all

stationary condition, or declining years of
the British Empire. The wealth of the
world has fled from the Italian cities; but
the cultivation of the plain of Lombardy
at this moment never was surpassed
the pendants of Europe are no longer to
be seen on the banks of the Scheldt-but
the fields of Flanders still flourish in un-
diminished fertility: the merchants of Flo-
rence no longer number all the kings of
Europe among their debtors-but cultiva-
tion has spread to an unparalleled extent
through the terraces of the Arno, and
rural contentment exists in its most en-
chanting forms on the vine-clad hills of
Tuscany. It is in these examples that
we may see and hope for the prototypes
of the euthanasia of British greatness.
It is in the transference of mercantile
wealth to agricultural industry, and the
rapid absorption even of the greatest ma-
nufacturing population in the labour of the
fields, that the real security, in an ad-
vanced stage of civilization, against the

destruction of commercial prosperity, is to be found. Vast and overgrown as is the present manufacturing population of Great Britain, the experience of former states which have undergone similar vicissitudes, warrants the hope that it could be absorbed in a very short time, and permanently and comfortably maintained in the labour of the fields. The single alteration of substituting the kitchen-garden husbandry of Flanders in our plains, and the terraced culture of Tuscany in our hills, for the present system of agricultural management, would at once double the produce of the British islands, and procure ample subsistence for twice the number of its present inhabitants. And humanity has no cause to dread a change which, reducing to a third of their present numbers the inmates of the British factories, or the operations in the British towns, should double the number of its country labourers, and overspread the land with rural felicity."-Vol. I. p. 215.

CHARLES-EDWARD AFTER CULLODEN.

BY B. SIMMONS.

"He took a vast delight, when it was a good day, to sit upon a stone that was before the door of the house, with his face turned towards the sun; and when he was entreated to remove from thence, fearing to get a headache, he ordered them to pack about their business-that he knew himself what was good for him better than they could describe that the sun did him all the good in the world."-MS. Journal communicated to New Monthly Magazine.

Away!-so faithful and so few

Ye battle-wasted weary band!
Nor, sorrowing thus, within His view
With scrutinizing glances stand.
All that ye lost, some foreign land,
Some luckier future day, may give;
Of his despair what can ye know?
To lose upon one desperate throw
An empire's chance-and live!
Away!-what right has aught but God,
Or God's archangel lone-the Sun-

To watch upon that barren sod

The black wild waters, one by one,

Of vast Dismay, beat in upon

His frenzied soul, that would defy

The bright exulting Face which seems,

As through yon boundless realm it beams,

To mock him from the sky.

To mock him from the sky with pomp,
Lavish as that it once bestow'd,

When to the sound of kingly tromp,

Through streets with gladness overflow'd,
To solemn Holyrood he rode,

Where Faith and Love his pillow spread,
Who now, 'mid desert wanderings,
The famish'd heir of thousand kings

Lacks where to lay his head!

Again his wrathful brow has faded

To that calm aspect, sad, sedate,
That mark'd his race, for ever shaded

By the pursuing wing of Fate ;-
What though the morn of him-thy mate,
Thou regal sun-like thine arose

'Mid rack and tempest, he will think
His splendid evening yet may sink
Victorious to repose.

Fast as thou climb'st the firmament,

He drinks, O Sun! thy warmth and light,
Till through each slack pulse, anguish-spent,
Hope's golden nectar dances bright-
Till each far sail that glideth white
He deems is nearing-nearing yet-
Freighted with friendly hosts for him,
Fond Dreamer-on whose every limb
The shambles' price is set! *

Poor wanderer!-long thy blistering feet
May tread far Stornay's iron shore-
Long may the Arctic's wintry sleet
'Mid Badenoch's flinty fastness pour
Its horrors on thy form, before
The terrors of thy hapless tale
Voluptuous Louis shall disturb—
Fretting the indolence superb

Of roseate Versailles.

Too hard that thou should'st reap in tears,
And glean the ghastly harvest in,
Sown by thy godless sires through years
Of profligacy, blood, and sin;
Yet had it been thy lot to win

The game by thee so bravely play'd,

Would'st thou, no learn'd suspicious fool

No Martyr to tyrannic rule

No sceptred Monk, have made?

Bootless the query:-Human heart

Endured no heavier doom than thine:

Say, ye pert Aspirants of Art,

Who painted him, in life's decline,
The sot the stupefied with wine-
How many a year of madd'ning mood

It took to blunt that soul-whose fire
Could once fierce Cameron's ardour tire-
Down to decrepitude? †

Yet had he ne'er been wretched, he

Had miss'd the glorious light that clings
Around his mournful memory,

Dimming the fame of vulgar kings.
While humour warms and pathos wrings,
And ScoTT the subject heart shall sway-
Crownless Ambition's outcast child,
Thy venturous story's beauty wild
Shall never know decay!

