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suddenly to fainting eyes, as if by some evening:" and what lurked half unconsciwinged patriarchal herald of wrath relent-ously in these words might be-"The sun, ing-solitary Arab's tent, rising with saint- that rejoices, has finished his daily toil; ly signals of peace, in the dreadful desert, must Kate indeed die even yet, whilst she sees but cannot reach you? Outpost on the frontier of man's dominions, standing within life, but looking out upon everlasting death, wilt thou hold up the anguish of thy mocking invitation, only to betray? Never, perhaps, in this world was the line so exquisitely grazed, that parts salvation and ruin. As the dove to her dove-cot from the swooping hawk, as the Christian pinnace to Christian batteries, from the bloody Mahometan corsair, so flew, so tried to fly towards the anchoring thickets, that, alas! could not weigh their anchors and make sail to meet her, the poor exhausted Kate from the vengeance of pursuing frost.

And she reached them; staggering, fainting, reeling, she entered beneath the canopy of umbrageous trees. But, as oftentimes, the Hebrew fugitive to a city of refuge, flying for his life before the avenger of blood, was pressed so hotly that, on entering the archway of what seemed to him the heavenly city-gate, as he kneeled in deep thankfulness to kiss its holy merciful shadow, he could not rise again, but sank instantly with infant weakness into sleepsometimes to wake no more; so sank, so collapsed upon the ground, without power to choose her couch, and with little prospect of ever rising again to her feet, the martial nun. She lay as luck had ordered it, with her head screened by the undergrowth of bushes, from any gales that might arise? she lay exactly as she sank, with her eyes up to heaven; and thus it was that the nun saw, before falling asleep, the two sights that upon earth are fittest for the closing eyes of a nun, whether destined to open again, or to close for ever. She saw the interlacing of boughs overhead forming a dome, that seemed like the dome of a cathedral. She saw through the fretwork of the foliage, another dome, far beyond, the dome of an evening sky, the dome of some heavenly cathedral, not built with hands. She saw upon this upper dome the vesper lights, all alive with pathetic grandeur of coloring from a sunset that had just been rolling down like a chorus. She had not, till now, consciously observed the time of day; whether it were morning, or whether it were afternoon, in her confusion she had not distinctly known. But now she whispered to herself" It is

man, that labors, has finished his; I, that suffer, have finished mine." That might be what she thought, but what she said was, "it is evening; and the hour is come when the Angelus is sounding through St. Sebastian's." What made her think of St. Sebastian's, so far away in depths of space and time? Her brain was wandering, now that her feet were not; and, because her eyes had descended from the heavenly to the earthly dome, that made her think of earthly cathedrals, and of cathedral choirs, and of St. Sebastian's chapel, with its silvery bells that carried the Angelus far into mountain recesses. Perhaps, as her wanderings increased, she thought herself back in childhood: became "pussy" once again; fancied that all since then was a frightful dream; that she was not upon the dreadful Andes, but still kneeling in the holy chapel at vespers; still innocent as then; loved as then she had been loved; and that all men were liars, who said her hand was ever stained with blood. Little enough is mentioned of the delusions which possessed her; but that little gives a key to the impulse which her palpitating heart obeyed, and which her rambling brain for ever reproduced in multiplying mirrors. Restlessness kept her in waking dreams for a brief half hour. But then fever and delirium would wait no longer; the killing exhaustion would no longer be refused; the fever, the delirium, and the exhaustion, swept in together with power like an army with banners; and the nun ceased through the gathering twilight any more to watch the cathedrals of earth, or the more solemn cathedrals that rose in the heavens above.

