that worked powerfully within-something which turned his life into sorrow, such as only the blind may feel, intense and lasting. The rude hearts about him noticed it; and when near him spoke low, for fear of disturbing his thoughts. Their voices acquired a softness and a tenderness which would even astonish themselves.

One fine clear morning, as Rialti sat in his old place, he was told that one of their number had died during the night, and was now to be buried in the waves. At his wish, he was led to the other part of the vessel, that he might hear the Burial Service.

A rude coffin was brought up and laid by the companion-way, and the rough sailors all gathered round with their faces sad and thoughtful. It is the most solemn scene that falls to the lot of man to witness-a Burial at Sea.

The Blind Artist wished to be led to the place where the dead man was that he might lay his hand upon his face. Some one said hurriedly, “he had better not go-hold him back!" But ere it was done, the blind man had reached the coffin, and had laid his hand on the face. Ah! that shriek! It was as if one had wrung his heart!—The dead man was Pisano!-He had followed his pupil, and would have disclosed himself, but that he was ill, and could only tax the sympathy of Rialti. His last request was, that the Blind Artist might not know who he was when he was dead. No one could guess his purpose, but all remembered that many times there seemed to be some mysterious connection between them.

When the soul is suffering beneath the world's severest scourges, and the frame that holds it here is worn-out and dying,-how does a new calamity run over the waters of bitterness! How does the tired spirit long to unloose its grasp from weak humanity, and flee away to the blessedness of its upper home. As this dim twilight-existence grew dimmer, and mournful thoughts and stinging memories were plunging the soul of Rialti into madness, how welcome were the symptoms of decay, which showed the overtaking footstep of death to be nigh. "I can at last," he would say, "disentangle myself from this dark world; and though I go down through the chill shadows of Death, rise to the bright and unclouded Life."

Yet there were moments when the Blind Artist seemed still in love with life. When the storm and the tempest were alive-when the waves were leaping in terrible mountains, and the thunders were shattering the cloudsthen did the soul of Rialti revel as though it were in a new world. The terrible in nature fired his soul with the wildest frenzy. Perhaps it was that its softer tones and its sunwarm scenes came not within the reach of his heart-perhaps it was that his soul had always delighted most in awful grandeur and terror! One night, when all things were wrapped up in thickest darkness, and a hurricane was abroad-when each wave seemed only to terrify the longer, Rialti was missed from his bed. No one thought to look for him-no one dared to think of his fate! But when the elements had done their warring, he was found sitting in his old place, with a small piece of rope tied around his body, and fastened to a ring in the floor. The dog stood whining by, and was licking his hand. He had felt the restlessness, the madness, the strong quick heaving of the sullen waters, and was up to feast on the awe and sublimity of the storm.

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

When Rialti left the vessel, his dog chose again the course for his wanderings. It was a weary life; but the artist would not pause, only to beg

for food and bed. He pressed on, as if chased by some fearful phantom that would strike him dead if it once overtook him.

"I must walk fast," he would say, "for I am growing weak and sick, and I shall never get beyond my cares. I once came nigh outstripping them." And he journeyed on, weeks and months. Summer passed-autumn came Through city and solitude he was equally alone. There was a wilderness always about him! His dog was the only being that seemed to care for him; and people wondered what made it guide him so faithfully. It would never leave its master night or day.

on.

66

One afternoon in October, the walk had been a long and weary one. The Blind Artist grew faint and sad. "I feel," he muttered, as though my life would soon pass out of me! Sylvio, what will become of you when I am gone! what will become you!" and he jerked the string gently to show that he would sit down and rest. The dog took him a little on one side, and stopped by a stone.

"Ah! I am in a church-yard," he said, " and this is a grave-stone beneath me." Something almost forgotten seemed to come up to his mind, for he did not hear the old sexton who was turfing a grave near by. The sexton spoke again-and this time Rialti heard.

"You ask me whence I have come!" he answered: "I cannot tell you if I would. I have been on the ocean-and I was once in Rome. But now my pilgrimage is fast getting to its close! Here, around us, rest the dead -I am tired of life; why should I not too, rest with them?" and he wiped bitter tears from his wasted face.

At length he somewhat disburdened his grief, and asked whose grave it might be that the sexton was at work upon. The old man paused, looked roughly at the new-comer-" and you know not whose grave it is," said he, "when not a child in the village but can tell?" But when he saw that the stranger was blind, he lowered his tone; "it is the grave of the Artist's Love the grave of Laura Methender."

