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consider all other human beings, whose situation is different from our own, as proving the strength, the depths, the capacities of our common nature, under circumstances of which we can only imagine and conjecture the impression. They are making themselves acquainted with, and realizing in their own breasts, its powers and its miseries, the secrets of its high and awful constitution. They are collectively gathering up that moral knowledge which is the only effectual support of moral opinion. In this manner, humankind is going on making experience of its own nature. And each of us, in his confined and partial experience, must look upon himself as very imperfectly capable of understanding that common nature which he bears indeed in his soul; which may make itself a little felt in sympathy with the passions, the desires, the thoughts, the sufferings of others, but can never fully disclose itself, till the presence of the real objects of those feelings shall rouse up those possible feelings into realities.

I have said that the first state of passion is simple emotion. The passion may end here, or it may not; there are instances, of which I have mentioned a few, in which it appeared to be most fitting that the passión should proceed no farther than this first simple affection of the sensibility. But this, as I observed, appears to be not in our nature the ultimate purpose for which these impressions on our feeling are made; and generally we are able to show that they are important, not only by the present state of mind they produce, but by their results, tending to produce an arousing of active power in the soul. And it will be easy to see how much we are aware of this general law and purpose of our nature, by observing in what manner we are affected by those instances in which the first impression is made, and the result that should follow does not take effect. As, for example, if a man had received some heavy blow in his fortunes, that he should be struck with consternation and pain at the intelligence of a misfortune which shook the security on which his mind had been accustomed to rest, and made the future look threatening, we should easily forgive. We should think it natural, and perhaps even fitting. But what should we say of him if, from that feeling of his calamity, he did not rise to exertion of his powers commensurate with the extent of his injury; if he rested in that fear and grief, that first sense of dismay which is useful while it serves to fix in the mind the conception of the magnitude of the injury to be redeemed, and to arouse all its faculties from their indolence of pleasure and accustomed ease, but which is known to us at once as pernicious and dishonouring, if it is prolonged but a little beyond its most necessary season, is recognised as fatal the moment we begin to perceive that it has laid prostrate that will which it should have provoked to the utmost effort of its strength? In such a case, we say that the man was too weak for his misfortune; and the stopping short of the mind in the first stage of emotion shocks us as with the discovery of some moral fault. What should we think of the sensibility of a father who, on seeing his child in danger, should be thrilled indeed with horror and fear at what he saw, but make no effort for his rescue? That anguish of fear seems then to us to produce its proper effect when it carries him with one strong impulse into the heart of flames for his child's deliverance.

We are perfectly prepared, then, by natural feeling to judge how far that first emotion may go, and when it must change from passive feeling to active power. We perfectly understand, in such instances, the provision of nature, and see in what manner the primary impression, though it should be useless in itself, may become useful by its immediate effects.

