The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-07-01 00:00:00

A SHORT COURTSHIP.

(From Lewis Arundel, or the Railroad of Life.)

Tho occupants of the seat were Miss Peyton and De
Grandeville. _ _

Ar—really," remarked De Grandeville,
very to—ar—touching, pathetic song—
" Murdered," observed Miss Peyton, quietly finishing
his sentence for him.

" that is a

" Ar—eh—yes, of course. 1 was going to—ar—that is,
your exquisite taste har—ar—in fact—ar—beyond a doubt
the woman is committing murder."

" Recollect, the • woman,' as yon are pleased to call
her, is nip particular friend, Mr. De Grandville," re-
turned his companion, with a slight degree of hauteur in
her tone.

" Ar—yes, of course, that speaks volumes in her fa-
vour," was the rejoinder; and although it is not every
one who is gifted with the talent of vocalisation, yet the
estimable qualities which one seeks in the—ar--endearing
relation of friendship may be found—ar—that is, may
exist—ar---"

" What did you think of the champagne at supper ?"
interrupted Miss Peyton abruptly.
" Really—ar—'pon my word I did not particularly no-
tice it, I was—ar—so agreeably situated that I could not
devote much attention to the—ar—commissariat depart-
ment."

" Surely it was unusually strong," persisted Laura.
" Ar—yes. of course you are right, it is no doubt owing
to its agreeably exhilarating qualities that it is so univer-
sally popular with the fair sex. Were I—ar—so fortu-
nate as to be—ar--a married man, I should always have
champagne at my table."
What a temptation !" returned Miss Peyton, smiling
ironically ; " your wife will be an enviable woman, if you
mean to indulge her in such luxu,ies."

" It delights me to hear you say so," excla4med De
Grandeville eagerly ; " if such is your opinion, I am in-
deed a fortunate man ; I had not intended," he continued
in a lower tone, " to speak to you at this early period of
our acquaintance on the subject nearest to my heart, but
the—ar—very flattering encouragement—"

•' Sir I" exclaimed Miss Peyto-n in a tone of indignant

Surprise

" Which you have deigned to bestow upon me," con-
tinued De Grandeviite, not heeding the interruption,
" leads me to unfold my intentions without delay. I am
now arrived at an age when, in the prime of life, and with
judgment so matured that I consider I may safely act in
obedience to its dictates without the risk of making any
great mistake, it appears to me, and to those of my highly
born and influential friends whom I have consulted on the
subject, that I might greatly improve my general position
in society by a judicious matrimonial alliance. Now,
without being in the slightest degree actuated by—ar—
anything approaching to a spirit of boasting, I may ven-
ture to say that the selection of a partner for life I have
a right to look—ar—high. My family may be traced back
beyond the Norman conquest, and the immense estates in
our possession—ar—my cousin Hildebrand holds them at
present—but in the event of anything happening to his
seven—ar—however, I need not trouble you with such
family details, suffice it to say that we are of ancient de-
scent, enormous landed proprietors, and that. my own po-
sition in society is by no means an unimportant one.
Now, although I am aware that by birth you are scarcely
—ar—that is—that the Peyton family cannot trace back
their origin —ar—l have made up my mind to waive that
point in consideration of—"
" Excuse me, sir," interrupted Miss Peyton. " Doubt-
less your mature judgment has led you to discover many,
in fact some thousands of good and weighty reasons why
you should overlook the humble origin of the poor Pey-
tons ; but there is one point which appears to have escaped
even your sagacity, namely, whether this unworthy de-
scendant of an ignoble fatni!y desires the honour of such
an alliance as you propose. That you may no longer be
in doubt upon the subject, allow me to thank you for the
sacrifice you propose to make in my favour, and most un-
equivocally to decline it."
No one could be in De Grandeville's company for ten
minutes without perceiving that on the one subject of his
own importance he was more or less mad ; but with this
exception he was a clear-headed, quick-sighted man, used
to society, and accustomed to deal with the world. Laura
Peyton, in her indignation at the inflated style of the
preamble of his discourse, had committed the indiscretion
of refusing his hand before be had distinctly offered it..
De Grandeville perceived the mistake, and hastened to
avail himself of it by replying—

.
" Excuse me, Missßyton, but you jump rather hastily
to conclusions; had you heard me to the end, you might
have learned that there were equally strong reasons why
in my present position I dare not yield to the impulse of
my feelings—for that I greatly admire and respect you I
frankly own. Should these reasons disappear under a
change of circumstances, I shall hope to have the honour
of again addressing you on this subject with a more fa-
vourable result—in the mean time, to assure you that
entertain no unfriendly recollection of this interview,
permit the the honour—"
So saving, ere she was aware of his intention, he raised
her hand to his lips—bowed respectfully, and, rising,
quitted the apartment.

