"As had I fallen in air, it drags

Me swiftly down-from between the crags
New wildly boisterous fountains gush.
The mingling force of the double rush

I could not withstand; the eddy was strong
Like a top, it whirled me giddy along.

"Then God, to whom, in my terrible need,
I cried for pity and help, gave heed,
And show'd projecting from beneath

A rock which I seiz'd and escaped from death.
There hung the cup on a coral steep,
Else it had dropt to the bottomless deep.

"Far underneath it lay below,

Gleaming with dim and purple glow,
Where to the ear, tho' all may sleep,
The eye beheld amid the deep,
How salamanders, dragons, snakes,
Were crawling in these hellish lakes.

"In swarthy mixture here they throng,
Or glide in griesly groups along,
The sword-fish, the keen crocodile,
And the sea-serpents' sinuous file,
And grinning with their triple-teeth at me,
Wide-throated sharks, hyenas of the sea.

"There hung I long-in conscious fear-
No human arm of help was near;
While forms of fright around me glare,
The only feeling bosom there;
Below the reach of human ear,
Or human voice—in dumb despair.

"A griesly monster toward me swims,
Moving at once a hundred limbs,
And snaps—in terror I let go

From my faint grasp the coral bough,

Down which I was clambering-then the surge Seiz'd me, but saved me- I could now emerge."

The king became for wonder glad:

“The goblet is your own, my lad,

And this ring, with precious jewels adorn'd,
I destine you also—'tis not to be scorn’d—
If you'll try again, and let us know
What lies at the very bottom below."

This with soft feeling the daughter hears, And turn'd on the monarch, her eyes in tears; "Such cruel sport henceforward spare,

He has achiev'd what none else would dare. If the lusts of your heart you cannot assuage, Let some of your knights outdo the page.”

Then the king snatch'd quickly the goblet again,
And hurl'd it into the whirlpool amain.
"If you will fetch me the beaker once more,
All my knights you shall stand before;
And her, who pleads for you with loving face,
To night, as a husband, you shall embrace."

Then did heavenly force in his soul arise,
And boldness lighten'd from his eyes;
And he saw the fair maid blushing soon,
And then he saw her turn pale and swoon,
And was mov'd the precious prize to win,
Come life, come death! he cast himself in.

Ebb'd had the surge, and again it flow'd,
And the thund'ring sound announced it aloud;
With affectionate looks o'er the chasm they bent.
The waters they came, and the waters they went;
The waves they gush up, and the waves slink away;
But none brings the youth to the light of the day!

A MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN A MAD-HOUSE.

BY E. L. BULWER, ESQ.

I AM the eldest son of a numerous family-noble in birth, and eminent for wealth. My brothers are a vigorous and comely race-my sisters are more beautiful than dreams. By what fatality was it that I alone was thrust into this glorious world distorted, and dwarf-like and hideous—my limbs a mockery-my countenance a horror-myself a blackness on the surface of creation-a discord in the harmony of nature-a living misery-an animated curse? I am shut out from the arms and objects of my race; with the deepest sources of affection in my heart, I am doomed to find no living thing on which to pour them. Love!out upon the word-I am its very loathing and abhorrence: friendship turns from me in disgust; pity beholds me, and withers to aversion. Wheresoever I wander I am encompassed with hatred, as with an atmosphere. Whatever I attempt I am in the impassable circle of a dreadful and accursed doom. Ambition-pleasure-philanthropy-fame -the common blessing of social intercourse-are all, as other circles, which mine can touch but in one point, and that point is torture. I have knowledge to which the wisdom of ordinary sages is as dust to gold-I have energies to

which relaxation is pain—I have benevolence which sheds itself in charity and love over a worm! For what-merciful God! for what are these blessings of nature or of learning? The instant I employ them, I must enter among men: the moment I enter among men, my being blackens into an agony. Laughter grins upon me-terror dogs my steps-I exist upon poisons, and my nourishment is scorn! At my birth the nurse refused me suck; my mother saw me and became delirious; my father ordered that I should be stifled as a monster. The physicians saved my lifeaccursed be they for that act! One woman—she was old and childless-took compassion upon me; she reared and fed me. I grew up-I asked for something to love; I loved every thing; the common earth-the fresh grass-the living insect—the household brute-from the dead stone I trod on, to the sublime countenance of man, made to behold the stars, and to scorn me; from the noblest thing to the prettiest the fairest to the foulest-I loved them all! I knelt to my mother, and besought her to love meshe shuddered. I fled to my father, and he spurned me! The lowest minion of the human race that had its limbs shapen, and its countenance formed, refused to consort with me: the very dog (I only dared to seek out one that seemed more rugged and hideous than its fellows), the very dog dreaded me and slunk away! I grew up lonely and wretched; I was like the reptile whose prison is the stone's heart-immured in the eternal penthouse of a solitude to which the breath of friendship never came-girded with a wall of barrenness and flint, and doomed to vegetate and fatten on my own suffocating and poisoned meditations. But while this was my heart's dungeon, they could never take from the external senses the sweet face of Universal Nature; they could not bar me from commune with the Voices of the mighty Dead. Earth opened to me her mar

vels, and the volumes of the wise their stores. I read—Î mused—I examined—I descended into the deep wells of Truth-and mirrored in my soul the holiness of her divine beauty. The past lay before me like a scroll; the mysteries of this breathing world rose from the present like clouds; even of the dark future, experience shadowed forth something of a token and a sign; and over the wonders of the world I hung the intoxicating and mingled spells of poesy and of knowledge. But I could not without a struggle live in a world of love, and be the only thing doomed to hatred. "I will travel," said I, "to other quarters of the globe. All earth's tribes have not the proud stamp of angels and of gods; and amongst its infinite variety I may find a being who will not sicken at myself."

I took leave of the only one who had not loathed methe woman who had given me food, and reared me up to life. She had now become imbecile, and doating, and blind; so she did not disdain to lay her hand upon my distorted head, and to bless me. "But better," she said, even as she blessed me, and in despite of her dotage,— "But better that you had perished in the womb!" with a loud laugh, when I heard her, and rushed from the house.

One evening, in my wanderings, as I issued from a wood, I came abruptly upon the house of a village priest. Around it, from a thick and lofty fence of shrubs, which the twilight of summer bathed in dew, the honey-suckle and the sweetbrier, and the wild rose sent forth those gifts of fragrance and delight which were not denied even unto me. As I walked slowly behind the hedge I heard voices on the opposite side; they were the voices of women, and I paused to listen. They spoke of love, and of the qualities that could create it.

"No," said one, and the words, couched in a tone of music, thrilled to my heart,-" no, it is not beauty which