ces could be discovered of his murderers. It was
only recollected that one evening, in the course of the previous winter,
a traveller had stopped at an inn in the village of West Stockbridge:
that he had inquired the way to Stockbridge; and that, in paying the
innkeeper for something he had ordered, it appeared that he had a
considerable sum of money in his possession. Two ill-looking men were
present, and went out about the same time that the traveller proceeded
on his journey. During the winter, also, two men of shabby appearance,
but plentifully supplied with money, had lingered for a while about the
village of Stockbridge. Several years afterward, a criminal, about to be
executed for a capital offence in Canada, confessed that he had been
concerned in murdering a traveller in Stockbridge for the sake of his
money. Nothing was ever discovered respecting the name or residence of
the person murdered.

Page 101.

_Chained in the market-place he stood_, etc.

The story of the African chief, related in this ballad, may be found in
the _African Repository_ for April, 1825. The subject of it was a
warrior of majestic stature, the brother of Yarradee, king of the Solima
nation. He had been taken in battle, and was brought in chains for sale
to the Rio Pongas, where he was exhibited in the market-place, his
ankles still adorned with massy rings of gold which he wore when
captured. The refusal of his captors to listen to his offers of ransom
drove him mad, and he died a maniac.

Page 111.

THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND VENUS.

This conjunction was said in the common calendars to have taken place on
the 2d of August, 1826. This, I believe, was an error, but the apparent
approach of the planets was sufficiently near for poetical purposes.

Page 116.

THE HURRICANE.

This poem is nearly a translation from one by Jose Maria de Heredia, a
native of the island of Cuba, who published at New York, about the year
1825, a volume of poems in the Spanish language.

Page 118.

WILLIAM TELL.

Neither this, nor any of the other sonnets in the collection, with the
exception of the one from the Portuguese, is framed according to the
legitimate Italian model, which, in the author's opinion, possesses no
peculiar beauty for an ear accustomed only to the metrical forms of our
own language. The sonnets in this collection are rather poems in
fourteen lines than sonnets.

Page 119.

_The slim papaya ripens_, etc.

Pa