and following the sacred peplos, the embroidered garment of Minerva. Many a young heart beat with anticipation, vanity, or curiosity; one rejoiced to mingle in the gay show, another to wear her rich garments, a third to show her dazzling beauty to men's eyes. Euthyma had but one thoughtthat there she would see Hyas. She knew not how faithfully heart responded to heart; that when the poet was reminded of the new glory he would acquire, since, according to the custom lately introduced by Pericles, the solemnities were to be crowned by hymns in praise of Harmodius and

excitement, had degraded his holy mission, and given his power of song to Bacchic orgies, to wordly adulation of the rich or the beautiful, or to that bitter satire which holds its Argus eyes open to evil it decries, until it ceases to believe in the very existence of good. All this could be no longer. Those beautiful eyes seemed ever looking into the depths of his heart, and beneath their influence all thought that had once defiled it fled away. Again the haunting image of his boyhood rose up before him; it was now mingled with an earthly ideal, as pure and almost as beautiful. The face of the fountain seemed but a shadowing Aristogiton-the chosen bard none other than the forth of the beloved Euthyma.

The daughter of Eurymedon remained shut up in her customary but not unpleasing solitude; at stated times mingling with other high-born women in the religious processions which formed the only intercourse which Athenian maidens had with the world. Euthyma had known no other life, and desired none. She had created around her a dreamer's paradise; its centre one blissful image, the embodiment of what Zeuxis painted, and Hyas sung. The day which had so strangely colored the poet's fate was not without its influence on her. Her dim dreams took shape and hue, and were transformed into the love-idol that a woman makes to herself but once in a lifetime. Its presence haunted her, engrossing her whole soul, ruling her thoughts, until all her dreams, all her fantasies, converged towards itself. The glorious image was now no ideal transcript of perfection, no pictured Apollo, but it came in human likeness, with the bright, floating hair, and the deep, clear eyes, the likeness of Hyas! Ere the maiden knew it herself, her girlish worship had become woman's love.

Pythian victor, the darling of the Athenians-Hyas cared for nothing, thought of nothing, save that in the glittering show he would surely see again the beautiful face which had become his inspirationthe face of Euthyma.

The procession passed by in all its pomp; the aged men of the city, with their green olive boughs; the armed warriors; the strangers, each carrying the symbol of his foreign birth, a small gilded boat ; the youths, crowned with millet, chanting pæans to the goddess; and last of all the golden basketbearers, or canephori. On came the virgin troop, some with their eyes cast down in maidenly shamefacedness; others with bold, wandering looks, seeking for admiration; and some darting now and then, from under their long lashes, passing glances, like frightened deer.

Hyas had sought to be free from the prying friend who ever kept close to him in all public places, as if seeking to catch the infection of fame through perpetual contiguity. But Eryx was more persevering still.

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trembled; the golden basket which she bore on her head fell to the ground, and all its flowery treasures were poured at her feet.

Hyas, Hyas, look!" cried the sharp, distinct tones of the sophist, as the last division of caneA love like this has in it something of religious | phori passed by. One of the maidens started— adoration, inasmuch that it is long content with the simple worshipping of its divinity, and looks no more for a return than the priestess at the shrine expects that the god should vouchsafe audible answer to her vows. So Euthyma, absorbed in the bliss of loving, never dreamed of being herself loved; only at times when the poet's song reached her loneliness, imbued with all the new life with which she herself had inspired them, they found a mysterious echo in Euthyma's bosom. Sometimes their outburstings of love made her heart thrill with answering joy, and then caused it almost to cease its beating, chilled by a vague jealousy; while a sadness uncontrollable possessed her. How happy must be the maiden whom Hyas loved, if in truth it was no poet's ideal! Euthyma almost hoped it might be only thus, and yet she knew not why she wished.

