has wilfully mis-stated it. This temporary law does not make the offence of conspiring to levy war, generally, to be High Treason. It leaves many cases, in which the conspiring to levy war is not High Treason. In truth, its main, though not its sole, operation is to make those acts, which were before judicially held to be overt acts of compassing the King's death, and, as such, Treason, to be, of themselves, substantive Treasons. For the accuracy of this interpretation, I refer to the able discussions of the Bill in Parliament, when such was affirmed to be its effect by Mr Pitt, the Master of the Rolls, and the Attorney General, (the present Lord Chancellor,) and admitted to be so by Mr Fox and Mr Sheridan. The Attorney General defied any lawyer to affirm that it went further, and Mr Erskine was silent under the defiance.

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Thus I would argue against the Reviewer, even if his statement of the question were correct. But, as he well knows, this is far from being the case. The real question was (in the Reviewer's own words) about conspiracy to alter the law by intimidation and force," which does not necessarily imply the intention of levying war at all. It might contemplate measures of a much less violent character; such, for instance, as restraining particular Members of Parliament, or extorting an oath, or a promise, from a Prime Minister, or other leading individuals of weight and influence.

Lastly, even if it were admitted that such a conspiracy amounts to High Treason under the 36th of Geo. III. still the Reviewer is wrong, unless it be absolutely necessary to charge it as High Treason, in other words, unless an Indictment for Misdemeanour would, in such a case, of course be bad. Now, so far is this from being the fact, that there is an express clause in this very Statute, leaving it open to prosecute any offence within its provisions by information or indictment at the common law,

to treat therefore the offence in question as a misdemeanour.

I have now done with this "Honourable and Learned Gentleman." When next he volunteers his services in defence of a bad cause, he will do well to confine himself to scurrility. There he has no equal. Let him not rashly seek to pervert law or logic to his unworthy purposes. In those departments he ought to have learned long ago, that something more is necessary than a confident air, and an unbridled tongue. And even when he calls in fraud and fiction to his aid, he may find it convenient to avoid giving his opponent an opportunity of sifting particulars. The best method will be to deal in generals; he may then safely rely on the malice of some of his readers, and the carelessness of others, to ensure a temporary effect to the most unprincipled ribaldry he can produce.

Before I conclude, I will add one word to the Editor of the Review.

That he is answerable for all that appears in it, will not be disputed. He is a man of high and (I doubt not) merited reputation, a man of honour and of liberal feelings. Let me then calmly remind him of the discreditable light, in which he is exhibited by this discussion. He appears in it as a willing instrument to give currency to the base effusions of another man's malignity: he has allowed his Journal, professing to discharge the duties of fair and equal criticism, to be made the vehicle of wilful mis-statements, and of the most glaring injustice: he has permitted gross personal insults to be offered under the sanction of his authority, to one, whose profession, and, I will add, whose character, would have protected him from all indignity at the hands of an honourable or manly opponent.

Whether Mr Jeffrey finds any disgrace in all this, is a matter of much more importance to him, than it can be to me.

H. P.

College, Durham, April 22, 1820.

DEATH brings to those who have been long dreading its approach, by the bedside of one tenderly beloved, a calm in which nature feels most gracious relief from the load of sorrow. While we yet hear the faint murmurs of the unexpired breath, and see the dim light of the unclosed eyes-we watch in agony all the slightest movements of the sufferer, and to save the life of friend or of parent, we ourselves would most gladly die. All the love of which our hearts are capable belongs then but to one dearest object; and things, which perhaps a few days before were prized as the most delightful of earth's enjoyments, seem, at that awful crisis, unworthy even of the affections of a child. The blow is struck, and the sick-bed is a bier. But God suffers not the souls of them who believe, to fall into an abyss of despair. The being whom for so many long years we have loved and reverenced, "Has past through nature to eternity," and the survivors are left behind in mournful resignation to the mysterious decree.

Life and death walk through this world hand in hand. Young, old, kind, cruel, wise, foolish, good, and wicked-all at last patiently submit to one inexorable law. At all times, and in all places, there are the watchings, and weepings, and wailings of hearts severed, or about to sever. Yet look over landscape or city-and though sorrow, and sickness, and death, be in the groves and woods, and solitary places among the hills-among the streets and the squares, and the magnificent dwellings of princes; yet the great glad spirit of life is triumphant, and there seems no abiding place for the dreams of decay.

