* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

This ebook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the ebook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the ebook. If either of these conditions applies, please contact a FP administrator before proceeding.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

This ebook was produced by: Alex White & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

To Contributors.—The Monks of La Trappe will appear in the Second Number;—and the promised article on Indian Antiquities, would be very acceptable.

Immemorial custom imposes upon an Author, or Editor, the duty of addressing the Public, and of giving a brief outline of his intentions and plans, before entering on the main enterprise of his work. Formerly, no book was ever ushered into to the world, but under the name of some wealthy or influential person, who was honored with a certain portion of praise, for which he was always expected to make a pecuniary return. This custom, so prejudicial to literary independence, has now fallen into desuetude. The Author no longer expects to gain a Patron by a dedication; and a book, unless puffed up by interested reviewers, is left to find its own level, and to stand or fall by its own merits. The custom of dedication, however, has to a certain extent been wisely retained. Authors now dedicate their works to Parents, Children, or Friends, as memorials of affection or esteem. The conductors of Periodical Publications naturally address themselves to that portion of the Community, on which they rely for support. Junius inscribed his powerful philippics to the British nation. Humbly following in the wake of this political Leviathan, the Editor of The Literary Magazine dedicates his labors to The Canadian Public.

The impression which a strange land makes upon the mind, very much depends on preconceived ideas. For my own part, I did not expect to find the Canadians an ignorant people, plunged in mental sloth and intellectual darkness,—senseless as the stumps around their dwellings,—or as inaccessible to light, as the buck-wheat pines of Dorchester or Galt. I find them advanced in civilization, beyond my expectations. In the remotest woods I behold the conveniences and comforts of life gathered together, from all the four quarters of the globe.—The severe trials of an early settler, and a daily warfare with mental and physical difficulties, may have super-induced a crust of roughness over the outward man; but the same feelings which the settler brought with him from his native land, or which the Canadian-born inherits from his parents, exist, though perchance it may be, in a latent slate. Such a man I cannot believe to be forgetful of the past, or indifferent to the future; on the contrary. I believe that he will welcome with pleasure any honest chronicler who, like Old Mortality, will remove the moss encroaching upon the carved memorials of the tomb,—a chronicler who will rescue from oblivion’s stream those floating fragments, which some Canadian Hume or Robertson will hereafter search for, when composing the annals of his country. And who will deny that the events which have characterized the infancy of this extensive country afford ample materials for the Historian, the Poet, and the Novelist? The sufferings of the U. E. Loyalists,—the privations of those who sunk beneath the gnawings of Famine in Hungry Bay,—the adventures of the Hunter, especially if he possessed the romantic spirit of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,—the Guerilla-like achievements of the late War,—the past and present condition of the Aborigines,—are subjects equally interesting to the Canadian, and to him who has adopted Canada for his country.

To the Naturalist and the Philosopher, a wide field for investigation lies open, ready to reward their labors—the harvest is ripe,—the reapers only are wanted. The subterranean riches of this favored continent are, as yet, but very imperfectly developed the depths of the lakes, and the recesses of the forests, are teeming with treasures, or present phenomena, which no pen has yet described,—no philosopher has yet accounted for.

From such sources I purpose to minister to the amusement and information of the Public. With such subjects I shall endeavor to beguile their winter evenings and summer noons. In the prosecution of my undertaking, I have not the presumption to depend exclusively on my own resources. I expect the aid of numerous and talented contributors, male and female. Many are willing to place at my disposal the treasures of their portfolios, but wish first to see in what company they are likely to appear. When the respectable Ladies and Gentlemen of my first Number make their entrance, unbedizened with the straw crowns and platted sceptres, the immemorial insignia of Bedlamite Kings and Queens,—and avoiding in their language the incoherent ravings of poor Nat Lee,—I hope no sensible person will object to join their company. Though they will reject all outrageous embellishments and tinsel trimmings;—though they will not dig, like pigs searching after truffles, for the “voracious” worm, nor exhibit the nauseous reptile, in the fashion of “spectre-mongering” Monk Lewis,—they will by no means despise the ornaments of picturesque romance. “Truth is strange, stranger than fiction;” and the more closely the author can pourtray human nature as it is, and events as they occurred, the greater will be the delight with which the reader will peruse his page.

Religious and political controversy I have determined to banish from my pages altogether; such debatable topics sadly interrupt the peaceful pursuits of Literature. I wish the Public to regard the Magazine as neutral ground,—as a grove sacred to the Muses, where men of all parties may mingle in intellectual union, discarding from their discourse the acrimony of public disputes. Trojan and Tyrian, York and Lancaster, at their entrance into this peaceful region, must leave their religious and political tenets behind them, as the Moslem puts off his slippers before entering the Mosque.

I have but a few more words to say. I intend to serve the Public faithfully, though not to be its slave. The veil which covers, and always ought to cover, private affairs, shall never be removed by me;—at the same time, I shall speak my mind plainly and boldly. As far as lies in my power, I will tomahawk every ignorant and conceited trespasser upon Parnassus, and hang up his scalp, as a trophy, in the Temple of Apollo. I will endeavor to rescue the modest flower from wasting “its sweetness on the desert air,” and to root out the rankly luxuriant weeds that would choke the “wee crimson-tipped” daisy.

My explanations ended, I hasten to a conclusion of this Address, cherishing the hope that I shall receive the support of every individual who feels a desire that Canada should possess a Literature of its own; for, without such individual support my undertaking must fall to the ground. In commencing my task, I am not actuated merely by the desire of gain;—in truth, I would rather that the encouragement I may receive should defray my actual expenses, and leave me a few precious but barren laurel leaves, than that pecuniary success should await me, unaccompanied by a single bay.

If I succeed, success shall rouse me to renewed exertion. If I fall—‘At least I’ll die with harness on my back.’

On the peace of 1784, the British North American Colonies having established their independence, and the trade, particularly in tobacco, between the River Clyde and those Colonies being much injured, the Merchants of Glasgow and of Greenock found it necessary to turn their attention to the importation and manufacturing of Cotton. The immense importation of this article encouraged capitalists in the Counties of Renfrew, Lanark, and Dumbarton to invest property to a very large amount in the erection of cotton mills and other machines for spinning, weaving, and bleaching cotton cloth; and so rapidly did those manufactories prosper and increase, that in the year 1792, although but a few years in operation, the number of hands employed in them amounted to eighty thousand.

The great demand for labour increased the number of hands; and this raised the price of provisions of all kinds, especially of butchers’ meat; upon which the Highland proprietors, finding a ready market and high prices for wool and mutton, considered it would be more to their advantage to turn their bleak and barren mountains into sheepwalks, than to allow them to be occupied by a number of small tenants, who could hardly bring subsistence for themselves out of the soil, were they to pay no rent to the landlord.

The feudal system (which, in the Highlands of Scotland, was based on the mutual interest of the chieftain and the vassal, by the influence and consequence, in proportion to the number of his followers, it afforded to the former,—and the protection and support it gave to the latter,) being now entirely dissolved, the Highland Chief saw no reason why he should any longer sacrifice his interest to the pride of reckoning a numerous clan. He therefore determined to rid himself of his poor tenantry, and to substitute in their place substantial and industrious farmers and shepherds from the southern parts of Scotland. And it was not uncommon to see from one to two hundred families turned adrift, and the farms which they had occupied converted into one sheepwalk, for the accommodation of a South-country shepherd, or, as it was termed in the country, a hundred and fifty or two hundred smokes went through one chimney. The poor people, thus dispossessed of their small farms, and compelled to dispose of their stock for little or nothing, because there was nobody to purchase it but those who supplanted them, and who thought it fair to take all the advantage they could of them, found themselves in the most helpless and distressed situation: they had never travelled beyond the limits of their native vallies and mountains; they neither understood nor spoke any other language but their mother-tongue, the Gaelic; and they were perfect strangers to the ways and manners of the world.—The few that could muster means to pay their passage to America, whither many of them were desirous to emigrate, were afraid to enter on the sea, covered as it then was with privateers and armed vessels of the enemy; besides that, the British cruisers and ships of war had positive orders from the Admiralty to prevent the departure of emigrants from the Highlands of Scotland, and to press such able-bodied men as they found on board emigrant-ships. Those orders were carried into execution on some occasions; but it frequently happened that the officers who boarded the ships and beheld the pitiable state of the emigrants, could not prevail upon themselves to tear the father and the husband from the wife and children; for, had they done so, they would have been the instruments of the most ruinous and fatal consequences to the Highlanders.

It was in this conjuncture that the writer of these pages, then a Missionary on the borders of the Counties of Inverness and Perth, in the highest inhabited parts of the Highlands of Scotland, affected by the distressed state of his countrymen, and hearing that an emigrant vessel which had sailed from the Island of Barra, one of the Hebrides, had been wrecked, and had put into Greenock, where she landed her passengers in the most helpless and destitute situation, repaired in the Spring of 1792 to Glasgow. Having procured an introduction to several of the Professors of the University, and to the principal Manufacturers of that city, he proposed to the latter that he would induce the Highlanders who had been turned out of their farms, and those lately escaped from the shipwreck, to enter into their works, if they (the Manufacturers) would but encourage them. And this they readily promised to do upon very liberal terms. There were two serious obstacles, however, to the usefulness of the Highlanders: the one, that they did not understand the English language, the other, that a large portion of them were Roman Catholics. The excitement raised by Lord George Gordon against Catholics, twelve years before, when the Catholic chapels of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the clergymen’s houses, were burned, had not yet subsided; and a strong and rancorous feeling against the professors of the Catholic religion still remained amongst the lower orders of the people of Glasgow, so much so, indeed, that no Catholic clergyman could with safety reside there, from the time of the burning of the chapels, to the period we are now speaking of. The Manufacturers represented to the Missionary, that although perfectly willing themselves to afford to Catholics all the countenance and protection in their power, yet as the Penal Laws still remained in full force against them, they could not be answerable for the consequences, in the event of evil-designed persons assailing or annoying them; and they represented that the danger was still greater to a Catholic clergyman, who was subject, not only to the insult and abuse of the rabble, but to be arraigned before a court of justice.—To this the Missionary replied, that although the letter of the law militated against Catholics, the spirit of it was greatly mitigated; and if they would but assure the Highlanders of their protection, he himself would take his chance of the severity of the law and the fanaticism of the people, and accompany the Highlanders to the Manufactories, in order to serve them in the double capacity of interpreter and clergyman, for the Missionary saw that it was a notorious fact, that Catholics following the dictates of their religion, and restrained by its morality, made faithful and industrious servants; but discarding those ties and obligations, they became vicious and unprincipled. The Manufacturers, appearing much pleased with this proposal, offered every protection and encouragement in their power to himself and followers.—Accordingly, with the approbation of his Bishop, he took up his residence in Glasgow, in June 1792, and in the course of a few months procured employment for upwards of six hundred Highlanders.

On the few occasions, previous to this, that a Priest had officiated in Glasgow, he was obliged to have his meetings up two or three pairs of stairs, and to station at the door a sturdy Irishman or Highlander, armed with a bludgeon, to overawe the intruders, who might attempt to disturb the service. But the Missionary, by the advice of one of the most influential Presbyterian clergymen^[1] of the city, opened his chapel to the street, and did not close the door during the service. Two respectable members of the Congregation attended, to show any decent persons, attracted thither by curiosity, into a seat, and several who thus came, were repeatedly heard to say, that this was not proper Popery at all, although the principal tenets of the Catholic religion were taught and explained both in English and Gaelic; and because they saw neither pictures nor images, and the Mass was said early in the morning, before those who might be disposed to give annoyance were up; and who, being of the lower class of labourers and tradesmen, generally spent the Saturday evening in a tavern, and the Sunday mornings in bed.

For two years the Manufacturers went on with astonishing prosperity and success; but in the year 1794, the principles of the French Revolution spreading rapidly over Great Britain, and meeting with the warmest abettors in the manufacturing districts, the English Government found it necessary to adopt measures to check its progress, and to prevent intercourse between the two countries. War was at length proclaimed between England and France.—The export of British manufactures to the Continent was stopped, the credit of the manufacturers was checked; their works were almost at a stand; frequent bankruptcies ensued; a general dismissal of labouring hands took place, and misery and distress overtook those thus suddenly thrown out of employ.

Among the sufferers were the poor Highlanders above-mentioned.—Unaccustomed to hard labour, and totally ignorant of the English language, they became more helpless and destitute than any other class of the whole community.

At this crisis, the Missionary conceived the idea of getting these unfortunate Highlanders embodied as a Catholic corps in his Majesty’s service, with his young Chief, Macdonell of Glengarry, for their Colonel. Having procured a meeting of the Catholics at Fort Augustus, in February 1794, a loyal Address was drawn up to the King, offering to raise a Catholic corps, under the command of the young Chieftain; who, together with John Fletcher, Esq., of Dunans, proceeded as a deputation to London with the Address, which was most graciously received by the King. The Manufacturers of Glasgow furnished them with the most ample and honorable testimonials of the good conduct of the Highlanders during the time they had been in their works, and strongly recommended that they should be employed in the service of their country.

A letter of service was accordingly issued to raise the first Glengarry Fencible Regiment as a Catholic corps—being the first that was raised as such since the Reformation. The Missionary, although contrary to the then existing law was gazetted as Chaplain to the Regiment.—Four or five regiments which had been raised in Scotland, having refused to extend their services to England, and having mutinied when they were ordered to march,—the Glengarry Fencibles, by the persuasion of their Chaplain, offered to extend their services to any part of Great Britain or Ireland, or even to the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. This offer was very acceptable to the Government, since it formed a precedent to all fencible corps that were raised after this period.—The Regiment, having been embodied in June, 1795, soon afterwards embarked for Guernsey, and remained there until the summer of 1798.

Sir Sidney Smith having taken possession of the small Island of St. Marcou in the mouth of Cherbourg Harbour, the Glengarries offered to garrison that port, but the capture of that gallant officer, and of the much lamented Capt. Wright who was first tortured and then put to death in a French prison, because he would not take a commission in the French Navy, prevented the enterprise from taking place.

