the fearful wickedness, brought up from the bottom of her heart all the unextinguishable love that had lain there through years of sorrow-and she went up to him and wept upon his bosom. "Oh! say it not, that one so kind as thou could ever believe that I and my little ones would never see their Maker-they who were baptised in thine own arms, William, by that pious man, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" "Yes! my Alice! I feared so oncebut the dismal dream is gone. I felt as if the ground on which this our own sweet cottage stands, had been undermined by some fiend of darkness-and as if it were to sink down out of sight with all its thatched roof so beautiful-its cooing pigeons-its murmuring bee-hives-and its blooming garden. I thought of the generations of my fore-fathers that had died in the Hazel Glen-and they seemed to me like so many shadows vainly following each other along the hills. My heart was disquieted within me; for the faith of my childhood was entertwined with all my affections-with my love for the dead and the livingfor thee, Alice, and our children, who do all resemble thee both in beauty and in innocence, whether at thy bosom, or tottering along the greensward, and playing with the daisies in the sun. Such thoughts were indeed woven through my heart, and they could not be torn thence but by a heavy hand. Alice! the sight of thee and them drove me mad; for what sight so insupportable to one who has no hope in futurity as the smiles and tears of them he loves in his distraction !" He who spake was no common man -no common man had been his father. And he gave vent to his thoughts and feelings in a strain of impassioned eloquence, which, though above the level of ordinary speech, may not unfrequently be heard in the cottage of the Scottish peasant, when the discourse is of death and of judgment. All the while that he was speaking, the wife kept her streaming eyes close to his face-the gray-haired Pastor beheld him with solemn looks-the mortal remains of his father lay before him -and, as he paused, there rose the sound of the snow-swollen flood. "I call the Almighty to witness," said the agitated man, rising from his seat, and pacing along the floor," that these hands are yet unstained by crime. But oh! how much longer might they have so continued! Why need the unbeliever care for human life? What signifies the spilling of a few drops of worthless blood? Be the grave once thought to be the final doom of all-and what then is the meaning of the word crime? Desperate and murderous thoughts assailed me by myself in solitude.-I had reasoned myself, as I thought, out of my belief in revelation, and all those feelings, by which alone faith is possible, at the same time died away in my heart-leaving it a prey to the wretchedness and cruelty of infidelity. Shapes came and tempted me in the moorswith eyes and voices like, but unlike the eyes and voices of men. One had a dagger in its hand-and though it said nothing, its dreadful face incited me to do some murder. I saw it in the sunlight-for it was the very middle of the day-and I was sitting by myself on the wall of the old sheepfold, looking down in an agony, on the Hazel Glen where I was born, and where I had once been so happy. It gave me the dagger-and laughed as it disappeared. I saw-and felt the dagger distinctly for some minutes in my hand-but it seemed to fall down among the heather-and large blots of blood were on my fingers. An icy shivering came over me, though it was a sunny day and without a cloud and I strove to think that a brainfever had been upon me. I lay for two days and nights on the hill-and more than once I saw my children playing on the green beside the waterfall, and rose to go down and put them to death-but a figure in white-it might be thou, Alice, or an angel, seemed to rise out of the stream, and quietly to drive the children towards the cottage, as thou wouldst a few tottering lambs." During all this terrible confession, the speaker moved up and down the room,-as we are told of the footsteps of men in the condemned cell, heard pacing to and fro during the night preceding the execution. "Lay not such dreadful thoughts to the charge of thy soul," said his wife, now greatly alarmed,-" Hunger and thirst, and the rays of the sun, and the dews of the night, had indeed driven thee into a rueful fever-and God knows, that the best of men are often like demons in a disease!" The Pastor, who had not dared to interrupt him during the height of his passion, now besought him to dismiss from his mind all such grievous recollections-and was just about to address himself to prayer, when an interruption took place most pitiable and affecting. The door, at which no footstep had been heard, slowly and softly opened, and in glided a little ghost, with ashy face and