Sweet lonesome cottage of the Hazel Glen! Even now is the merry month of May passing brightly over thy broomy braes; and while the linnet sings on earth, the lark replies to him from heaven. The lambs are playing in the sunshine over all thy verdant knolls, and infant shepherd and shepherdess are joining in their glee. Scarcely is there a cloud in the soft cerulean sky-save where a gentle mist VOL. VIL

ascends above the dark green Sycamore, in whose shade that solitary dwelling sleeps! This little world is filled to the brink with happiness-for grief would be ashamed to sigh within the still enclosure of these pastoral hills.

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Three little months ago, and in that cottage we stood together-son, daughter, grandchild, pastor, and friendby the death-bed of the Elder. thought, are we still standing there; and that night of death returns upon me, not dark and gloomy, but soft, calm, and mournful, like the face of heaven just tinged with moonlight, and here and there a solitary star.

The head of the old man lay on its pillow stiller than in any breathing sleep, and there was a paleness on his face that told the heart would beat no more. We stood motionless as in a picture, and looked speechlessly on each other's countenance. My grandfather has fallen asleep," said the loving boy, in a low voice, unconsciously using, in his simplicity, that sublime scriptural expression for death. The mother, unable to withhold her sobs, took her child by his little hand, and was leading him away, when at once the dreadful truth fell upon him, and he knew that he was never again to say his prayers by the old man's knees. "Oh! let me kiss him-once only-before they bury him in the cold earth;" and in a moment, the golden curls of the child were mixed with the gray hairs of the lifeless shadow. No terror had the cold lips for him; and closely did he lay his cheek so smooth to those deep wrinkles, on which yet seemed to dwell a last loving smile. The father of the boy gazed piteously upon him, and said unto himself, "Alas! he hath no love to spare for me, who have so long forgotten him. Jamie-my little Jamie!" cried he now aloud," thou wouldst not weep so were I to die-thou wouldst not kiss so thy own father's lips if they were, as these are, colder and whiter than the clay !" The child heard well, even where he lay on the bosom of that corpse, the tremulous voice of his father; and nature stirring strongly within his heart towards him of whose blood he was framed, he

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lifted up his sullied face from the unbeating bosom, and, gently stealing himself away from the bed, rushed into his parent's arms, and lay there delivered up to all the perfect love of childhood's forgiving heart. All his father's frowns were forgotten-his sullen looks-his stern words-his menaces, that had so often struck terror to his wondering soul-his indifference-his scorn, and his cruelty. He remembered only his smiles, and the gentlest sounds of his voice; and happy now, as in heaven, to feel himself no more neglected or spurned, but folded, as in former sweetest days, unto the yearning bosom of his own kind father, the child could bear to turn his eyes from that blessed embrace, towards the dead old man whom, an hour ago, he had looked on as his only guardian on earth besides God, and whose gray hairs he had, even as an orphan, twined round his very heart. "I do not ask thee, Jamie, to forget thy grandfather-no, we too will often speak of him, sitting together by the ingle, or on the hillside, but I beseech thee not to let all thy love be buried with him in the grave-but to keep all that thou canst for thy wretched father." Sighs, sobs, tears, kisses, and embraces, were all the loving child's reply. A deep and divine joy had been restored to him, over whose loss often had his pining childhood wept. The beauty of his father's face revived-It smiled graciously upon him, as it did of old, when he was wont to totter after him to the sheep fold, and to pull primroses beneath his loving eye, from the mossy banks of the little sparkling burn! Scarcely could the child believe in such blessed change. But the kisses fell fast on his brow, and when he thought that the accompanying tears were shed by his own father, for the unkindness sometimes shown to his child, he could not contain those silent self-upbraidings, but with thicker sobs blessed him by that awful name, and promised to love him beyond even Him who was now lying dead before their eyes. "I will walk along with the funeral-and see my grandfather buried, in our own burialplace, near where the Tent stands at the Sacrament-Yes, I will walk, my father, by your side-and hold one of the strings of the coffin-and if you will only promise to love me for ever as you now do, and used always to do long

ago, I will strive to think of my grandfather without weeping-aye-without shedding one single tear :"-and here the child, unaware of the full tenderness of his own sinless heart, burst out into an uncontrollable flood of grief. The mother, happy in her sore affliction, to see her darling boy again taken so lovingly to her husband's heart, looked towards them with a faint smile,-and then, with a beaming countenance, towards the expired saint; for she felt that his dying words had restored the sanctities of nature to her earthly dwelling. With gentle hand, she beckoned the Pastor and myself to follow her-and conducted us away from the death-bed, into a little parlour, in which burned a cheerful fire, and a small table was spread with a cloth whiter than the snow. "You will stay in our cottage all night -and we shall all meet together again before the hour of rest;" and so saying, she calmly withdrew.