The great festival of the Athenian maidens was the Panathenæa. These days of religious celebration in honor of Minerva came in the pleasant season of early summer, and the young patrician maidens, who then appeared in procession as canephori, counted, for months and months previous, the time when they should walk through the city, admiring and admired, bearing their golden baskets

Oh, happy lover! who was close by to gather up the scattered flowers, whose hand replaced the graceful burden, and touched for one moment the soft, scented hair on which it rested; and, oh, happy maiden! who, as the procession moved on. looked up amidst her blushes and met those earnest eyes, and felt that their mute language was none other than the eloquence of love. At once heart sprang to heart with a glad response; each had found, and knew that it had found, its other self— the life of its life. Henceforth, whenever the calm home-solitude of Eurymedon's daughter was visited by the poet's songs, they spoke unto her as soul speaks to soul. Often, after the Athenian fashion of wooing, garlands were hung at her threshold by invisible hands, and she saw her name carved on the trees; while many an olive-leaf floated in her path bearing the same inscription-" Euthyma ;" but the maiden heeded not these outward signs of the power of her beauty over many others. She felt only the silent worship, deepest of all, of one

At last Eurymedon called his only child to him, and told her that the time was come when the

bridal chariot must bear her from her father's house |ness, its gloom? How can I darken thy young to that of another. Then it was that a terrible life by uniting it with mine?" sighed Hyas, as fear fell upon the heart of the young dreamer, and even then all the doubts and mournful fancies of the real shut out all the dim visions of fancy. old came across his mind. "Dost thou know that "Oh, father, I am so happy, I seek no bride-even amidst the joy of love I have been sad-that groom! Let me stay with thee!" implored the all my life has been a vain pursuit after happiness girl.

“Euthyma, I have nothing worthy of thee but them; and, lo! gradually as the clouds formed my love! Look on me, for I love thee!"

splendors of mid-day. It was not overshadowed, but absorbed in light, its own beauty swallowed up in a still greater glory.

Hyas marvelled, and grew sorrowful: but, as if in answer to his fears, the voice, remembered of old, spoke to his heart :

"Despair not, though thou seest me no more; thou hast no need of me; the shadow of thy soul has become a dream no longer. Rejoice, and go on thy way with a strong and earnest heart, for thou hast attained the poet's true ideal as near as earth can bestow."

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"Oh, beautiful image! shall I see thee no more? Where then shall I find my spirit's desire, its guiding strength, its inspiration ?”

"Look once more in the waters, and thou shalt behold it."

He looked, and reflected in the spring was no airy phantom, but a woman's face, the wild-thyme garland waving over the clear brow, and the calm, loving eyes. Hyas turned, and felt round his neck the warm, soft arms of Euthyma; and while he clasped his bride to his bosom, the young Athenian knew that the poet's best ideal on earth is a

Still vaguely comprehending the meaning, Hyas true-hearted woman's love. cried sadly

| founded on such subjects form the narrative of the her brother; whom Gilbert Markham, the farmer tale, till she secretly escapes, and takes refuge near lover, has mistaken for a favored swain, and ferociously assaulted. In due time Mr. Huntingdon, the husband, dies; his widow's possession of prop

but it comes at last.

ACTON BELL'S TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.* THE volumes of fiction that some time since appeared under the name of Bell, with three several prænomens, had such a generic resemblance to one another that several reviewers remarked it. The first and most striking affinity was of substance. Each of the Bells selected the singular both in char-erty causes a considerable delay in the denouement; acter and incident. The persons were such as are formed by a natural peculiarity of disposition, influenced by an equal peculiarity of circumstances, or produced by strong passions running their course unrestrained in the freedom of a remote country place, at a time which permitted greater liberty to individual will or caprice than is vouchsafed even to brutal and isolated squireens in these days. The composition-not mere diction, but the arrangement of the incidents and persons, as well as the style of the things themselves-was extreme and wild; seeking to base effects on the startling, without much regard either to probability or good taste. A rough vigor characterized the whole batch of Bells; but Currer Bell, the author or editor of Jane Eyre, exhibited rather the most cultivated taste and decidedly the most literary skill.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, like its predecessor, There is power, effect, and even nature, though of suggests the idea of considerable abilities ill applied. an extreme kind, in its pages; but there seems in the writer a morbid love for the coarse, not to say the brutal; so that his level subjects are not very attractive, and the more forcible are displeasing or repulsive, from their gross, physical, or profligate substratum. He might reply that such things are in life; and probably glimpses of such a set as Huntingdon and his friends are occasionally caught in Doctors Commons cases, and tradition pictures such doings as not very rare in the early part of George the Third's reign—although Mr. Bell paints them as contemporary. Mere existence, however, as we have often had occasion to remark, is not a sufficient reason for a choice of subject; its general or typical character is a point to consider, and its power of pleasing must be regarded, as well as its the subject of this novel, however, that is objectionmere capabilities of force or effect. It is not only able, but the manner of treating it. There is a coarseness of tone throughout the writings of all these Bells, that puts an offensive subject in its to dash indifferent things.-Spectator. worst point of view, and which generally contrives