THE POPE'S BRIEF AUTHORITY.—The Pope has con-
firmed more than all the decrees of the Synod of Thurles.
We have it now on the better authority of his Holiness,
and are therefore prepared to believe in the following
ennobling dogmata :—That the earth does not move, and
—under the present Pontiff—never shall. That the sun
is sixty yards in diameter. That the moon is made of
green cheese. That the stars are Roman candles. That
the North Pole is the shape of a cardinal's crosier. That the
Equinoctial Line is the fishing-line of St. Peter.—Punch.
THE SPANISH Astxus.-.-Of all knights, and of all
lovers, towards the close of the fifteenth century, be was
the pink, the palm, the prime, the jewel, and the flower.
Reverses and an opprobrious name had reduced bum, at
the beginning of the next, to the level of the wodd.
Granada was taken ; the Moro changed into the Morisco.
—that is, insult was added to injury, and the pride of
Moorish chivalry was at an end. Ballads took the place
of battles, the lute supplanted the lance, and the pro-
scribed and unfortunate Morisco was fain to tinkle his
woes to the brethren of his own sad thoughts and those
of his countrymen, and to draw tears, perchance, of
blood. Landing on the quay of Malaga " the royal," the
chief port of Moorish Spain, we are in two worlds, the
present and the past—Christian and Mahommetan. The
former we will leave to its desert, that is, to its oranges
and raisins, together with its olives and its cigars. its
heat, roguery, mirth, intrigue, superstition, and filth.
The latter overlooks us from the grim old bastions of the
Gibalfaro, peering threateningly into every street, like a
bad conscience. The truth is, it has ugly whispers for
Spain, making it tremble as it " thinks upon her towers,"
and the miseries endured in that fortress and the city it
overshadowed, in 1487. The Moorish empire was even
then tottering to its fall. Abu Abdallah, or Boabdil, or
Bobadil, as the name grew at length by repeated corrup-
tions, Latin, Spanish, and English, was still weakly
struggling against his valiant old uncle, El Zagal, while
the Castilian power was thundering at his gates. Divided
against itself, the kingdom of Granada was as sure to fall
as that of Lucifer before it. Nevertheless a stubborn old
dog of an African whom El Zagal had placed in Malaga,
was determined to nail his crescent to the sky. Hamet
Zeli picked his men, and retired into the citadel. and
swore by his beard, a considerable oath, from which
his barber alone could absolve him, that he would eat the
citizens when the other vermin failed, rather than open
his gates to that dog of a Ferdinand, to say nothing of
Isabella his queen, whom he roundly favoured with the
corresponding epithet. In this posture of affairs, deeds
of valour incredible and indescribable were done on both
sides, by the aristocracy of Castile and of Granada, aun-
que Moros, hijosdalgo, here brought en evidence of
Europe and Africa at once, like the neighbouring Gibel-
el-Taric, or Gibraltar. Amongst the Arab nobles, Abra-
hen Zenete was conspicuous ; and, indeed, sometimes
shamed the Spanish chivalry by his Christian-like and
orthodox courtesy. But there were men of another
stamp amongst them ; and as Spain had its Torquemada,
its Ojedo, and its Merle, so had Malaga ferocious rabitos
of its own, comrades of their general, the Gomeres,
African mercenaries, who had brought with them across
the strait the ferocity of Barbary, uncooled by the admix-
ture of peninsular civilization. Of some of these the
deeds are perpetuated in the literature of the day ; but
the greater part have settled down side by side with the
worthies who flourished before Agamemnon, under the
pressure of three hundred fathom, or years, of oblivion.
A ballad is an excellent float upon the stream of time.
where the heaviest things commonly go to the bottom.
Some flies have, no doubt, owed their preservation to the
amber of the unctuous Peter Martyr, who used to indite
his epistles in Queen Isabella's tent, while the cloth was
laying; some have been bottled re
spirits of the
lively Pulgar ; while here and thero4l9fie has paid for his
immortality in the currency of the Inquisition, in the
voluminous processes in which it is found at once crushed
and preserved, like a fly between the pages of the New-
gate Calendar. But the vast majority of them owe their
fame with posterity to their native poets, whose number,
if not name, is legion. We are told that ninety became
famous. If we add the usual proportion of those who
did not, together with those who became infamous, we
shall have a tolerably abundant bloom of Blackamoor
anthology. We aro wandering from the knights of
Malaga ; desperate fellows, some of them, though not
without a tine touch of nobility, whieli even the cadets of
the houses of Gusman and Pacheco thought no scorn to
take lessons from. It was, in sooth, no uncommon sight
for a caballero, armed cap et (pee, to be seen pricking
across the Vega, and under the horse•shoe arch of a
Moorish town, during war, secure in the safe conduct of
his own knightly pedigree, as set forth in a sort of ab-
stract upon his shield, going to put himself under the
chivalrous tuition of one of the lofty followers of Islam,
thereby to win his spurs, and claim unimpeached ob-
servance amidst the ranks of Castilian sangre xn whose
honours had been already recognised. But, as we have
said, some among these Arabian knights— who afforded
but dubious entertainment to their foes in battle—retained
a little more of the Barbary barbarism in their manners
than is quite consistent with our notions of perfect re-
finement. They had an ugly fashion of presenting their
mistresses with the heads of their enemies, instead of
their own portraits, as is the present usage. But there is
no accounting for tastes,—and they were their own artists,
requiring but a single stroke to finish their work. The
Gomeres in particular--those mercenaries from the heart
of Morocco, of which the garrison of Malaga was princi-
pally composed, prided themselves on this grim gallantry ;
and, like Dryden's Cymon, reaped the field of that grain
which bears two ears on each stalk, for the especial benefit
of their fair—or brown—mistresses, to the envy of Ibn
Brother, the botanist, himself. These fellows sallied
forth sometimes by night, like wild boars, with their
tusk-like scimitars whetted to a desperate edge, and keen
as their own appetite for Christian blood. But not un-
frequently they made their cavalgedas—a horse-play of
rather a terrible kind, at noon day, into the enemy's
country, where, especially about the frontier, they were
recognised from a distance by an ominous horn-winding,
and an alarming lance-blink. which heralded their ra'd.—
Dublin Universily.