268 My Inabilities. [Sept. 



THE WARRIOH-LOVEH, BY THE 6BAVE OF HIS MISTRESS. 



There he sat. 

 In the dark storm of his soul ! And the proud 

 Warrior of a hvnidred fights, on whose 

 Battle-blade his own fierce spirit dwelt— he. 

 Who in the field of strife, all red with blood 

 From helm to spur, had played with horrid Death, 

 As children sport with it — a child himself. 

 Now wept warm tears upon a new-made grave : 

 The grave of his heart's mistress ! — the lovely 

 Ethelinda ! Oh ! she was beautiful 

 As breathing morning in the vernal spring : 

 And fair as summer flowers, that wanton 

 In the sun, yet droop before his setting 

 Ray kisses their fragrant beauty ! Alas ! 

 That youthful love and maiden innocence 

 Should wither to decay, and shrouded lie, 

 Or ere the kindred soul their charms have touched. 

 Can say farewell, and then decay itself! 



And the warrior came ! In the pride of his 

 Glory he came ! But stern and terrible 

 In the tempest of his grief! And the grave 

 Of Ethelinda was his grave ! The bride 

 Of death slept gently with the warrior. 

 Who in life was the affianced bridegroom 

 Of her heart ! 



There it is ! — and it reads, I think, like something or other which I 

 have heard called uncommonly fine. But if the reader thinks so, it is 

 more than I do ; and Heaven forgive the man who calls such writing 

 poetry ! 



I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND why the alchymists of 



former times are considered by the philosophers of modern times as little 

 better, if at all better, than fools. I am quite serious ; though I know 

 I make the declaration at the hazard of being accounted an egregious 

 fool myself. But let me state my own case. I renounce, at the outset, 

 not only as utterly futile, but as a presumptuous denial of Heaven's 

 declared will, the dream of compounding an elixir, which, by the subtle 

 concentration of the essence of vitality, or, in other words, by the disco- 

 very of the elemental principle of life, should enable the fortunate pos- 

 sessor of it to renew his youth, as the vegetable world revives at the 

 approach of spring. I give this vip, I say ; not merely as a visionary 

 bauble of the imaginatio; i, but as a direct attempt of the creature to 

 contravene and abrogate a decree of the Creator. But I make my stand 

 in defence of alcliymy, upon that other grand object of its followers — the 

 discovery of the philosopher's stone, as it is called ; or of the tincture, 

 or powder, or art, — not of transmuting metals, by converting a lump of 

 lead into a lump of gold, — but of bond fide making gold by a regular 

 and scientific process. " It never has heen done," is the triumphant 

 answer of philosophers ; but that it Ihcrcfore never will be done, is not 

 the deduction of philosophy. He who should have attempted, when 

 alchymy was in fashion, to discover the means of navigating rivers and 

 seas without the aid of wind and canvas, or of producing a brilliant and 