There was no disorder or disarray in the room in which we now sat.Though sickness had been in the house, no domestic duties had been neglected. In this room the Patriarch had, every evening for forty years, said family prayers-and the dust had not been allowed to gather there, though sickness had kept him from the quiet nook in which he had so long delighted. The servant, with sorrowful but composed features, brought to us our simple meal, which the Pastor blessed, not without a pathetic allusion to him who had been removed-and another more touching still to them who survived him. That simple but most fervent aspiration seemed to breathe an air of comfort through the house that was desolate, but a deep melancholy yet reigned over the hush, and the inside of the cottage, now that its ancient honour was gone, felt forlorn as its outside would have done, had the sycamore, that gave it shade and shelter, been felled to the earth.

We had sat by ourselves for about two hours, when the matron again appeared; not as when we had first seen her, wearied, worn out, and careless of herself, but calm in her demeanour, and with her raiment changed, serene and beautiful in the composure of her faith. With a soft voice she asked us to come with her again to the room where her father lay-and thither we followed her in silence.

The body of the old man had been laid out by the same loving hands that had so tenderly ministered to all his wants and wishes when alive. The shroud in which he was now wrapped had been in the cottage for many a long long year, and white as it was, even as the undriven snow, scarcely was it whiter than the cheeks and the locks now bound in its peaceful folds. To the eyes of my childhood, the Elder's face had sometimes seemed, even in its benignity, too austere for my careless thoughts, impressed as it ever was with an habitual holiness. But all such austerity, if indeed it had been ever there, death had now removed from that silent countenance. His last moments had been blessed by hisson's contrition-his daughter's love -his grandchild's pity-his pastor's prayers. And the profound peace which his parting spirit had enjoyed, left an expression on his placid features, consolatory and sublime.

The Penitent Son was sitting at the bed-side. We all took our places near him, and for a while remained silent, with eyes fixed on that countenance from which beamed the best memories of earth, and the loftiest hopes of Heaven.

"Hear," said the humbled man, "how the thaw is bringing down the loosened torrent from the hills! even so is my soul flowing within me!" "Aye, and it will flow, till its waters are once more pure and bright as those of a summer stream," said the Pastor with a benign voice. "But art thou sure that my father's forgiveness was perfect?" "Yes, William, it was perfect. Not on his death-bed only, when love relents towards all objects glimmering away from our mortal eyes, did the old man take thee into his heart; but, William, not a day, no, not an hour has passed over these his silvery hairs, in which thy father did not forgive thee, love thee, pray for thee unto God and thy Saviour. It was but last Sabbath that we stood together by thy mother's grave in the kirk-yard, after divine worship, when all the congregation had dispersed. He held his eyes on that tomb-stone, and said, 'O Heavenly Father, when, through the merits of the Redeemer, we all meet again, a family in Heaven, remember thou, O Lord, my poor lost William ; let these drops plead for him, wrung out from

his old father's broken heart! The big tears, William, plashed like the drops of a thunder-shower on the tomb-stone-and, at the time, thy father's face was whiter than ashesbut a divine assurance came upon his tribulation-and as we walked together from the burial-place, there was a happy smile about his faded eyes, and he whispered unto me, my boy has been led astray, but God will not forget that he was once the prop and pillar of his father's house. One hour's sincere repentance will yet wipe away all his transgressions." When we parted, he was, I know it, perfectly happy-and happy, no doubt, he continued until he died. William! many & pang hast thou sent to thy father's heart; but believe thou this, that thou madest amends for them all at the hour of his dissolution. Look, the smile of joy at thy deliverance is yet upon his face."

The son took his hands from before his eyes-gazed on the celestial expression of his father's countenanceand his soul was satisfied.

"Alas! alas!" he said in a humble voice, "what is reason, such poor imperfect miserable reason as mine, to deal with the dreadful mysteries of God! Never since I forsook my Bible, has the very earth ceased to shake and tremble beneath my feet. Never, since I spurned its aid, have I understood one single thought of my own bewildered heart! Hope, truth, faith, peace, and virtue, all at once deserted me together. I began to think of myself as of the beasts that perish; my better feelings were a reproach or a riddle to me, and I believed in my perplexity, that my soul was of the dust. Yes! Alice, I believed that thou too wert to perish utterly, thou and all thy sweet babies, like flowers that the cattlehoofs tread into the mire, and that neither thou nor they were ever, in your beauty and your innocence, to see the face of the Being who created you!"

Wild words seemed these to that high-souled woman, who for years had borne, with undiminished, nay, augmented affection, the heaviest of all afflictions, that of a husband's alienated heart, and had taught her children the precepts and doctrines of that religion which he in his delusion had abandoned. A sense of the fearful danger he had now escaped, and of