All night long she slept in her verdurous St. Bernard's hospice without awaking, and whether she would ever awake seemed to depend upon an accident. The slumber that towered above her brain was like that fluctuating silvery column which stands in scientific tubes sinking, rising, deepening, lightening, contracting, expanding; or like the mist that sits, through sultry afternoons, upon the river of the American St. Peter, sometimes rarefying for minutes into sunny gauze, sometimes condensing for hours into palls of funereal darkness. You fancy that, after twelve hours of any sleep, she must have been refreshed; better at least than she was last night. Ah! but sleep is not always sent upon missions of

refreshment. Sleep is sometimes the secret | lucky, though ever unfortunate; and the chamber in which death arranges his machi- world, being of my opinion that Kate was nery. Sleep is sometimes that deep mys- worth saving, made up its mind about halfterious atmosphere, in which the human spirit is slowly unsettling its wings for flight from earthly tenements. It is now eight o'clock in the morning; and, to all appearance, if Kate should receive no aid before noon, when next the sun is departing to his rest, Kate will be departing to hers; when next the sun is holding out his golden Christian signal to man, that the hour is come for letting his anger go down, Kate will be sleeping away for ever into the arms of brotherly forgiveness.

It

past eight o'clock in the morning to save her. Just at that time, when the night was over, and its sufferings were hidden, in one of those intermitting gleams that for a moment or two lightened the clouds of her slumber, Kate's dull ear caught a sound that for years had spoken a familiar language to her. What was it? It was the sound, though muffled and deadened, like the ear that heard it, of horsemen advancing. Interpreted by the tumultuous dreams of Kate, was it the cavalry of Spain, at whose head so often she had charged the bloody Indian scalpers? Was it, according to the legend of ancient days, cavalry that had been sown by her brother's blood, ca

during her first or second confinement, was suddenly reported to him, by one of her female attendants ple), as undoubtedly sinking fast. He hurried to her (who slipped away unobserved by the medical peochamber, and saw that it was so. The presiding medical authority, however, was inexorable. "Oh, by no means," shaking his ambrosial wig, " any

stimulant at this crisis would be fatal." But no au

What is wanted just now for Kate, supposing Kate herself to be wanted by this world, is, that this world would be kind enough to send her a little brandy before it is too late. The simple truth was, and a truth which I have known to take place in more ladies than Kate, who died or did not die, accordingly as they had or had not an adviser like myself, capable of giving so sound an opinion, that the jewelly star of life had descended too far down the arch towards setting, for any chance of re-as-thority could overrule the concurrent testimony of cending by spontaneous effort. The fire was still burning in secret, but needed to be rekindled by potent artificial breath. lingered, and might linger, but would never culminate again without some stimulus from earthly vineyards.* Kate was ever *Though not exactly in the same circumstances as Kate, or sleeping, à la belle étoile, on a declivity of the Andes, I have known (or heard circumstantially reported) the cases of many ladies besides Kate, who were in precisely the same critical danger of perishing for want of a little brandy. A dessert spoonful or two would have saved them. Avaunt! you wicked "Temperance" medallist! repent as fast as ever you can, or, perhaps the next time we hear of you, anasarca and hydrothorax will be running after you to punish your shocking excesses in water. Seriously, the case is one of constant recurrence, and constantly ending fatally from unseasonable and pedantic rigor of temperance. The fact is, that the medical profession composes the most generous and liberal body of men amongst us; taken generally, by much the most enlightened; but professionally, the most timid. Want of boldness in the administration of opium, &c., though they can be bold enough with mercury, is their besetting infirmity. And from this infirmity females suffer most. One instance I need hardly mention, the fatal case of an august lady, mourned by nations, with respect to whom it was, and is, the belief of multitudes to this hour (well able to judge), that she would have been saved by a glass of brandy; and her attendant, who shot himself, came to think so too late too late for her, and too late for himself. Amongst many cases of the same nature, which personally I have been acquainted with, twenty years ago, a man, illustrious for his intellectual accomplishments, mentioned to me that his own wife,

