NERO.

(From the German of Friedrich Von Sallet.*)

BY JOHN OXENFORD.

THE buildings of old Rome, so darkly gray,
Stand forth gigantic in the spangled sky;
The billows of the Tiber gently play,

While o'er the stream a gondolat flits by.

And in it a fair youth, with yellow tresses,

Whose heart with anxious expectation burns-
Stretch'd at his ease, a gorgeous cushion presses,-
His breath sounds wildly, and is check'd by turns.

'Tis Nero-not with Empire's circlet crown'd-
That were too heavy for his tender head-
His temples with a wreath are lightly bound,
Form'd of soft roses, delicately red.

Why at Rome's mansions is his glance so keen?
He shrinks, and yet delay he cannot bear.
He trembles-sighs-" Oh, will it ne'er begin?"—
His heart beats wildly with voluptuous fear.

Mark, now, that flash-through the blue sky 'tis shining-
Now rises sparkling, a bright flame-behold!

And there-and there! like serpents are they twining,-
Now, from a thousand mansions are they roll'd.

Around the heavens with deep red colour glow,
And in the river, smoke and flame are glass'd-

A double arch of fire, above, below,

Of fearful beauty, as in one mould cast.

And in the centre of that burning sphere,

Rock'd softly on the stream, is seen the boat;
There shining amphora and cup appear,

And on the wine light sprigs of roses float.

And Nero-like an angry god, his mood

Who o'er his world, fiercely destroying, reigns-
Terrific pleasure wantons with his blood--
Now lashes it, now curbs in icy chains.

To see his slaves, in graceful postures, torn
By raging beasts, as in some pictured fight-
The sight has grown too common to be borne,
His slacken'd nerves it scarcely can excite.

To satisfy a feverish desire,

The lord of earth for nobler pastime calls;-
Perhaps it may his weaken'd bosom fire,

If the world's capital before him falls!

Born in 1812. He is a very beautiful poet, and I only regret that I have not been able to find corresponding words to the magnificent compounds which appear in the above poem. The sense, however, will be found correctly given.-J. O.

+ So in the original: "Gondel,"

See, round his wreath a fiery circlet plays

Mark, the red glare upon his brow is glancing,-
His eye beams brightly-mark his ardent gaze—
Behold his slender fingers feebly dancing.

Over the lute-strings must they trembling stray
Ere he can pluck them into vig'rous sound,
And make them follow Homer's mournful lay,
How flames have levell'd Ilion with the ground.

That song the Emp'ror has sung o'er and o'er-
That song of fate his breast has often stirr'd;
But never did he know its force before

As now, when 'mid his blazing Rome, 'tis heard.

The soft Greek music now with anger swells-
Fiercely as yonder flames it rolls along;
And while he lists to yonder anguish'd yells,
He feels the giant beauty of the song.

And now his tears reflect those flames so bright-
The gush of song is nearly check'd by weeping,-—
The joys of art and nature here unite-

He sinks, a weakening rapture o'er him creeping.

Now is the half of Rome in ashes sunk,

And every shriek and flash has ceased at last-
The song breaks lightly, and with pleasure drunk*–
Is hush'd-and many a life has with it pass'd!

O, thou world's empire!-has it come to this?
His own Rome must a Roman emp'ror burn-

That he the lofty pleasure may not miss,

Of giving a Greek song its proper turn?

Behold, the Emp'ror of the heathen nations,

Now, dancing to the lute, soft vestment wears—
Now tumbles, juggles, spouts forth declamations;
The ball of earth, as 'twere a toy, he bears.

And if it please him, like a wanton boy,
He lets it to a thousand pieces shiver,

Merely that, with some new and untried joy,

The weakling's slacken'd nerves once more may quiver.

On the next day, with seeming wrath, he cries-
"It was the Nazarenes-let them be slain!"

Thus, after novel tragedies he flies

They follow his new melody of pain.†

This time, terrific weakling, thou strik'st home!
More surely far than thy dull mind can know;

But to the worn-out profligate, old Rome,
Who is it gives the last, the mortal blow?

Canst guess? Thy throne on crumbling foot is standing-
The Nazarenes are forced to bear the cross;

But once a symbol, all the world commanding,
Shall stand upon thy capital-the CROSS!

