We had bivouacked on the banks of the stream. The detachment being a very weak one, not exceeding twenty rank and file, under the charge of a young sub-lieutenant, and the mountains full of fuyards and marauders, it was necessary to keep a good look-out. The young assistant commissary-general in charge of the stores, who had no military duties to perform, had taken up his quarters at the châlet, where, in the only room of which it consisted, they had prepared him a sort of bed, screened only by a blanket from that of the host and his wife. As he was sitting over a cheerful fire of pinewood, there entered a commis voyageur, who had been detained for some time at Altorff by the presence of the enemy, and their occupation of the pass. As soon, therefore, as he heard of its being open, he had pushed forward on his way to Milan with the intention of prosecuting the rest of his journey under the guard of the troops, and proceeding with us the ensuing morning. His employers were great diamond-merchants; and he, having partaken rather too freely of the eau de cerise, the only liquor that the place supplied,-spoke rather indiscrectly of the value of the casket-one of the usual brassbound shape-of which he was the bearer. I forgot to tell you that the commissary's name was Adolphe, and that he came from the same village in Burgundy as myself. We had been schoolfellows and friends from infancy; and our intimacy was still further strengthened by his affection for my sister, to whom he had been long betrothed, and was about to be married, when the decimation of the commune marked us on the same day as victims to the conscription. It was a melancholy moment for poor Adolphe when the hour of parting came; and a still more heart-rending one to his mother, whose husband had been killed in action at the breaking out of the revolutionary war. Adolphe was her only son, her only stay in the world, a staff to the feebleness of her age. The cottage they inhabited, and an orchard and meadow at the back, were her own property; and she looked forward to clasping on her knees the grand-children of her Adolphe and Gothon,-such was the name of her intended daughter-in-law. But all these dreams of happiness were doomed to be at once blighted! When she clasped him in her widowed arms, it was their last embrace.

"We joined the army on the same day, and were attached to the same corps; but in consequence of the services of Adolphe's father, who had been known to the colonel of the regiment, my friend was attached to the commissariat department,-a branch of the service that promised him the realization of a rapid fortune. But he was illcalculated for a life of activity and enterprise; he was of a melancholy temperament, and his thoughts were constantly reverting to his home, and those who had endeared it. During the day's march he was frequently by my side. The frightful solitudes of the Alps, and the terrific grandeur of the Devil's Bridge, recalled more forcibly the green pastures and vineyards of his native plains; and a sombre pre-occupation of mind, a presentiment of evil, made him remark to me that St. Gothard was an eternal barrier between him and his hopes,-that he should never again cross it. I laughed at his fears, treated them as idle and chimerical, and endeavored to cheer him ; but in vain. Such was the mood in which I left him for bivouac.

"The commis voyageur and Adolphe having supped together, the latter offered the stranger,-as I have done you, sir,-the half of his

couch, which he gratefully accepted; and, having deposited his precious casket under his head as a pillow, soon sunk into a deep sleep, as his snoring revealed. The other inhabitants of the châlet had long before retired to their grabats; but Adolphe's imagination was too active for slumber."

Here the host gave a deep sigh, which was however unobserved by the narrator; and, indeed, there seemed nothing as yet to occasion it. I eyed him attentively; his head was resting on his hand, the fingers of which clasped his forehead, and I could perceive a convulsion about his mouth, but it was momentary. The broken glass lay at his feet; and it seemed to me strange that he had not provided himself with another, as the bottle continued to circulate.

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The moon was at the full, and her rays streamed in a silver line through the middle of the châlet, steeping both sides of it in pitchy darkness. She seemed to invite Adolphe into the open air. He got up, and tried the door; but it was fastened by two bolts, and locked; and, fearful of disturbing the sleepers by unbarring it, he bethought him of the window. The hatch yielded almost without an effort; and climbing to the aperture by means of a wooden chair, which he lifted after him, he leapt with it into the road.

"What a glorious spectacle was that moonlight bright, among the Alps! How sweetly did that emerald valley slumber in its beams! How tremulously did they quiver on the bright and pellucid stream that wound through it like a silver snake! Every point of the crags, even to the far-off heights of the Grimsel, was tipped with silver; and the broad glance of the Rhone that lay between, distinguishable through its wide extent, glittered in the pure effulgence, and seemed like a fit pathway for spirits up to heaven! Not a breath stirred the grass. Such was the silence, that the measured step of the sentinels was distinctly heard as they paced the velvet turf; and the falls of the Reuss came at intervals on the ear, fainter and more faint in response, till they died away in the distance.

