thought was to pay honor to his remains. Opening the body, they took out the heart and entrails, and buried them, erecting a cross over the grave. They then embalmed the body, and set sail with it for England; thus, while paying empty honors to their deceased commander, neglecting his earnest wish and dying injunction, that they should return with relief to Virginia.

The little bark arrived safely at Whitechurch, in Dorsetshire, with its melancholy freight. The body of the worthy Somers was interred with the military honors due to a brave soldier, and many vollies were fired over his grave. The Bermudas have since received the name of the Somer Islands, as a tribute to his memory.

The accounts given by Captain Mathew Somers and his crew of the delightful climate, and the great beauty, fertility, and abundance of these islands, excited the zeal of enthusiasts, and the cupidity of speculators, and a plan was set on foot to colonize them. The Virginia company sold their right to the islands to one hundred and twenty of their own members, who erected themselves into a distinct corporation, under the name of the 'Somer Island Society;' and Mr. Richard More was sent out, in 1612, as governor, with sixty men, to found a colony: and this leads me to the second branch of this research.

THE THREE KINGS OF BERMUDA.

AND THEIR TREASURE OF AMBERGRIS.

At the time that Sir George Somers was preparing to launch his cedar-built bark, and sail for Virginia, there were three culprits among his men, who had been guilty of capital offences. One of them was shot; the others, named Christopher Carter and Edward Waters, escaped. Waters, indeed, made a very narrow escape, for he had actually been tied to a tree to be executed, but cut the rope with a knife, which he had concealed about his person, and fled to the woods, where he was joined by Carter. These two worthies kept themselves concealed in the secret parts of the island, until the departure of the two vessels. When Sir George Somers revisited the island, in quest of supplies for the Virginia colony, these culprits hovered about the landing-place, and succeeded in persuading another seaman, named Edward Chard, to join them, giving him the most seductive pictures of the ease and abundance in which they revelled. When the bark that bore Sir George's body to England had faded from the watery horizon, these three vagabonds walked forth in their majesty and might, the lords and sole inhabitants of these islands. For a time their little commonwealth went on prosperously and happily. They built a house, sowed corn, and the seeds of various fruits; and having plenty of hogs, wild fowl, and fish of all kinds, with turtle in abundance, carried on their tripartite sovereignty with great harmony and much feasting. All kingdoms, however, are doomed to revolution, convulsion, or decay; and so it fared with the empire of the three kings of Bermuda, albeit they were monarchs without subjects. In an evil hour, in their search after turtle, among the fissures of the rocks, they came upon a great treasure of ambergris, which had been cast on shore by the ocean. Beside a number of pieces of smaller

dimensions, there was one great mass, the largest that had ever been known, weighing eighty pounds, and which of itself, according to the market value of ambergris in those days, was worth about nine or ten thousand pounds!

From that moment, the happiness and harmony of the three kings of Bermuda were gone for ever. While poor devils, with nothing to

share but the common blessings of the island, which administered to present enjoyment, but had nothing of convertible value, they were loving and united: but here was actual wealth, which would make them rich men, whenever they could transport it to a market.

Adieu the delights of the island! They now became flat and insipid. Each pictured to himself the consequence he might now aspire to, in civilized life, could he once get there with this mass of ambergris. No longer a poor Jack Tar, frolicking in the low taverns of Wapping, he might roll through London in his coach, and perchance arrive, like Whittington, at the dignity of Lord Mayor.

With riches came envy and covetousness. Each was now for assuming the supreme power, and getting the monopoly of the ambergris. A civil war at length broke out: Chard and Waters defied each other to mortal combat, and the kingdom of the Bermudas was on the point of being deluged with royal blood. Fortunately, Carter took no part in the bloody feud. Ambition might have made him view it with secret exultation; for if either or both of his brother potentates were slain in the conflict, he would be a gainer in purse and ambergris. But he dreaded to be left alone in this uninhabited island, and to find himself the monarch of a solitude: so he secretly purloined and hid the weapons of the belligerent rivals, who, having no means of carrying on the war, gradually cooled down into a sullen

armistice.

The arrival of Governor More, with an overpowering force of sixty men, put an end to the empire. He took possession of the kingdom, in the name of the Somer Island Company, and forthwith proceeded to make a settlement. The three kings tacitly relinquished their sway, but stood up stoutly for their treasure. It was determined, however, that they had been fitted out at the expense, and employed in the service, of the Virgina Company; that they had found the ambergris while in the service of that company, and on that company's land; that the ambergris, therefore, belonged to that company, or rather to the Somer Island Company, in consequence of their recent purchase of the island, and all their appurtenances. Having thus legally established their right, and being moreover able to back it by might, the company laid the lion's paw upon the spoil; and nothing more remains on historic record of the Three Kings of Bermuda, and their treasure of ambergris.