* "Wollust-trunken."

+ Schmerz-melodié.

The second and fourth lines of the original end, in the same manner, with" Kreuz."

"GROCERY ORDERS" AND "TAKING THE BENEFIT."

BY UNCLE SAM.

THE value of "hard Jackson money," or cash, in New York State and Pennsylvania, particularly in the latter, is sometimes very ludicrous. A respectable tradesman will not hesitate to confess that he is minus a dollar, but then he adds-" I have considerable of grocery orders ;”— memoranda of credit on various stores. These orders are very troublesome to a stranger. They constitute a species of barter, without the fairness belonging to a real exchange of commodities. The first order I received was on a hat store, and not being aware of the usual plan of proceeding, I exhibited my seven-dollar order previous to purchasing a hat, and obtained a very bad one, besides, I have no doubt, being laughed at "for being so slow." My second order was on a shoe store, and I was scarcely less unfortunate. Thinking to drive my bargain before I produced the order in payment, I lowered the price of a pair of boots at least a dollar, according to the established custom, but did not take notice that the merchant made use of the word cash, of which he reminded me when I offered the order, and our bargain was at an end. Cash, he said, was so valuable, that he must have at least half a dollar more for the boots, if he took the order, and, accordingly, I had to pay the difference; but as I complained of this arrangement, he civilly observed, that he would give me a piece of advice worth more than the balance-namely, always to buy boots and shoes wholesale, a quarter of a dozen at a time.

When citizens who are insolvents release themselves by law from their debts, they are said to "take the benefit"-a very simple matter, as they have only to give a short notice, and swear they are not worth anything beyond clothing, necessary furniture, and the instruments of their trade. Persons sometimes take the benefit without shutting up their stores. Clerks take the benefit at the moment of getting into a good situation, or obtaining an increase of salary, and the commissioners of the Insolvent Court make no arrangement for any future payment. Some take the benefit for a hundred dollars, although in the receipt of a thousand a year. All classes take the benefit, and but comparatively

few are ashamed of it; the senator who introduced the law into one of the State legislatures took the benefit-of his own act!

These explanatory remarks on "grocery orders" and "taking the benefit" are necessary to elucidate the following anecdotes.

A bos (master) jeweller trusted a young man, a clerk in Philadelphia, with goods destined to be a present to his future wife. The young man married, and then took the benefit, and the jeweller had to pay for the goods which he had only obtained on credit. He, however, went to an attorney (Philadelphia lawyers are famous all over the States), and was advised to proceed against the young man, on the ground that his wife still held the goods. The attorney took the case into court, but failed in the suit, and sent in a bill for two hundred dollars to the jeweller, who then took the benefit to pay the attorney! This was certainly puzzling a Philadelphia lawyer with a vengeance.

The next anecdote on this subject is of a lover, and might be introduced into an American farce with some effect. A young man, an artist and engraver, of Philadelphia, was deeply enamoured of a

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beautiful girl who was an indented apprentice to her uncle, a very stern bos, who wished her to marry an old Virginian, to whom he was under some obligation. The lover tried in vain to obtain the uncle's consent to the marriage, without a stipulated payment of two hundred dollars for the remaining term of the "lady's" apprenticeship. He would readily have paid the sum, but his inamorata refused her assent to it, observing that he should never have to say he purchased her; she was determined not to be sold, although she confessed it was very hard -truly heartrending-to remain any longer in single wretchedness. What was then to be done in such an extremity? Young Jonathan schemed a plan very readily, and immediately put it in practice. He went to the bos uncle:

"Is the bos within ?"

"You see me, I expect."

"Well now, once for all, how much will you take to let Miss Clementina off, right away?"

"Two hundred dollars, hard Jackson, and no grocery orders." "I guess I'll give you a hundred."

"No; don't want to part with her."

"Take a hundred and fifty, dead on the nail, and safe as a hickory pole, two hours after the wedding."

"No; it don't convene."

"Give you one hundred and seventy, no ways slow."

"It'll take two hundred to stir me, and they can hardly." "Well, darn it, you're too hard; but I want the young lady at once, to keep house, and so you shall have the two hundred."