Nearly one half of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Acton Bell, forms a sort of setting to the main story, and is pitched in a more natural key than the author's previous novel, though not without occasional roughness. In escaping from his extreme and violent manner, however, he loses somewhat of his strength and interest. There is nature, undoubtedly; but it is of a common kind. The daily life of a young and self-sufficient gentleman farmer and his family, with the characters and gossip of his neighborhood, are scarcely enough to THE PACKET SHIP.-The packet ship is a curisustain the reader for a volume, even with the addi-ous triumph of modern times. We are domicilition of the aforesaid farmer's love for the mysterious tenant of Wildfell Hall.

The tale of this lady, which she has written down apparently for her lover to read, is a story of suffering in married life, arising from the licentiousness, drunkenness, and downright blackguardism of her husband and his associates. She is provoked by his profligacy, disgusted by his habits, and surrounded by tempting gallants; and scenes * Republished by Harper & Brothers, New York.

ated upon the ocean. I hear the notes of a piano, the lowing of a cow, the cackle of hens, indeed all the noises of a barn-yard! We have fresh meat and milk, warm bread, &c. Sea travelling, howWarm baths might be introduced, and stoves to deever, is capable of being yet more improved upon. stroy the effluvia of bilge-water. Cabins might be so constructed as to admit the air through a small side window to each. The berths, sofas, and dinner-tables, with their seats, might be hammockswung.-Fay.

From Chambers' Journal.

THE CHARACTER OF COSTUME.

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ALL who have exercised even a superficial degree of observation, must be aware how much their estimation of a stranger is influenced by the habiliments of his outward man. The garnishing of a bonnet, or the pattern of a vest, can give curious hints on biography; and Beau Brummell's maxim, that a man was esteemed according to the set of his shirt-collar," is not without some experimental truth. Look out on a city thoroughfare, saunter along a fashionable promenade, enter a place of public assembly, and see what varieties of character present themselves to the mind through the different combinations of silk, woollen, and cotton fabrics which form the staple of British apparel. Almost involuntarily a spectator will discover and classify the accurate and inflexible in small ways, who would wage war for the size of a button or the position of a pin; the jumbled and disorderly, whose lives stumble on from one casualty to another; the strivers after effect and show; the servants of unembellished utility; the creatures of milliners, yea, and those of tailors also, who live only from the fashion; and the few who use the fashions of life, yet are not subject to any of them. It is not possible that impressions thus received could be always correct: there are a thousand petty influences that operate on the clothing as well as the conduct of humanity, but they are generally entertained in lieu of something more certain; and those who will not go as far as character, occasionally inquire of beaver and broad cloth regarding the wearer's profession; not only where it has appropriated some peculiar mode, as in the cases of clergy and military men, but in the less conspicuous vocations, where the matter is left entirely to individual selection. Thus poets and Blues were believed to be recognizable in the days of our grandfathers, and some still pretend to discern the insignia of those orders. We once heard a railway clerk assert that he never was mistaken in schoolmasters or commercial travellers; and among the anecdotes of the French revolution, is one concerning a countess who attempted to make her escape from the Temple in the disguise of a charwoman, but was detected by the aristocratic fashion in which she wore a washedout cotton shawl. "How were they dressed?" is a universal inquiry; and the whole body of writers in travels, fiction, and history, seem aware of the fact, and describe the attire of their principal characters with minutie worthy of the Court Circular. Nor is the idea of its importance unfounded. An old author remarks, "that it is not Quakers', millers', and bakers' boys alone that are distinguished by the cut and color of their garments; but individuals, nations, and times, because the habit of clothing is one of the great particularities of man, which, if it be not common to all men, is shared in by no other animal; and like the handwriting, or fashion of speech, it serveth to denote somewhat of his proper personality."

