a vague outline of the character of the man before the discovery of his crime, is preserved in the neighborhood.  As we read the true story of Eugene Aram, lately published by an apparently reliable person, our sense of the poetic is somewhat blunted; we feel that the lofty character drawn by Bulwer is in many respects a creation of the novelist, while the whole story of his love is demolished by the stern fact of his having a wife, of no reputable character, with whom he lived unhappily; but he was still a man of talent, of great mental, if not moral refinement, and of indomitable ardor in the pursuit of learning.  The chief fault of his character until his one great crime was discovered, seems to have been recklessness in pecuniary transactions, by which he was often involved in petty difficulties.  He seems to have had a tenderness amounting to acute sensibility, for dumb animals, and to have dreaded killing a fly more than many a man who could not, like him, be brought to kill a fellow-being His mental acquirements, though remarkable for an unaided man of obscure origin, would not probably have attracted wide attention, had it not been for the notoriety caused by the detection of his crime.  How many fair girls have shed tears over ‘his ill-starred love’ and melancholy fate, who little dreamed that he was a husband, in a very humble rank of life.  Bulwer speaks of his favorite walks with Madeline, and of a rustic seat still called ’The Lovers’ Scat.’  It is not, I think, now pointed out, nor is the account of his love probably more than an imaginary one, but it may be founded upon fact, and some high-souled English girl may really, in his early life, or when separated as he was for a long time from his wife, have called forth all his better feelings and revealed glimpses of the beauty of the life of two affectionate and pure beings keeping no secrets of the heart from each other.  How it must have tortured him to think that such a life never could be his, well fitted for it as in some respects he was, and ever haunted by the fear that the poor sham by which he was concealed must some day be torn away, and an ignominious fate be apportioned him!  No situation can be more deplorable than that of a man of refined and lofty nature, who has made one fatal mistake connecting him with men far worse than himself, who are masters of his secret and ever ready to use it for their own base purposes.  Are there not many men so situated—­men near us now, who walk through life haunted by the dreadful spectres of past misdeeds hastily committed, bitterly repented—­a phantom that can blast every joy, and from whose presence death comes as a friendly deliverer?

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.