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When the first burst of Grief has subsided, the suffering that remains takes properly the name of Sorrow. But there are many tempers which prolong this state; and having once received deep cause of sorrow, will not again lift themselves up from it, but, nourishing their pain, stretch one continuous gloom of melancholy over their remaining life. One might be disposed to think that there are few losses, and few minds, to which this extreme prolongation of sorrow can be natural, and that in many instances where it takes place, the mind itself has been too busy in seeking the means of continuing its own affliction. Time is the bringer of consolation; nor does it at all detract from the sincerity or the poignancy of grief, nor from the strength of love, that it has received consolation from time. For this allaying of bitterness is effected, not simply by the interposition of other objects, bringing other thoughts, feelings, and cares, and thus delivering the heart from grief by gaining it from its pristine affections the ready alleviation of all sorrow to minds of little capacity of passion, and that which has been most spoken of by shallow moralists. But time, without injuring the reverence of the first affection, will bring relief by the natural course of the human spirit, as may be understood by considering some of the circumstances which constitute the exceeding bitterness that is felt in the freshness of grief, and the change which, in these respects, is necessarily made by time. Thus, time acts in part by the habitual conviction which it brings on in the mind of the sufferer, that the calamity he deplores is fixed and unalterable, and that, in struggling against it, he is striving with necessity and with the laws of nature. For passion, in its transport, does not bow even under these inflexible laws. Grief, while its loss is yet recent, struggles not merely with the pangs, but with the reality of its affliction. It cannot believe at first that he who was alive is dead. The living image still lives in the soul, and terribly returns upon it in its life and beauty, though the body lies stretched in death; and there is for a long time a dreadful and agonizing struggle between the thoughts of that which has been, and that which is, before the mind can 'tame down its own vivid recollections, and subdue the image of life, by the shadow of mortality. Its first effort is to bring that struggle to rest, which it will do with time. But when this sort of illusion, which almost unsettles the belief of what has happened, is dispelled or overcome, there still remains— what was mixed with it the impatience of the mind to submit itself to its evil. This, again, is a feeling which is contrary to nature and reality, and which therefore must be understood by considering the nature of passion. Under a calamity which has just befallen, there is the same feeling which possesses the mind under a calamity certainly announced and inevitable; a disposition to contend against it, with an obscure imagination of the possibility that, by struggling, it may get free from that iron necessity by which it is held. It is no more than a man writhing and galling himself in the chains which he cannot break. Now, this impatient reluctance against his fate, which a brave man may feel for a time who is unexpectedly adjudged to death, but which he overcomes, merely by the conviction that it is inevitable, is precisely what takes place, though with still greater illusion, in the mind on which insupportable calamity has fallen. It struggles under its load, as if it were possible, by strug

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The purpose which we can trace so intelligibly in in-gling, to shake it off. It strives, in the impatience and stances like these, extends widely through human nature and life. Sometimes it requires the most sagacious and learned observer of nature to perceive that it is fulfilled. But every mind must also be full of examples, in which,

impotence of its grief, against that fate which has not spoken merely, but which has accomplished its decree. This is not the understanding, but the unsubdued blind will, that seems still to feel a power in itself, when all

power is taken from it. Now, this vain and harassing time may exert with respect to sorrow, as naturally enacontest of the unsubmitting mind against an evil, which bling and leading on the mind to exert its own means of it cannot bear to consider and to acknowledge as fixed and strength in overcoming the excess of its grief. That it unalterable for all existence, an evil it has not courage should overcome it altogether, is not to be desired. But to bear, and which tries to change that in imagination that it should overcome the anguish of its suffering, and which is unchangeable in nature, time will relieve. For retain a softened sorrow, mixed with grateful recollections the mind resorts to its understanding, and judges its own of affection, is not only to be desired for the happiness, vain efforts. It perceives its folly, and, by repeated en- but is requisite to the virtue of a being, whose part in life deavours to subdue its will, brings itself into the frame it is not merely to be tender in affections, but strong for of submission, and uses itself to regard as inevitable that the performance of duties. doom which indeed lies inevitably upon it. Time, therefore, inasmuch as it aids the mind to dispel or overcome these illusions of fresh-wounded and unacquainted grief, does necessarily bring repose to the vehement agitations of passionate sorrow. These may be considered as the first workings of the mind to its deliverance from passion, and to the attainment of a calmer sorrow, under the benefit of time. But, independently of these violent emo

tions of the spirit, which are thus laid in some degree in

1

IANTHE.

What's female beauty but an air divine,
Through which the mind's all gentle graces shine;
They, like the sun, irradiate all between,
The body charms, because the soul is seen.

YOUNG.

Move through the dance to music's liveliest tone;
I SAW a lady, in a festal hall,
And ever as she pass'd, the eyes of all

Were fix'd intent on her-and her alone;
And she was fair!—and as she met their gaze,
None could restrain the whisper'd voice of praise!

Methought there was a language in her face,

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More than mere beauty, few could comprehend;
A poetry, a music, and a grace,

That chain'd my soul at once to be her friend;
Such magic dwelt within her deep, dark eye,
I bless'd her, while I own'd its witchery!

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I stole aside and silently apart

Long gazed on her-then turn'd to mark the throng, With whom she mingled, and I ask'd my heart

What spell to this one maiden could belong,That she thus shone supreme in beauty there, While thousands seem to boast of charms as rare ?