open eyes, folded in a sheet, and sobbing as it came along. It was no other than that loving child walking in its sleep, and dreaming of its grandfather. Not one of us had power to move. On feet that seemed, in the cautiousness of affection, scarcely to touch the floor, he went up to the bed-side, and kneeling down, held up his little hands, palm to palm, and said a little prayer of his own, for the life of him who was lying dead within the touch of his balmy breath. He then climbed up into the bed, and laid himself down, as he had been wont to do, by the old man's side. "Never," said the Pastor, "saw I love like this"-and he joined his sobs to those that were fast rising from us all at this insupportable sight. "Oh! if my blessed child should awake," said his mother, " and find himself beside a corpse so cold, he will lose his senses-I must indeed separate him from his dead grandfather." Gently did she disengage his little hands from the shrouded breast, and bore him into the midst of us in her arms. His face became less deadly white-his eyes less glazedly fixed-and, drawing a long, deep, complaining sigh, he at last slowly awoke, and looked bewilderedly, first on his mother's face, and then on the other figures sitting in silence by the uncertain lamp-light. "Come, my sweet Jamie, to thine own bed," said his weeping mother.The husband followed in his loveand at midnight the Pastor and myself retired to rest at which hour, every room in the cottage seemed as still as that wherein lay all that remained on earth of the Patriarch and the Elder. week of gentle and sunny rain had just passed over the scenery, and brought all its loveliness into life. I could scarcely believe that so short a time ago the whiteness of winter had shrouded the verdant solitude. Here and there, indeed, a patch of snow lay still unmelted, where so lately the deep wreathes had been drifted by the storm. The hum of insects even was not unheard, and through the glitter of the stream the trout was seen leaping at its gaudy prey, as they went sailing down the pools with their expanded wings. The whole glen was filled with a mingled spirit of pleasure and of pensiveness. As we approached the old Sycamore, we heard behind us the sound of footsteps, and that beautiful boy, whom we had so loved in his affliction, came up to us, with a smiling face, and with his satchel over his shoulder. He was returning from school, for the afternoon was a half-holiday, and his face was the picture of joy and innocence. A sudden recollection assailed his heart, as soon as he heard our voices, and it would have been easy to have changed his smiles into tears. But we rejoiced to see how benignly nature had assuaged his grief, and that there was now nothing in memory, which he could not bear to think of, even among the pauses of his pastimes. He led the way happily and proudly, and we entered once more the cottage of the Hazel Glen. The simple meal was on the table, and the husband was in the act of asking a blessing, with a fervent voice. When he ceased, he and his wife rose to bid us welcome, and there was in their calm and quiet manner an assurance that they were happy. The children flew with laughter to meet their brother, in spite of the presence of strangers, and we soon sat all down together at the cheerful board. In the calm of the evening, husband and wife walked with us down the glen, as we returned to the mansenor did we fear to speak of that solemn night, during which so happy a change had been wrought in a sinner's heart. We parted in the twilight, and on looking back at the Hazel Glen, we beheld a large beautiful star shining right over the cottage. EREMUS. A GLIMPSE INTO THE THIRD VOLUME OF WRANGHAM'S WORKS.* GENTLE READER!-Hast thou ever subsides at last into a satisfied calm: enjoyed the ineffable luxury of reclin- and then our eyes fix, we cannot tell ing, as we now do, in a profound Easy- why or wherefore, upon one part of Chair, with thine eyes wandering at our library-perhaps upon one particuintervals over the compartments of a lar volume. We draw in our outstretchwell-furnished Book-case? Our posi- ed feet, that have so long been resting tion is so happily chosen, as to be on the fender-we heave up our head shaded, but not hidden, from a bright suddenly from the soft density of the but blazeless fire; the great Square in hair-matted chair-and, with long which we abide, is hushed; and that strides crossing the room, we fling sort of whispering silence breathes open one of the glass-doors, and pullover our study, that comes with the ing out duodecimo, octavo, quarto, or approach of midnight. The candles folio, we carry it off, like a prey, back glimmer somewhat waveringly; for, in into our lair, and, growling over it, our drowsy indolence, it was too much make no bones of it whatever, but defor us to assail that long wick-but we vour it bodily. have this instant done so, and what a burst of new-born light streams over our dusky room!