all symptoms, and of all unprofessional opinions. By some pious falsehood my friend smuggled the doctor out of the room, and immediately smuggled a glass of brandy into the poor lady's lips. She recovered with magical power. The doctor is now dead, and went to his grave under the delusive persuasion, that not any vile glass of brandy, but the stern refusal of all brandy, was the thing that saved his collapsing patient. The patient herself, who might naturally know something of the matter, was of a different opinion. She sided with the factious body around her bed (comprehending all beside the doctor), who felt sure that death was rapidly approaching, barring that brandy. The same result in the same appalling crisis, I have known repeatedly produced by twenty-five drops of laudanum. An obstinate man will say "Oh, never listen to a non-medical man like this writer. Consult in such a case your medical adviser." You will, will you? Then let me tell you, that you are missing the very logic of all I have been saying for the improvement of blockheads, which is, that you should consult any man but a medical man, since no other man has any obstinate prejudice of professional timidity. N.B. I prescribe for Kate gratis, because she, poor thing! has so little to give. But from other ladies, who may have the happiness to benefit by my advice, I expect a fee, not so large a one considering the service, a flowering plant, suppose the second best in their collection. know it would be of no use to ask for the very best (which else I could wish to do), because that would only be leading them into little fibs. I don't insist on a Yucca gloriosa, or a Magnolia speciosissima (I hope there is such a plant). A rose or a violet will do. I am sure there is such a plant as that. And if they settle their debts justly, I shall very soon be master of the prettiest little conservatory in England. For, treat it not as a jest, reader; no case of timid practice is so fatally frequent.

504

CATALINA DE ERAUSO, THE NAUTICO-MILITARY NUN OF SPAIN.

[Aug.

of Spain, is herself as helpless now as that little lady who, then at ten minutes of age, was kissed and blessed by all the household of St. Sebastian.

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valry that rose from the ground on an inquest of retribution, and were racing up the Andes to seize her? Her dreams that had opened sullenly to the sound waited for no answer, but closed again into pompous Last month, reader, I intended to drive darkness. Happily, the horsemen had through to the end of the journey in the caught the glimpse of some bright orna- present stage. But, oh, dear reader! these ment, clasp, or aiguillette, on Kate's dress. Andes, in Jonathan's phrase, are a 66 They were hunters and foresters from be- vere" range of hills. It takes "the kick" low; servants in the household of a benefi- out of any horse, or, indeed, out of any cent lady; and in some pursuit of flying cornet of horse, to climb up this cruel side game had wandered beyond their ordinary of the range. Rest I really must, whilst limits. Struck by the sudden scintillation Kate is resting. But next month I will from Kate's dress played upon by the mor- carry you down the other side at such a flyning sun, they rode up to the thicket. ing gallop, that you shall suspect me Great was their surprise, great their pity, (though most unjustly) of a plot against to see a young officer in uniform stretched your neck. Now, let me throw down the within the bushes upon the ground, and reins; and then, in our brother Jonaperhaps dying. Borderers from childhood than's sweet sentimental expression, "let's on this dreadful frontier, sacred to winter liquor." and death, they understood the case at once. They dismounted: and with the tenderness of women, raising the poor frozen cornet in their arms, washed her temples with brandy, whilst one, at intervals, suf- WASH-HOUSES.--On Monday afternoon, a gratifyfered a few drops to trickle within her lips. ing testimonial was presented to Mrs. Catherine As the restoration of a warm bed was now Wilkinson, the originator of public wash-houses, most likely to be successful, they lifted the and Wash-houses, in Upper Frederick street, in and at present the matron of the Corporation Baths helpless stranger upon a horse, walking on this town. A large party was invited at the maneach side with supporting arms. Öncesion of C. Lawrence, Esq., Mosely-hill, to witness again our Kate is in the saddle; once again Earle of Spekelands, and other branches of the the presentation. The Mayor and his lady, Mrs. a Spanish Caballador. But Kate's bridle-family of the respected and worthy host and hostess, hand is deadly cold. And her spurs, that Mrs. Wm. Rathbone, Mr. and Mrs. Tinne, and the she had never unfastened since leaving the members, both old and young, of several of the monastic asylum, hung as idle as the flap-families of the neighborhood, attended on this inping sail that fills unsteadily with the breeze upon a stranded ship.