But soon the mystery was resolved to light;
Soon did I feel, in all its power and truth,
How inward loveliness alone makes bright,
And lends a glory to the brow of youth!
Before, whose dignity mere outward show
Fades into air, like bells on ocean's flow!
A

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rest, there are other important changes which go on in the mind, and which it owes necessarily to the mediation of time. To those to whom loss is recent, the prominent consideration is their loss. The simple fact that the one they loved is taken from them and gone,that fact, new, strange, and bitter to their souls, occupies them entirely; and the only light in which they can conceive of the child or the friend is, as so freshly, and terribly dost. But that grievous pain is not the only emotion which in their minds belongs to the remembrance of the person beloved. On the contrary, the mind is stored with a thousand emotions of love, which purely delightful, and which, though in the first moments of separation they enhance its anguish, have yet their native power of pleasure, and will re-exert it. The time must come, when those full recollections, which have been the treasure of happy love, will be the soothing of its affliction. All the gentle and gracious qualities which were beloved, all the remembered hours of kind and happy intercourse, will return, not as spectres, merely to haunt the mind with fear and sorrow, but as beatified visions, to console it with its own affections. They have been, through long years, the delight of the heart of affection: that is their natural power and virtue; and that is the power they must again exert, when the freshness of the loss is past, and the mind begins again to recover strength and liberty, to look with more composure on its situation, and to weigh together the good and the evil, which have been dealt to it in that affection. To love has been its happiness, and it may still find happiness in loving, though the objects is no longer present. 'But grief, and the thought of death and of immortality, have made that happiness, which was once tender or unthinkingly gay, now solemn and divine. Time renders yet another change. For the sorrow that is felt is not for our loss alone ; but it is sorrow, it is pity for the dead. The extinction of light and life, der ge the snatching away of the spirit from all that it loved or delighted in, and the consigning of the living breathing frame to dissolution, seem to us a dire calamity to have fallen upon one that was full perhaps of young and gladsome life; and this feeling is strong and active in the midst of the fervour of grief. But as time bears us on from the event, and we reason more, we know that this misfortune is not felt by them and the sorrow weɛretain is much more for ourselves than, for those who are THERE IS no such thing as standing still in human at rest. life the wheel of fortune is continually revolving; and st (o asm szand a fridw Let me add one consideration mores Tjne brings the we must either rise with it or fall." consolations of religion. The mind that turns itself to this source of strength, must find strength that will lift it up from the sorrows of a transitory world. All evil which is of this life, must seem lessened to the mind that looks habitually upon eternity! All suffering must be" Some years ago-say fifteen or eighteen-as I was softened to the mind, which looks habitually to the hand returning from London by the mail-coach, I made halt The room into from which it came, in humble and adoring gratitude for for a night at one of the York inns. all the good it has given. In this, and in the other in- which I was ushered was full of bagmen and travellers stances that have been mentioned, we see the power which of various cuts and kinds, and from the confused Babel

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Ahd yes, 'tis true, as sunlight gilds the scene,
When soul shines pure through every word and look,
All minds must feel her majesty serene;

'Tis Heaven a radiance lends to Nature's book!
And as bright skies to streams their hues impart,
Her face reflected still the summer of the heart!

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1

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THE SHOEBLACK.

By Delta.

Ah, little kent thy mother,

That day she cradled thee,

The lands that thou shouldst travel in,
Or the death that thou shouldst dee.

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GERTRUDE.

Old Song.

"Very true," said my friend, as he emptied his glass, and turned a little more round to me; "I will give you a case in point, of which I happened to know myself.

of sound I could occasionally hear a detached sentence on politics on the theatres-on agriculture-on the late rainy weather-the price of stocks-soft goods-and the petitions of the Roman Catholics. A knot in one corner were discussing supper; others, lounging beside the hearth, toasted their toes; while a third, and more numerous party, half concealed amid puffy exhalations, washed down the flavour of their Havannahs with steaming savoury rum-punch. Being somewhat fatigued, and the assemblage not exactly quite to my taste, I tossed off a sneaker, and rang for Boots,-that indispensable actor of all drudgery work at your public establishments for board and lodging.