The agreement was made, and the young couple married; but the Jackson money was not forthcoming according to promise, and the artist took the benefit; thus obtaining his wife without buying her, or, at least, without paying for her, while the bos uncle was swindled out of two hundred dollars, and the old Virginian disappointed of a blooming bride of seventeen.

"Taking the benefit" in one State does not exonerate the party from his debts in any of the other States; he must go through the process in every State where his creditors live, or he is not free from arrest; and it requires a residence of six months as a freeman, or of three months as a prisoner, before any one can take the benefit in some of the States. If we suppose the case of an insolvent who owes money in all the twenty-four States of the Union, and who has to travel through them, and if we take the incarceration for an insolvent stranger to be three months in each State, this will give an imprisonment of six years previous to an independent citizen, "in a state of indebtedness," becoming perfectly free to travel. This is an extreme case, of course ; but the imprisonment of New Yorkers in the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania is of frequent occurrence. There are hundreds of insolvents in New York, who dare not cross the North River into New Jersey (except on Sundays), through fear of being arrested, and having to take the benefit a second time! This is an example of the disadvantages (of which there are many) arising from the union of " free, sovereign, and independent States.""

I was taking breakfast one Monday morning at an hotel in Jersey city, when I heard two individuals conversing on the subject of a Mr. Maddison Oppenheit, of New Jersey, having "gone considerably ahead" of a

Mr. Skalder, of New York. It appeared the Jerseyman had met the Yorker in the charming sylvan walks of the Elysian fields, on the bank of the noble Hudson, New Jersey, tasting a spring of remarkably pure water, which gushes out of a rock into an artificial basin lately constructed; and in the course of conversation, the Yorker informed the Jerseyman that he had taken the benefit in York State-a little piece of legality, which threatened to cost his old friend, the Jerseyman, a certain number of dollars and cents. Cool and calculating was the Jerseyman, when he invited his friend to take certain slings (spirits and water) at the nearest hotel. His object in so doing was to see if any possibility existed of recovering any dividend on his debt; but before the last boat left the Hoboken Slip for the New York Quay, he found the slings were making rapid inroads on the nervous system of his friend, and he then considered it a duty he owed his own family to make the Yorker so intoxicated as to be unable to leave New Jersey that night; the consequence of which would be, that the next morning he would become an easy prey to the harpies of the law, who, at the Jerseyman's requisition, would pounce down upon him (with all the gravity of the Commonwealth, and the full power of the "Squire" to help it on), and compel him either to pay his debt or take the benefit a second time. When the Yorker was quite " up Salt River"-decidedly intoxicated-he went to sleep " for a space," and the Jerseyman abstracted certain papers from his pocket, passing current under the general term of grocery orders-to wit, one order on a hat store, ditto on a hardware merchant, ditto on a shoe importer, ditto on a china ditto, ditto on a toy merchant, ditto on the "Lady Jackson" omnibus, a first-rate republican conveyance; and ditto on an ice company, besides three (comic, and not grocery) orders for the boxes of the Franklin Theatre. These orders, after a memorandum had been taken of them, were carefully deposited in the Yorker's pocket, and the Jerseyman, whistling

"A Yankee boy is slim and tall, and seldom over fat, sir,"

retired to rest, with a full determination to " go ahead" of the Yorker the next morning.

"It takes me," said he, muttering to himself, "to do a thing of this kind in a scientific manner, and I can hardly."

"right

-

The next morning, after breakfast, the Jerseyman went ahead clean past the bows" of the Yorker, in the following style :"As-I'm-a-living man, you don't clear out." "I swear I've took the benefit."

"But not in this State; you've taken it in York State, but you can't make this Jersey city into a spoke of Manhattant Island; there's the North River between them, and Hudson will divide New Jersey for ever from the Yorker's stony location. Think of that, and see how my flint's fixed. I have you at a short distance, with a sure aim; and

*Each ward of a town or city has a stipendiary magistrate, called the "Squire," who sits at a small desk in a small office, and without any coadjutor, gives verdicts on civil actions, and even issues warrants for imprisonment, in default of instant bail, for a pecuniary debt.

†The island on which the city of New York is built. The term "island" is barely appropriate, as it is only a broad rivulet that entitles the site to it.