In the summer of 1798 the Rebellion broke out in Ireland, and the Glengarry Regiment was ordered to that country. Landing at Ballehack they marched from thence to Waterford, and from Waterford to New Ross the same day. At the former place a trifling circumstance occurred which afforded no small surprise to some, and no slight ridicule to others—at the same time it showed the simplicity of the Highlanders, and their ignorance of the ways of the world. The soldiers who received Billet money on their entrance into the town, returned it, on their being ordered to march the same evening to New Ross, for the purpose of reinforcing General Johnson, who was surrounded, and, in a manner, besieged by the Rebels.

The next day General Johnson attacked and dislodged the Rebels from Laggan Hill, who after a very faint resistance retreated to Vinegar Hill. The Chaplain, upon this and all other occasions, accompanied the Regiment to the field with a view of preventing the men from plundering, or committing any act of cruelty upon the country people. The command of the town of New Ross, devolved on Col. McDonell, and the Chaplain found the Jail and Court House crowded with wounded Rebels, whose lives had been spared, but who had been totally neglected—their wounds had never been dressed—nor had any sustenance been given to them since the day of the battle. Colonel McDonell on being informed of their miserable condition ordered the Surgeon of his regiment to attend them, and every possible relief was afforded to the wretched sufferers. From New Ross the Regiment was ordered to Kilkenny, and from thence to Hackett’s Town, in the county of Wicklow to reduce a body of Rebels, and deserters who had taken possession of the neighbouring mountains, under the command of the rebel chiefs Holt and Dwyer.

The village of Hackett’s Town had been entirely consumed to ashes partly by the insurgents and partly by the military. Deprived of this shelter the troops were compelled to live under tents during the greater part of the winter, and the Chaplain considered it his duty to share their privations and sufferings.

Col. McD. who now commanded the Brigade which consisted of the Glengarries, two companies of the 89th Regt. of foot, two troops of Lord Darlington’s Fencible Cavalry, and several companies of the Yeomanry,—finding that the Rebels made a practice of descending from the mountains in the night time to the hamlets in the vallies for the purpose of plunder, adopted a plan of getting the troops under arms about midnight, and marching them from the camp in two divisions without fife or drum. One division was ordered to gain the summits of the mountains—the other to scour the inhabited parts of the country; so that the Rebels in attempting to regain their fastnesses, found themselves entrapped between two fires. The Chaplain never failed to accompany one or the other of these divisions, and was the means of saving the lives of, and preserving for legal trial, many prisoners, whom the Yeomanry would, but for his interference, have put to immediate death.

The Catholic Chapels in many of those parts had been turned into stables for the Yeomanry Cavalry; but the Chaplain, wherever he came, caused them to be cleaned out, and restored to their proper use. He also invited the terrified inhabitants and their Clergy to resume their accustomed worship, and labored not in vain to restore tranquility and peace to the people, persuading them, that if they behaved quietly and peaceably, the Government would protect Catholics as well as Protestants—and impressing upon their minds, that the Government having intrusted arms to the hands of the Glengarry Highlanders, who were Roman Catholics was a proof that it was not inimical to them, on account of their Religion. These exhortations, together with the restoration of divine service in the Chapels—the strict discipline enforced by Colonel Macdonell, and the repression of the licentiousness of the Yeomanry, served in a great measure to restore confidence to the people—to allay feelings of dissatisfaction, and to extinguish the embers of Rebellion, wherever the Glengarry Regiment served. The Highlanders, whom the Rebels called the Devil’s Bloodhounds, both on account of their dress, and their habit of climbing and traversing the mountains, had greatly the advantage of the insurgents in every rencontre, so much so, that in a few months, their force was reduced from a thousand to a few scores. Holt, seeing his numbers so fast diminishing surrendered to Lord Powerscourt, and was transported to Botany Bay.—Dwyer, after almost his whole party had been killed or taken, was at length surprised in a house, with his few remaining followers, by a party of the Glengarries—here he defended himself and killed some of his pursuers, till the house being set on fire, he was shot while endeavouring to make his escape, stark naked through the flames.

The Marquess Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Commander of the Forces, was so well pleased with the services of the Glengarry Fencibles, that he advised the Government to have the Regiment augmented. In furtherance of this plan, the Chaplain was despatched to London with recommendations from every General, under whose command the corps had served in Guernsey or in Ireland, to procure the proposed augmentation and to settle on the Terms. Previous to his departure from Dublin, the measure of a Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland, had been brought into the Irish Parliament and miscarried. The Catholic Bishops and Catholic Nobles of Ireland, having assembled in Dublin to discuss this subject came to a determination favourable to the views of Government, and communicated their sentiments to the Chaplain, authorising him to impart them to the Ministry. The Chaplain did so accordingly in his first interview with the Right Honorable Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, but that statesman considered the Chaplain’s information incorrect, and insinuated that the intention of the Irish Catholic Dignitaries and Nobility, was quite contrary, to what was stated. He also privately informed Sir John Cox Hippesley, who accompanied the Chaplain to the Secretary of State’s Office, that by a despatch received, through that day’s mail, from Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for Ireland, he was informed that the purpose of the meeting of the Catholics, was to counteract the measures of Government. This the Chaplain took the liberty to deny, and offered to prove his assertion, to the satisfaction of Mr. Dundas, by being allowed time to refer to the Catholic Meeting at Dublin. He accordingly wrote to Colonel Macdonel whom he had left in that city, and received by return of post an answer from Viscount Kenmare contradicting in toto the assertions of Viscount Castlereagh. On this occasion the Government papers indulged in severe reflections upon the conduct of the Irish Catholics. The Chaplain requested that they should be contradicted, which was done very reluctantly, and not until he had threatened to have the truth published in the opposition papers. The correspondence on that subject is now in his possession.

The proposed augmentation however did not take place. The views of Government were altered, and instead of augmenting the Fencible corps, they gave commissions in the Regiments of the line to those officers of the Fencibles, who could bring a certain number of volunteers along with them.

The Glengarry Fencibles were afterwards employed in the mountains and other parts of Conomaragh, where some of the most desperate Rebels had taken refuge, and where the embers of rebellion continued longest unextinguished. The Chaplain was their constant attendant, down to the year 1802, when, at the short Peace of Amiens, the whole of the Scotch Fencibles were disbanded.

The Highlanders now found themselves in the same destitute situation they were in when first introduced into the manufactories of Glasgow. Struck with their forlorn condition, the Chaplain, at his own expense, proceeded to London, to represent their situation to the Government, and to endeavour to induce Ministers to lend them assistance to emigrate to Upper Canada. He was introduced to the Right Honourable Charles Yorke, Secretary at War, and by him to Mr. Addington, the Premier. The latter, on account of the testimonials which the Chaplain presented to him of the good conduct of the Regiment during the whole of their service, signed by the different General Officers under whose command they had been, directed that a sum of money should be paid to the Chaplain, out of the Military Chaplains’ Fund, in lieu of half-pay, which could not be granted to him without forming a precedent to other Chaplains of Fencible corps; and this favour was conferred upon him at the recommendation of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, then Commander-in-Chief, on account of his having constantly attended the Regiment, when every other Regimental Chaplain had retired upon five shillings a-day, by virtue of an order issued from the War-office in 1798. Mr. Addington requested the Chaplain to state to him, in writing, the cause of the frequent emigration from the Highlands of Scotland.—The Chaplain complied with this request, in a series of letters; on the perusal of which, Mr. Addington expressed his deep regret that so brave and faithful a portion of his Majesty’s subjects, who were always found ready at the call of Government, and from whom no murmurs or discontents were ever heard, even under the most trying and distressing circumstances, should be compelled to quit their native soil by the harsh treatment of their landlords, and transfer their allegiance to the United States, whither the tide of emigration had been flowing previous to this period. Mr. Addington added, that the loss of so many Highlanders was one of the circumstances which had given him the greatest uneasiness during his administration; and that nothing would give him greater gratification than to convince them of the friendly feelings and kindly intentions of Government towards them, by putting them in the way of acquiring, in a few years, prosperity, and even wealth, with which they might return, and live in ease and independence in their native land. He then proposed to the Chaplain to send a colony of those Highlanders, with whom he was connected, to the Island of Trinidad, which was then just ceded to the British Empire; and to give a farm of eighty acres of land to every head of a family, and money out of the Treasury to purchase four slaves for every farm; a larger proportion of land and of slaves to such gentlemen as would accompany the colony, and to the Chaplain as large a salary as he could reasonably demand. Mr. Addington also offered to send a surgeon and a schoolmaster, with salaries from Government, to the new colony, and, to remove the difficulties which the Chaplain had started, in regard to the unhealthiness of a tropical climate, and the propensity of Highlanders to drink ardent spirits, undertook to furnish the colony with as much wine as the Chaplain and Surgeon should consider necessary for the preservation of the general health for three years, also sufficient vinegar wherewith to wash their habitations for the same period; after which it might be supposed that the constitutions of the settlers would become inured to the climate. For these liberal and advantageous offers the Chaplain could not but feel grateful to Mr. Addington; but while he thanked him for his kind intentions towards his countrymen, he assured him that no consideration on earth would induce him to prevail upon Highlanders to reside in the unhealthy climate of the West Indies, or reconcile to his conscience the bitter reflection of his being the cause of making a woman or a child a widow or an orphan. Mr. Addington seemed greatly surprised and disappointed at this expression of the Chaplain’s sentiments, and demanded in what other way he could serve the Highlanders. He was answered, that what they expected and wished was, to be assisted in emigrating to Upper Canada, where several of their friends had already settled themselves. The Chaplain proceeded to state, that if this assistance were tendered upon a more extensive scale, it would allay the irritated feelings entertained by the Highlanders against their landlords, whose cruel conduct was identified with the system and operations of Government. Moreover, the Scotch, quitting their country in this exasperated state of mind, and settling in the United Stales, readily imbibed republican principles, and a determined antipathy against the British Government; whereas, by diverting the tide of emigration into the British Colonies, their population would be increased by settlers, retaining British principles, British feelings, and an attachment towards their native country, not only undiminished, but even increased, by the parental conduct of the Government towards them.

Mr. Addington then offered to lend some assistance to the Chaplain to convey his adherents to the seacoast of Nova Scotia, New-Brunswick, or Cape Breton, but assured him that His Majesty’s government considered the hold they had of Upper Canada so slender and so precarious, that a person in his situation would not be justified in putting his hand into the public purse, to assist British subjects to emigrate to that Colony. The Chaplain, however adhered to his first resolution of conducting his countrymen to Upper Canada, and Mr. Addington procured for him an order (with the sign manual) to the Lieut. Governor of Upper Canada, to grant 200 acres of land to every one of the Highlanders who should arrive in the Province.

No sooner was it known that this order had been given by the secretary for the Colonies, than the Highland landlords and proprietors took the alarm, considering the order, as an allurement to entice from the country their vassals and dependents. Sir John Macpherson, Sir Archibald Macdonald, (the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in England,) the late Mr. Charles Grant, one of the Directors of the East India Company, and M. P. for the county of Inverness, with other gentlemen connected with the Highlands, and even the Earl of Moira, then commanding the Forces in North Britain, endeavoured to dissuade the Chaplain from his purpose, and promised to procure a pension for him, provided he would separate himself from the Highlanders whom he had promised to conduct to Canada, and that the amount of the pension should be in proportion to the number he should prevail upon to stay at home. So anxious were these gentlemen to keep the Highlanders at home, that they applied to the Prince of Wales, and by his Royal Highness’s sanction, Sir Thomas Tyrrwhit, the Prince’s agent, sent for the Chaplain to Carlton House, for the purpose of prevailing upon him to induce the intending emigrants to settle on the waste lands of the county of Cornwall, under the patronage and protection of his Royal Highness.—This the Chaplain also declined; and in concert with Major Archibald Campbell, then on the Staff of Gen. Pulteney, (now Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick,) proposed a plan of organizing a military emigration, to be composed of the soldiers of the several Scotch Fencible Regiments just then disbanded, and sending them over to Upper Canada, for the double purpose of forming an internal defence, and settling the country. It was requested that a certain portion of land should be granted to every man, after a service of five years, or on his furnishing a substitute; so that the same force might always be kept up, and the settlement of the country go on.—It was considered that this plan would prevent the frequent desertions of his Majesty’s troops to the United States,—would make these military settlers interested in the defence of the Province, and be a prodigious saving of transport of troops, in the event of a war with the United States. Several distinguished officers appeared anxious to join this military emigration; and the scheme was nearly matured, when Mr. Addington found himself under the necessity of resigning the Premiership, and Pitt and Dundas returned to office.^[2]

The war was soon after renewed, and the Scotch landlords combined to keep their people at home.—Most of these gentlemen had received commissions from the Government to raise levies, and were of course anxious to fulfil their engagements. Seeing that so many thousands of their poor countrymen, who had been let loose on the country, in a state of destitution, had no other alternative, if prevented from emigrating, than to enter the Army, they procured an Act of Parliament, to impose certain restrictions and regulations on vessels carrying out emigrants to the Colonies. By those regulations a vessel could not get her clearance from the Customhouse, if she had more than one passenger, even an infant, for every two tons of the registered burthen of the ship; although the transport regulations for carrying troops to the East and West Indies allowed a ton and a half for every soldier, even without reckoning women and children; another clause was, that the provision should be inspected, and certified, that a pound of salt beef or pork and a pound and a half of flour or of hard biscuit should be found on board as the daily provision of every man, woman and child, for the space of three months. A third clause was, that a vessel carrying emigrants from any port in Great Britain and Ireland to the Colonies, should be provided with a Surgeon, who should have his diploma from Surgeons Hall in London, from Edinburgh University, or Trinity College, Dublin. A diploma from any other College or University in G. Britain, would not qualify him for this charge. Several other clauses similar to the above, were contained in this act, and all under the specious pretext of humanity, and tender benevolence towards the emigrants, and forsooth to prevent the imposition of those who were employed in chartering vessels to carry emigrants to the Colonies, who were designated by the Scotch Lairds, dealers in white slaves; yet by the operations of this merciful act of parliament, an emigrant could not pay the passage of himself, his wife, and four children, under eight years of age, for a less sum than eighty-four pounds.

