should be selected. If there were any orphan children in the place, it would seem to be very proper to devote the moderate sum bequeathed to educating them. The trustees recognized the justice of this suggestion. Why not apply it to the instruction and maintenance of those two pretty and promising children, virtually orphans, whom the charitable Mrs. Hopkins had cared for so long without any recompense, and at a cost which would soon become beyond her means? The good people of the neighborhood accepted this as the best solution of the difficulty. It was agreed upon at length by the trustees, that the Cynthia Badlam Fund for Educational Purposes should be applied for the benefit of the two foundlings known as Isosceles and Helminthia Hopkins. "But, my dear Mrs. Hopkins," Master Gridley urged, "if you knew the meaning they have to the ears of scholars, you would see that I did very wrong to apply such absurd names to my little fellow-creatures, and that I am bound to rectify my error. More than that, my dear madam, I mean to consult you as to the new names; and if we can fix upon proper and pleasing ones, it is my intention to leave a pretty legacy in my will to these interesting children." ... "Mr. Gridley," said Mrs. Hopkins, "you 're the best man I ever see, or ever shall see, except my poor dear Ammi. . . . I'll do jest as you say about that, or about anything else in all this livin' world." "What if we change Isosceles to Theodore, Mrs. Hopkins? That means the gift of God, and the child has been a gift from Heaven, rather than a burden." Mrs. Hopkins seized her apron, and held it to her eyes. She was weeping. "Theodore!" she said, – “ Theodore! My little brother's name, that I buried when I was only eleven year old. Drownded. The dearest little child that ever you see. I have got his little mug with Theodore on it now. Kep' o' purpose. Our little Sossy shall have it. Theodore P. Hopkins, sha'n't it be, Mr. Gridley?" "Well, if you say so; but why that P., Mrs. Hopkins? Theodore Parker, is it?" "Does n't P. stand for Pemberton, and is n't Father Pemberton the best man in the world- next to you, Mr. Gridley?" "Well, then, Mrs. Hopkins, what ity." shall be the boy's name?" - Cynthia Badlam Fund Hopkins," said the good woman triumphantly, Suppose we leave out one of the four are too many. I think the general opinion will be that Helminthia should unite the names of her two benefactresses, — Cynthia Badlam Hopkins." "Why, law! Mr. Gridley, is n't that nice? Minthy and Cynthy, there ain't but one letter of difference! Poor Cynthy would be pleased if she could know that one of our babes was to be called after her. She was dreadful fond of children." was On one of the sweetest Sundays that ever made Oxbow Village lovely, the Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Pemberton summoned to officiate at three most interesting ceremonies, - a wedding and two christenings, one of the latter a double one. The first was celebrated at the house of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, between the Rev. Cyprian Eveleth and Bathsheba, daughter of the first-named clergyman. He could not be present on account of his great infirmity, but the door of his chamber was left open that he might hear the marriage service performed. The old, white-haired minister, assisted, as the papers said, by the bridegroom's father, conducted the ceremony according to the Episcopal form. When he came to those solemn words in which the husband promises fidelity to the wife so long as they both shall live, the nurse, who was watching near the poor father, saw him bury his face in his pillow, and heard him murmur the words, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" The christenings were both to take place at the same service, in the old meeting-house. Colonel Clement Lindsay and Myrtle his wife came in, and stout Nurse Byloe bore their sturdy infant in her arms. A slip of paper was handed to the Reverend Doctor on which these words were written: "The name is Charles Hazard." The solemn and touching rite was then performed; and Nurse Byloe disappeared with the child, its forehead - NO. 122. VOL. XX. 42 657 That evening, Sunday evening as it was, there was a quiet meeting of some few friends at The Poplars. It was such a great occasion that the Sabbatical rules, never strict about Sunday evening, which was, strictly speaking, secular time, were relaxed. Father Byles Gridley, of course, and the Rev. Pemberton, was there, and Master Ambrose Eveleth, with his son and his daughter-in-law, Bathsheba, and her mother, now in comfortable health, Hurlbut and his wife (Olive Eveleth Aunt Silence and her husband, Doctor that was), Jacob Penhallow, Esq., Mrs. Hopkins, her son and his wife (Susan Posey that was), the senior deacon of Scott), the Editor-in-chief of the "Banthe old church (the admirer of the great ground, Nurse Byloe and the privileged ner and Oracle," and, in the backfew others whose names we need not servant, Mistress Kitty Fagan, with a mention. The evening was made pleasant with long services repaired by such simple