The

The truth of these observations is strikingly illus-
trated by a gallery of old family pictures, or those
portraits of sovereigns and celebrated persons
which exhibit the costume of the ages in which
they flourished; and it is an amusing, yet not un-
instructive study, to trace the coincidence that ex-
ists between the character of each succeeding cen-
tury and the fashion of its garments, from almost
the dawn of our national history to the reign of
Victoria. In this respect costume furnishes the
most obvious signs of the times, in which the be-
holder may read their moral and mental character,
even as the picture-lovers of some future generation
will speculate on the books of beauty, the fash-
ionable magazines, and, should any be preserved,
the photographic portraits of our own day.
earliest account of British costume is given us by
Julius Cæsar and his contemporaries, according to
whom it consisted of a beard reaching to the breast
like a tangled mane; a mantle which descended
almost to the knee, made of the hide of a brindled
cow, with the hair worn outwards, and fastened
in front with a pin of bone or a long thorn; a
shield composed of wickerwork; a brazen javelin ;
and the greater part of the body painted dark-blue,
or some say green, the breast and arms being punc-
tured with the figures of plants and animals, like
the tattooing of the South Sea isles. This primi-
tive fashion naturally represents a land covered
with primeval forests, the resort of the bear and
the bison; huts constructed of wattles and mud,
and thatched with heath and fern; gatherings for
rude Pagan rites round the solitary cromlech, or
in that puzzle of antiquaries-the circle of Stone-
henge; and a savage veneration for the Druid and
the mistletoe.

How the belles of Britain were arrayed in Cæsar's time we are not informed, but the progress of civilization may be traced by the dress of the celebrated Queen Boadicea, who lived more than a century later, as described by a Roman historian on a state occasion: her light hair fell down her shoulders; she wore a torque, or twisted collar of gold; a tunic of several colors, all in folds; and over it, fastened by a fibula, or brooch, a robe of coarse stuff. We also gather from some remnants of old Celtic poetry that at the same period the dress of the Druid was a long white robe, as an emblem of purity; that of the bards a blue one; and the professors of medicine and astronomy, which appear to have been curiously connected in the minds of our Celtic ancestors, were distinguished by a garment of green, because it was the garment of nature; while those who aspired to unite the honors of those three vocations to their names, wore variegated dresses of the three colors-blue, green, and white.

Pliny tells us that these divers-colored garments were made of a fabric called braccæ, composed of fine wool woven in cheques, and evidently synonymous with the Scottish tartan. Several Roman writers add, that of this chequered cloth the manycolored tunic of Boadicea, and the entire dress of her most distinguished warriors, were formed.

or purse.

From their description of the latter, it appears to the wearer were enveloped. These pictures rehave exactly resembled the costume of a High- mind us of the old Saxon chroniclers, with their land chief, with kilt, plaid, and dirk; wanting simple faith and blunt sense; of the low solid Saxon only the plumed bonnet, and the tasseled sporan arch; of rude habits, primitive customs, and wild These were the additions of after-wars with the invading Danes. It was in this period that our national language, our popular superstitions, and most of our rural festivals, had their origin. Yet among the kirtles and wœfles of the Saxon dames we find the curling-irons of modern fashion in full exercise. Adhelm, Bishop of Therborne, who wrote in the eighth century, describes a belle of the period as having her delicate locks twisted by the iron of those adorning her;" but the wearers of kid gloves among us little think how many efforts and ages were required to bring those indispensable articles to their present perfection. Till about the end of the tenth century, the hands even of English royalty were covered only by the end of the loose sleeve; but then some the leaders of fashion began to assume a small bag, with a thumb at the one side, the fingers being all indiscriminately confined, which certainly could not have had the effect of increasing their usefulness.