"And this stone I am sitting on is my mother's-ah! my mother's! shrieked the artist, in a wild and startled tone! He sprung on his feet, and seemed frenzied like one in the last agonies of delirium, and earnestly looked about him!—"Ah! my home," he cried, "hah-hah-hah—and I have come back to lay myself HERE!" and he pointed with his skinny fingers down by the side of his mother's grave." "And you are heaping the cold sods upon the young and the beautiful! Hah-hah-I can see now-where is she?-tell her I can see !"

His frenzy passed off. Something like the snapping of a cord sounded within him; and he fell headlong-speechless-lifeless! The sexton tottered up to his side, placed his hand upon his heart, but it was still! The soul of the artist had gone! had forever gone?

Many still think that after so many years of darkness, his sight at last came to him. It may have been so.

His dog bent over him, and licked his face-then went to the end of his string, and wistfully looked back at his dead master, as though it were time to move on again.

When Rialti was dead and gone, there was but little thought or said. Those who would have remembered him had mostly passed away. A few would speak of the youth so full of promise and hope, that once lived among them but they could scarcely persuade themselves that it was he who had so strangely returned. What had he not suffered during that long time! There alone was he shut up within himself-his soul chained in a dungeon of perpetual darkness-no cheery sunlight, no green fields, no deep blue sky to look upon! It is not so now. It has got out of this prison-life, and can

see again. What agony must one feel when all action and power are taken from him; when he has lost the use of the only language in which he could embody the best thoughts and highest aspirations of his being. Yet, though he passed away from the living almost unnoticed and unknowu, his life was not left unrecorded. It is written in his works, by his own hand. The sheets of canvass he painted over, are chapters of biography drawn from the very soul of the artist, and recording the character and tendencies of the entire life and acts of the man. Every moment is the expression of the energies of our inner existence. And each touch of the pencil becomes a written page of history, a fragment of one great confession.

"And the dog," you ask, "what became of the dog!" His story is brief. He laid upon the grave of his master all the time, only leaving it once a day to go to the sexton's house for a crust of bread. And when he

had eaten it, he would not stay; but hastened back again. At last he did not come; and they found him stretched dead over the grave of his master. They pulled off a little turf and laid him on the very spot which he seemed to have chosen for himself. Some one has scratched in rude letters on the stone beneath the name of RIALTI THE BLIND ARTIST—that of his dog, SYLVIO.

I have sometimes thought there might be a future-even to a dog.

POESY.

THE earth-the sea-the air are full of thee-
All universal nature owns thy sway-

The Angels thy entrancing spells obey-
Inexplicable, Heaven-born Poesy!

Thou art the holiest gift of Deity

The High-Priest of the heart-that, soothing, e'er
To its confessions lend'st a willing ear,

O'er its dark waters breathe'st serenity,

And give'st a voice to all its sacred feeling.

Thou dwellest with the humble, sad, and lone,

And broken-hearted, when Love-hope have flown,
And Death life's shallow current is congealing-

Thou bid'st the soul look heavenward from this clod,
And art the heart's best refuge next to God!

How could I live without thee! unto whom

In melancholy moments could I fly

To breathe one thought-one wish-one hope-one sigh

And claim in turn a smile to light the gloom

That hovers o'er my heart as o'er a tomb?

Who could allure me from th' embrace of Sorrow

My spirit cheer with visions of to-morrow,

But thou? Who'd dwell with me 'mid bud and bloom—

By hill, and dale, and stream, and rustling grove,

Teaching me Nature's language-those great truths
That her least works into the mind infuse?

Who lead me through those starry aisles above,
Unveiling to my view Eternity,

If thou should'st leave me-bless'd inspiring Poesy?

POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL.

SELAH B. STRONG.

THE present age, says Sir Walter Scott, has discovered an ardent desire for literary anecdote and private history; and he might with propriety have added, that as the age will not otherwise be satisfied, it may as well be informed of what it has a reasonable right to know. For as the reputation of every public man is the property of the public, all are interested in ascertaining, and it is to its common advantage to learn, by what steps individual distinction has been attained.

The great art of life, according to Dr. Johnson, is to improve the golden moment of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach; yet experience shows that this is not always done, while many seem properly aware of its importance, and accordingly improve every advantage which is presented to them. Some there are who, in addition to the common circumstances of life, are fortunate enough to be able to deduce their descent from those who, in their day, were conspicuous for intellectual and moral excellence-a fact which, while it may render the worthless more contemptible, cannot but afford the sincerest gratification to such as have, by their own good conduct, profited by the example of those who preceded them, and won the favorable opinion of their cotemporaries; and, surely, the proud standing of one's progenitors, should prove not only a powerful incentive to emulation, but impose, if possible, a more solemn duty to avoid any course that may entail dishonor upon those who shall

come after us.