-It is a perfect illumination!-while the names of famous men are seen shining towards us, "tier above tier, in wooden library of stateliest view." What is a Balloon, compared to an Easy-Chair? We fly, on the wings of the poet, over the uttermost parts of the earth-we wander, with the philosopher, in sacred academic groves, listening the words of wisdom-we retrace, with the historian, the footsteps of time, and leave behind us cities in their ruins, and nations decayed, as we advance into the quiet of pastoral and patriarchal ages. We think this an excellent way of occasionally reading a library. It saves one the trouble of opening volume after volume, and of turning over the leaves. Reading thus loses all that is merely mechanical about it, and becomes wholly an intellectual labour. The mind can thus skip over not only pages and chapters, but whole volumes, nay, entire works. The principle of association is left to operate on a grand scale, and it causes the mind to keep unceasingly traversing, ascending and descending 3000 volumes, (it may be in our case a few more or less) under the influence of a mysterious sense of beauty, which becomes the more restless the more it is gratified, and leads it off, at its own pleasure, from sound to silence, and from sunshine into shadow, over an interminable world. After a revel of this kind, the mind We have now fastened our eyes, under such circumstances, upon three well-fed volumes at the extremity of the 3d shelf, in the left hand compartment; and we must make a meal of one of them at the least-that is certain so let it be the third. Come out gently, then, and without any struggle, my worthy friend, and behave yourself in a manner becoming your situation. Now let us see what book we have got: "Works of the Rev. Francis Wrangham, M.A. F.R.S. In Three Volumes. Vol III. Price £2, 2s." -And well worth the money too, as any work that was ever published by our good friend, Baldwin. And, first of all, here is a translation, into noble English, of Milton's "Defensio Secunda." Often have we read it; and, now that all is silent around us, we shall read aloud, as sonorously as we can, that most sublime burst of exultation which breaks from Milton on being compared by M. Saumaise to a Cyclops. We have the original by heart; but Wrangham has made the English equal the majestic music of the Roman tongue. "Although it be idle for a man to speak of his own form, yet since even in this particular instance I have cause of thankfulness to God, and the power of confuting the falsehoods of my adversaries, I will not be deem me, as the credulous populace of Spain silent on the subject; lest any person should are induced by their priests to believe those whom they call heretics, to be a kind of rhinoceros, or a monster with a dog's head. Sermons Practical and Occasional; Dissertations, Translations, including New Versions of Virgil's Bucolica, and of Milton's Defensio Secunda, Seaton Poems, &c. &c. By the Rev. Francis Wrangham, M. A. F. R.S. of Trinity College, Cambridge. In Three Volumes. London; Baldwin, Cradock, & Joy. 1816. By any one indeed, who has seen me, I have never, to the best of my knowledge, been considered as deformed: whether as handsome, or not, is less an object of my concern. My stature, I own, is not tall, but it approaches nearer to the middle size than to the low. Were it, however, even low, I should in this respect only resemble many, who have eminently distinguished themselves both in peace and in war. Why, indeed, should that be called low, which is sufficiently lofty for all the purposes of buman exertion? Neither am I to be pronounced very puny;' having so much spirit and strength, that, when my age and the habits of my life permitted, I daily ac customed myself to the exercise of the sword in fencing; and accounted myself, armed with that weapon (as I generally was) secure in the assault of any man, hand to hand, how superior soever he might be in muscular power. The spirit and the strength remain still unimpaired; my eyes alone have failed: and yet they are as unblemished in appearance, as lucid and as free from spot, as those which possess the sharpest vision. In this instance alone am I, most reluctantly, a deceiver. My bloodless' form, as he calls it, retains, at the age of more than forty, a colour the very reverse of bloodless and pale, inducing almost every one to consider me as ten years younger than I really am: neither is my skin ⚫ shrivelled, nor my body in any way contracted. If in any of these circumstances I speak not the truth, I should justly incur the ridicule of thousands of my own countrymen, as well as a number of foreigners, who