As they were leaving Florence at the last moment, letters arrived which would probably have led them to remain in Italy, had not all preparations been made. And on the very day of sailing, in Leghorn, Margaret lingered for a final hour on shore, almost unable to force herself to embark. It seemed as if there were conflicting currents in their destiny, which held them back while they urged them forward.

Their voyage was very long, and the same shadow still appeared to hang over them. The captain of the barque, in whom they had placed the greatest confidence, soon sickened and died of malignant small-pox, and was buried off Gibraltar. They sailed thence on June 9th. Two days after, the little Angelo was attacked with the same fearful disease, and only recovered after an illness that long seemed hopeless. On July 15th, they made the New Jersey coast at noon, and stood to the north-east, the weather being thick, and the wind south-east. The passengers packed their trunks, assured that they should be landed at New York the next morning. By nine o'clock the wind had risen to a gale, and this, with the current, swept them much farther to the north than was supposed. At two and a half, A. M., the mate in command took soundings, found twenty-one fathoms of water, pronounced all safe, and retired to his berth. One hour afterwards, the bark struck on Fire Island beach, just off Long Island.

The main and mizen masts were at once cut away, but the ship held by the bow, and careened towards the land, every wave sweeping over her, and carrying away every boat. She was heavily laden with marble and soon bilged. The passengers hastily left their berths and collected in the cabin, which was already half full of water. They braced themselves as well as they could, against the windward side. Little Angelo cried, the survivors say, until his mother sang him to sleep, while Ossoli quieted the rest with prayer.

The crew were at the forward end of the vessel; and when the wreck seemed ready to go to pieces, the second mate, Mr. Davis, came aft to the cabin with two sailors, and helped the passengers to a safer place. This transfer was made terribly dangerous by the breaking surf. The captain's wife, who went first, was once swept away, and was caught only by her hair. Little Angelo was carried in a canvas bag, hung round the neck of a sailor.

Passengers and crew were now crowded round the foremast, as the part likely to last longest. Here they remained for several hours. Men were seen collecting on the beach, but there was no life-boat. After a time, two sailors succeeded in reaching the shore, the one with a lifepreserver, the other with a spar. Then Mr. Davis, the courageous mate, bound the captain's wife to a plank, and swam with her to the shore, where she arrived almost lifeless. The distance was less than a hundred yards, but the surf was fearful. Madame Ossoli was urged to attempt the passage as Mrs. Hasty had done, but steadily refused to be separated from her husband and child. Time was passing; the tide was out; the sea grew for the time a little calmer. It was impossible to built a raft, and there was but this one chance of escape before the tide returned. Still the husband and wife declined to be parted; and, seeing them resolute, the first mate ordered the crew to save themselves, and most of them leaped overboard. It was now past three o'clock; they had been there twelve hours. At length the tide turned, and the gale rose higher.

The after part of the vessel broke away, and the foremast shook with every wave. From this point the accounts vary, as is inevitable. It seems however to be agreed, that the few remaining sailors had again advised the Ossolis to leave the wreck; and that the steward had just taken little Angelo in his arms to try to bear him ashore, when a more powerful

sea swept over, and the mast fell, carrying with it the deck, and all on board. Ossoli was seen to catch for a moment at the rigging, and then to sink. The last recorded glimpse of Margaret was when she was seated at the foot of the mast, in her white night-dress, with her hair fallen loose about her

shoulders.

Their bodies were never found; but that of the little Angelo was cast upon the beach twenty minutes after, and was reverently buried among the sand-hills by the sailors, one of whom gave his chest for a coffin. The remains were afterwards transferred to Mount Auburn cemetery, near Boston, and there reinterred in presence of weeping kinsfolk, who had never looked upon the living beauty of the child.

It was the expressed opinion of one who visited the scene, a few days after, that seven resolute men could have saved all on board the "Elizabeth." The life-boat from Fire Island light-house, three miles off, was not brought to the beach till noon, and was not launched at all. For a time the journals were full of the tragedy that had taken away a life whose preciousness had not been fully felt till then. But now, looking through the vista of nearly twenty years, even this great grief appears softened by time. The very fore.. bodings which preceded it seem now to sanctify that doom of a household, and take from its remembrance the sting. Three months before, in planning her departure, this wife and mother had thus unconsciously accepted her coming fate: "Safety is not to be secured by the wisest foresight. I shall embark more composedly in our merchant-ship, praying fervently, indeed, that it may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by unsolaced illness or amid the howling waves; or, if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief." Her prayer was fulfilled.

The precious manuscript, for whose publication her friends and the friends of Italy had looked with eagerness, was lost in the shipwreck. Her remaining works were reprinted in Boston, a few years later, under the careful editorship of her brother Arthur; - that "Chaplain Fuller," who had been educated by her self-sacrifice, and who afterwards gained a place beside hers, in the heart of the nation, by his heroic death at Fredericksburg, during the late rebellion. Her biography has also been amply written by the friends whom she would most readily have selected for the task, Messrs. Emerson, Clarke, and Channing.

Since her day, American literature has greatly widened its base, but has raised its summit no higher. There is a multiplicity of books and magazines, and a vast increase of untrained literary activity. Yet, not only has she had no successor among women, but we still miss throughout our criticism her culture, her insight, her fearlessness, her generous sympathies, and her resolute purpose to apply the highest artistic standard to the facts of American life. It is this sense of loss that is her true epitaph. It was said to have been Fontenelle's funeral oration, when the most brilliant woman in France, having uttered after his death a witticism too delicate for her audience, exclaimed sadly, "Fontenelle! where are you?" And so every American author, who has a higher aim than to amuse, or a nobler test of merit than his publishers' account, must feel that something is wanting while Margaret Fuller's place remains unfilled.

GAIL HAMILTON-MISS DODGE.

BY FANNY FERN.

" WILL I write a sketch of Gail Hamilton?" Will I touch off a Parrott gun? I thought, and will it "kick" if I do? However, I ventured to send the following missive:

"MY DEAR MISS DODGE, OTHERWISE GAIL HAMILTON : — A book is in prospect. Many of our well-known literary people are to write for it. Its title is to be 'Eminent Women of the Time.' You and I are to be in it. I am to do you. Who is to serve me up, the gods only know. Will you be good enough to inform me at your earliest convenience, when and where you cut your first tooth, whether you had the measles before the mumps, or the mumps before the measles; also, any other interesting items about yourself.

"Writing about you will be a labor of love with me; for although a stranger to you, save through your writings, I rejoice every day in your existence.

"Please send an early answer.

"Yours, etc.,

"FANNY FERN."

In a few days I received the following reply:

"MY DEAR MRS. FERN: -The coolness of you New Yorkers is astonishing. You are about to burn me at the