Mr Melville were shortly after thrown into disorder by unsuccessful speculations; and matters at length grew so bad as to involve bankruptcy and ruin. The old man was received into the country residence of a relation; but, brought up in habits of activity and business, his mind could not withstand the dread reverse; and, after a few listless months, one shock of palsy following another, hurried him off to a not unwelcome grave.

"The penniless and imprudent Henry soon found that he had wedded not only himself, but another, to misery, as the dark night of ruin closed around them. They were both young, and capable of exertion, but, living on the faith of future prospects, and a speedy reconcilement, they had contracted debts, from which they saw no possible way of extricating themselves. Matters grew worse and worse, and at length the poor fellow was afraid to leave his home from fear of bailiffs.

"At length he fell into their hands, and was dragged to jail; and, on the news being incautiously carried to his young wife, she was seized with convulsions, and perished in giving birth to a child, not unfortunately

"In bustled a tall, thin, squalid, miserable-looking creature, his curly black hair seemingly long unkempt, hanging about his ears in most admired disorder.' His dress corresponded with his looks; his jacket and waistcoat were of dark fustian, and his trowsers, shabby and shrivelled, bore some traces of having been originally nankeen. Around his neck was twisted a blue cotton handkerchief, and the little of his linen seen, was not only ragged, but dirty. In one hand he carried a boot-dead. The heart of the miserable man was rent asunder jack, and in the other a pair of slippers, while from under his arm depended a dingy towel, perhaps as a badge of office. I could not help thinking, as he crossed the room at my summons, 'here is a most lugubrious specimen of mortality; one of those night-hawks of society, whom it would scarcely be comfortable to meet with, unarmed, on a solitary road, towards the twilight.'

"With down-looking face, the fellow made a hurried approach to me, as if he had the feeling of his task being a disagreeable one, and the sooner got over the better. As he laid the slippers on the carpet, placed the bootjack at my foot, and was stooping his shoulder as a fulcrum for assistance in my operations, I caught a distinct glimpse of his faded features. I could not be mistaken. 'Good Heavens!' said I to myself half aloud, can it possibly be Harry Melville !'

"After the poor creature had shuffled out of the room in an agitation which did not wholly escape the remark, and provoke the idle laugh of some of the loungers, I hastily rang the bell, and was shown to my sleepingroom by the waiter, whom I requested to bid the person come up who had brought me my slippers.

"I was allowed to pace about for some time in a perplexed and downcast mood, haunted by many a recollection of departed pleasures-by many delightful associations of other years, which contrasted themselves with present dejection, when at length I heard a step timidly approaching the door, and a slight tap was given. I opened it eagerly, and there stood before me the same doleful apparition. I took hold of the poor fellow's hand, and led him to a chair; but no sooner was he seated, and the door shut upon us, than he put his hands over his face, and burst into a flood of tears. When he had become a little more tranquil, I soothed him in the best way I could, and ventured to open my mind to him.

"Oh! let me alone-let me alone,' he said, sobbing bitterly. I have deserved my fate. My own imprudence, more than misfortune, has reduced me to the state you see. Be not sorry for me; I am beneath your regard. I have deserved it all.'

66

on learning his domestic calamities; scorned and despised, friendless and unpitied, he beheld from the ironbound windows of his prison, the coffin that contained the remains of his wife and child, carried through the streets by strangers to the place of interment, while, yearning with the feelings of the husband and father, he was denied the mournful solace of shedding a tear into their grave.

"Condemned to the social contamination of the base and vile, he endured the wretchedness and the disgrace of confinement for two months, when he was set at liberty by the benefit of the act which so provides, on making oath of surrendering up every thing. Into the world, therefore, was he cast forth, branded and stigmatized, destitute, and beggared in every thing but the generous pride which withheld him from soliciting charity. Bred to no profession, he knew not whereunto to turn his hand; and misery pressed so hardly upon him, that unhallowed thoughts of suicide began to suggest themselves to his troubled mind. From town to town he wandered, soliciting the situation of clerk in any countinghouse; but, alas! he had no references to make as to character, no certificates of former engagements faithfully fulfilled. For days and days together, he had not even a morsel of bread to satisfy the pangs of hunger. To add to his wretchedness, his clothes had become so shabby, from exposure to wind and rain, and sunshine, that he was ashamed to be seen in public, or during daylight,—so lay about the fields and wastes till sunset, when he ventured nearer to human dwellings.