are acquainted with my person. It may fairly then be concluded, what little credit in other respects is due to one, who has thus unnecessarily, in this particular, been guilty of a gross and wanton falsehood. So much have I been compelled to state about my own person: of yours, though I have been informed that it is the most contemptible, and the most strongly expressive of the dishonesty and malevolence by which it is actuated, I am as little disposed to speak as others would be to hear. Would it were in my power with the same facility to refute the charge, which my unfeeling adversary brings against me, of blindness! Alas! it is not, and I must therefore submit to it. It is not, however, miserable to be blind. He only is miserable, who cannot bear his blindness with fortitude: and why should I not bear a calamity, which every man's mind should be disciplined, on the contingency of its happening, to bear with patience; a calamity, to the contingency of which every man, by the condition of his nature, is exposed; and which I know to have been the lot of some of the greatest and the best of my species? Among those I might reckon many of the wisest of the bards of remote antiquity, whose loss of sight the Gods are said to have compensated with far more valuable endowments; and whose virtues mankind held in such veneration, as rather to choose to arraign heaven itself of injustice, than to deem their blindness as proof of their having deserved it. What is handed down to us respecting the augur Tiresias, is generally known. Of Phineus, Apollonius in his Argonautics thus sung: - δ' όσσον οπίζετο και Διος αυτό Χρειων ατρεκεως δρον Τῷ και οι γηρας μεν επι δηαιον αλλεν, ναον ανθρωποισι Εκ δ' έλετ' οφθαλμων γλυκερόν φάος. Careless of Jove, in conscious virtue bold, His daring lips heaven's sacred mind unfold. The God hence gave him years without decay, But robb'd his eye-balls of the pleasing day. C. S. Now God himself is truth: the more conscientiously, then, any one" unfolds the sacred mind of heaven," the liker and the more acceptable must he be to God. To suppose the Deity averse from the communication of truth to his creatures, or to suppose him unwilling that it should be communicated in the most extensive degree, is perfectly impious. It implied therefore no guilt in this excellent character, who anxiously sought, like many other philosophers, to impart instruction to mankind, to have lost his sight. I might farther mention other names, illustrious for their civil wis dom and heroic exploits; Timoleon of Corinth, the rescuer of his own state and of all Sicily from oppression, one of the best, and in every thing relative to the republicthe purest of men: Appius Claudius, whose patriotic speech in the senate, though it could not restore his own sight, relieved Italy from her great enemy Pyrrhus ; Cæcilius Metellus, the High Priest, who lost his eyes in preserving not only Rome, but the Palladium also, to which her fate was attached, and her most sacred vessels from the flames; since the Deity has upon so many occasions evinced his regard for bright examples even of heathen piety, that what happened to such a man so employed can hardly be accounted an evil. Why need I adduce the modern instances of Dandolo, the celebrated Doge of Venice, or the brave Bohemian General Zisca, the great defender of Christianity, of Jerome Zanchius, and other eminent divines; when it appears that even the patriarch Isaac, than whom no one was ever more beloved by his Maker, lived for some years blind, as did also his son Jacob, an equal favourite with heaven; and when our Saviour himself explicitly affirmed, with regard to the man whom he healed, that neither on account of his own sin, nor that of his parents, had he been " blind from his birth." In respect to myself I call thee, O God, to witness, who triest the very heart and the reins," that after a frequent and most serious examination and scrutiny of every corner of my life, I am not conscious of any recent or remote crime, which, by its atrocity can have drawn down this calamity exclusively upon my head. As to what I have at any time written (for, in reference to this, the royalists triumphantly deem my blindness a sort of judgment) I declare, with the same solemn appeal to the Almighty, that I never wrote any thing of the kind alluded to, which I did not at the time, and do not now, firmly believe to have been right and true and acceptable to God: and that, impelled not by ambition, or the thirst of gain or of glory, but simply by duty and honour and patriotism; nor with a view (singly to the emancipation of the State, but still more particularly to that of the Church. So that when the office of replying to The Royal Defence' was publicly assigned to me, though I had to struggle with ill health, and having already