to stop his saw, lean his knee on the stick of wood, and gaze at her till she was quite out of sight. Thus, like Antony, he sacrificed the world for a woman -for he soon lost all employment-he was always so long about his work. The last time I saw him he was equipped in the genuine livery of poverty, leaning against a tree on the Battery, and admiring the ladies.

The last of the trio of Frenchmen, which erst attracted our boyish notice, was an old man, who had once been a naval officer, and had a claim of some kind or other, with which he went to Washington every session, and took the field against Amy Dardin's horse. Congress had granted him somewhere about five thousand, which he used to affirm was recognising the justice of the whole claim. The money produced him an interest of three hundred and fifty dollars a year, which he divided into three parts. One-third for his board, clothing, &c.; one for his pleasures, and one for the expenses of his journey to the seat of government. He travelled in the most economical style-eating bread and cheese by the way; and once was near running a fellow-passenger through the body, for asking him to eat dinner with him, and it should cost him nothing. He always dressed neatly-and sometimes of a remarkably fine day would equip himself in uniform, gird on his trusty and rusty sword, and wait upon his excellency the governor. There was an eccentric sort of chivalry about him, for he used to insult every member of Congress who voted against his claim; never put up with a slight of any kind from anybody, and never was known to do a mean action, or to run in debt. There was a deal of dignity, too, in his appearance and deport

ment, though of the same eccentric cast, so that whenever he walked the streets he attracted a kind of notice not quite amounting to admiration, and not altogether free from merriment. Peace to his claim and his ashes; for he and Amy Dardin's horse alike have run their race, and their claims have survived them.

CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.

In analysing the character of Washington, there is nothing that strikes me as more admirable than its beautiful symmetry. In this respect it is consummate. His different qualities were so nicely balanced, so rarely associated, of such harmonious affinities, that no one seemed to interfere with another, or predominate over the whole. The natural ardour of his disposition was steadily restrained by a power of self-command which it dared not disobey. His caution never degenerated into timidity, nor his courage into imprudence or temerity. His memory was accompanied by a sound, unerring judgment, which turned its acquisitions to the best advantage; his industry and economy of time neither rendered him dull or unsocial; his dignity never was vitiated by pride or harshness, and his unconquerable firmness was free from obstinacy, or selfwilled arrogance. He was gigantic, but at the same time he was well-proportioned and beautiful. It was this symmetry of parts that diminished the apparent magnitude of the whole; as in those fine specimens of Grecian architecture, where the size of the temple seems lessened by its perfection. There are plenty of men who become distinguished by the predominance of one single faculty, or the exercise of a solitary virtue; but few, very few, present to our contemplation such a combination of virtues unalloyed by a single vice; such a succession of actions, both public and private, in which even his enemies can find nothing to blame.

Assuredly he stands almost alone in the world. He occupies a region where there are, unhappily for mankind, but few inhabitants. The Grecian biographer could easily find parallels for Alexander and Cæsar, but were he living now, he would meet with great difficulty in selecting one for Washington. There seems to be an elevation of moral excellence, which, though possible to attain to, few ever approach. As in ascending the lofty peaks of the Andes, we at length arrive at a line where vegetation ceases, and the principle of life seems extinct; so in the gradations of human character, there is an elevation which is never attained by mortal man. A few have approached it, and none nearer than Washington.

He is eminently conspicuous as one of the great benefactors of the human race, for he not only gave liberty to millions, but his name now stands, and will for ever stand, a noble example to high and low. He is a great work of the almighty Artist, which none can study without receiving purer ideas and more lofty conceptions of the grace and beauty of the human character. He is one that all may copy at different distances, and whom none can contemplate without receiving lasting and salutary impressions of the sterling value, the inexpressible beauty of piety integrity, courage, and patriotism, . associated with a clear, vigorous, and well-poised intellect.

Pure, and widely disseminated as is the fame of this great and good man, it is yet in its infancy. It is every day taking deeper root in the hearts of his countrymen, and the estimation of strangers, and spreading its branches wider and wider, to the air and the skies. He is already become the saint of liberty, which has gathered new honours by being

associated with his name; and when men aspire to free nations, they must take him for their model. It is, then, not without ample reason that the suffrages of mankind have combined to place Washington at the head of his race. If we estimate him by the examples recorded in history, he stands without a parallel in the virtues he exhibited, and the vast, unprecedented consequences resulting from their exercise. The whole world was the theatre of his actions, and all mankind are destined to partake sooner or later in their results. He is a hero of a new species: he had no model; will he have any imitators? Time, which bears the thousands and thousands of common cut-throats to the ocean of oblivion, only adds new lustre to his fame, new force to his example, and new strength to the reverential affection of all good men. What a glorious fame is his, to be acquired without guilt, and enjoyed without envy; to be cherished by millions living, hundreds of millions yet unborn! Let the children of my country prove themselves worthy of his virtues, his labours, and his sacrifices, by reverencing his name and imitating his piety, integrity, industry, fortitude, patience, forbearance, and patriotism. So shall they become fitted to enjoy the blessings of freedom and the bounties of heaven.