"To have offered himself for any situation in such a squalid condition, would have been certain exposure to contumely, refusal, and suspicion; and at length the lingering rays of pride which had hitherto sustained him, sank amid the darkness of his destiny.

"Necessity is a stern teacher. Even the face of man, which he had sought to shun in his misfortunes, became to him at length a sufferance necessary to be borne; so, as he was at first thrust from, so was he at length drawn back to the dominion of society. From the moorland wastes, where he could pick a few wild berries, and from the seashore, which afforded some shellfish, he came, by

Having consoled him in the best manner I could, he voluntarily gave me the particulars of his history, which, as far as memory serves me, were nearly to the follow-degrees imperceptible but sure, to be a spectator at the ing effect:.

"Shortly after having been taken into the countinghouse of his father, at that time a considerable West India merchant, he had married, contrary to the will of his friends, in the hope that the affections of a parent could not long remain estranged to an only son, even though conscious that that son had injured him: Perhaps in this his calculations were not altogether wrong; but at this point foreknowledge failed, and unforeseen circumstances blasted his prospects. The affairs of old

corner of streets, and a hanger-on about stableyards, where he casually earned a few pence by assisting the grooms to carry water, or lead gentlemen's horses. Low is the lowest situation which admits not of promotion, and through course of time, my old schoolfellow came to be promoted to the office in which I found him."

"Poor fellow! did you ever hear what became of him afterwards?"

"Yes I did, and a miserable end he had, though redeemed by the spirit of humanity which prompted it.

the people to a state of privation and suffering quite unexampled. The earlier of the winters of those years were so intensely cold, that the unhouseled children of nature died in the fields,-the birds dropped from the trees, and the smaller insects, such as flies, were nearly

He was killed in rescuing a child, which had fallen before the wheels of the mail-coach; and the grateful parents not only gave him a decent funeral, but erected a simple tablet over him, recording his fate, and their gratitude. "It is dreadful to think on the abyss into which a single erring step from the paths of prudence may pre-exterminated. The meagre crops of those years had to cipitate us," said I.

"Yes," answered my friend; " and there are a thousand ways of going wrong; while I defy you to go right save by one."

AN ORISON.

By Thomas Tod Stoddart.

LOST are the living stars

On yon blue welkin bright,

Far through the soundless vault of heaven
Folded in light!

For the cloud-breathing sun

Unbinds his amber tresses,

And the mountain brows are blushing blood
In his earliest caresses.

The dews, which twilight shed

Through earth's great censer, wing

Their golden flight from a thousand flowers,
The flowers of a fairy spring!

And the mossy-nested birds
Are marshall'd in the sky,

Striking the strings of Nature's lyre
In mirthful melody!

The sea is foaming gold

From his vases, far below,

In blossoms of pale coral wreathed-
Foliage of snow!

Beautiful, beautiful!

Is the goodly sun uprisen,

Like a captive monarch to his throne,
From some far fortress-prison!

Wonderful, wonderful,

As heaven's great host, in night Stirring creation's pulses, through The awful infinite!

The heart of the Eternal throbs

Through thy immortal blaze,

Sun! that hath flooded back the stars

In the ocean of thy gaze!

And the night that shone with dreamy worlds
On its robe of grief-like hue,

Burst from thy golden bayonets, back
To the chaos where it grew!

THE DEAR YEARS.

By Robert Chambers.

At

be rescued from the snows of November and Decembera species of labour which deprived many of the poor working people of the use of their hands and feet. length the scarcity reached a height in 1700. The meal was then sold at two shillings a-peck, a price which placed it almost beyond the reach of the common people. And not only was this great cardinal necessary of Scottish domestic life elevated to such an exorbitant price, but it was sometimes difficult to procure it at all. It is recorded, that when women sometimes came to market, and found that the whole disposable grain of the place had been already disposed of, they would be seen clapping their hands and tearing off their head-dresses, with the most heart-rending exclamations of despair, knowing that they would have nothing to put into the mouths of their children for a number of days, unless succoured by the charity of their neighbours.

