ave of St. Robert. This latter is one of the few places
connected with Aram's history that can be pointed out with certainty. It
lies about two miles below the castle before mentioned. It is even now a
place that a careless pedestrian might easily pass without remarking,
notwithstanding that its entrance is worn by many curious feet. The
entrance is very narrow, and the cavern, like caverns in general,
exceedingly dark. The river flows by more rapidly here than above; the
grass grows long and wild, and there is a gloomy air about it that would
make it an unpleasant place for a night rendezvous even without the
horrid associations connected with it. The exact place where Clark's
hones were discovered is pointed out, and probably correctly, as the
space is too narrow to admit of much choice. Here they lay buried for
years, while according to Bulwer, this most refined of murderers was
building up a high name as a scholar and a stainless reputation as a
man. A field not far off is pointed out as the place where were found
the bones which led to the detection of Aram. Though but few places can
now be indicated with certainty in connection with his tragic story, a
vague outline of the character of the man before the discovery of his
crime, is preserved in the neighborhood. As we read the true story of
Eugene Aram, lately published by an apparently reliable person, our
sense of the poetic is somewhat blunted; we feel that the lofty
character drawn by Bulwer is in many respects a creation of the
novelist, while the whole story of his love is demolished by the stern
fact of his having a wife, of no reputable character, with whom he lived
unhappily; but he was still a man of talent, of great mental, if not
moral refinement, and of indomitable ardor in the pursuit of learning.
The chief fault of his character until his one great crime was
discovered, seems to have been recklessness in pecuniary transactions,
by which he was often involved in petty difficulties. He seems to have
had a tenderness amounting to acute sensibility, for dumb animals, and
to have dreaded killing a fly more than many a man who could not, like
him, be brought to kill a fellow-being His mental acquirements, though
remarkable for an unaided man of obscure origin, would not probably have
attracted wide attention, had it not been for the notoriety caused by
the detection of his crime. How many fair girls have shed tears over
'his ill-starred love' and melancholy