In whatever appertains to ancestral worth, in a country where heraldic honors and titles by hereditary right are unknown, the individual named at the head of this communication may be considered fortunate—his ancestors having ranked among the most worthy emigrants to New England, as well as to Long Island. In the sketch we are about to give, we desire to avoid any undeserved eulogy; for, however much persons in general are elated with praise, the man of sense and modesty desires nothing more than the esteem of his fellow-men, based upon a life of honor and usefulness.

Selah Brewster Strong was born in Brookhaven, on Long Island, May 1, 1792. His father, Thomas S. Strong, Esq., an extensive agriculturalist, and highly esteemed for his good sense and sterling integrity, was for many years first judge of the county of Suffolk. His grandfather was Selah Strong, Esq., a farmer also, who held the office of first judge of the county several years, and was a State Senator. His wife was the daughter of Col. William Smith, through whom the subject of this sketch. is descended, from Chief Justice Smith, (commonly designated as Tangier Smith,) who, in 1687, purchased the beautiful neck in Setauket, called, by the Indians, Minas seroke, of about five hundred acres-Mr. Strong being the present proprietor of this fine homestead and farm of his highly respectable ancestor. It is, moreover, a singular circumstance, in the history of this valuable domain, that the six persons, three of the Smith family and three of the Strong family, who have successively owned it, have all held judicial stations; the first, and the present proprietors, as justices of the Supreme Court, and the other four as first judges of the county of Suffolk.

The mother of Mr. Strong was a daughter of Joseph Brewster, Esq., of Setauket, and a descendant of the venerable elder, William Brewster, one of the colony, who, arriving in the Mayflower, landed at Plymouth rock in the winter of 1620. He is also descended, on his father's side, from the Rev. Thomas Shepard, first minister of Charlestown, Massachusetts, whose daughter Anna was the wife of Col. Henry Smith, son of the Chief Justice. Mr. Strong's first paternal ancestor, in this country, was Elder John Strong, who emigrated from Taunton, in Somersetshire, England, and arrived in Massachusetts, May 30, 1630. He finally settled in Northampton, where he died in 1699. Mr. Strong commenced his studies, preparatory to entering college, with the Rev. Dr. Herman Daggett, one of the ministers of Brookhaven, and was admitted a member of Yale College in 1807, where he graduated in the autumn of 1811. He obtained a respectable appointment, and was considered the best mathematical scholar in his class.

Although descended from a federal family, he discovered, at this early age, an ardent attachment to the principles of the democratic party. In a political discussion, in his class at college, held before President Dwight, he entered into an elaborate defence of the conduct of that party, and particularly of the course pursued by Mr. Jefferson. The President, who, with all his other estimable qualities, was a high-toned federalist, answered many of his positions with great warmth; and, at length, became so much excited, that one of the class (now Judge Milo L. Bennett, of Vermont,) begged Mr. Strong to desist. He replied, that they were sentiments in the correctness of which he had great confidence, and he should not hesitate to declare them. The dispute, however, made no alteration in the conduct of the President. He uniformly treated Mr. Strong with great kindness and courtesy, and, when he parted from him, expressed very favorable expectations as to his future career.

Mr. Strong pursued the study of the law with his uncle, George W. Strong, Esq., an eminent counsellor in the city of New-York, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court, in October, 1814. He immediately opened an office in New-York, and, like many others of the same profession, had, at first, but little to do; but, by assiduity and strict attention to his business, he soon obtained a lucrative practice. The delicate state of his health at length required him to leave the city, and he removed to his native place in the latter part of the year 1820, where he continued in the practice of his profession, until he was promoted to the bench of the Supreme Court.

He was appointed District Attorney of the county of Suffolk, in the place of the Hon. Silas Wood, by a democratic council of appointment, the sixth of March, 1821, and held the office, with an intermission of four years, until June, 1847, when he resigned it. His attention and ability in discharging the duties of that office may be inferred from the fact, that during the long period in which he held it, there was not a single acquittal by reason of a variance between the charge in the indictment and the proof on the trial, and but one indictment was quashed, which was solely from a question of much doubt and difficulty as to the jurisdiction of the court to try the case. He tried nine persons for murder, six of whom were convicted of that offence; two for manslaughter, and one was acquitted. One of these cases (the People vs. William Enoch) went to the Court of Errors, and Mr. Strong's argument is inserted at length in the 13th volume of Mr. Wendell's Reports, and, which, it is said, had great influence in inducing the court to confirm the conviction.

He was an active member of the democratic party in old Suffolk, but