This procession had some miles to go, and over difficult ground; but at length it reached the forest-like park and the chateau of the wealthy proprietress. Kate was still half-frozen and speechless, except at intervals. Heavens! can this corpse-like, languishing young woman be the Kate that once, in her radiant girlhood, rode with a handful of comrades into a column of two thousand enemies, that saw her comrades die, that persisted when all were dead, that tore from the heart of all resistance the banner of her native Spain? Chance and change have "written strange defeatures in her face." Much is changed; but some things are not changed: there is still kindness that overflows with pity; there is still helplessness that asks for this pity without. a voice she is now received by a Senora, not less kind than that maternal aunt, who, on the night of her birth, first welcomed her to a loving home; and she, the heroine

TESTIMONIAL TO THE ORIGINATOR OF PUBLIC

teresting occasion. Mrs. Wilkinson was led to a

chair, handsomely decorated with flowers, by Mr.
Lawrence, who pleasantly observed that though it
was June, he would crown her Queen of May.
laid out on the lawn in front of the house, after
The day being fine, tables with refreshments were
which the testimonial was presented, consisting of
a silver teapot, cream-jug, spoons, and China tea
service, and tray, inlaid with pearl. On the teapot
and cream-jug there is the following inscription:
Presented by

The Queen,
The Queen Dowager,
And the Ladies of Liverpool,
To Catherine Wilkinson.

1846.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

MR. CHARLES KINNAIRD SHERIDAN (son of the late Thomas Sheridan, and grandson of Richard Brinsley Sheridan,) one of the Attaches of the British Embassy at Paris, died in the Hotel of the Embassy on Sunday night last, May 30, in the 30th year of his age."

A PRINCELY COMPOSER. - The opera of Zaire, composed by the Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, performed in Berlin, for the first time, on the 23d brother of his Royal Highness Prince Albert, was of May, with decided success,

From Howitt's Journal.

CASPAR HAUSER, THE HEREDITARY PRINCE OF BADEN.

SUCH is the startling title of a little book, professing to be published at Paris, but supposed to be printed in Switzerland, and to this hour most religiously proscribed in Baden. Thereby hangs a tale, and a most strange tale, yet little known, and never published in England.

Our readers will well recollect the Life of Caspar Hauser, published in London by Simpkin and Marshall in 1833. It was a translation of the account drawn up from legal documents by Anselm von Feuerbach, the criminal judge, and one of the very commissioners appointed in Bavaria to inquire into the facts connected with the life, the discovery, and the murder of Hauser. There was also a little book published about him by the Earl Stanhope, who patronized and adopted Hauser while alive, but after his death, having been on a visit to the court of Baden, professed to have discovered that Hauser was an impostor. So far, however, from Hauser having been discovered to be an impostor, all the circumstances of his life are utterly opposed to such a possibility; and the circumstances of both his life and death, the more they are reflected upon by the German public, the more firmly do they fix themselves in its mind, as connected with some great state mystery and crime. The very fact, that this youth was for seventeen years shut up in a hidden cell; that he was tended by a man in disguise; that when he was supposed to have lost all recollection of his origin, and all power of communicating aught respecting his life except one long and great blank, he was sent out into the world, with a letter in his hand, purporting him to be the son of a poor girl; but, when it was found that, having acquired the power of speech, he began to put one thing to another, and to draw forth from the strange mystery of his life indications which might eventually furnish a clue to his real origin, that then "The Man," as Hauser always called him, the man in disguise who had kept him prisoner, should suddenly appear, and attempt his life: should again appear, and stab him to death -these circumstancs were to the German public convincing proofs that no poor girl was the mother, no priest, as asserted, the

father of this youth; but that more wealthy, more powerful, and more worldly exalted personages were implicated in the parentage, and in the crimes perpetrated on this unfortunate person.

These things have made Caspar Hauser the very Perkin Warbeck of Germany. That he had, however, a more real claim to a lofty origin is strongly attested by the secret firmness with which the faith in his right to the title indicated in the heading of our article, is held by a vast body, not only of the people, but of the most intelligent classes in Germany; and still more so by the active and rigid vigilance with which all publications, all talk, and even all whispers of this faith in Baden are suppressed. Let but a copy of the book or pamphlet be sent in the most secret manner into any town of Baden, and the police is instantly on the track of it; letters are intercepted in the post that mention it, and questions on the subject in ordinary conversation are touched with alarm.

Before going into the singular details. which we mean now to give, in order to put the reader on the true ground for fully comprehending their bearings, it will be as well to give a concise history of Caspar Hauser, from the publications already referred to, and well known in England.