Alexander Hope, then Lord Advocate of Scotland, was instructed to bring this bill into Parliament, and in his luminous speech in the House of Commons, the learned gentleman, to show the necessity of such regulations, related a most pathetic story of an emigrant vessel arriving in a harbor of one of the British Colonies of North America, the whole of the passengers and almost all the crew of which were found dead in their berths, and the few survivors of the crew not able to cast anchor. He also asserted that emigrants who had been some time in the Colonies, were desirous to get back to their native country, and when they could not accomplish their wishes, were desirous to prevent their friends at home from emigrating, but dared not acquaint them of their own miserable condition, but by stratagem, thus desiring them to consult their Uncle Sandy, and if he advised them to come, then they might proceed. Now it was well known that Uncle Sandy was dead many years previous. These and many other such like pitiable and affecting passages of the Lord Advocate’s speech in the House of Commons, blazed through the public prints in Scotland, and were believed, or it was pretended they were believed, like gospel, by the Highland Lairds and their friends.

The moment that this bill passed into a law, an embargo was laid on all emigrant vessels in British harbors, altho’ many of them had already nearly received their complement of passengers, and the whole of the emigrants of that season, after selling their effects, had arrived, or were on their way to the seaports to embark. Fortunately, however, for the disbanded soldiers of the Glengarry Fencibles, the greater part of them had got away before the bill came into operation. The Chaplain having been detained in London on business after the sailing of his adherents, received a call from the Earl of Selkirk, who proposed to him to join in his plan of taking emigrants to North America. The Chaplain requested his Lordship to explain his views and intentions, upon which the Earl stated, that he intended to settle those regions between Lakes Huron and Superior with Scotch Highlanders, where the climate was nearly similar to that of the North of Scotland, and the soil of a superior quality; besides they would enjoy the benefit of the fish with which the Lakes teemed, particularly the white fish of the Sault St. Marie.

The Chaplain at first declined this offer, on the plea that private business would detain him in London. The Earl then offered him an order for £2000 upon his agent, as an indemnification for any loss or inconvenience he might experience by so sudden a departure. The Chaplain was a second time compelled to give a refusal, and to decline this generous offer of the Earl, declaring at the same time, that he felt most grateful for such generosity, but that he could never think of putting himself under so great an obligation to any man—that the situation which his Lordship had selected for his settlement, was beyond the jurisdiction of the government of Upper Canada, and so far from any other location, that he was apprehensive, that emigrants settling themselves in so remote a region, would meet with insuperable difficulties; that he could by no means induce those, with whose interest he was connected, to go beyond the protection of the Provincial government, and besides, such a settlement would entirely destroy the North West Company, as it would cut off the communication between the winterers and Canada; and as several of the principal members of that Company were his particular friends, no consideration would induce him to enter upon an enterprise that would injure their interest. The Chaplain then asked the Earl, what could induce a man of his high rank and great fortune, possessing the esteem and confidence of His Majesty’s government, and of every public man in Britain, to embark in an enterprise so romantic as that he had just explained. To this the Earl replied that the situation of G. Britain, and indeed of all Europe, was at that moment, (Sept. 1803) so very critical and eventful, that a man would like to have a more solid footing to stand upon, than any thing that Europe could offer. After having settled his affairs, the Chaplain embarked for America, and arrived in York, U. C. on the 1st of November 1804.

As recited on the 20th December, 1832, at the Upper Canada College.

By Henry Scadding

What with a long and harassing winter march from New-Brunswick to Kingston, and with hard fighting during the campaign of 1813, our Regiment, the 104th, was much cut up. The campaign of 1814 began by the enemy landing in strength on the Niagara frontier; and immediately on the report reaching the British head-quarters at Kingston, Sir Gordon Drummond marched in person with a force to meet him. I was Lieut. of the Grenadier Company, which, as well as the Light Company, was completed in number by Volunteers from the Battalion, and both of which were placed under the command of Maj. ******* of our own regiment. We were soon put in motion to meet Jonathan, and arriving at St. Catherines on the 24th of July, were attached to Colonel Scott’s brigade; hardly, however, had we got nested in a barn, when orders arrived for a march on to the Falls; the enemy, as was afterwards ascertained, having attacked our advanced guard at Lundy’s Lane—we had been marched and counter-marched from two o’clock in the morning until eight in the evening, in a hot July day, when, within about a mile and a half, we heard guns—order was given for double quick—the night was pitch dark, but just as we proceeded, we were met by a staff officer with orders to form on the right of the Royals, who were posted in a ploughed field. The Grenadier company of the 103d regiment was added to our Major’s command, and we were immediately hotly engaged, our right being thrown back to protect the flank.—I often heard Sir G. Drummond’s voice, “stick to them, my fine fellows,” and our Major’s word, was “level low, fire at the flashes.”—After being at this pleasant work for more than three hours, and when I began to be heartily tired of it, the enemy’s fire ceased, and we had orders to bring forward our right shoulders, and charge—this movement was promptly executed, and in a few minutes we were close on a confused mass of the Americans. Our Major standing on a fence, had just cried out “wait for the word, fire,” when at that very moment a staff officer came with orders not to fire, as the 89th had driven the enemy down the slope of the hill. Jonathan took the hint, and called out “the 89th”—the word “recover arms” was given, and, even at such a moment of excitement, I could not but admire the discipline of British troops—not a shot was fired—but in one instant more, at least two hundred blue pills would have been given as a dose, and been washed down with cold steel. At the same time I must do justice to the American troops, they fought gallantly, and caused us great loss, and, at one period of the action, had possession of all our guns, but we got them back with interest, as we recaptured our own, and took and retained one of theirs.

The enemy retired on fort Erie, pursued by our troops. And here our Major had an opportunity of playing off a Yankee trick upon Jonathan. I was one of the subs of the advanced picket placed in a wood. Col. Drummond commanded on the left, the Major on the right. The enemy wished to take a peep at some batteries getting up on the left on the lake shore, and, coming out in force under cover of the wood, commenced a heavy fire on Colonel Drummond’s picket, but made no attack on our part of the position. No movement could be made by the Major to support his friend without endangering our right flank; but not long after the firing began, I saw him take the bugle boy, Lang, with him, and run down a road on our right, and soon after I heard the advance sounded on our front, and in rear of the enemy. Upon this, the American fire instantly ceased; the Major soon returned, and appeared somewhat exhausted with the exertion he had made in clearing himself of the riflemen, who were pelting back to the fort. Thus the Major, and his bugle, completely defeated the object of our assailants.

Dr. D*****, who was surgeon on duty at the pickets, observed to me when he saw the Major run with the bugle boy at his heels, “the De’l is in the man; he is daft!”

A few days after, Colonel Drummond was killed—the Major received a severe wound—and Lang, the bugle boy, lost his arm in storming the breach at Fort Erie.

An old Anecdote versified.

The romantic village of Pixton, lovely as it is in itself, derives additional beauty, when contrasted with the sombre scenery in its neighbourhood. Around it, in every direction, is spread a wide extent of Moor, called the Forest of Exmoor, blushing, indeed, with the purple heath-flowers, and the golden furze-blossoms, in Summer,—enlivened, also, in Autumn by merry groups of children, searching for the delicious whortle-berries,—but, in Winter, clad in an unvaried suit of melancholy and faded russet. The Traveller, riding over this cheerless track, finds little to arrest his attention, or excite his curiosity. At first he may be pleased with the fern-covered undulations of the moor, but the repeated sameness of the object quickly diminishes his pleasure. The whirring of a pheasant, startled from its banquet on the whortle-berries, by the tramp of the horse—the cry of a green plover—the flight of the heath-poults—or the timid hare, are the only enlivening objects that meet his view. Perchance he may catch a glimpse of a herd of the red-deer, now so rare, and found in but few parts of England. Some antlered monarch may gaze upon him for a moment, and then hound off to his distant palace under the merry greenwood tree.

But how well was the Traveller repaid, when after journeying for miles, over this cheerless waste, he attained the summit of a hill, and looked down upon the beautiful village of Pixton! With memory’s eye I can trace every well-known nook—each familiar charm, so often descanted on—each bend of the river, which like a coquette, hides its beauty for one moment, to heighten it for the next. Nestled in its peaceful loveliness, the little hamlet, bursts upon the view of the wayfaring man, like a fountain with its green cincture of date trees in the thirsty desert.—On a grassy eminence, and but little removed from the village, stands the Church, with the quaint ornaments of its ancient tower, barely visible above the dark green clusters of ivy, with which it is mantled. Methinks, even at this distance, I can hear the half merry, half melancholy tones of its musical bells—they come to me softened by the breeze, which has wafted them over the limpid waters of the romantic and varying Barle—its stream one moment dashing among, and over rocks, and indignantly fretting by the alder-fringed islands which intercept its course—at another moment, gliding, like time, with almost imperceptible current, speckled here and there with a Kingfisher, or waterfowl, or rippled, scarcely rippled, by the almost noiseless plunge of the Trout-hunting Otter. The beautiful avenue of trees extending from the porch of the Church to the banks of this stream must not be forgotten. When I last beheld it, the cheek of the young year was exchanging its vernal tints for the sunburnt charms of Summer. The avenue consists of lime and the red beech alternately intermixed—the vivid verdure of the one contrasting forcibly with the deep red of the other, and shedding a cheerfulness over the osier-bound mansions of the dead. The Rectory, a venerable edifice, built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in the shape of the first letter of her name, is situated on a level with the Church—a low hedge of clipped yew, with which roses of every color are interwoven, surrounds, but does not screen it from the view. In truth the abode of the Rector commands a full view of the village, intrusted to his spiritual care, and I could not but think it typical of the sacred office he filled. His house was set on a hill, from whence he was to look forth, as the overseer of his people—as a Shepherd watching his flock.

At the period to which my story refers, Henry Markham had just been presented to the Rectory of Pixton, by his College. He was endowed with the noblest gifts of the mind, which had been improved by unremitting study—he possessed youth, health, and no inconsiderable portion of personal attractions—his countenance was cast in the mould of spiritual beauty—his eyes, though vivid, were gentle in their expression—and his appearance reminded the beholder, of Mrs. Kennedy’s exquisite portraiture of Father Clement. All these rare gifts shone with a brighter lustre from the modesty with which they were worn by the possessor; and when the mellow tones of his winning voice sounded upon the ears of his flock, within the walls of his Church, or administered comfort in the chambers of death and sickness, humility predominated in his every feature. The ample revenues, derived from his Rectory, were expended, as God’s Steward should expend them. He had not resided in the Parish for five years, when out of his savings, he erected an alms-house for the receptacle of decayed, but honest, farmers. Within the same space of time, the School House, a neat Gothic structure, had risen from its ruins—the Parish, from being constantly embroiled in law suits about watercourses, and the rights of pasturage on the adjacent moor, experienced a beneficial change—harmony succeeded to discord, and kind-hearted fellowship to long-cherished animosity. To the poorer villagers portions of the glebe lands were allotted, from which they supplied themselves with vegetables, and the cultivation of which occupied the hours, that would otherwise have been spent in the alehouse. The cottages no longer exhibited cracked gable ends, and broken windows; but covered with myrtle, honeysuckle, clematis, and the pyracanthus, that cheerful ornament of Winter, looked outwardly what they were inwardly, the abodes of innocence and peace.

In the neighbourhood of this little Paradise stood Grafton Manor, the stately mansion of Sir Percy Winsford, a Baronet of ancient descent, and large possessions. Of late years he had lived in seclusion, suffering under that heaviest of human calamities, intellectual aberration—an hereditary malady—which for successive generations, had existed in the blood of his family. Indeed had not the birth of Sir Percy subjected him to the occasional visitations of insanity, the domestic afflictions which had furrowed his cheek with premature old age, and turned his hair gray before the usual time, were sufficiently severe to have overwhelmed his mind with ruin. At times he was calm and tranquil, and took a lively interest in life, but appeared unconscious of affairs of magnitude, and totally forgot the past.—This state of quietude would occasionally be interrupted by a paroxysm of madness which came over him without a premonitory sign.—When in this pitiable condition, his daughter alone had the power to calm his troubled spirit by striking her harp, and ministering to him, as David did unto Saul. At the sound of this beautiful instrument, peace would gradually steal over the evil spirit, like oil over troubled waters,—his gestures became less frantic—he gazed around with a troubled look, as if awoke from a dream—reason regained her lost empire—refreshing tears succeeded to his relief, and overpowered with the conflict, he sunk into a slumber, from which he would awake to his former state of placid indifference, and infantine tranquillity.

Lady Winsford, an imperious and haughty woman, had long since slumbered in the family vault. After giving birth to several daughters, who were all cut off in early life, she had been seized with a vehement desire of having a son, to inherit the title and estates of the Family. Her next child, however, was a daughter, and she treated the innocent cause of her disappointment with harshness, and even cruelty. But the workings of Providence are inscrutable; and, even in this world, we seldom fail to reap the fruits of our actions, be they delightful as those gathered in the gardens of Alcinous, or bitter as the apples of the Dead Sea, which outwardly are fair, but inwardly full of ashes. The wishes of the mother were at last fulfilled—but fulfilled in an awful manner. A son was born, and the Family rejoiced in an Heir. But as the child grew to the age, when the mental faculties usually begin to develope themselves, the horrible truth stole upon the anguish-stricken parents with a deadly slowness—the child was an Ideot!—Lady Winsford, stern and iron-nerved as she was, could not bear up against this blow. Her pride enabled her to maintain a tranquil bearing towards the world—but the canker worm—the worm that never dieth, was daily preying upon her life.

Time however glided away, and the inmates of Grafton Manor, appeared to have subdued their regrets, and to have buried in oblivion their disappointed hopes, when Mr. Warren, a neighbouring gentleman, with inconsiderate kindness, invited the Winsfords to a Rural Festival, in commemoration of his eldest son attaining majority. Lady Winsford resolved to shew, that she was, to the very last, the oak, not the willow—that she might be broken, but not bent, accepted the invitation.—Attired in her costliest dress, and glittering with jewels, she arrived at the house of rejoicing, accompanied by her daughter Lucy, and entered the room, where the dancing had already commenced. Though well advanced in years, her appearance struck beholders with admiration—her beauty, was of the Juno caste, and her eagle glance indicated the vigor, and austere determination of her inflexible mind. Young Warren selected Lucy Winsford for his partner, and led off the dance. Her mother then seated herself in a chair, which proved her death-bed. Recollections of a painful nature pressed heavily upon her agonized and throbbing brain. Where was her Boy, the Heir of her Family? The youth before her was the envy of his own sex, and the admiration of the other—gifted in mind, as in person, and offering to his delighted and happy parents every promise of sustaining the dignity and consequence of an ancient and honorable house.—You may bend the bow to a certain extent, but go beyond that, and you break it. The heart for a time can bear even Promethean tortures, but there is a pitch which suffering reaches, and, which, when exceeded, brings either madness or death!—The latter fate befel Lady Winsford. The dance was over, and Lucy returned to her mother, whom she found sitting erect in her chair, with her head resting on her hand; and it was not until she received no answer to two or three questions she had addressed to her mother, that the fatal truth flashed upon her mind—her mother was dead!