*"It gave him a great deal of pleasure to look to the ships that passed in the Channel every day, which he flattered himself to be French, though they were really some of the English fleet sent hither to guard the coast."-MS. Journal.

+ "Neither old age, nor royal birth, nor misfortune itself, could protect him from the impertinence of some travellers, who, catching him in his fallen state, unfairly described the prince when he had ceased to be a man,' -FORSYTH.

VANITIES IN VERSE,

BY B. SIMMONS.

I.

TO A LADY

Reading" The Prisoner of Chillon" in preference to " Childe Harold.

1.

By calm Reflection's cold, undazzled eye,

How clear the Power, all-beautiful, is seen
Which prompts thee o'er that page instinctively,
As leans the lily to the light, to lean!

2.

'Tis fill'd with breathings of all-deep affections

Love strong as death-Hope's fervour kindling free-
And the sweet bond of household recollections;

And are not these-all these-Bright One, for thee?

3.

No marvel that the Pilgrim's moody strain

Made but dull music to thy dancing years-
Rear'd with the Rose!-thy fresh heart's heaviest rain
Is transient as thy fragrant sister's tears.

4.

What should'st thou with the taleworn Passion traced-
With the green earth around, and morning o'er thee?
Joy at thy feet-along that flowery waste

Waiting to strike his cymbals on before thee.

5.

No, lady-leave lost HAROLD's page to those
Whose Hopes have died to rise in Memories-
Who, like him, drain'd Life's lavish cup of woes,
And pour'd their molten feelings forth to freeze.

6.

To such, it is a manual set apart

The scriptures of the sear'd and wounded soul-
Teaching the mournful Hermits of the Heart
A lore beyond vain Science's control.

7.

There the long-loving, but unloved, may learn
To make their Pride a friend, and smile at pain;
What if they fly from all for which they yearn,
They shun one shaft to be deceived again!

8.

Theirs is the torpor of existence-still

It is, at least, repose; o'er which can shine
No wakening ray, save when, with feeblest skill,

They fling song's garlands round such steps as thine.

II.

BALLAD.

Ay-light and careless be thy look

Let thy cold eyes on me

Ne'er gleam but like the winter's brook
In freezing brilliancy.

Let even my passing shadow be
The eclipse of thy soul;
Fly where thou wilt, revertedly

To me thy thoughts must roll,

Morn shall but rise from ocean dim,

To count how oft I've sung;

Thy brow was like its breaking beam
The raven clouds among.

The summer Noon, with glowing tongue
Shall tell of him who vow'd

Thy form shamed hers, while round thee clung
The roses in a crowd.

And passionate Darkness too shall hint,
With its far-watching eyes,

How I have deem'd thy beauty lent

The night diviner dyes;

Away! in vain thy falsehood flies
Beyond the ocean's bound;

For twined with nature's memories,
My spirit wraps thee round.

(In an Album—St Patrick's Day. 1839.)

Thou fairy child from Innisfail,
With eyes so dark and forehead pale,
Laughing and glancing in thy play,

Like a stray sunbeam sent to mind us,
Far from our Western Land away,

Of hearts and hills long left behind us!
Oh, ever thus be life to thee,
As now, a path of dancing glee!

Still may the laughter at thy heart

From those glad eyes in gushes start;

And when Spring woos the bud to blow

When ripening years shall round thee throw A power to feel the strain that here

I pour unheeded on thine ear

Then, as thou bendest o'er this book
With girlhood's bright but serious look,
Take with a mountain-minstrel's blessing
The wish, where'er thy life may roam-
Whether caress'd-or uncaressing,

That thou'lt be true to early home.
Though from thy land thou'rt far apart,
Still wear her shamrock in thy heart-
Thy thoughts as stainless as its dew—
Thy faith unchanging, like its hue-
And ever as this day comes round,
With all its hallow'd memories crown'd-
Remember still the scene where we
Now keep our Saint's solemnity.

And should'st thou hope to walk in youth
-Free from deceit-with God and truth-
With no ambition but to be

An Irish maiden blithe and free,

With that best beauty on thy cheek,

That springs from feelings pure and meek,
Tread in the steps of HER, for whom
To-night at least we've banish'd gloom.
Be not a thought of her forgot-
Practise the precepts she has taught-
Prefer, like her, green Erin's song-
Keep Erin's accents on thy tongue,
And later bards shall wake for thee
The strain now faintly closed by me.

IV.

SKETCH IN THE OLD BAILEY.

(FROM LIFE.)

COURT." Girl, have you any witnesses to call in your defence?"

PRISONER." No, your Lordship, I haven't a friend upon the face of the earth."