times, which came with the pibroch, the fiery cross, and the black mail, to the Celts of our northern mountains; but the days of which we speak were those of the plaided warriors, encountering the cuirassed and Latin-talking legions of Rome-the days of the hewing down of old oak woods-the building of those Roman forts and cities whose ruins and burial urns are turned up by modern excavation. It is curious to consider that the chequered cloth, which was now regarded by the Romans as a savage dress, had once (if a modern and well-supported theory be true) been the costume of a large part of the earth, including the countries afterwards inhabited by the Romans; and that, after surviving eighteen centuries in one corner of the island of Britain, it has come again to be a favorite wear over regions far beyond the bounds of the Scottish Highlands, as if the first fancy of the European races with respect to clothing had involved some peculiar felicity, which was sure to rekindle their affections on its being brought again before their notice. True it is, the chequered braccæ, in which the heroic queen so nobly, though vainly, strove to defend her country and people, is at this moment worn throughout the British dominions-and they are wider than Rome ever dreamt of-in a thousand varieties, from the satins and velvet of court costume, to the coarse muffled cloak or plaid of the winter traveller; while the faith, the power, and the vices of the Romans have long ago become but matters of dry and antiquated history.

Next come the Anglo-Saxon times, of which we have actual portraits preserved in some old illuminated manuscripts, such as that of King Edgar in the Book of Grants to the Abbey of Winchester, A. D. 966. Here flax appears in full fashion-the monarch's dress consisting of a linen shirt, a tunic of the same material, descending to the knee, having long close sleeves, but which sit in wrinkles, or rather rolls, from the elbow to the wrist it was confined by a belt or girdle round the waist; and the royal attire was completed by a pair of loose buskins, or rather stockings, wound round with bands of gold, which the generality of his subjects supplied with leather, a sort of tiara, or crown, and a short mantle.

Similar habiliments were worn by the good King Alfred, and the renowned Charlemagne; for all the nations of Gothic or Germanic origin, who at that period occupied the continent of Europe, resembled each other in their customs, and even language. The dress of the Saxon ladies appears to have been composed of the gunna, a long flowing robe with loose sleeves, from which the modern word gown is derived; a shorter one called the kirtle; and the head-dress on all occasions consisted of a long piece of linen, denominated the woefles, in which the head and neck of

The Saxon was succeeded by the Anglo-Danish period, so called from the conquest of Canute the Great and his successors, some portraits of whom are extant. Their costume was the same as that of the Saxons; but their chosen color was black, like their national standard-the raven: on which account the Saxons called them the Black Northmen. But we find they also excelled them in civilization, for the old chroniclers inform us that the Danes were effeminately gay in their dress, combed their hair once a day, and bathed once a week; which seems to have been considered intolerable foppery by the honest Saxons. The Normans, who succeeded the Danes, under the conduct of William the Conqueror, were of similar northern origin, and, as might be expected, retained a similarity of dress. The earliest specimens of their costume are given in the Bayeux tapestry, one of those immense specimens of needlework produced only in the middle ages; being thirty-seven yards in length, covered with scenes from the conquest of England, and said to be the work of William's queen, Matilda, and her maids of honor. Wealth and splendor are evidently on the increase. As we descend to the Norman days, the robes are bordered with fringe of gold; cords and tassels are added to the mantle; but the Saxon beard is gone as well as the Danish long hair; for a complete exquisite in the reign of the Conqueror would not suffer a single hair to grow on the whole expanse of his countenance, and the entire back of his head, which had only a few short and straggling locks round the forehead, and over the ears.

In the reign of William Rufus, lengthening and enlarging seem to have been the mode; and under several of his successors, long, cumbrous garments, with immense sleeves, were the gentlemen's attire, with shoes whose toes turned up in a projecting peak to the height of twelve inches,