Those events had occurred a few years previous to the time that we are now approaching. The idiot heir had also died, and Sir Percy Winsford was left in his old age, with his only daughter, Lucy Winsford, the Flower of Exmoor. The misfortunes of her family had thrown a shade of melancholy over the beauty of her naturally arch and lively features. The pious but painful duty of tending her aged parent, and of soothing him when laboring under his hereditary malady, confined her greatly to the dull and sombre halls of the Manor House. Her favorite occupation was visiting the cottages of her Father’s poor Tenantry; and on her active little Exmoor poney, unattended by any servant, she would travel her charitable rounds. It was on one occasion, when engaged in a benevolent duly of this description, that she entered the cottage of one of her aged pensioners; a rich, manly voice, accompanied by the faint articulations of an aged man, fell upon her ear, and her hand was upon the latch, for the purpose of retreat, when Henry Markham—for it was he who was engaged in administering the last consolations of religion to the dying man—arose from the ground. A confused introduction took place, and Lucy and Henry left the cottage together.

The acquaintance, thus accidentally contracted, quickly ripened into friendship, and from friendship into love. By some magnetic attraction, they generally visited the same cottage, on the same day, and at the same hour. At Church Henry Markham now no longer looked straight before him—for there sat Sir Percy and his daughter. He looked either to the right or to the left. The old Baronet, also, unconsciously afforded every encouragement to their growing passion. The varied and lively conversation of Markham, rendered him a welcome visitor to the good old man, who held him still dearer in the light of his spiritual adviser—moreover Markham, was a tasteful and accomplished performer on the flute, and the lovers would often unite in a musical concerto to gratify the Baronet’s passion for the “sweet concord of harmonious sounds.”

But did not love interfere with the religious duties of the Parish Priest? Nay, the reverse was the case. The Parish Priest loved one whose mind was similarly attuned to his own.—If wedded to Lucy, thus did he think, how would his power of doing good become enlarged? Her unaffected humility, her deep feeling, her acts of delicate and unostentatious kindness, were witnessed by him every day. There was a solemn and fervent holiness in his love for Miss Winsford, and he strove more and more to render himself worthy of so inestimable a prize.

One day, in the heat of summer, the Baronet had retired to indulge in his usual siesta, and Lucy, after having given a lesson in taming to a pet Fawn, was driven to seek shelter by some heavy rain drops, the precursors of a violent storm. She stepped in at the library window, and there beheld Henry Markham poring over an illuminated missal of great beauty and rarity, an ancient heirloom of the family. The thunder muttered a growl, and Henry startled at the noise, turned round, and beheld Miss Winsford gazing on him with eyes betraying a deep and painful emotion. His long pent up feelings now burst forth—vehemently he grasped her by the hand, and with an impassioned eloquence, different from his usual mild and persuasive tones, poured out his soul to the being whom he cherished above all others in the world. The color of Lucy fled and returned several times, but at last a settled paleness blanched her face—she stood like a statue, deaf to his frequent, vehement demands, to know whether she returned his passion. A few moments she remained wrapped in a deep reverie, as if intensely pondering on the answer she should give; and then on a sudden, abruptly turning towards him, she exclaimed, “Henry, I love you with that love, which woman can feel but for one—I love you too well to wed you.”

“What hopes and what fears do those words convey.”

“Alas! Henry! you should never have known me—you have fixed your affections on the last surviving daughter of an ill-fated house—a curse is upon us;”—here the paleness of her cheeks was succeeded by a burning and hectic flush; her gestures became vehement, like those of a Pythoness, and she poured forth her words with an energy, only known to despair. “I loved you from the first moment that I beheld you; and I pray God to pardon me for indulging in so guilty a passion. Do not start; it is a guilty passion. Henry, there is madness in my blood. My mother died of broken pride; my sisters all died young; and my brother—but, alas! he never lived; for, who can call that state of being, life, which is worse than death? My father will complete the melancholy catalogue. Think you, then, that I will entangle you in this fearful curse—that I will wed you—that I will perpetuate in your children the malady which has fallen so heavily upon my father’s house? The struggle will break my heart—but it must and shall be made. I will die for you, Henry, rather than make you wretched. Nay, more: my mother told me that I should die on my twenty-first birthday. A few short weeks, and that day will arrive. I feel—I know that it will be my last. Farewell, Henry! we meet not again on this side of eternity.”

She was gone—she had vanished from the room, and Henry Markham fruitlessly endeavored to recall her, in a faint tone of anguish. Horror-stricken, and almost heart broken, he flung himself into a chair. The past rose before him in horrid mockery, recalling the hours and days of happiness spent in the company of Lucy. On a sudden, however, his retrospective meditations furnished him with a key, by which to account for his disappointment. He had often observed a strange conflict in Lucy, between her gladness to see him, and her reluctance to make it manifest. The struggle, it now flashed on his mind, had been between love and duty. Noble minded, devoted woman, she had sacrificed herself as a victim for his happiness! She had rejected a union with him whom she ardently loved, rather than incur the risk of perpetuating, in the blood of his and her children, the hereditary malady of her family. The human heart is a compound of contrarieties. Lucy was right, thought Markham—their union never could, never ought, to take place. And yet now that he saw the fabric on which he had reared his dreams of future happiness melt away, now that he saw the object of his wishes never could be obtained, how did his love increase—how did it rise into adoration! The being he had before regarded as of a nature similar to his own, he now revered as an Angel, as a sainted Martyr looking down from Heaven with a smile upon him for whom she had died!

The storm had abated, tho’ the sky was still overcast, and Henry Markham prepared to tear himself from the painful fascination of the spot. A strange presentiment crept over him, that he stood in that room where he had passed so many hours of bliss, for the last time. Impressed with this idea he glanced around on every familiar object, each reminding him of some past occurrence, each connected with the happiest, the most miserable portion of his life. A partial light streamed thro’ the quaintly stained windows, and fell upon the ancient family pictures, investing them with a gloomy and ominous hue. The old forefathers of the family seemed to look down upon him with compassion, and he was about to take a last glance at the likeness of a female, which he had often gazed on with delight, as bearing a strong resemblance to Lucy, when his hand accidentally struck the cords of Miss Winsford’s guitar. The note thus casually elicited grated on his ear, and thrilled through his every vein. With a painful impulse, he hurried out of the room, and regained the Rectory quicker than usual. His servant stared with surprise on beholding the foaming state of his horse; and his faithful old house-keeper, shook her head, and remarked with a sigh, his haggard and dejected appearance.

Sunday came round, but Lucy Winsford was not seen beside her accustomed pillar in the Church.—A domestic of the family informed Henry that she was confined to her couch, but that her disease was not known. Each succeeding day bro’t with it the same tidings from Grafton Manor. “Miss Winsford was confined to her room.”—Her twenty-first birth-day was rapidly approaching. It came, and found Henry Markham sitting in his study, ineffectually endeavoring to banish from his mind the parting prophecy of Lucy. Phantoms flitted before him in a thousand shadowy fearful shapes, and harrassed him throughout the day——evening came, but brought with it no relief; with the design of diverting his thoughts, he flung the casement wide open to gaze on the setting sun—a thousand odours were wafted on the balmy zephyr—the God of day had just sank to rest on his couch of crimson and gold—all nature was wrapt in silent loveliness. He turned aside to look down upon the village, stretched before him in beautiful repose, when he discerned a horseman, hurrying up the hill, and as he came near, Henry recognized him as a servant of Sir Percy Winsford. With the speed of lightning he rushed out of the room, he met the servant at the gate, and snatching from him the letter, presented with a tremulous hand and moistened eye, hurried back to his room. The note was sealed with black, but the superscription was in Lucy’s hand writing. He broke it open, and read the contents.

“Dearest Henry,—When you read these characters, the hand that has traced them, will he stiffened by death. Deem me not unkind that I have not received the consolations of the dying from the lips of him, for whom my last prayers shall be uttered. For of what avail would it have been? Nay, would it not have been a sinful indulgence on my part? Why should I disarm death of its sting, at your expence? Why should I summon you to witness my last faint struggle for existence? Henry, dear Henry, Farewell.—Recollect me, but do not regret me; I am going to that region where tears shall be wiped from every eye, where the weary shall be at rest. Comfort my poor, poor Father—he will quickly follow his child. But we shall all meet hereafter—yea, Henry, I trust that through the merits of One, we shall all meet in Heaven, never, never to part.

The sufferings of Henry Markham, may be conceived, easier than they can be described. He felt as a man, but he suffered as a Christian. One solemn duty he imposed upon himself—that of performing the funeral service over the corse of Lucy Winsford. Never was seen a train of more sincere mourners, than at the performance of this solemn rite, and never did a minister of religion feel as Henry Markham felt, when performing the sacred service over his now sainted love. With a firm voice he lead the prayers but when he came to those solemnly pathetic words “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and when the earth rattled on the coffin with a thrilling sound, his heart sunk within him for a moment—a pause ensued—and many a tearful eye was rivetted upon him—but the struggle was instantaneous—as if to atone for this act of weakness, for this momentary triumph of the flesh over the spirit, he raised his voice in a louder tone, he discharged the remainder of the service with firmness, and casting but one hurried glance on the grave, returned home to battle with his sorrows in secrecy and seclusion.

Since this event years have rolled on, and Henry Markham has grown grey. His Christian faith enabled him to triumph over his early sorrow; but a sadness was ever after visible in his every word and action—it was a sadness however, not discontent—it was a feeling which weaned him from the follies and passions of this world, and directed his thoughts to that eternal mansion where he hoped to rejoin his Lucy. His manners assumed a slight tinge of benevolent eccentricity; he never pronounced the marriage benediction over a youthful couple, but a sigh involuntarily stole from his lips; he never consigned the remains of the young and lovely to the grave, but a tear trickled from his eye.—When I last saw him, he related at full the narrative of his love—he took me to the grave of Lucy, where the white roses, planted by the village children, were shedding a halo and a fragrance over the tomb—he stood gazing upon it for a moment, and grasping my hand, emphatically exclaimed, “Young Man, she is in Heaven.”

I should have stated before, that Sir Percy Winsford did not long survive his daughter. The family is now extinct, and the property has passed into other hands.

Since I wrote to you from Pine Orchard House, I have seen another of the natural wonders of this Western Continent, the great Water Falls of Niagara in Upper Canada. When a mischievous Schoolboy, I used to read Dr. Goldsmith’s description of the Falls of Niagara with rapture, little thinking in those moments of childish exultation, when stalking round the desks, like the “Majesty of buried Denmark,” that I should myself at a future day stand by these very Falls and describe them in writing to a friend in England.

To begin with a simile, which is said to be against the rules of elegant composition, an immense Water-fall in a wide plain, is like an immense comet in a starless sky—a huge rock in the ocean—or a large tree in a desert—extraordinary sights which we seldom see in nature; therefore they delight us because they take the mind by a kind of pleasing surprise, and probably the sight of the cascade gives animation to our ideas by the velocity of its motion. No doubt, we have an opportunity every day of seeing objects in surrounding nature as astonishing as the sight of a Water-fall—but these everyday objects, from their familiar appearance, want novelty to excite surprise—consequently we pass them by without emotion. The mind must be taken by a delightful surprise before it can be greatly excited by any object, however sublime or beautiful that object may be.—And the want of this surprise is probably the principal reason, why the mind, when long prepared for the sight of any important object, is generally disappointed when the sight of the long expected object is attained. This is what may be called sinking in the Bathos of human expectations, and in this as well as in every other kind of Bathos, I have a natural facility in sinking—at least it appears so to me, for, however unreasonable I may have been in my expectations, it is but fair to confess that I was disappointed at the sight of Niagara Falls; and yet such a sight is worthy of a long journey.—Unfortunately for me, at least if there is such a thing as good and bad fortune in the case, I had previously drawn an imaginary picture of the Falls of Niagara in my own mind, and as usual I had drawn it beyond nature; or else, like the Grecian Painter of old, to please my own fancy I had adorned my picture with all that I thought grand or beautiful in every water-fall, or other spot of romantic scenery that I had ever seen, and finished the shadings of the whole with what I wished to see. In my imagination, which is always extravagant, I compared the Falls of Niagara, both in noise and appearance, to the stormy waves of the Atlantic enveloped with rainbows, and clouds, obscurely seen and terrible to behold, almost as awfully inaccessible and splendidly grand as the human mind frailly fancies the throne of the Divinity himself to be.

Unless the wind is in the East, and immediately before rain, when the air is dense, the roaring of the Falls of Niagara is not far heard.—When visiting these Falls yesterday, the wind was from the West; I therefore heard no sound, and saw no spray, until I was within half a mile of the cataract. At that distance the sound first became audible, like the rushing noise of a coming storm, or the sound of a whirlwind in a naked forest; the spray next became visible rising blue through the trees like the mist from Lochfennoch Bogs. I could now catch an occasional glimpse of the rapids above the cataract, and then of the top of the cascade shining white through the openings of the trees that were waving on the banks—At this sight I felt a kind of exultation mixed with a pleasing anxiety, such as we ever feel when on the eve of some great event; my expectations, which were soon to be satisfied, were perhaps as great as if, like Phaeton, I had travelled over the Indies, and had been approaching the disk of the rising Sun on the verge of the Eastern horizon, there to examine in person the long disputed structure of that mighty Luminary.

I was now travelling down the course of the river, and had already passed the Falls more than one hundred yards, when turning to the right, and then descending the steep green bank for twenty or thirty yards by a foot-path cut or worn into a kind of earthen stair, a sudden opening among the trees showed me at once a full front view of the vast amphitheatre or horse-shoe fall, as it is called by Geographers, certainly not a very grand simile for the Falls of Niagara, however true it may be, or however often it may have been repeated. When looking into the vast amphitheatre, bottomed with roaring water and bubbling foam, the whole area or cavern was filled with a pale mist or spray, on which a beautiful rainbow was reflected; which rainbow, from my elevated situation on the bank above it, and from the altitude of the sun behind me, appeared almost circular, and at the same time seemed to move with me, as I proceeded along the bank.

