emarked, ere this, that I
have thus far shown a criminal remissness in pursuing, catching, and
bringing to condign punishment the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert
Moore. Here was a fine opening to lead my willing readers a dance, at
once decorous and exciting--a dance of law and gospel, of the dungeon,
the dock, and the "dead-thraw." You might have liked it, reader, but _I_
should not. I and my subject would presently have quarrelled, and then I
should have broken down. I was happy to find that facts perfectly
exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer was never punished, for the
good reason that he was never caught--the result of the further
circumstance that he was never pursued. The magistrates made a
shuffling, as if they were going to rise and do valiant things; but
since Moore himself, instead of urging and leading them as heretofore,
lay still on his little cottage-couch, laughing in his sleeve, and
sneering with every feature of his pale, foreign face, they considered
better of it, and after fulfilling certain indispensable forms,
prudently resolved to let the matter quietly drop, which they did.

Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield knew. It was no
other than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed weaver once before alluded
to, a frantic Antinomian in religion, and a mad leveller in politics.
The poor soul died of delirium tremens a year after the attempt on
Moore, and Robert gave his wretched widow a guinea to bury him.

* * * * *

The winter is over and gone; spring has followed with beamy and shadowy,
with flowery and showery flight. We are now in the heart of summer--in
mid-June--the June of 1812.

It is burning weather. The air is deep azure and red gold. It fits the
time; it fits the age; it fits the present spirit of the nations. The
nineteenth century wantons in its giant adolescence; the Titan boy
uproots mountains in his game, and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This
summer Bonaparte is in the saddle; he and his host scour Russian
deserts. He has with him Frenchmen and Poles, Italians and children of
the Rhine, six hundred thousand strong. He marches on old Moscow. Under
old Moscow's walls the rude Cossack waits him. Barbarian stoic! he waits
without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts his trust in a
snow-cloud; the wilderness, the wind, and the hail-storm are his refuge;
his allies are the elements--air, fire, water. And what are these? Three
ter