of the case to Vienna, accompanied by an earnest
petition in behalf of the absent Count. The Emperor laid the affair
before a select council of old and experienced officers, who, after due
deliberation, and weighing the excellence of Altenberg's character
against the depravity of his slain antagonist, suggested the expediency
of pardoning the offender. Proclamation was accordingly made to that
effect, but without success.

The unhappy Bianca lived to experience, in all its bitterness, that
"hope deferred that maketh the heart sick" and eventually breaks it.
She died in less than two years after the flight of Frederic, a victim
to a disorder that has no place in the catalogue of nosologists, and is
not recognised as a malady; though it is as incurable and consigns
almost as many victims to an untimely grave as consumption, with which
it is very frequently confounded--I mean a broken heart. She was buried,
according to her dying request, in the little arbor that Frederic had
assisted her to erect and adorn, and where she had passed those most
delightful moments in human existence, the days of the first love, and
first courtship, of two young, affectionate, and virtuous beings.
Blessed moments! that occur but once in the dreary threescore years and
ten, and fade away before we have time to enjoy them, and we only become
conscious of their existence from the certainty that they are gone for
ever.

* * * * *

Several years ago, and, if I am not much mistaken, just after the peace
of 1815, an officer, in full Austrian uniform, came on board one of our
frigates then lying in the harbor of Genoa. From the richness of his
regimentals, and a cross and ribbon in his button-hole, it was evident
that the stranger was of high ancestral and military rank.

It so happened that he came on board just at "grog time," (four o'clock)
in the afternoon; and during the interesting moment that sailors are
discussing their whiskey--the whole Holy Alliance, with aids and prime
ministers and protocols, might come on board, and balance Europe, or
upset the scales, just as unto them seemed good, expedient, or politic,
without attracting any attention from these short-jacketed philosophers;
unless indeed some straggler from the upper deck might come below, and
casually inform his messmates, that "there was a whole raft of soger
officers on the quarter-deck;" for be it known to all concerned, that the
word