Immediately above the Falls, there is an irregularity, or up throw of the metals, as it is called by miners; the rocks, instead of their gently oblique, or nearly horizontal position, are thrown on their edges as if by some convulsion of nature; which irregularity at the bottom of the stream, with the increased inclination of the bed of the river, occasions that tumbling appearance on the surface of the water which is called the Rapids. These Rapids, when measured by the eye, appear to be much more than a mile in length—they are broader and consequently more shallow than the rest of the river, having a considerable bend from East to West, and they appear to consist of a number of distinct currents, which rise into ridges, like the middle stream of Avon or Clyde, when those rivers are considerably swollen. On the surface of these ridges, the white curling tops of the waves, rising and disappearing in the distance, reminded one of a flock of sheep running across the gullies of a dark morass in Scotland.

The Cataract itself is divided into two Falls, and this division takes place about two thirds of the way across the river from the Canadian to the American shore. The division is made by an Island, called Goat Island, which is of a narrow oval form, and covered with hard-wood trees. It is this division by Goat Island, which gives rise to the names of the American and Canadian Falls, the latter of which is by far the grandest, and forms what is called the horse-shoe Fall; the other is more in the form of a straight line, and is consequently less imposing. A considerable portion of Goat Island is already worn away by the progress of the Falls, as they travel slowly up the river, and the wreck of stones, earth, and trees which have tumbled from, and are still lying at the base of the Island, prove that it is constantly wasting. It was from this wreck at the foot of Goat Island, that the afterwards unfortunate Sam Patch, who perished at the falls of the Genesee, leaped from a ladder said to be eighty feet high, into a triangular space of smooth water, formed by the boiling of the two cascades.

The most singular feature in the appearance of the Falls of Niagara, and that which distinguishes them remarkably from almost every other water-fall, is their peculiar locality, for they are not surrounded by hills, or precipices, as other water-falls usually are——on the contrary, the Falls of Niagara are situated in the midst of a vast woody plain; and the river, for miles above, runs nearly level with the top of its banks, until it reaches the Cataract, where it is precipitated over a large shelf of limestone rock, into a deep channel, through which it runs to the village of Queenston, a distance of eight miles, confined on both sides by perpendicular clifts, as bold, though not quite so high, as Cartland or Craignethan Craigs. The Bonnington Falls, on the River Clyde, are a tolerable picture of the Falls of Niagara in miniature; for, like Bonnington Falls, the Falls of Niagara shoot over the shelf or edge of an excavated rock, by a projectile force, like the fall of an overshot mill, or a broad stream of water poured from a bucket; so that the Cascade touches nothing in its fall, but descends, in one unbroken sheet, with headlong velocity, like a perpetual thunderbolt, and cleaving the waters as it falls, makes them incessantly rebound like white clouds from the boiling abyss below. Hence, a dense white vapour, or spray impervious to the sight, is consequently forced up as high as to be apparently within twenty or thirty feet of the top of the Cascade, which impervious vapour makes the height of the Falls to appear much less than they really are; and consequently a spectator standing on the Table-rock, level with the top of the Cascade, and looking down, can form no correct estimate of the real height of the Falls, which is said to be one hundred and sixty-four feet; but if the spectator changes his position, and goes down to the water’s edge, at the bottom of the Cascade, and looks upwards, he will then be able to form a more correct opinion.

The Table rock, at the sides, and under the Falls, is overhanging: but the descent to the bed of the river, immediately below the Cascade, is rendered easy by means of a wooden turnpike stair; and so regularly does the Cascade shoot over the Table rock, and so strong is the projective force by which the water is thrown from the rock, that a considerable space is left open between the Cascade and the face of the rock immediately behind it; which space forms a natural tunnel, something like the artificial one under the Thames at London, or that under the Euphrates at Babylon. Into this space, or natural tunnel, I, like many others, had the curiosity to enter, or rather attempt to enter, the gloomy appearance of which reminded me of Virgil’s account of Æneas’ descent into the Shades, and probably my own head supplied the want of the visionary elm, at the entrance; but I found neither Ghosts nor Elysian Groves there: all was empty wildness, rendered melancholy by the plaintive sound of a strong current of cold wind, which set in from the American side, and continued to drive before it a perpetual cloud of spray, so that my curiosity was soon satisfied; for I saw nothing but a few water serpents coiled among the heaps of stones, which I scrambled over with difficulty, the shining sheet of water on the one hand, the black wall of rugged rock on the other, and the frightful overhanging clift above, through the chinks of which the water was continually streaming, as if the whole canopy were ready to tumble in. This disagreeable idea of danger brought to my recollection the fabled rock which hangs above the head of Tantalus, or the sword of the Tyrant suspended by a hair; besides, these objects were only half visible through the blast, leaving the imagination sufficient scope for shaping and furnishing the dim picture, agreeably or otherwise, according to the mood of mind. But as I did not happen to be in the humour of the Knight of La Mancha when he visited the cave of Montesinos, I neither fancied enchanted palaces nor gardens; on the contrary, every thing I saw wore a dreary aspect.

The reason of the excavation of the rock below, and the projecting form of the Table Rock above, is abundantly evident to a very careless observer. The Table Rock is formed by a solid stratum of Lime Stone; the rock immediately below it is of a softer structure and full of fissures. Therefore as high as the dense vapour, or spray, is thrown up against the under rock, the water penetrates the fissures and opens them slowly, so that the rock gradually tumbles down during the summer, and during the winter the water freezes into these fissures, thereby opening them as with wedges, so that an immense quantity of the rock tumbles down during the thaw of every succeeding spring. As a further proof of this theory, we find that the excavation of the rock proceeds fastest at the bottom of the Cascade, where the spray is thrown up against it in the greatest quantity, and with the greatest force; and the excavation lessens gradually upwards, as the quantity and force of the spray diminish.—Below this stratum of rock, the next stratum on which the Cascade falls is of freestone, which, besides having the greatest force applied to it, is the most easily excavated of the whole; therefore the basin, which is said to be an hundred feet deep, constantly keeps pace with the excavation of the rock above it.—Thus, by inferior excavations, the Table Rock, of hard limestone, is left projecting, like a vast canopy, until it rends and tumbles down from its own weight, and that of the pressure of the water from above.—Thus the excavation of the rock below, and the tumbling in of the Table Rock or limestone cover from above, continue to go on progressively,—consequently, the Falls must continue to travel slowly up the river.

If we believe tradition, which is probably founded on philosophic observation, the Falls were at one time as far down the river as the village of Queenston, a distance of eight miles from where they are now situated. The appearance of the clifts from Queenston to the Falls certainly sanctions this philosophical opinion; for the different strata of rocks which form these clifts, on the sides of the river all the way from Queenston to the Falls, are the same strata of rocks that are now wasting at the Cataract. Besides, those strata of rocks commence at Queenston, and their commencement forms what is called Queenston Heights, a sudden rise of nearly two hundred feet, running from east to west, across the country, as far as the eye can follow. Below Queenston Heights the clifts suddenly terminate, the banks become low, and the Niagara river runs over a smooth, sandy, or freestone bottom, through a flat and unrelieved plain, all the way to Lake Ontario. Above Queenston Heights the ground is Table land, or another plain elevated two hundred feet, or the thickness of the different strata of rocks above the plain below the heights; and these two contiguous plains appear like two contiguous floors, the one higher than the other by a single step. The higher plain, with the intersection of a few streams, stretches all the way from Queenston Heights to Lake Erie. From the circumstance, therefore, of the same strata of rocks which are now wasting at the Falls, commencing at Queenston,—and from the fact of these rocks being regularly cut through, apparently by the action of the river, all the way from their commencement to the Falls, it is at least a philosophical deduction to suppose that the Falls have commenced at Queenston.—Could this opinion be established, it would, in conjunction with the different strata of lava found on Mount Ætna, go far to prove that this beautiful world of ours, which we love so well, rail against it as we will, has existed longer than is commonly believed. But, be that as it may, we require no spirit of prophecy to foresee, that if this world of ours lasts long enough, and we see no symptoms of its decay, the Falls of Niagara will, in their progress, one day arrive at Lake Erie, and drain that immense sheet of water, through Lake Ontario, down the St. Lawrence River, into the Sea. What period of time may elapse before that event takes place, I know not; but, in the unbroken chain of future events, it certainly will happen.—The two uppermost strata of rocks which are now wasting at the Falls are thrown off above the rapids; and the undermost stratum, or sandstone rock, rises to the surface and takes their place. At what speed the Falls may travel, after they arrive at that change of metals, I cannot tell; but the change of the metals will, in all probability, alter both the speed and the appearance of the Falls.

Were I to write a criticism on nature,—which, by the way, would be something like presumption,—I would say, that for producing a grand emotion, the Cascade is too low when compared with its extent across the river. The architectural proportions, as builders express the idea, are not preserved: the river even grows broader immediately above the Falls—a circumstance which gives the Cascade too much the appearance of an immense mill-dam: an appearance which excites a very ordinary, although, no doubt, a very useful, idea.

The Falls of Niagara are great, and therefore in some measure grand; but, unless for their magnitude, which in that respect gives them a decided superiority, they are, in respect of sublimity of aspect and grandeur of surrounding scenery, far inferior to the Falls of Clyde, round which the jackdaws are screaming—above, the goshawks are soaring—and under the overhanging groves the bat flies at noon. Compared with the Falls of Clyde, those of Niagara have a lifeless appearance. The Cascade in the latter shoots smoothly over the black projecting rock, and plunges like a tense unbroken sheet into the unfathomed waters below, forming altogether the segment of an immense circle, which, at a distance, has something the appearance of a long white curtain trailed up at the bottom, and torn in the centre, where the stones and other rubbish lie in a ruinous heap at the foot of Goat Island; whereas, the Falls of Clyde are high, compared with their extent across the river; the rapids above spoom through a narrow channel, and then leap and roar violently down a tortuous and rugged precipice, driving and foaming as if the water itself were alive. Thus the Falls of Clyde have at all times an animated appearance; but when the river is swollen into a high flood, which it frequently is, the Falls of Cora and Stonelyeres are awfully terrific. The surrounding clifts tremble like an earthquake, as the whitened clouds of water descend the precipice, tumbling and rebounding like so many avalanches of snow, until at last they thunder into a dark cavern, throwing up in their descent a misty shower, which is seen at a distance, like a blue cloud trailing along the ravine, or peering above the surrounding trees; and the fragments of ice, when they happen to be in the river, are thrown up, like rockets, to an amazing height, leaving a lasting impression on the mind of the terrible force of water, when aided by gravitation. Besides, the Falls of Niagara have too much sameness; the river is seldom swollen by rains or thaws; the quantity of water which it contains is nearly the same at every season of the year; so that the very sound of the Cascade, when near at hand, has but little variety: the same wild roar is for ever sounding away, like the brawling of a shoally river in a frosty evening—a grand but plaintive cadence repeated, without silence or change, like the high chiming but wearisome monotony of Pope’s heroic verse;—Whereas, the quantify of water in the river at the Falls of Clyde is almost continually changing, and consequently the appearance of the Falls as often varying; every cloud of whitened water that rebounds as the Cascade dashes down the precipice assumes a new form, as variable as the changing shapes of the clouds in a storm, out of which a loving imagination can construct castles or palaces of pleasure. Besides, the sound of the Falls of Clyde is often changing from the hoarse to the shrill roar, and indeed to almost every tone of the ocean. It is probably this variety of sound and shape that rivets the attention of spectators to the Falls of Clyde, more than to those of Niagara; for every new sound, or shape, produces a new idea; and thus the mind is completely, as well as pleasantly, occupied, without wandering to distant objects for that variety, which even lovers themselves allow to be charming. After all, comparing the Falls of Niagara with the Falls of Clyde, is something like comparing the Temple of Luxor with Melrose Abbey, or the Register Office of Edinburgh—the Pyramids of Egypt with the tomb of Themistocles,—the Himaylaya Mountains with Ben Lomond Hill,—or the Colossus of Rhodes with the Antinous of Rome. The former of these objects are great and commanding: they inspire us with awe and respect. The latter are comparatively small and elegant, and inspire us with love and pleasure, which to minds cast in an ordinary mould, are probably the most delightful emotions.

At first sight, as I said before, I was neither surprised nor much pleased with the Falls of Niagara; but, like the excellencies of a good painting, their grandeur grew upon me as I continued to examine them in detail; still they never did fill my mind with that involuntary tumult of ecstatic ideas, which rush through the mind when strongly impressed with perceptions of grandeur or beauty—my mind remained rather mournfully calm and collected.—It is true I felt a kind of exultation from the single idea, that I was at last looking on the Falls of Niagara, of which I had heard so much.—Yet I could not fix my ideas for any length of time on the objects before me; on the contrary, my ideas were continually breaking away by unexpected transitions, or led by various associations to the contemplation of past events and distant objects, particularly to the recollection of youthful friends, and the scenes of my early amusements. To my mind, at that time, there was a peculiar melody in the wild roaring of the Falls, which acted, in effect, like the harmonious sounds of music, by recalling the memory of departed woes and pleasures, which in alternate links constitute the mysterious chain of human affairs.

When I had finished my observations, and satisfied my curiosity, I sat down beneath the shadow of a chesnut tree, where I could obtain a front view of the Cascade, and at the same time amuse myself, by making conjectures concerning the talents, manners, and pursuits in life, of the different visitors that were gazing on, or strolling round, the Falls.—There was a British Officer in uniform below the Table Rock at the side of the Cascade, apparently collecting mineral specimens, to carry with him as memorials of Niagara Falls, when his country might require his services in a different quarter of the world. The profession of a soldier naturally led me lo reflect on the physical causes of British ascendancy in the moral and intellectual world, as well as in the arts of war and peace—an ascendancy which enables the comparatively small Island of Great Britain to cement together, by interest and opinion, so many millions of men, of different species, constitutions, languages, habits and religions, and who lie scattered over a territory which stretches from the Falls of Clyde in Scotland, to the Falls of Niagara in Upper Canada, and from the Falls of Niagara in Upper Canada to the Falls of the Ganges at the foot of the Himaylaya Mountains on the opposite side of the world. It is when we are in a foreign land, where every one talks of England, that we grow proud of our country; besides, at a distance we have the best view of that wonderful fabrick, the British Empire, the pillars of which stand in every quarter of the globe, and the fall of which would crush the rest of the world.