lost nearly one of my eyes, was expressly forewarned by my physicians that, if I undertook the laborious work in question, I should soon be deprived of both; undeterred by the warning, I seemed to hear the voice-not of a physician, or from the shrine of Esculapius at Epidaurus, but of an internal and more divine monitor: and conceiving that by some decree of the fates the alternative of two lots was proposed to me, either to lose my sight or to desert a kigh duty, I remembered the twin destinies, which the son of Thetis informs us his mother brought back to him from the oracle of Delphi : Διχθαδίας κήρας φερέμεν θανάτοιο τέλος δε Ει μεν κ' αυθι μενων Τρώων πολιν αμφιμάχω· μαι, Ώλετο μεν μοι νόσος, αταρ κλεος αφθιτον εται Ει δε μεν οικαδ ̓ ἱκοιμι φιλην ες πατρίδα γαίαν, Ωλετο μοι κλιος εσθλον, επι δκρον δέ μοι αιων Εσσεται, As the Goddess spake, who gave me birth, continue inflexibly the same, and that I neither feel nor fear for them the anger of God, but on the contrary experience and acknowledge, in the most momentous events of my life, his mercy and paternal kindness in nothing more particularly, however, than in his having soothed and strengthened me into an acquiescence in his divine will; led me to reflect rather upon what he has bestowed, than what he has withheld; and determined me to prefer the consciousness of my own achievements to the best deeds of my adversaries, and constantly to cherish the cheering and silent remembrance of them in my breast: finally, in respect of blindness, to think my own (if it must be borne) more tolerable than either theirs, More, or yours. Yours, affecting the inmost optics of the mind, prevents the perception of any thing sound or solid: mine, which you so much abuse, only deprives me of the hue and surface of things, and leaves to my intellectual view whatever they contain of substance and real value. How many things, in fact, are there, which I should not wish to see; how many, that I should wish to see in vain; and how few, consequently, would remain for my actual enjoyment! Wretched therefore as you may think it, I feel it no source of anguish to be associated with the blind, the afflicted, the infirm, and the mourners; since I may thus hope, that I am more immediately under the favour and protection of my dread Father. The way to the greatest strength, an Apostle has assured us, lies through weakness: let me then be of all men the weakest, provided that immortal and better vigour exert itself with an efficacy proportioned to my infirmity, provided the light of God's countenance shine with intense brilliance upon my darkness. Then shall I at once be most feeble and most mighty, completely blind and thoroughly sharp-sighted. O may this weakness insure my consummation, my perfection; and my illumination arise out of this obscurity! In truth, we blind men are not the lowest objects of the care of Providence, who deigns to look upon us with the greater affection and benignity, as we are incapable of looking upon any thing but himself. Woe to those that mock or hurt us, protected as we are, and almost consecrated from human injuries, by the ordinances and favour of the Deity; and involved in darkness, not so much from the imperfection of our optic powers, as from the shadow of the Creator's wings-a darkness, which he frequently ir. radiates with an inner and far superior light! To this I refer the increased kindness, attentions, and visits of my friends; and that there are some, with whom I can exchange those accents of real friendship: Two fates attend me whilst I live on earth. If fix'd I combat by the Trojan wall, Deathless my fame, but certain is my fall: If I return, beneath my native sky My days shall flourish long, my glory die.' "Reflecting therefore with myself that many had purchased less good with greater evil, and had even paid life as the price of glory, while to me the greater good was offered at the expense of the less evil, and an opportunity furnished, simply by incurring blindness, of satisfying the demand of the most honourable dutya result more substantial, and therefore what ought to be by every one considered as more satisfactory and more eligible, than glory itself-I determined to dedicate the brief enjoyment of my eye-sight, so long as it might be spared me, with as much effect as I could to the public service. You see then what I preferred, what I sacrificed, and what were my motives. Let these slanderers of the divine judgments, therefore, desist from their calumnies, nor any longer make me the subject of their visionary fantasies; let them learn, in fine, that I neither regret my lot, And nor repent my choice; that my opinions ΟΡ. Ερπε νον, διαξ ποδός μοι. ΠΥ. Φιλα γεχων κηδευματα. Orest, Lead on my foot's sure helm!"' Pyl. To me dear trust!' -Διδα χειρ ὑπηρετη again : φιλω : |