Under such distressing circumstances, the affections of domestic life were very apt to disappear in the selfishness of individual misery. Honest Patrick Walker, the pious pamphleteer so much quoted in the "Heart of MidLothian," relates, that some declared they "could mind nothing but food, and were utterly unconcerned about their souls, whether they went to heaven or hell." Yet there were, no doubt, many instances, also, of mothers tearing the bite from their own disinterested mouths, to give it to their offspring,-of good hearts which could succour the deeper distress of friends, at the risk of their own destruction,-and of Christians who, regarding every evil in life as the infliction of an all-wise and unchallengeable Deity, would bear their pains with unbroken minds, and fulfil, till the very last, all the duties of a good life.

There lived in those days a certain bailie, in the town of Coldstream, whose descendant, in 1826, related to me the following anecdotes, which have been handed down by family tradition.

At one particular crisis of the famine, this goodman, though one of the wealthiest in the place, found it quite impossible to produce a meal for his children. The day had been spent entirely without food, and towards night the little creatures were getting so clamorous, that the parents despaired of seeing them fall asleep without something in the shape of supper. In this emergency, the bailie bethought him of a barrel of ale which had long lain in his cellar. But in the first place he called in the town-piper with his bagpipes. Having set this official to play a few merry tunes, the children all fell a-dancing, and he then supplied them each with a little of the ale, the piper included. Under this double influence of music and drink, the poor things danced still more energetically, till at length they became so overpowered by fatigue and the fumes of the liquor, as to fall into a profound sleep, from which they only awoke next morning to a meal which had in the meantime been provided.

During the famine, four bolls of oatmeal were sent to Coldstream market to be sold, and were consigned to the care of the bailie. His wife took him aside, and, directed

IN former times, when Scotland was a poor, "half-by the feelings of a mother, counselled him to secure one fed, half-clad, half-sarkit" country at the very best, and ere the maxims of political economy, and the wealth introduced by commerce, had as yet provided men with the means of obviating the effects of bad seasons, our population was subject to the most awful miseries, in the shape of famine, which sometimes lasted with more or less virulence for a course of years. The most severe calamity of this kind on record occurred at the meeting of the 17th and 18th centuries, when a series of bad crops, commencing in 1697, and not ending till 1704, reduced

of the bolls for the use of his own family. But he kindly rebuked her for her selfishness, and said he would perform what he considered his duty, by dealing out the meal to the poor people, in portions corresponding to the extent of their families, ranking himself among the rest. He did so most scrupulously, and it was remarked, as a token of the favour of Heaven for such correct principle, that the little quota he thus reserved for his own use, served to sustain his family exactly till another supply was procured.

The mortality occasioned by this famine was very great. The people, by way of making their little occasional supplies of meal go as far as possible, used to grind it up with a vast proportion of way-side herbs and seeds of an unhealthy character, which were almost as fatal as absolute want. Patrick Walker tells us, that deaths and burials at length grew so frequent, that the living were wearied with taking care of the dead; it was found difficult to raise a sufficient company to inter a neighbour decently; and many corpses got neither coffin nor winding-sheet, but were drawn to the grave upon sledges, as is done upon occasions of pestilence abroad. It was quite a customary sight in Ayrshire, according to a traditionary source of intelligence, to see the bodies of people who had died of starvation, lying under the high thorn hedges, which then formed the only boundaries of roads and fields throughout the country. Many of these were never buried, but, after lying above ground till the return of better times re-awakened natural feelings in the breasts of the people, were put out of sight by a covering of earth.