Like Volney at the ruins of Palmyra, I was reflecting on the political era that is fast opening on Europe, when the thunder, which is very common in Upper Canada in the month of August, became very loud, and the lightning remarkably vivid, so that every lengthened flash continued to quiver for some seconds, with a greenish shade on the spray that filled the immense cavern. At the same time it illuminated the surface of the waters, and dazzled on the plume of the warrior, as he stood listening behind the white cloud of mist, as if the flash had been directed there by the Almighty hand that governs the water and the fire, for the express purpose of pointing out the pride and littleness of man when compared with the irresistible elements which were then raging around him.

The rain now began to fall in torrents, and the company, which I saw for the first and last time, soon dispersed. But I remained after they were gone, and took shelter in a booth, where wine and cakes were sold, and a register kept of the names and places of abode of those persons who visit the Falls. As darkness of itself is always an object of terror, and very frequently an assistant of sublimity, I resolved to remain till after sunset, so that I might have an opportunity of seeing the Falls obscured by the darkness of the night. Because awfully sublime, and even beautiful objects half or obscurely seen, by leaving scope for the imagination, always produce the grandest emotions. Of this fact the Eastern Ladies seem to be well aware, for they frequently draw aside their veils, and show one half of their faces, as they pass, to their admirers. On the same principle our British Noblemen, who generally excel in matters of taste, obscure with trees the front views of their elegant mansions, so that their half-shaded appearance may produce a finer effect. Thus buildings half-finished, or in ruins, produce a better effect, at least a more interesting train of ideas, than when they are entire; and when seen by moonlight they always appear doubly sublime, and at the same time excite a double portion of that tender melancholy so pleasing to sensibility. It is from this love of tender melancholy so congenial to the mind of man, that the Amphitheatre of Vespasian at Rome, or the Temple of Balbec in Syria are more admired in their present ruinous state, than they ever were in the days of their ancient splendour.

When darkness came, the Falls of Niagara assumed a grander and more terrific aspect. Nothing was heard but the wild roaring of the Cataract, and nothing was seen but the tumbling of the rapids above,—the white Cascade below, and the continual flashing of the waters in the broad cavern, as they spread their white sheets of foam in every shape and in every direction, like the cold lights of the north spreading over a dark and tempestuous sky. Such a sight, like a storm in the Atlantic, was awfully grand and dreary beyond any thing I ever saw before; it was a sight never to be forgotten, because it can have but few parallels in nature. It was one of those scenes which are above description, and consequently every attempt is a failure. We may strain and struggle for expressions in vain, but we only illustrate the wants and weakness of the human mind. Standing on the Table Rock, in a situation of pleasing security, I looked down with fear, and reflected with horror on the unfathomable deepness of the cavern, and of how little avail human strength or skill would be to any one struggling in the midst of that vast vortex. Under the impression of that melancholy idea I felt, as I have ever felt at the representation of a Tragedy, when the heart fondly yields to sympathetic sorrow created by imaginary circumstances.

On looking across the Falls, the long white Cascade grew dimmer and dimmer as it receded from my view, and a little way beyond the bend of the horse-shoe Fall it disappeared in darkness and spray; while further on, the Cascade was still heard sounding away in darkness, as if the fabled Spirit of the Waters had been crying from his cave. To a moralist in a serious mood of mind, the white noisy Cascade, descending from darkness to darkness, might serve as a beautiful, but melancholy emblem of human life, or its perpetual motion—for ever passing, and never past: it might probably be a better figure of Time than the sandglass, and not a much worse one of Eternity than the ancient Egyptian circle.

To heighten the grandeur of this extraordinary scene, an immense black cloud, like Loudon Hill, rose above the western horizon, and at the end of every few seconds opened like a volcano in a broad sheet of lightning, the fitful gleams of which showed for a moment the tops of the naked pines far in the distance, above the surrounding forest, like so many spectres gliding through the gloom; besides, the lurid radiance of the lightning illuminated the Cataract with a kind of “visible darkness,” which barely assisted the imagination to add a few fanciful horrors to the frightful scene. I stood on the bank above the Cataract drenched with rain for nearly an hour, watching these successive glares of lightning, which every minute cast their crimson shadows across the cavern, which showed the reddened water below, glimmering through the spray, like the ocean of flame that is seen burning red beneath the sulphurous smoke, as we look down into the frightful crater of Mount Ætna, and which cavern recalled my memory the following lines of Milton:—

Such was the appearance of, and my impressions at, the Falls of Niagara, during a thunder-storm in a rainy night, and under a dark moon. But those who wish to enjoy a sight of the Falls of Niagara in perfection, must, I think, view them by the rising moon, and at a time when there is snow upon the ground, while there is only enough of light glimmering along the water to show the Cascade and the Cavern obscurely; for, as I said before, obscurity in a view, and ambiguity in a sentence, always heighten the sublimity of either; and nothing gives such a mournful, or I might almost say terrible, idea of loneliness, as the sound of a stream in an American forest by moonlight. It is like the echo of the wind in a tomb, where every thing else is dead and drearily silent around;—in other words, it is loneliness in the extreme; but as we are usually in extremes ourselves—extremes please us; and a romantic imagination, for one night at least, may be as well entertained with the roaring of the Falls of Niagara, as with the rattling of coaches at Charing Cross. It is true, the landscape round the Falls of Niagara is a wild flat; there are no hills or precipices to throw their shadows across the Cavern, or Cascade, and give a moonlight scene there all the advantages of light and shade, like a painting of Titian’s. Nevertheless, when the moonlight rainbow is bending among the spray,—the snow shining on the banks,—and the icicles glittering on the rocks,—these lonesome glaciers may reflect a lustre as romantic, if not so bright, as the chandeliers of Drury Lane.—No doubt, the icicles round Niagara Falls will be cold and comfortless; they will for ever want that unequalled assemblage of female beauty, that nightly cheers the heart in Drury Lane, and gives the boxes of that Theatre the appearance of Mahomet’s Paradise.

The steep green bank on the Canadian shore, immediately below the Falls of Niagara, offers a most convenient, as well as a delightful site for a terraced garden, like that of Barncluth on the banks of the Avon. Besides beautiful walks and flowers, the terraced garden at Niagara might be further adorned, at little expense, with pavilions, cooling fountains, and shading trees during the summer, in the Eastern style. And when future wealth, with its concomitant taste, and elegant arts, has blessed this free country, the terraced garden of Niagara may become the Kensington or Vauxhall of Upper Canada, where company may yet be entertained by exhibitions, in perspective, of all the principal waterfalls in the world, with their surrounding landscapes, and the costume of the different countries in which they are situated. But for seeing all these fine things, we live at least a century too soon.

According to promise, I have now done my best to give you an accurate description of the Falls of Niagara; and, after all, it is very likely that you will not be able to form one accurate idea concerning their appearance.

It has been the fashion of late, on both sides of the Atlantic, to heap contempt and ridicule with a liberal hand upon the Members of the British Aristocracy. Nobles and Gentlemen, possessed of ample domains, and descended from a long line of ancestry, have been represented as wrapped in sloth, or exerting themselves only in the pursuit of sensual and ignoble pleasures, and like Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, in Rob Roy, carrying their studies but very little farther, than the pages of Gwillim’s Heraldry. It has been asserted that imbecility is the inseparable attendant of hereditary honors; and the characters of Noblemen—however amiable their private lives, however useful their virtues—have been placed in disadvantageous comparison with the merits and fame of the first Founders of their Families.—On the other hand, should a Nobleman carve out his own reputation, and render himself distinguished by his own intrinsic merits, his political opponents will tumble over their Debrett, and find out, that the first bearer of his title was the “atom of an atom,” or the off-shoot of some left-handed marriage. “The tenth transmitter of a foolish face” has served as a text upon these occasions, till it has almost become thread-bare; and the Members of the British House of Peers—men, composing the most solemn and most majestic political Assembly in the world—the descendants of self-ennobled men, who have sprung from every rank and condition of life—men, elevated to their exalted station by political services, mercantile wealth, legal success, or by military and naval achievements, have been stigmatised as a mass of ignorance, imbecility, and inefficiency.

A rapid glance, however, at the present state of the British Peerage, and a random selection of a few names, chiefly from the ranks of the living, will afford an ample contradiction to this sweeping and unfounded libel. In every path of Literature and Science, the noble of the land are among the foremost. Promoters of Agriculture, and of every domestic improvement—Presidents and active members of Literary and Scientific Societies—Patrons of letters—Poets and Historians, are found among the titled ranks. The present age alone would furnish Lord Orford with ample materials for another catalogue of royal and noble authors; and it should be borne in mind, that the greatest Poet of modern times was a Peer, who was proud of tracing his descent from ancestors who fought and conquered in the Holy Land.

The Duke of Sussex, the President of the Royal Society, is a learned and indefatigable scholar: he is said to be possessed of the most valuable collection of biblical and Oriental literature in Europe; and, temperate in his habits and an early riser, he devotes almost his whole time to the pursuits of learning and science. The Earl of Munster, the King’s eldest son, wields the pen as well as the sword, and is no less distinguished for his gallant bearing in the field, than beloved for his private virtues. To his many elegant acquirements he adds the knowledge of several languages, and is one of the most valuable contributors to the United Service Journal. The Marquess of Londonderry, the chivalrous Hotspur of the House of Lords, has, like another Cæsar or Sully, recorded a Narrative of those Campaigns, in which he displayed the gallantry of a Murat.^[1] Lord Grenville, now drawing to the close of a long and honorable life, has snatched time from his public avocations, to show how well the Scholar and the Nobleman can be blended. As Chancellor of the University of Oxford, to which he was elected in 1809 by a small majority over Lord Eldon, he has defended his Alma Mater in a pamphlet, against the charge brought against her by Lord King, of having expelled Locke. He has also edited the Letters of the great Earl of Chatham to his nephew, Lord Camelford; and with the assistance of his relative the Duke of Buckingham, has enriched a splendid edition of Homer, privately printed, with valuable annotations; and has translated, from the English and Italian into Latin, several pieces, which have been circulated among his friends under the title of Nugæ Metricæ. Lord Nugent, the brother of the Duke of Buckingham, and the recently appointed Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, has written a memorial of John Hampden, the Buckinghamshire Patriot, with no mean ability; and in conjunction with his talented Lady, has not long since published a volume of Tales, intitled the Legends of Lilies. Thus the noble, family of Grenville presents us with the spectacle of three of its members, addicted to literature, and employing their leisure in honorable and intellectual pursuits.

Lord Holland, the nephew of Fox and the grandson of Lord Chatham’s rival, has sacrificed largely to the Spanish Muses. From a three years residence in Spain, he imbibed a love for the literature of that country, and has subsequently written the lives of the two celebrated Spanish Dramatists Guillen de Castro, and Lope de Vega, accompanied by translations from their works. Besides his Letter to Dr. Shuttleworth on the Catholic Claims, a production belonging to politics, rather than to literature, he has edited the Historical Fragment of his uncle Charles James Fox, and notwithstanding the sneers of Lord Byron & Lytton Bulwer, may be fairly styled the Halifax of the nineteenth century. Lord John Russell, is now so identified with politics and the Reform Bill, that few have ever considered him, a Literary Man. Although not far advanced in years, being little more than 40 years old, and notwithstanding that he entered Parliament at the very earliest age that the law would admit of, and has ever been a constant attendant in his seat in the House, he has been a voluminous author. He has performed the pious duty of embalming the memory of his unfortunate ancestor, Lord William Russell. To this may be added an Essay on the English Constitution, Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht to the [then] present time, and a brief sketch of the History of the Establishment of the Turks in Europe, compiled principally from the elegant and erudite Busbee. He is also the author of Don Carlos, a Tragedy, which, although unsuccessful on representation, has gone through four or five editions. Lord Dover (the late Honorable George Agar Ellis) has written a Treatise on the disputed question, Who was the Iron Mask?—and has lately ushered into the world a Life of Frederick the Great, compiled with industry and care. Lord Morpeth—the eldest son of the Earl of Carlisle, and grandson of the Earl who wrote the Tragedy called ‘The Father’s Revenge,’—has shone as a Poet, as well as an eloquent Debater. Lord Porchester, the eldest son of Earl Carnarvon, is the author of a Poem and a Tragedy, and is now preparing for the press his Travels in Spain, where he met with many romantic adventures, and narrowly escaped with his life. Lord Mahon—the eldest son of Earl Stanhope, an eccentric but patriotic nobleman, connected with many literary and scientific societies,—has already earned a reputation by his Life of Belisarius, and has announced his intention of presenting the world with a History of the Spanish War of Succession, in which his ancestor, the first Earl of Stanhope, commanded the British troops, and whose papers are expected to throw a considerable light upon that eventful period of our history. The amiable Lord Leveson Gower has also put in his claim for dramatic laurels, and in his beautiful translation of Goethe’s Faust, has caught no inconsiderable portion of the genius and spirit of the original. Viscount Kingsborough,—the eldest son of the Earl of Kingston, an Irish Peer,—has published one of the most magnificent and expensive works ever known in the literary world. His “Mexican Antiquities” have cost him between twenty and thirty thousand pounds: one copy, presented to the French King by his Lordship, at the instigation, and through the hands, of Mr. Warden, a writer well known in America,—and another copy, presented to the Escurial Library in Spain, cost three thousand pounds each! Lord Braybrooke, by editing the Diary of Pepys, has added to our historical treasures, and has illustrated the coarse manners of the Commonwealth, and the licentiousness of the Restoration. “Athenian” Aberdeen, the Lord Burlington of the day, has translated Vitruvius on Architecture, and is President of the Society of Antiquaries. Earl Mulgrave, who at present is invested with the unenviable dignity of Governor of Jamaica, seems now to have entirely abandoned the Muses for politics; but, when Lord Normanby, he was admired as a novelist of power and pathos—as the author of Matilda, Yes and No. Folly as it Flies, a Comedy written by Lord Glengall, has been extremely popular, and is considered as a vivid delineation of modern manners in fashionable life. Turning from comedy to graver matters, we find that the Earl of Lauderdale has launched into the world an Essay on Political Economy,—that Earl Mountcashel has maintained with ability and credit an ecclesiastical controversy with Dr. Elrington, the learned Bishop of Ferns,—and that Lord King, descending for a while from his hobby-horse, the Currency Question, has composed an elaborate Life of his ancestor and favorite author, Locke.