sacred music, and the fatigues of two day into a day of labor. A large-paper refections as would not turn the holy ley's remarkable work was lying on the copy of the new edition of Byles Gridtable. He never looked so happy, could anything fill his cup fuller? In the course of the evening Clement spoke of the many trials through which numbers of their countrymen, and they had passed in common with vast some of those peculiar dangers which tyred woman, whose continued presence with her descendants was the old family legend. But underneath it Myrtle was surprised to see a small table with some closely covered object upon it. It was a mysterious arrangement, made without any knowledge on her part. "Now, then, Kitty!" Mr. Lindsay said. Kitty Fagan, who had evidently been taught her part, stepped forward, and removed the cloth which concealed the unknown object. It was a lifelike marble bust of Master Byles Gridley. "And this is what you have been working at so long, is it, Clement?" Myrtle said. "Which is the image of your protector, Myrtle?" he answered, smiling. Myrtle Hazard Lindsay walked up to the bust, and kissed its marble forehead, saying, "This is the face of my Guardian Angel!" A MYSTERIOUS PERSONAGE. 'ROM the first, our country has a refuge, not only and princes and statesmen and warriors, but for all sorts of adventurers and impostors. Following hard after Kosciuszko, General Charles Lee, Baron Steuben, Baron de Kalb, Lord Stirling, and Lafayette, we had Talleyrand, Louis Philippe, and Jerome Bonaparte, and Joseph, king of Spain; and, but for a sudden change of wind, might have had Napoleon the Great himself after the affair of Waterloo. We have always been, and must continue to be, overrun with pretenders, mountebanks, blood relations of Charles Fox, Lord Byron, and the Guelphs, who are always in the market. Never, at any time, however, have we had a more puzzling or mysterious visitant than Major-General Bratish - Baron Fratelin - Count Eliovich. than others who had known him longer, but under less trying circumstances. I stood by him through thick and thin. I fought his battles for a long while, and almost always single-handed, against a cloud of enemies, at a time when he appeared to be hunted for his life by a band of conspirators, and was undoubtedly beset by eavesdroppers and spies at every turn. All at once, after a dazzling career in the political and literary world beyond seas, continuing for many years, and followed by a course here which kept him always before the public, and for something more than two years made it almost a distinction for anybody to be acquainted with him, this General Bratish- Count Eliovich found himself an outcast, helpless and That he was greatly belied, I had One day, in the summer or fall of 1839, Colonel Bouchette of Quebec, son of the late Surveyor-General of Canada, brought a stranger to see me, whom he introduced as Major-General Bratish, late in the service of her Catholic Majesty, the Queen of Spain, and associate of General De Lacy Evans, of the Auxiliary Legion. They were both (Bouchette and Bratish) living in Portland at the time, and occupied chambers in the same building; and I inferred from what passed in this or in a subsequent interview that the Colonel had known the General in Quebec or Montreal, about the time of the outbreak there in which they were implicated. The object they had in view, on their first visit, was to open a way for General Bratish to lecture in Portland, upon some one - - or more—of many subjects, on Greece, Hungary, Poland, the war in Spain, South America, our own Revolutionary War, modern languages, or matters and things in general. -- The appearance and deportment of the gentleman were much in his favor. He seemed both frank and fearless, with a mixture of modesty and selfreliance quite captivating. He looked to be about five-and-thirty, according to my present recollection, stood five feet nine or ten, with a broad chest and good figure. He had not much of military bearing, - certainly not more than we see in General Grant, — and on the whole bore the appearance of a young, handsome, healthy, well-bred Englishman, accustomed to good society. He was neither talkative nor reserved, but natural and free; speaking our language with uncommon pro priety, French and German still better, and Italian like a native, and strength and picturesqueness, often expressing himself with singular minding me of the Italian poet and critic, Ugo Foscolo, whom I saw at the time he was furnishing the papers translated by Mrs. Sarah Austin for the Edinburgh Review. first appearance; and the result was Arrangements were soon made for a all that could have been hoped for, and much more than could reasonably have fied, unpretending, and earnest; and he been expected. His manner was digniquence, quite wonderful in a foreigner, had a sort of unstudied natural elounacquainted with unaccustomed to platform speaking. our idioms and Whatever might be the subject, he truthfulness, and gave the most draalways talked with an air of modest. matic and startling narratives, like