It is said, that the famine was fatal, to a remarkable degree, in the northern province of Moray; in so much, that in the parish of Kininvie, only three smoking cottages were left, all the inhabitants of the others having died during that heavy visitation. "From poverty and the awful prevalence of mortality," says a provincial chronicler, (the ingenious Mr Carruthers of the Inverness Courier,) "the ordinary rites of Christian burial were denied to the poor, and large holes were dug in many places, into which their bodies were consigned. One maiden lady in Garmouth, whose memory is still gratefully embalmed in the recollections of the peasantry, provided shrouds and coffins for such as wandered to her door to die; and, so anxious were the poor to avail themselves of this last privilege, that they would husband their little stock and journey far and near, that they might close their eyes secure of decent interment !" In the Highlands, hunger pinched the people as hard as anywhere else. There used long to be a traditionary recollection at Inverness, of a vision of poor famished wretches, who came out like spectres from the glens and woods, and set up a wail of misery before the town, that pierced the very hearts of the honest burghers, themselves very nearly as necessitous and as miserable.

The following little tale of human ignominy and wretchedness, connected with the famine of 1700, is from the recollection of an aged gentleman, to whom it was related by his grandmother, the date of whose birth was 1704. For many years before the famine, a poor old woman, belonging to the tribe of gentle beggars, as they are called in Scotland-that is, persons originally of good condition, but who have been reduced to beggary-used to wander about Ayrshire, living chiefly in the houses of the farmers, to whom her company was acceptable, on account of her having "a wonderful gift of prayer." About the year 1695, this sanctimonious person, though she had partaken of the family supper, was detected one night, at a farm-house where she lodged, licking the cream off one of the best boynes in the dairy. Such a failing in 66 a professor" was very shocking to the religious feelings of the community, and, accordingly, the poor woman was now so much despised and reviled, that she found it necessary to disappear from that district of the country, and try her fortune in a scene where she was less known. In time, the people almost forgot the very existence of such a person; the waves of society closed over her, and she was the same to Ayrshire as if she had never lived. But it would appear that the unhappy wretch did not find it possible to obtain a proper settlement anywhere else, owing, perhaps, to her not being anywhere else" the accustomed beggar." Thus, when the famine began, like a dejected bark driven back by storms to its little haven, she found it necessary to seek a shelter and sustenance, everywhere else denied, in the circle of country where

she was alone known either for good or evil. Previous to the unfortunate exposure which drove her from Ayrshire, she had been a decent-looking, neatly dressed woman, with a trace of the gentility of better days; but now misery had pinched her hard; her clothes were the most wretched that could be conceived, and, to use the expressive phrase in which her tale was related, it was possible to trace her path by the vermin which she dropped in her progress. The last circumstance was a sufficient cause, if no other had existed, for denying a lodging to the poor wretch, while the famine of the time afforded an equally good reason for refusing to extend to her the means of supporting life. Thus circumstanced-an outcast, starved, diseased, overrun with vermin-this miserable creature dragged her living corpse to the banks of the water of Annick, (a rivulet which runs through the parish of Stewarton, and discharges itself into the sea at Irvine,) and there upon a little hillock lay down to die. the kindness of a neighbouring farmer, the great-grandfather of my informant, who every day came out to the place where she was lying, and threw her a bannock and a piece of cheese, she survived nine days, but died upon the tenth, as striking a picture of human misery as ever cumbered the earth. The time was one of horrible sights, and accordingly no one stirred to offer her wretched, dilapidated corpse the rites of burial, or even to fling a stone or a handful of earth upon it, for many months after.

AT SEA IN A FOG.

WERE you ever at sea in a fog,
When the ship lies as still as a log,

And all round her edge

The haze like a hedge Keeps you close in a charming incog?

There is never a sound to be heard, Save the horn of the man upon guard, That all vessels near

May know to keep clear, For before them they can't see a yard.

Through

Hands in pocket, and quid in cheek, Jack
Keeps pensively pacing the deck,

Or splices a rope,—
Having whistled till hope
Of a breeze has become quite a wreck.

Upon every thing in the ship
For days hangs the same cheerless drip ;
Says the captain, “If we
Must be wet, let it be

In a gale that will make our sails dip!"

A man is sent up to the mast, In hopes he'll spy something at last : "Ho! what do you see?" You sing out; and sings he, "Thick blankets of fog driving past!"

"Ay, blankets for Ocean to wrap Himself in for a very long nap!

Oh, for a cat's paw,

To give him a claw, And toussle the old boy's nightcap!"

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