Kaspar, or Caspar Hauser, the Nuremberg foundling, was observed in the evening of Whit-Monday, the 26th of May, 1828, standing against the wall in the Unschlitt market-place. The citizen, an inhabitant of the market-place, who first observed him, was struck by his singular appearance. It was that of a peasant youth, clad in the peasant costume, and holding in his hand a letter addressed to the captain of the fourth squadron of the sixth regiment of light horse, lying there. Being conducted to him by this good citizen, and questioned by him who and what he was, it became evident that he was almost wholly incapable of speech, was thoroughly ignorant of everything in life, and strange in his behavior. To all questions he answered, "From Regensburg," or "Joh woais nit," in the dialect of Bavaria, "I don't know ;" and yet on pen and ink being put before him, he wrote in a tolerably legible hand, his name,

"Kaspar Hauser." All endeavors to draw from him, however, whence he came, where he had lived, or any other matter connected with himself, were vain. He appeared to be from sixteen to seventeen years of age. He was of middle size, broad-shouldered, and of a perfect regularity of build. His skin was white and fine, his limbs were delicately moulded, his hands small and beautifully formed; and his feet, which were as soft in texture and finely shaped as his hands, bore not the slightest trace of having been compressed in shoes. He showed the utmost abhorrence of all food or drink, except dry bread and water. His speech was confined to a very few words or sentences in the old Bavarian dialect, as "Reuta wühn, wie mei Votta Wähn is:" "I wish to be a trooper, as my father was." He exhibited the most utter unacquaintance with the commonest objects and most daily appearances of nature, and a total indifference to the comforts and necessities of life. In his wretched dress was found a handkerchief marked K. H.; and he had also in his pocket a manuscript Catholic prayer-book. The writer of the letter which he had brought in his hand professed to be a poor laborer, and the father of ten children, and said that the boy had been left by his unknown mother at his door; that he had taken him in, and brought him up secretly, teaching him reading, writing, and Christianity. The letter was dated 1828, from the Bavarian frontiers, but the place not named. Within it was another letter, purporting to be from the mother, and written in Roman characters, saying that the boy was born on the 30th of April, 1812; that his mother was a poor maiden, who could not support him, and his father a soldier in the 6th regiment of light horse, now dead. That she requested the laborer to keep him till he was seventeen, and then send him to the regiment.

The whole of the story was soon felt to hang very badly together. It was not likely that a mother, determining to expose her child, would lay it at the door of a poor laborer with ten children, and expect him to keep it seventeen years. It was less likely that any poor laborer in such circumstances could or would so faithfully support a burden of this kind for so many years, and then so punctually convey him to the place appointed. Besides, what motive could the man have for concealment? The mother might have, but what could the poor laborer have? If he had received the

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He was handed over by the captain of horse to the police the very evening that he was found, and he was treated by them as a helpless person from some unknown place. The greatest curiosity was excited regarding him, as soon as the case was known, and the Bürgermeister Binder especially exerted himself to penetrate the mystery which surrounded him. The result of much inquiry, partly from himself, and partly from circumstantial evidence, was that he had been kept from his childhood in a dark, subterranean place, where he could not once stretch himself properly, it was so small, and there he had remained, clad only in a shirt and trowsers, and fed on bread and water. Occasionally he found himself attacked with very heavy sleep, and on awaking from these peculiar sleeps he found that his clothes had been changed, his nails cut, and the place had been cleaned out. His only amusement was playing with two wooden horses. For some time, however, before he was carried off to Nuremberg, the man who tended him, but whose face he never saw, had come frequently into his cell, had guided his hand in writing with a pencil on paper, which had delighted him very much, and had taught him to say he would be a soldier as his father had been; that he was from Regensburg; and "I don't know." length

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the man," ," as he always called him, came one night, carried him out of his dungeon, made him try to walk, on which he fainted, and at last brought him to the gate of Nuremberg.

Every circumstance testified to the truth of these facts. He stumbled slowly forward in attempting to walk. He appeared to have no guidance or control of his limbs. His feet, which had never been used to boots, were now thrust into them, and evidently gave him the greatest torture. Walking occasioned him to groan and weep. His eyes could not bear the light, but became inflamed; and the formation of the bones and muscles of his legs demonstrated that he had sat all his life long. At first he had no idea whatever of the qualities of

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