an eyewitness on the stand, testifying under oath. Never shall I forget Warrapidly sketched by him in a sort of saw, nor the battle of Navarino, as parenthesis, while he was lecturing upon a very different subject; he wanted an illustration, and both of these pictures flashed suddenly out upon us. The other lectures that followed his grow better and better, until we had. first seemed, up to the very last, to faith, not only in his representations, but in the man himself. vited inquiry; and at an interview with Instead of shunning, he rather inthe late Mr. Edward Preble, son of the questioning him about Tripoli, and Commodore, when that gentleman was charts used by the Commodore, the was preparing to show him the very. instantly drew a sketch of the harbor, General refused to look at them, and with the castles, batteries, and fortifications, and gave the soundings and approaches; and all these, upon a careful examination, proved to be correct in every particular, according to the testimony of Mr. Preble himself. About this time, in consequence of the favorable notices that appeared in our Portland papers, the Philadelphia Ledger, the Saturday Courier, and some other journals of that city, opened upon him in full cry, followed by the American press generally; the Courier declaring that he had taken leg bail and escaped from Canada,—that he had run away from Rochester, after obtaining five hundred dollars from Henry Mcllvaine, Esq., of the Philadelphia bar, in the shape of fees for constituting that gentleman "Consul-General of Greece "! By others he was charged with being a tin-pedler, a horse-thief, and a leechdoctor, who had assumed the title of Count long after his arrival in this country. Among many anonymous letters -letters addressed to strangers in Portland-came one from Henry McIlvaine himself, saying: "I see by the Portland papers, that a man calling himself sometimes General Bratish, at others General Eliovich, Count Eliovich, Baron Fratelin and Walbeck, and claiming to have been a general in the Polish, Spanish, Mexican, and other armies, is now in your town; and I should suppose, from the papers who have noticed him, imposing upon respectable people. Having seen something of this person, and been myself a victim, I have felt it due to my friends in Portland to put them on their guard. He is the son of a merchant in Trieste, driven from his home and his friends in consequence of his crimes. His pretension to any of the titles he claims is altogether without foundation. After exhausting Europe, he has within a few years turned his talents to good account in our country. He made his appearance here about two years ago as Consul-General and Envoy from Greece, in which capacity he was very free with his commissions of viceconsulships in New York and Philadelphia. He was indicted here for forgery, · convicted, — obtained a new trial by the false oaths of his associates, some of whom are now in the state prison (one for horse-stealing), and gave bail for his appearance at the next term. The pretence for a new trial was the absence of a witness who never existed, but who was ex pected to prove his innocence. Before the next term, the Consul-General took wing, leaving his bail, a simple Frenchman, to pay the forfeit. It would be impossible for me to give anything like a history of his crimes in a letter. Suffice it to say that he is a notorious swindler, the most unblushing and inexhaustible liar and the most finished rascal I ever saw." If this were true, how happened it that the notorious swindler, the horsethief, the convicted forger, and the escaped convict was still at large,and not only at large, but always before the public, and always without a change of name? Why was he not surrendered by his bail? Why not followed by a bench warrant, or a requisition from the Governor of Pennsylvania? Of course, the story could not be true, as told by Mr. McIlvaine. It was too absurd on the face of it. But was any part of the story true? and, if so, how much? Having been frequently imposed upon, both at home and abroad, by adventurers and pretenders, I determined to go to the bottom of this case before I committed myself, and I must say that, for a while, the stories told by General Bratish, and the explanations he gave, seemed to me still more absurd and preposter ous. According to his story to give one example out of a score - he had been obliged to apply for the benefit of the Insolvent Act, in Philadelphia, owing to losses he had sustained by lending money to distressed compatriots, and eleemosynary outcasts, and had been opposed in the Court of Insolvency by Colonel John Stille, Jr. and Mr. Henry McIlvaine, who threatened him with a prosecution for the forgery of consular papers, if he dared to appear. He declared that he did appear, nevertheless, and was honorably discharged; that his claims and evidences of debt, handed over to Mr. McIlvaine, the assignee, amounted to $7,620 for cash lent, while his debts altogether amounted to less than $1,000; that he was arrested while in court, on a warrant for forgery, and |