"Adolphe endeavored to find a calm for the fever of his thoughts in that of Nature. He was soon challenged by the men on guard, among whom I was one. We recognised him; and it being contrary to the regulations of the service, we did not exchange a word. He passed in front of the stores, and my eye followed him along the course of the river till he was concealed by a projecting rock. How long he wandered, or how far, I know not, for I was almost immediately afterwards relieved.

"I have since questioned Adolphe as to the length of his walk; all he remembered of it was, that he had stood for some time on the Devil's Bridge, and, as he looked down upon the foaming torrent as it flashed through the arch, was tempted to throw himself over the parapet, and had great difficulty in resisting the impulse.

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At length, however, he found his way back to the châlet, and laid himself down in his clothes by the stranger, and fell into a heavy trance, which, like that produced by opium, was scarcely slumber; it was disturbed by frightful visions. The figure of the landlord of the inn seemed to stand palpably before him, his hands dabbled in blood." Our host here groaned audibly; but the narrator, absorbed in his own reflections, or supposing that the groans arose from sympathy, scarcely noticed them."

"He thought," continued the officer, "that a death-cold corpse lay by his side; that he felt the very hand of a corpse grasped in his own! So like reality was the dream, that he started up in the bed, and stared wildly around him; but all was silence, and the moon being down,-pitchy darkness,—he laid himself on the couch again, and soon fell asleep.

"We were to recommence our march at dawn. It was in the month of June; and in these Alpine heights the day breaks earlier than in the valley. It was scarcely three o'clock when I was awakened by a loud din of voices, among which that of the landlord rose above the rest. He was in his shirt, and dragging toward our guards a man; that man was Adolphe. He denounced him as having committed a murder in the inn, and called for the officer in charge. We left our mules half saddled, and rushed pell-mell into the châlet, where a horrid spectacle awaited us. The commis voyageur, yet warm and bleeding, was stretched on the bed, that bore the impress of another person; for a purple stream, yet welling from a wound in the dead man's side, had formed a puddle there. Beside him lay the sword of Adolphe stained with the recent wound.

"It must be confessed that his having left the inn before daybreak, and by the window, as the chair on the outside revealed,-instead of the door; the disappearance of the casket, which it might be supposed he had gone to hide in some recess among the rocks, to be removed at a convenient opportunity; afforded strong circumstantial evidence to affix upon him the murder.

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"A consciousness of the damning proofs that everywhere stared him in the face, and, above all, the faces of the officer and those around him, where he legibly read a full conviction of his guilt, and the certainty of the cruel fate-the ignominious death-that awaited him, so unnerved and unmanned him that he stood staring with the glassy eyes of idiotcy, and had not a word to urge in his defence. His countenance, too, was pale and ghastly from horror at the deed, and the dreadful night that he had passed. Never was there a more perfect picture of conscious guilt. In this state of despair he was handcuffed, and marched, together with the landlord of the inn, to Bellengina, where the head-quarters of the army were established.

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Military trials, especially during a campaign, are very summary. The commandant was a Swiss; he entertained a high notion of the superior virtues of his countrymen, and scouted the idea of a suspicion attaching itself to a simple peasant, a mountaineer, who, he said, could have no use for diamonds or gold, even when he had obtained them.

"After a delay of only a few hours, a court-martial was appointed, and sate upon my poor, beloved, and innocent friend. It was with a prostration of all his energies, mental and physical, and almost an unconsciousness of what was passing, that Adolphe listened to the connected evidence-evidence that he had no power of rebutting. When called upon for his defence, he admitted the facts that had been adduced against him, all but that of the murder; related his wandering among the mountains, his dream, and finding when he awoke in the morning the dead body by his side, and the augerbiste standing over him; but all this in so hurried and confused a manner, and with so evident a perturbation of mind, that his whole demeanor seemed rather to confirm his judges in the conviction that he was the

murderer. In short, he was unanimously found guilty, and condemned to be shot.

