evening, he told us, partly by words and partly by gestures, the story of his life and misfortunes, amused us with descriptions of the grape-gatherings and festivals of his sunny clime, edified my mother with a recipe for making bread of chestnuts; and in the morning, when, after breakfast, his dark, sullen face lighted up and his fierce eye moistened with grateful emotion as in his own silvery Tuscan accent he poured out his thanks, we marvelled at the fears which had so nearly closed our door against him; and, as he departed, we all felt that he had left with us the blessing of the poor.

It was not often that, as in the above instance, my mother's prudence got the better of her charity. The regular "old stragglers" regarded her as an unfailing friend; and the sight of her plain cap was to them an assurance of forthcoming creature comforts. There was indeed a tribe of lazy strollers, having their place of rendezvous in the town of Barrington, New Hampshire, whose low vices had placed them beyond even the pale of her benevolence. They were not unconscious of their evil reputation; and experience had taught them the necessity of concealing, under well-contrived disguises, their true character. They came to us in all shapes and with all appearances save the true one, with most miserable stories of mishap and sickness and all "the ills which flesh is heir to." It was particularly vexatious to discover, when too late, that our sympathies and charities had been expended upon such graceless vagabonds as the "Barrington beggars." An old withered hag, known by the appellation of Hopping Pat, the wise woman of her tribe, - was in the habit of visiting us, with her hopeful grandson, who had "a gift for preaching" as well as for many other things not exactly compatible with holy orders. He sometimes brought with him a tame crow, a shrewd, knavish-looking bird, who, when in the humor for it, could talk like Barnaby Rudge's raven. He used to say he could "do nothin' at exhortin' without a white handkercher on his

neck and money in his pocket". a fact going far to confirm the opinions of the Bishop of Exeter and the Puseyites generally, that there can be no priest without tithes and surplice.

These people have for several generations lived distinct from the great mass of the community, like the gypsies of Europe, whom in many respects they closely resemble. They have the same settled aversion to labor and the same disposition to avail themselves of the fruits of the industry of others. They love a wild, out-of-door life, sing songs, tell fortunes, and have an instinctive hatred of " missionaries and cold water." It has been said — I know not upon what grounds that their ancestors were indeed a veritable importation of English gypsyhood; but if so, they have undoubtedly lost a good deal of the picturesque charm of its unhoused and free condition. I very much fear that my friend Mary Russell Mitford, sweetest of England's rural painters, who has a poet's eye for the fine points in gypsy character, would scarcely allow their claims to fraternity with her own vagrant friends, whose camp-fires welcomed her to her new home at Swallowfield.

"The proper study of mankind is man"; and, according to my view, no phase of our common humanity is altogether unworthy of investigation. Acting upon this belief two or three summers ago, when making, in company with my sister, a little excursion into the hill country of New Hampshire, I turned my horse's head towards Barrington for the purpose of seeing these semi-civilized strollers in their own home, and returning, once for all, their numerous visits. Taking leave of our hospitable cousins in old Lee with about as much solemnity as we may suppose Major Laing parted with his friends when he set out in search of desertgirdled Timbuctoo, we drove several miles over a rough road, passed the Devil's Den unmolested, crossed a fretful little streamlet noisily working its way into a valley where it turned a lonely, half-ruinous mill, and climbing a steep

hill beyond, saw before us a wide sandy level, skirted on the west and north by low, scraggy hills, and dotted here and there with dwarf pitch pines. In the centre of this desolate

region were some twenty or thirty small dwellings, grouped together as irregularly as a Hottentot kraal. Unfenced, unguarded, open to all comers and goers, stood that city of the beggars—no wall or paling between the ragged cabins to remind one of the jealous distinctions of property. The great idea of its founders seemed visible in its unappropri ated freedom. Was not the whole round world their own? and should they haggle about boundaries and title deeds? For them, on distant plains, ripened golden harvests; for them, in far-off workshops, busy hands were toiling; for them, if they had but the grace to note it, the broad earth put on her garniture of beauty, and over them hung the silent mystery of heaven and its stars. That comfortable philosophy which modern transcendentalism has but dimly shadowed forth-that poetic agrarianism, which gives all to each and each to all-is the real life of this city of unwork. To each of its dingy dwellers might be not unaptly applied the language of one who, I trust, will pardon me for quoting her beautiful poem in this connection:

"Other hands may grasp the field or forest,

Proud proprietors in pomp may shine;

Thou art wealthier-all the world is thine."

But look! the clouds are breaking. "Fair weather com. eth out of the north." The wind has blown away the mists; on the gilded spire of John Street glimmers a beam of sunshine; and there is the sky again, hard, blue, and cold in its eternal purity, not a whit the worse for the storm. In the beautiful present the past is no longer needed. Reverently and gratefully let its volume be laid aside; and when again the shadows of the outward world fall upon the spirit, may I not lack a good angel to remind me of its solace, even if he comes in the shape of a Barrington beggar.

DARA.

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

W

HEN Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand
Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land

Was hovered over by those vulture ills
That snuff decaying empire from afar,
Then, with a nature balanced as a star,
Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He who had governed fleecy subjects well,
Made his own village by the self-same spell
Secure and quiet as a guarded fold;

Then, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees,

Under his sway, to neighbor villages

Order returned, and faith, and justice old.

Now when it fortuned that a king more wise

Endued the realm with brain, and hands, and eyes,

He sought on every side men brave and just;
And having heard our mountain shepherd's praise,
How he refilled the mould of elder days,

To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide,

Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride
Than in his crook before; but envy finds

More food in cities than on mountains bare;
And the frank sun of spirits clear and rare
Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was whispered at the royal ear
That, though wise Dara's province, year by year,
Like a great sponge, sucked wealth and plenty up,
Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest,
Some yellow drops more rich than all the rest
Went to the filling of his private cup.

For proof, they said that, wheresoe'er he went,
A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent,
Went with him; and no mortal eye had seen
What was therein, save only Dara's own.
But, when 't was opened, all his tent was known
To glow and lighten with heaped jewels' sheen.

The king set forth for Dara's province straight,
Where, as was fit, outside the city's gate,
The viceroy met him with a stately train,
And there, with archers circled, close at hand,
A camel with the chest was seen to stand.

The king's brow reddened, for the guilt was plain.

Open me here," he cried, "this treasure chest."

'T was done, and only a worn shepherd's vest

Was found within. Some blushed and hung the head; Not Dara; open as the sky's blue roof

66

He stood, and "O my lord, behold the proof

That I was faithful to my trust," he said.

"To govern men, lo, all the spell I had!
My soul in these rude vestments ever clad
Still to the unstained past kept true and leal,

B