LITERATURE OF THE ANNUALS.
Tna parent of the Annuals, the Forget Me Not, is known by the red silk binding, more fragile, but perhaps more beautiful, than the enduring morocco of' its greater compeers. The modest . boast of the preface tells us that this is the twelfth year of its appearance: but was it a prudent boast ? What spinster beyond her teens could own to the possession of a complete series, with such a statement meeting one plump in the very first line ? And yet what reflections does the statement call up ! How many fair eyes, that hailed the then splendid novelty with wonder and delight, are now sealed in death, or dim with weeping over the death of the giver ! How many presentation-copies of the earlier volumes are treasured up as precious memorials of presenters now scattered over the various regions of the earth, and whose return is distant or doubtful ! Nay, where the course of love or affection has run smooth, in twelve years the child has grown into womanhood; the girl or woman into the happy wife, or into the portly matron, mother and manager of a large family. The literature of the Forget Me Not maintains its decent reputation: the workmanship is sustained throughout, and all the papers are passable. The numerous authors are well known in the world of Annual literature; though several—as Mrs. GORE, MrT. K. HERVEY, and the Honourable Mrs. Noma:Kg—figure for the first time in Mr. ActatamaNN's pages. We, however, are not swayed by names ; and we select our extract from the composition of one of the lesser stars. It is from a tale by Mr. SAMUEL FERGUSON, called "The Bridge of Tenaehelle." The country is Ireland; the story takes peace during the days of the Pale ; and the scene we select is one of pursuit and escape. . "We are pursued then," she cried, turning deadly pale; and the Earl's countenance for a moment bespoke hesitation whether to stop and suppoie her at all hazards, or still to urge her On. " We are pursued,' she cried, " know it, and we must be overtaken. Oh, leave me, Gerald ! leave me and saVe thyself !" The Earl said not use word, but shook up her palfrey's bead on more, and drawing his dagger goaded him with its point till the blood sprang, " Oh, my poor Sylvio!'' was all that the terrified girl could say, as, stung with pain and reeling from weakness, the creature put forth its last and most desperate efforts. They had struggled on for another minute, and were now topping tbe last eminence between them and the river, when a shout rung out of the woods behiud. The lady shrieked, the Earl struck the steel deeper into her palfrey's shoulder, and, stooping to his own saddle-bow, held him up with his left hand, bending to the laborious task till his head was sunk between the horses' necks. " Anna!" he cried, " I can see nothing for Sylvio's mane. Look out between the trees, and tell me if thou seest my ten men on the hill of Clemgaune." rsec," replied the lady, " the whole valley flooded from side to side,, and the trees standing like islands in the water.'
" But my men, Anna ? my men? look out beyond the bridge."
" The bridge is a black stripe upon the flood: I cannot see the arches." " But, beyond the bridge,' he cried, in the intervals of his exertion, now be.. coming every moment more and more arduous; for the spent palfrey was only kept fromby the sheer strength of his arm, " beyond the liridge, beside the pollard nm—my ten men—are they not there?" " Alas ! no my Lord, I cannot see them. Bur, Mother of Mercies !" she shuddered, looking around, " I see them now behind us !" Another shout of mingled voice, execrating and exulting, sounded from the valley as she spoke. The Earl struck his brow with his gauntleted hand, yielding for the first time to his excess of grief and anguish' for he had raised his head, and had seen
all along the opposite hills, the bare, unbroken solitude, that offered neither hope
of help nor means of escape. Yet be girded himself up fur a last effort : he drew his horse close to the palfrey's side, and, "Dear Anna," he said, "cast
thine arms now round my neck, and let me lit thee on before me : black Mem non will bear us both like the wind—nay, dally not," for the sensitive girl shrank for a moment from the proposal; " remember thy promise in the chapel On the rock," and he pressed his arm round her waist, and at one effort lifted her from the saddle; while she blushing deeply, yet yielding to the imperative necessity of the moment, clasped her arms round his neck, and aided in drawing
herself up upon the black charger's shoulder. The palfrey, the moment it lost the supporting hand of the Earl, staggered forward, and, though relieved of its burden, fell headlong to the ground. The pursuers were now so near that they could see plainly what had been done, and their cries expressed the measure of their rage and disappointment ; for the strong war-horse although doubly burdened, yet thundered down the hill at a pace that promised to keep his start ; and hope once more revived in the fainting hearts of the Earl and the lady. "Now, thanks to Heaven !" he cried, as he found the powerful charger stretching out under them with renewed vigour, "thank Heaven that struck down the slow-paced loiterer in this good time! Now, Memnon, bear us but oyar yonder bill, and earn a stall of carved oat and a rack of silver! Ab, the good -steed ! thou shalt feed him from thine own white hands yet, lady, in the courts Of Castle Ley ! Look back now, love, Anna, and tell me what they do behind."
