my sister contain a most
faithful description; but as they are accessible to all, and I trust
will be read by all who have read this volume, I have chosen rather
to give the accounts somewhat condensed which appeared in the New
York Tribune at the time of the calamity. The first is from the pen of
Bayard Taylor, who visited the scene on the day succeeding the wreck,
and describes the appearance of the shore and the remains of the
vessel. This is followed by the narrative of Mrs. Hasty, wife of the
captain, herself a participant in the scene, and so overwhelmed by
grief at her husband's loss, and that of friends she had learned so
much to value, that she has since faded from this life. A true and
noble woman, her account deserves to be remembered. The third article
is from the pen of Horace Greeley, my sister's ever-valued friend.
Several poems, suggested by this scene, written by those in the Old
World and New who loved and honored Madame Ossoli, are also inserted
here. The respect they testify for the departed is soothing to the
hearts of kindred, and to the many who love and cherish the memory of
Margaret Fuller.--ED.

LETTER OF BAYARD TAYLOR

Fire Island, Tuesday, July 23.

To the Editors of the Tribune:--

I reached the house of Mr. Smith Oakes, about one mile from the spot
where the Elizabeth was wrecked, at three o'clock this morning. The
boat in which I set out last night from Babylon, to cross the bay, was
seven hours making the passage. On landing among the sand-hills, Mr.
Oakes admitted me into his house, and gave me a place of rest for the
remaining two or three hours of the night.

This morning I visited the wreck, traversed the beach for some extent
on both sides, and collected all the particulars that are now likely
to be obtained, relative to the closing scenes of this terrible
disaster. The sand is strewn for a distance of three or four miles
with fragments of planks, spars, boxes, and the merchandise with which
the vessel was laden. With the exception of a piece of her broadside,
which floated to the shore intact, all the timbers have been so
chopped and broken by the sea, that scarcely a stick of ten feet in
length can be found. In front of the wreck these fragments are piled
up along high-water mark to the height of several feet, while farther
in among the sand-hills are scattered casks of almonds stove in,
and their contents mixed with the sand, sacks of juniper-berries,
oil-flasks, &