THE reader will now determine whether I am more extravagant than most of the commentators on Shakspeare, in my surmise that the story of Sir George Somers' shipwreck, and the subsequent Occurrences that took place on the uninhabited island, may have furnished the bard with some of the elements of his drama of the Tempest. The tidings of the shipwreck, and of the incidents connected with it, reached England not long before the production of this drama,

and made a great sensation there. A narrative of the whole matter, from which most of the foregoing particulars are extracted, was published at the time in London, in a pamphlet form, and could not fail to be eagerly perused by Shakspeare, and to make a vivid impression on his fancy. His expression, in the Tempest, of 'the still vext Bermoothes,' accords exactly with the storm-beaten character of those islands. The enchantments, too, with which he has clothed the island of Prospero, may they not be traced to the wild and superstitious notions entertained about the Bermudas? I have already cited two passages from a pamphlet published at the time, showing that they were esteemed a most prodigious and inchanted place,' and the 'habitation of divells;' and another pamphlet, published shortly afterward, observes: And whereas it is reported that this land of the Barmudas, with the islands about, (which are many, at least an hundred,) are inchanted, and kept with evil and wicked spirits, it is a most idle and false report."*

The description, too, given in the same pamphlets, of the real beauty and fertility of the Bermudas, and of their serene and happy climate, so opposite to the dangerous and inhospitable character with which they had been stigmatized, accords with the eulogium of Sebastian on the island of Prospero :

"Though this island seem to be desert, uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible, it must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. Here is every thing advantageous to life. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green !'

I think too, in the exulting consciousness of ease, security, and abundance, felt by the late tempest-tossed mariners, while revelling in the plenteousness of the island, and their inclination to remain there, released from the labors, the cares, and the artificial restraints of civilized life, I can see something of the golden commonwealth of honest Gonzalo :

'Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,

And were the king of it, what would I do?
I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things: for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none:
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil:
No occupation; all men idle, all.

All things in common, nature should produce,
Without sweat or endeavor: Treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.'

But above all, in the three fugitive vagabonds who remained in possession of the island of Bermuda, on the departure of their comrades, and in their squabbles about supremacy, on the finding of their

'Newes from the Barmudas:' 1612.

treasure, I see typified Sebastian, Trinculo, and their worthy companion Caliban:

"Trinculo, the king and all our company being drowned, we will inherit here.' 'Monster, I will kill this man; his daughter and I will be king and queen, (save our graces!) and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys.'

I do not mean to hold up the incidents and characters in the narrative and in the play as parallel, or as being strikingly similar: neither would I insinuate that the narrative suggested the play; I would only suppose that Shakspeare, being occupied about that time on the drama of the Tempest, the main story of which, I believe, is of Italian origin, had many of the fanciful ideas of it suggested to his mind by the shipwreck of Sir George Somers on the still vext Bermoothes,' and by the popular superstitions connected with these islands, and suddenly put in circulation by that event.

ANACREONTIC.

BY G. HILL, ESQ., AUTHOR OF TITANIA'S BANQUET,' AND OTHER POEMS.

THE bard of old, when he would drink,
Bade them twine the goblet's brink

With flowers-bring lights-nor let be mute
The soul that slumbered in the lute.

What need of flowers? - thy lips' perfume
And tint have stolen their scent and bloom:
What need of lights?-when a whole sky
Of star-smiles sparkle in thine eye?
Or why the lute-chord bid resign
The soul of song? - that soul is thine!

THE CONTRABANDIST.

TRANSLATED FOR THE KNICKERBOCKER FROM THE FRENCH OF GEORGE SAND.

THE intimate connexion between poetry and music is scarcely appreciated by the multitude. The capabilities of an instrument are not limited to uttering harmonious sounds: in the hands of a skilful artist, it may be made to express ideas. Perhaps no better illustration of this position can be found, than the words which the celebrated pianist, Listz, has composed on the simple Spanish air, Yo que soy Contrabandista.' It is indeed a complete poem. After a spirited and comprehensive introduction, says MADAME DUDEVANT, the national air, expressed at first in all its original simplicity, passes, by a succession of intonations admirably adapted to each other, from infantile grace to warlike rudeness; from rural melancholy, to gloomy rage; from heart-rending grief, to poetic phrenzy; suddenly, amid all this feverish agitation, a sublime prayer, wonderfully embodied in most scientific modulations, raises you to another sphere; yet even in this ethereal atmosphere, the distant sounds of earth, songs, wailings, menaces, cries of distress and triumph, still pursue you. Awakened from an ecstacy of contemplation, you descend again to the festival and the combat; you are again summoned thence; the mysterious and all-powerful voice calls you once more to the mountain, where your soul is refreshed by the dew of holy tears; and yet again the mountain vanishes, and the torches of the banquet eclipse the stars of heaven. A thousand voices of joy, of triumph, and of anger, then take up the theme, and a thundering chorus terminates this mighty poem, this magnificent creation of genius, which subjects a whole life, an entire world of thoughts and feelings, to the magic touch of the thrilling keys.'

On the sensations inspired by this wonderful performance, Madame Dudevant, better known by the nom-de-guerre of GEORGE SAND, has founded the following dramatic sketch, which I have endeavored to render into English. The prose-poetry of the original, so conformable