THE MAN THAT WANTED BUT ONE THING THE MAN THAT WANTED EVERYTHING; AND THE MAN THAT WANTED NOTHING.

Everybody, young and old, children and grey. beards, has heard of the renowned Haroun Al Raschid, the hero of Eastern history and Eastern romance, and the most illustrious of the caliphs of Bagdad, that famous city on which the light of learning and science shone, long ere it dawned on the benighted regions of Europe, which has since succeeded to the diadem that once glittered on the brow of Asia. Though as the successor of the Prophet he exercised a despotic sway over the lives and fortunes of his subjects, yet did he not, like the eastern despots of more modern times, shut himself up within the walls of his palace, hearing nothing but the adulation of his dependents; seeing nothing but the shadows which surrounded him; and knowing nothing but what he received through the medium of interested deception or malignant falsehood. That he might see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, he was accustomed to go about through the streets of Bagdad by night, in disguise, accompanied by Giafer the Barmecide, his grand vizier, and Mesrour, his executioner; one to give him his counsel, the other to fulfil his commands promptly, on all occasions. If he saw any commotion among the people he mixed with them and learned its cause; and if in passing a house he heard the moanings of distress or the complaints of suffering, he entered, for the purpose of administering relief. Thus he made himself acquainted with the condition of his subjects, and often heard those salutary truths which never reached his ears through the walls of his palace, or from the lips of the slaves that surrounded

him.

On one of these occasions, as Al Raschid was thus perambulating the streets at night, in disguise, accompanied by his vizier and his executioner, in passing a splendid mansion, he overheard through the lattice of a window, the complaints of some one who seemed in the deepest distress, and silently ap proaching, looked into an apartment exhibiting all the signs of wealth and luxury. On a sofa of satin embroidered with gold, and sparkling with brilliant gems, he beheld a man richly dressed, in whom he recognised his favorite boon companion

Bedreddin, on whom he had showered wealth and honors with more than eastern prodigality. He was stretched out on the sofa, slapping his forehead, tearing his beard, and moaning piteously, as if in the extremity of suffering. At length starting up on his feet, he exclaimed in tones of despair, "Oh, Allah! I beseech thee to relieve me from my misery, and take away my life."

The Commander of the Faithful, who loved Bedreddin, pitied his sorrows, and being desirous to know their cause, that he might relieve them, knocked at the door, which was opened by a black slave, who, on being informed that they were strangers in want of food and rest, at once admitted them, and informed his master, who called them into his presence, and bade them welcome. A plentiful feast was spread before them, at which the master of the house sat down with his guests, but of which he did not partake, but looked on, sighing bitterly all the while.

The Commander of the Faithful at length ventured to ask him what caused his distress, and why he refrained from partaking in the feast with his guests, in proof that they were welcome. "Has Allah afflicted thee with disease, that thou canst not enjoy the blessings he has bestowed? Thou art surrounded by all the splendor that wealth can procure; thy dwelling is a palace, and its apartments are adorned with all the luxuries which captivate the eye, or administer to the gratification of the senses. Why is it then, oh! my brother, that thou art miserable?"

"True, O stranger," replied Bedreddin. "I have all these. I have health of body; I am rich enough to purchase all that wealth can bestow, and if I required more wealth and honors, I am the favorite companion of the Commander of the Faithful, on whose head lie the blessing of Allah, and of whom I have only to ask, to obtain all I desire, save one thing only."

"And what is that?" asked the caliph.

"Alas! I adore the beautiful Zuleima, whose face is like the full moon, whose eyes are brighter and softer than those of the gazelle, and whose mouth is like the seal of Solomon. But she loves another, and all my wealth and honors are as nothing. The want of one thing renders the possession of every other of no value. I am the most wretched of men; my life is a burden, and my death would be a blessing."

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By the beard of the Prophet," cried the Caliph, I swear thy case is a hard one. But Allah is great and powerful, and will, I trust, either deliver thee from thy burden or give thee strength to bear it." Then thanking Bedreddin for his hospitality, the Commander of the Faithful departed, with his companions.

Taking their way towards that part of the city inhabited by the poorer classes of people, the Caliph stumbled over something, in the obscurity of night, and was nigh falling to the ground; at the same moment a voice cried out, "Allah, preserve me! Am I not wretched enough already, that I must be trodden under foot by a wandering beggar like myself, in the darkness of night!"

Mezrour the executioner, indignant at this insult to the Commander of the Faithful, was preparing to cut off his head, when Al Raschid interposed, and inquired of the beggar his name, and why he was there sleeping in the streets, at that hour of the night.

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