The lady raised her head from his shoulder, and cast a glance along the road they had traversed. " I see them plying whip and spur," she said, "but they are not gaining on us ; Red Raymond rides foremost, and Owen and the three rangers; I know them all: but, oh, Mary Mother, shield me! I see my father and Sir Robert 'Version : oh, speed thee, good horse, speed ! " and she hid her face again upon his breast, and they descended the bill which overhung the barrow.
The old channel oil the river was no longer visible; the flood had overspread its hinks and far across the flat helms on-the opposite side swept along in a brown eddying, and rapid deluge. The bridge of Tenachelle spanned from the nearer bank to a raised causeway beyond, the solid masonry of which, resisting the overland inundations, sent the flood with double impetuosity through the three choked arches over its usual bed ; for there the main current and the back water rushing together, heaved struggling round the abutments, till the watery war swelled and surged over the niugewall and fell upon the roadwall of the bridge itself with solieshocks, like seas upon a ship's deck. Eager for passage as a man might be whose life and the life of his dearer self were at stake, yet, for an instant, the Earl checked his horse, as the long line of peninsulated road lay before•hinn—a high tumultuous sea on one side; a roaring gulf of whirlpools, foam, and gushing cataracts on the other. The lady gave one look at the scene, and sank her head to the place whence she bad raised it. As he felt her clasp him more closely and draw herself up for the effort, his heart shamed him to think that he bad blenched from a danger which a devoted girl was willing to dare: he drove his spurs into his horse's flanks, and Memnon sprang:forward on the bridge. The roadway returned no hollow reverberation now, for every arch was gorged to the keystone wilt a compact mass of water; and, in truth, there was a gurgling and hissing as the river was sucked in, and a rushing roar where it spouted out in level waterfalls that would have drowned the trampling of a hundred hoofs. Twice did the waves sweep past them, rolling at each Stroke the ruins of a breach in the upper rangewall over the road, till the stones dashed against the opposite masonry, and twice were both covered with the spray flung from the abutments; but Memnon bole them on through stream and ruin, and they gained the causeway safe: The Earl's heart lightened as he found himself again on solid ground, though still plunging girth-deep at times through the flooded hollows; but they passed the embankment also in safety, and were strahring up the hill beyond, when the cries of the pursuers, which had been heard over all the storm of waters ever since their entrance on the bridge, suddenly ceased. There was the loud report of an arquebuss, and Memmon leaped off all his feet, plunged forward, reeled, and dropped dead. Red Raymond's arquebuss was still smoking as he sprung foremost of his troop upon the bridge. Behind him conic Lord Darcy, furious with rage and exultation. "Secure him first," he cried, "secure him, before he gets from under the fallen horse ; bind him band and find ! Ah, villain, he shall hang &our the highest oak in Clan Mohr! and for her, Sir Robert, she shall be thy wife—I swear it by the bones of my father—before that risen sun bath set ! Come on! " and he gave his horse head ; but suddenly his reins were seized on right and left by his attendants. "Villains, let go my reins!" he cried, "would ye aid the traitor in his escape?" and striking the rowels deep into his steed, he made him burst from their grasp ; but almost at the same instant, he pulled up with a violence that threw him on his haunches, for . a dozen . voices shouted, "Back, Raymond! back ! " and a cry arose that the bridge was breaking, and the long line of roadway did sudsier-ay seem to heave and undulate with the undulating current. It was well for Lord Darcy that Ile did so; for the next instant, and before his horse's fore-feet had ceased to paw the air, down went the whole three arches with a crash, swallowed up and obliterated in the irresistible waters. • Among the sheets of spray and flashing. water thrown up by the falling ruin, and the whirlpools of loamy troth from the disjointed masonry, and the tumult of driving timbers, and the general disrup-! thin of. road and river, the musketeer and his horse were seen sweepinL for: one moment down the middle of the stream, then rolled over and beaten. under water, and tumbled in the universal vortex out of sight for ever.
Stunned, hurrified,, his horse trembling in every limb, and bachinfrom the
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