"Alas, for poor Adolphe! I had an interview with him an hour before the fatal event. Knowing him from a child,-knowing, as it were, all the secrets of his soul,-my heart acquitted him. Yet was I the only one in camp who believed in his innocence. Though young and unwilling to leave the world, it was the thought of infamy, of his mother, of his betrothed, that gave poignancy to his anguish, and made the bitterness of death more bitter. To me he consigned the task of making his last adieus to those so dear to him,—of rescuing his memory, at least to them, from the ignominy attached to it; and, having mingled our tears, he prepared to meet his Maker.

"Nothing is so imposing, so awful, as a military execution!-the muffled drum, the firing party with their lowered arms,-the drawnup line, round which the criminal marches, stript of his sword, and with bare head, the deep silence that reigns, suggesting that of the grave, weigh upon the heart of the coldest and most insensible.

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Adolphe had summoned all his firmness for the occasion; his step was sure, his cheek had regained its natural hue, his eyes were raised to heaven, where he was about to be welcomed as a blessed spirit! I have him even now before me on his knees; the attitude in which he presented himself to the muskets of his comrades has never passed away! Methinks the fatal word of command to fire still rings in my ears; and then, transfixed with many wounds, he falls without a groan."

As the stranger concluded in these terms, deep and heavy groans and wild shrieks filled the room. The landlord of the inn lay struggling in strong convulsions on the floor. What had before seemed suspicion was now converted into certainty. The officer regarded him attentively; a sudden recollection flashed upon his mind; and, gnashing his teeth with concentrated vengeance as he hung over him and watched his distorted countenance, he muttered,

""Tis he! 'tis the bandit of the Alps! the innkeeper of Andermatt ! the assassin of my friend!"

Shakspeare knew well the human heart when he makes Hamlet present to the eyes of his father's murderers the representation of the act in a play, so to self-convict them of their crime. But, thus related, it came still more keenly to the breast of the hardened wretch before us, and struck his conscience as with a knife! Never shall I forget the countenance of that man, or his words! During his ravings he betrayed his secret. Some dreadful spectre seemed to haunt him; he waved his hands wlid. ly as though to drive it away! Thus was he carried by his wife and daughter to his chamber.

We sate up during the remainder of the night; and, the next morning, instead of prosecuting our journey, applied for a warrant to the juge de pays of Lugano, and had him apprehended. Like many murderers, who at the eleventh hour have found remorse make existence a burthen,-and have thought that if death will not reconcile them to their God, it will at least be an atonement to the injured laws of their country in the eyes of man,-the inkeeper of Andermatt made an ample and voluntary confession, and paid the forfeit of his sins upon

the scaffold.

A POET'S FRENZY.

Sweet is a kiss from rosy lips,
Sweet the dew the honey-bee sips,
Sweet the cooing of the dove,
Sweet the memory of love.
Sweet the milkmaid's merry song
As she treads the glades among,
Sweet an injury's redress,
Sweet is Beauty's loveliness,
Sweet is to a miser-gain,

Sweet is music's dulcet strain,

Sweet the voice of mirth and gladness,

And sweet is sometimes pensive sadness;
But sweeter still than these,-than all
Supremely intellectual,-

Is the mental exultation
Of the poet's inspiration.

Yes! a poet's frenzy rises

Far above earth's vulgar blisses :

It is a touch Promethean glowing,

A chaunt from Heaven's orchestra flowing,A vivid flash of heavenly flame

Illumining

Stop, Pegasus! for something tells me

That now a poet's frenzy fills me.

Just let me, pray! secure the girth,

Else I might tumble back to earth.

There, now! Away I'm borne in rapid flight,

'Mid crystal waves and isles of light,

Where dread Sublimity appears

Enshrined amid those starry spheres:
Where Poetry her throne has placed.
August, magnificent, and vast.

I see, I see the goddess: lo! she wears
A crown of dazzling splendor;

'Tis gemm'd with heaven's own golden stars,*

A diadem of wonder:

And in her hand a sceptre, brightening

With flashes of the beamy lightening.

Purple clouds her drapery form:
Her ministers, sunshine and storm.

Well! if this be not the frenzy, I
Am seized with a strange phantasy.
It must be so, without further proem,
I'll just commence a little poem.

While in the grove, at eventide,
My thoughts were thus to verse applied,
An Owl, perch'd on the opposite tree,
Thus from his roost accosted me.

"Your frenzy on a very fine
Pinion may be rising;

But take advice,-go home to bed,
And cease your poetising."

⚫ Ye stars! which are the poetry of Heaven. BYRON.