In the Fine Arts, such as statuary and painting, our Nobles display their taste as collectors, rather than their skill as artists. But in Music, they not only put in a claim for taste, but are proud to aspire to the honors of a Mozart, a Rossini, or a Weber. The late Lord Mornington (the Duke of Wellington’s father) was an excellent performer on the violin, and, even when a child in the arms of a nurse, possessed so discriminating an ear, that he could not bear to hear his father play the violin, when Dubois, the celebrated performer on that instrument, was in the room.—He has left behind him many manuscript compositions of great merit, which have never been published. The Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, the author of those delightful Musical Reminiscences of which two editions have already appeared, has composed several beautiful pieces of Sacred Music, and many years ago wrote an Italian Opera, Zenobia, which being intended only for the benefit of Madame Ranti, was withdrawn the very day after it was performed, and the Noble composer could never be prevailed upon to re-produce it. The Earl has, it is said, many other compositions by himself in his portfolio, which have only been shown to his musical friends, but with the publication of which the musical world would be extremely delighted. Lord Burghersh, the eldest son of the Earl of Westmoreland, is also celebrated for his musical talents, and since his return from Florence, where he resided many years as the British Minister, has produced an Opera with success.

Many perchance will say that the instances here adduced entitle the British Peerage to no greater merit than may be ascribed to the fruits of lettered indolence,—and may challenge us to produce examples of Peers who have devoted some portion of their princely incomes to the promotion of education and knowledge. We are very willing to meet such persons on their own ground. Viscount Fitzwilliam of Ireland, who died in 1816, left to the University of Cambridge (where he had been educated) his splendid library, pictures, drawings, and engravings, together with £60,000, for the erection of a Museum for their reception and exhibition. The present Duke of Newcastle has founded at Oxford three Scholarships, to be held by Eton boys, of the annual value of £50 each; and the venerable Lord Eldon, when his political admirers subscribed several thousand pounds to present him with a memorial of their esteem, requested, and his request was complied with, that the fund collected should be devoted to the foundation of law scholarships in the University of Oxford.

Towards the amelioration of the condition of the lower classes, and the improvement of agriculture, several of the most distinguished noblemen and commoners in Great Britain have contributed by their purse, their time, and their talents. Lord Sheffield has written a Treatise on Agriculture; and the late Earl of Dundonald, amid privations rendered doubly painful and galling by the rank of the sufferer, pursued with unabated ardor, and with great advantage to the world, the study of Agricultural Chemistry. This unfortunate nobleman, before his death, received pecuniary assistance from the Literary Fund, and closed his life, as it was passed, embittered by poverty and pain. In the promotion of Agriculture, the Duke of Bedford has expended considerable sums of money, and caused to be instituted some valuable experiments on the quantity of produce afforded by the different grasses. His Grace, though not a literary character himself, is the patron of letters, and the Mæcenas of the Quaker Poet, Wiffen, who is preparing for publication Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell, from the Norman Conquest to the reign of George the Third.

But a still more conspicuous and striking instance of benefits conferred on the community at large by a single Member of the British Peerage remains to be adduced. To whom, but to Francis, the last Duke of Bridgewater, does England owe the quickening impulse given to canal navigation? In contemplating the Bridgewater canal an able writer says,^[2] “We ought not to overlook the admirable manner in which the enterprising Nobleman, at whose expense it was undertaken, performed his part in carrying it on. It was his determination from the first to spare no expense on its completion. Accordingly he devoted to it, during the time of its progress, nearly the whole of his revenues, denying himself, all the while, even the ordinary accommodations of his rank, and living on an income of four hundred a year. He had even great commercial difficulties to contend with in the prosecution of his schemes, being at one time unable to raise £500 on his bond on the Royal Exchange; and it was a chief business of his agent, Mr. Gilbert, to ride up and down the country to procure money on his Grace’s promissory notes. It is true that he was afterwards amply repaid for this outlay and temporary sacrifice; but the compensation that eventually accrued to him he never might have lived to enjoy; and at all events he acted as none but extraordinary men do, in thus voluntarily relinquishing the present for the future, and preferring to any dissipation of his wealth on passing and merely personal objects, the creation of this magnificent monument of lasting public usefulness. Nor was it only in the liberality of his expenditure that the Duke approved himself a patron worthy of Brindley. He supported his Engineer throughout the undertaking with unflinching spirit, in the face of no little outcry and ridicule, to which the imagined extravagance or impracticability of his plans exposed him—and that even from those who were generally accounted the most scientific judges of such matters. The success with which these plans were carried into execution, is probably, in no slight degree, to be attributed to the perfect confidence with which their author was thus enabled to proceed.”

These instances have been gathered together almost entirely from memory, but access to books, and diligent research would furnish many more. Sufficient proof however has been adduced, to show that the Members of the British Peerage, have other pursuits, besides hunting and horse-racing, gambling, & dissipation.

True enough is it, that the merit of a nobleman, if he possess any, is rendered conspicuous by his rank, and exalted station. But if he reaps a benefit from this, he is subject to an equivalent disadvantage; for any irregularity, or impropriety of conduct, is for the very same reason, blazoned abroad, and travelling the round of the papers gratifies the prurient appetite of the public for slander, and the nauseous details of vice. When we take into consideration and make allowance for the temptations that beset the wealthy and great, we shall find them equally virtuous with the middle classes of the community. Poverty urges man to exertion—wealth renders him sluggish; and when any of our noblemen already possessed of rank, influence and riches, devote themselves with energy to any laudable pursuit, it is clear that they must be actuated by a pure and noble feeling, by a desire to benefit their fellow creatures, or to add another laurel to those transmitted to them by their forefathers.

It is also a fact, which admits of no contradiction, that he who possesses the advantages of birth and rank, is far less anxious to thrust them into public view, than the man of mean birth, who has attained riches and consequence, is to hide the humble origin from which he sprung.^[3] The true British nobleman is affable to his inferiors, easy of access, a lover of hospitality. He is generally a man of polished manners, acquainted with the classics and the modern languages, well versed in the history and laws of his own country, and fraught with the experience of travel. The debates in the House of Lords on the subject of Reform, were universally acknowledged to have been far superior in every respect to the debates on the same subject in the House of Commons. The vast importance of the measure inspired every Peer who spoke, with unusual energy and eloquence; even those, who had never before been deemed capable of the effort, acquitted themselves with a dignity and ability, and force, which recalled those days when the Earl of Chatham, swept all before him by the irresistible torrent of his eloquence.

What then becomes of the imputation of hereditary imbecility? It is a charge advanced by those whose little minds are too narrow to hold but one feeling, and that feeling envy,—by those who smear the picture which they cannot copy—it is a charge which every one, who will take the trouble to examine dispassionately the past and present history of Great Britain, will scatter like chaff to the wind. Indeed when one of the people abuses and under-rates the Peerage, we must be astonished at his ignorance and blindness. The British aristocracy, like a river fed by tributary streams, is constantly receiving an infusion of the talent and worth of the age, and the majority of its members, either in their own persons, or in those of their ancestors, have sprung from the mass of the people. There are forty or fifty Peers^[4] who own their titles to forefathers distinguished in the law. Mercantile wealth has raised many to the Upper House; and military, naval, or diplomatic services have placed the coronet upon many a head, which was first sheltered in a cottage. The late Lord Tenterden was the son of a staymaker; Lord Lyndhurst is the son of an American painter; Lord Brougham, of a wine merchant; Lord Plunkett, of humble parents; and Lords Eldon and Stowell, par nobile fratrum, are the sons of a coal-merchant. A curious book called the Grandeur of the Law, was written by a lawyer named Philipps, in the reign of Charles the second, containing an account of all the noble families whose honors originated in, or whose estates were enlarged by members of the legal profession. On the same plan, very amusing and instructive works might be compiled to be respectively intitled the Grandeur of Merchandise, and the Grandeur of the Army and Navy.

The state of society in Great Britain has been well compared to one of the Egyptian Pyramids—broad at the bottom, and rising to its apex by a gradual ascent. May the Pyramid, of which the British Peerage is a part, remain for ever immoveable and unscathed!—And should the French attempt to blow it up, like their own Chamber of Peers, may they prove as unsuccessful as when they attempted to destroy with gunpowder the celebrated statue of Memnon, on their evacuation of Alexandria.

He who carefully studies mankind will be struck with the difference that exists in human character and condition. The most obvious distinction is that of external circumstances; but the most essential, and in fact the real difference, exists in the mind. In so far as external condition is concerned,—as the gifts of fortune, birth, and education,—we might at first be inclined to accuse nature of partiality in the distribution of her favours. A deeper insight into human nature will however teach us that the minds of men are, in most cases, suited to their station and advantages, and that external appearances are not the criteria for estimating happiness or moral worth. This obvious fact should silence every murmur against the justice and benevolence of Providence; and, satisfied with this consideration, the inquirer may proceed with safety, in investigating those circumstances of birth and education which serve to regulate the human character. In the course of the study, he will learn those objects of pursuit, and acquire those attainments of mind, which are more or less favourable to the developement of virtuous and amiable dispositions, the promotion of sound morality, and the fulfilment of the great ends of the Creator in his moral government. Few general rules seem more indisputably true than this, that the cultivation of the mental powers is under any circumstances favorable to virtue; yet that sceptical and doubting spirit to which the mind is ever liable, will not be left without a ground for distrusting its correctness. Active virtue seems not to result from any mental vigour, but rather to spring from the affections of the heart. There is a species of untutored benevolence, a native innocence and generosity of temper, found in human character, with which but little cultivation of the mind, and certainly no refined learning, ever was combined. It is a circumstance of no slight satisfaction and interest, that true magnanimity, steadiness of moral principle, and good feelings, are often found where the advantages of education seemed least to promise the formation of such dispositions. We cannot help noticing it as an excellent proof of the goodness of Providence, that the good affections of the heart are not made to depend entirely upon mental attainments, which are so slow in their advances to perfection. One who is fond of the simplicity of nature, who loves to feast his imagination with dreams of spotless innocence and bliss, known only in the paradise of poets, may gratify his humour by contrasting with these the vices, extravagancies, and follies of those who have been celebrated for learning and for genius, and in considering how little theoretical wisdom can control the bad passions of human nature, or instill into the heart those warm and lively emotions which are the offspring of a disposition naturally benevolent and mild. But the fictions of poetry and romance are not to be mistaken for pictures of real life. However pleasant it may be to look upon nature in her fairest dress, yet it must not be concealed that there are numerous imperfections in human character. These, however, are to be corrected by mental cultivation. In fact, it is evident that if the actions proceed only from instinctive affections, they imply no moral worth, they are not strictly virtuous. If there are weaknesses in human nature to be overcome, if there are temptations to be resisted by men in every situation of life, and in every stage of society, it is obvious that some course of education must be gone through, and that education will imply the exercise of reason and the cultivation of the mind.

But there are considerations of more serious nature which involve the probability that literary cultivation may have an injurious effect upon the morals. Every pursuit, even that of knowledge, may be carried to an intemperate extreme. That there is a tendency in literary pursuits to draw men from their attention to objects of a still higher nature, and to engross all their affection, is evinced by examples of frequent occurrence. Either from the pleasure which they of themselves afford, or the reputation and respect attendant upon high literary attainments, it is not uncommon to see many give up their whole souls to the pursuit of learning. Yet it is our duty to do good and communicate, no less than to attend to the improvement of our own minds; so that when the sole object of an individual is to acquire that knowledge which interests himself, without being of use to his fellow creatures,—when, in the gratification of an inordinate love of study, he neglects the practice of his duties as a member of a family or society, he is not only opposing the natural dictates of his heart, but acting contrary to the plainest precepts of religion. In the bosom of him who neglects every other pursuit in his love of books, the streams of humanity, benevolence, and charity are dried up; the feelings of affection and sympathy in the joys and sorrows of his fellow mortals are banished from his heart; and, in short, every virtue included under piety to God, and love to man, is totally neglected and contemned. But there is, unhappily for the world, a more positive kind of vice than even this in the characters of some literary men. There is a species of literary publications sometimes infesting the world, calculated to undermine the principles of virtue, to disseminate immorality and profaneness, to make religion a subject of ridicule and scorn. When such productions are dressed out with all the attractions which elegance of language, playfulness of fancy, and a profusion of satirical wit can bestow, it is natural that some weak minds, and even some stronger minds in which good principles have not been implanted, should be captivated and ensnared by them. A taste for such works unfits the mind for every study of real worth and interest, for every noble and honourable occupation: and should they become exclusive companions of the leisure hour, they would inevitably destroy every virtuous sentiment, and sink the mind to the lowest possible state of degenerate insensibility. But of all objects in existence the most deplorable and fearful, is a human being, who perverts the powers of his intellect by exerting them in channels where they are productive only of evil: who uses his knowledge, acquirements, and talents, as the means for publishing to the world the productions of a corrupt heart, and of a depraved and distempered imagination. Can any thing be more painful or more revolting to every feeling and virtuous heart, than to see those powers of mind, which are designed to ennoble man, used only for disguising the corrupt and bad passions of human nature, for decking sensuality and luxury in glowing and ensnaring colours; to see, in short, the features of that heavenly likeness in which man is created, expressive only of malignity, licentiousness, and irreligion? But, through the goodness of that Being who ordereth all things for the best, this is comparatively a rare character, and answers some good end, when we do meet with it, by placing in a more striking light the real and solid advantages derived from cultivation of mind, when it is exercised upon proper objects, and in its natural sphere. It is true, that in the actual review of the characters of literary men, we find that in the discussion of philosophical opinions, in the intercourse of private life, and in public offices, they are not always distinguishable by their disinterested kindness, and unsullied purity of morals. We meet with failings and vices which we should have supposed to be utterly at variance with the nature and constitution of their minds, and totally inconsistent with their rational and avowed sentiments. But it does not follow, that because the vigour of the understanding cannot entirely subdue the weakness and passions of human nature, it is not productive of essential benefit in regulating the temper and disposition. And the most superficial observer of the present state of society, must allow, that the most actively benevolent, the warmest friends, and the best christians, are those whose minds have been cultivated and refined by literary studies and occupation. By literary cultivation we mean, not merely a fondness of reading, or a taste for works of imagination, and polite literature in general, but that enlightened state of mind, which is the result of almost every literary pursuit united with an ardent desire to seek after and obtain the truth: and a love of every sentiment, and thought that pleases the understanding by its novelty or beauty, and that interests the heart, by the association which it calls forth. Upon examination, we shall find that the natural effect of such a disposition of mind is the establishment of good moral principles in the heart. For let us consider what are the pursuits likely to interest a man whose mind is thus cultivated, and whose taste is thus refined. Surely he will be employed in the exercise of his mental powers: in the study of something which will throw light upon the condition and end of man; or which will explain the phenomena of nature, and the laws by which they are regulated; or in a more excellent exercise still, in searching out new instances to prove the ways of Heaven’s eternal destiny to man, for ever just, benevolent, and wise. His leisure hours will be employed in the perusal of those books, which, at the same time that they add to the stock of his ideas, tend to increase his admiration of the works of nature, to make him enamoured of virtue, and to incite, through the medium of the understanding, the finer emotions of the heart, which are the firm foundation of a pious and benevolent disposition. He who is fond of employing his mind in this way, will at least lead an innocent life. By constantly exercising his reason, his passions are by degrees reduced into subjection, and his head and heart keep pace with each other in improvement. Though he may sometimes relapse into the weaknesses incident to human nature, yet he will be taught to feel disgust at every gross and degrading species of vice. As he makes continual advances in knowledge, he will every day become more sensible of the excellence and beauty of virtue, till at length the selfish indulgence of the passions will be viewed with abhorrence, and those situations which might lead to criminality be avoided with dread.

The pure sources of gratification which the literary student has within his reach are also worthy of notice. History, poetry, and eloquence afford him a delightful and inexhaustible variety of amusement and instruction. He possesses the power of calling up a succession of scenes to his view, infinitely numerous and diversified, and full of the most interesting and powerful associations. In most works of a standard character, there is a reverence for virtue and a spirit of religion. His reading must therefore of necessity establish his heart in good principles, impress upon him a delicate sense of honor, and inculcate the most lively sentiments of piety and devotion. He is thus secured from that unhappy state which urges many to vices and dissipation, merely to fill up a painful and tedious vacuity.—Compare now with this character a man of no refinement of mind, supposed to be in the same circumstances of life, and the difference in moral excellence will be immediately visible. For where the one has recourse to books as his employment, and strengthens his mind by the study of some interesting science, and in exploring paths of science yet untrodden, the other seeks gratification in the pursuit of some low and trifling object; and when he ceases to be amused with his insipid mode of life or momentary whim, having no interesting subject for reflection in his own bosom, he resorts to the grosser pleasures—the indulgence of appetite and passion, at first perhaps, to dispel an occasional ennui, but at last from an inconquerable habit of intemperance and immorality. But the pursuits of a man of letters have usually a claim to much higher praise than that of being merely inoffensive. They are such as entitle him to the character of a most eminently useful member of society, and not unfrequently render him an example of truly virtuous and christian conduct. Retired from the more turbulent scenes of life, his mind is not so frequently agitated by its ordinary events. Not engaged in the pursuit of trifling worldly objects, his temper is not ruffled by frequent disappointment and misfortune; and as he seldom comes in contact with an opposition of worldly interests, he is free from those bad feelings which such pursuits not infrequently excite in the breast of the man of business and of pleasure. Hence it is evident, that the accomplishments of the mind are favorable to the developement of amiable dispositions and uniform mildness of temper; they tend also to soften and refine the manners, for as the perusal of works of taste, and the study of what is beautiful or fair in the creation, tends to refine the sentiments of the heart, and expel all harsher feelings from it, so will the harmony and benevolence that reigns within be manifested in that graceful, kind and gentle deportment, which contributes so essentially to the happiness of social life. In addition to this, we shall find that men of literary habits are the most attentive and punctual in the discharge of those duties which belong to their social and domestic relations. They have read and studied to little purpose, who have not learnt to feel that man was not made for himself alone, but that he is an instrument in the hands of Providence for administering to the wants and comforts and happiness of others. He, therefore, who with this conviction has imbibed the purest feelings of humanity and of virtue in the course of his literary studies, will make it his object to reduce his sentiments to practice, and to let the world reap the fruits of those advantages which he enjoyed for the attainment of mental superiority. If he has studied the nature of the human mind, he will have acquired a knowledge of those circumstances on which the formation of virtuous or vicious character depends. If he has studied natural philosophy, and made it his object to trace the hand of his benevolent Creator in all things that exist, he will have learnt to entertain just notions of the Deity, and the duties which man owes to him. In short, in whatever path of literature he has trod, if he be under the influence of proper motives, and have a pure desire to become wiser and better, he cannot fail to have his religious principles established, and his views enlarged, and to have those sentiments that are most favorable to virtue deeply engraven upon his heart.—Having, therefore, acquired sound and useful knowledge, he will be careful to employ his talents for the benefit & improvement of those with whom he is most nearly connected, and for the good of society at large; he will devote his time, his influence, and his abilities in the promotion of knowledge, the encouragement of virtue, & the advancement of the truest happiness of those among the humbler classes who are not favoured with the advantages of a liberal education. It is the exercise of great talent, regulated by a pious, humble and benevolent disposition, in the promotion of these excellent ends, that constitutes the highest perfection of human character; and it is such men who, in the words of the poet:—

Let it be remembered, therefore in conclusion, that diligent researches into truth, and the attainment of enlightened views, are the only means of acquiring those settled principles which are the basis of a consistently virtuous character. Let every one value every addition to his stock of knowledge, as a new acquisition of strength and stability to the foundation upon which the structure of his happiness is to be reared.

So many biographical sketches of the Author of Waverley have already appeared in the public prints, that our readers will not thank us for any thing of the same kind. Moreover, Mr. Lockhart is preparing for publication the life and correspondence of his Father in-law; and when this work—which the Author undertakes in compliance with the wishes of the deceased—makes its appearance, we shall, in the course of our review of it, be able to furnish the public with more interesting and authentic particulars of the life of Sir Walter, than could be compiled from the materials already afloat. Abandoning therefore our original intention of compiling a brief Memoir of the life and writings of Sir Walter Scott, we grace our first number with a Portrait of the only rival to Shakespeare, that Great Britain has ever produced.

“In person,” (says Allan Cunningham) “Sir Walter Scott was nearly six feet high, well formed, strongly knit and compactly built; his looks stately and commanding, and his face as he related a heroic story flushed up as a crystal cup, when one fills it with wine. His eyes were deep seated under his somewhat shaggy brows; their colour was a bluish grey: they laughed more than his lips did at a humorous story: his tower-like head, and thin white hair, marked him out among a thousand, while any one might swear to his voice again who heard it once, for it had both a touch of the lisp and the burr, yet, as the minstrel said of Douglas, “it became him wonder well,” and gave great softness to a sorrowful story; indeed, I imagined that he kept the burr part of his tone for matters of a facetious or humorous kind, and brought out the lisp part in those of tenderness or woe. When I add, that in a meeting of a hundred men, his hat was sure to be the least, and would fit no one’s head but his own, I have said all that I have to say about his appearance.” But honest Allan describes, and very correctly as we are told, the features of Scott, as they appeared when he was outpouring the inexhaustible treasures of his mind, and when every lineament of his face reflected the thoughts that he was embodying in words.—We have been informed by those who have frequently seen Sir Walter Scott, that when not engaged in conversation, he exhibited no particular animation or indication of intellect in his countenance, on the contrary, his appearance was any thing but romantic or engaging, and he looked more like a respectable gentleman Farmer, than such a person as the stranger would expect to see, when introduced to the Author of Waverley. In this description of the appearance of Sir Walter, Allan Cunningham has omitted to notice the lameness in the right foot of the Bard, occasioned by his accidentally falling from the arms of his nurse when only two years old, but which accident did not diminish his activity. Bearing this in mind, it is rather curious that Scott should have invested so villainous a character as Rashleigh Osbaldistone, with one of his own personal attributes, for he represents the hated sailor of Die Vernon as “from some early injury in his youth, having an imperfection in his gait, much resembling an absolute halt.”

Mr. Tazewell, our Artist, has bestowed considerable pains upon the accompanying portrait—the first we believe ever engraved in Upper Canada—engraved too on Canadian Stone, and from thence, by means of a Canadian press, transferred to Canadian paper. The sketch is borrowed from Fraser’s Magazine; and we think Mr. Tazewell has been extremely happy in transferring the likeness to our pages, and in the clear and distinct outline he has given of the worthy Baronet in the rural undress he was wont to wear when perambulating the woods of Abbotsford, attended by his favorite dogs.

A few more words with regard to the Portrait and we will then no longer detain our readers from the perusal of a Letter, on the subject of Sir Walter Scott’s monument in this Province; which we have received from Guy Pollock. We had originally intended to have placed in our first number the Portrait of a distinguished personage intimately connected with this Colony. But a variety of unforeseen obstacles concurred to prevent this intention from being carried into effect, and we have endeavored to repair the disappointment as well as possible, by engaging Mr. Tazewell to trace the features & form of him who, when alive, had the power to mould the features of his readers into every variety of expression.

It is almost useless, at the eleventh hour, to make any remarks, in this place, upon the best mode of testifying respect to the memory of Sir Walter Scott in this Province. So long ago as December last a communication in a public print suggested the propriety of seizing so favorable an opportunity, when men’s minds were rivetted to the subject for the instant, to establish a Literary Institution; which, while it recorded our veneration for the great deceased, should, at the same time, prove useful as well as honorable to the Province. We freely admit that in old and wealthy countries there is no necessity for blending utility to the living with honor to the dead, and that the unity of the object heightens it’s interest, and best answers the design of recording the memory of departed worth, or greatness. But in an infant Colony, like Upper Canada, the case is totally different; and we were of opinion from the beginning, and are of the same opinion at this present moment, that as Upper Canada cannot afford at one and the same time to erect a Monument to Sir Walter Scott, and to establish a Library and Museum, an institution much wanted in the Province—it would be an excellent plan to attain two objects by one design.

It will be seen that our correspondent Guy Pollock does not exactly agree with us—but we are convinced he would prefer that a Waverley Institute should be established in York, rather than that Sir Walter Scott should remain unhonored in a Province whose richest inhabitants are sons of Caledonia. But let Guy Pollock speak for himself.

Before closing this article, we must introduce to our readers, a “Dirge on the death of Sir Walter Scott,” written, we believe by Mr. D. Chisholm, of Three-rivers.—This tribute to the dead, thrown off, we presume, on the excitement of the moment, is creditable to the taste and the feelings of Mr. Chisholm, who has thus patriotically sung a lament for his illustrious countryman on the banks of the majestic St. Lawrence. The rapidity with which the news of Sir Walter Scott’s death travelled all over the world, and the grief with which the sad intelligence was every where received, are thus well described:

“Who will listen to the history of Achbor the Persian?” demanded Selim the Story-teller, of the crowd assembled round the door of the Caravansera to hear his recitations.—“Is it a tale of love or war?” asked a voice from the press. “Neither,” returned the Tale-teller; “but it records events not the less interesting. Who will listen to the Story of Achbor?” A number of hands were instantly raised, in token of acquiescence; and seating himself upon the mat provided for his accommodation, Selim commenced his narration.

“The most discontented of men was Achbor, the exiled brother of Abbas king of Persia. Tempted by a restless and ambitious spirit, he had raised a conspiracy against his Sovereign, in the hope of placing the crown upon his own head. The plot was discovered on the eve of execution, and Achbor eluded the wrath of his brother, and fled with his young wife to the snow-covered mountains of Armenia, to waste the remainder of his days in unavailing regrets at the ill-success of his traitorous designs. The voluntary companion of his disastrous flight, the beautiful Zamora, was yet a bride. Forsaken by his friends and followers, and branded with the odious name of a traitor, she still clung to his side, and endeavoured to soothe with her gentle caresses the sullen despair of her fierce and guilty lord. To a mind less haughty and ambitious than Achbor’s, the endearments of this lovely one would have proved a balm to every wound and strewn with roses the wanderer’s path thro’ the desert. But they failed to allay the pangs of disappointed pride, or to calm the troubled spirit whose earthly peace had been shipwrecked upon the ocean of passion. In his restless and obdurate pride, the exiled Prince was as immoveable as a rock, over whose rugged brow the angry billows beat continually, but beat in vain. When he beheld Zamora arrayed in the coarse garb of an Armenian peasant-girl, his grief burst out afresh, and he gave himself up to despair. When his faithful and loving companion approached to soften his agony, and pour the sweet balm of sympathy into his wounds, he broke from her encircling arms, calling himself the most accursed of men, the greatest wretch upon the face of the earth. For days he abandoned his home to roam among the mountains, watching from some lofty eminence the waves of the Tigris pursuing their course among the rocks, as they journeyed for ever onward, to water the lovely vallies of his own delicious land. Thus would Achbor muse and weep, till visions of departed grandeur again flitted before him; and dashing his clenched hand against his brow, he darted away, regardless of the entreaties of his young wife, to hide himself till nightfall in the gloomy recesses of the forest.

The eyes of love were dimmed with incessant weeping; the form of grace and beauty was bent earthward in premature decay: and the beautiful Princess, stretched upon the bed of sickness, no longer looked forward to the hour which was to make her a mother, with those tender anticipations which had hitherto reconciled her to her bitter lot.

It was a dark tempestuous night. The waves of the Tigris dashed furiously against the rocks, whose thousand echoes caught up and repeated the long uninterrupted peals of thunder which shook the everlasting hills to their foundation. The wind howled along the forest, and the trees bent before the blast, as though swept by the Destroying Angel. The uproar of the elements was unheeded by Achbor, who, through the solemn pauses in the storm, was intently listening to the half-suppressed groans of his wife, who occupied a miserable couch in the adjoining apartment. Never until this melancholy hour had the exiled Prince felt the full value of the devoted love of the woman who had so generously sacrificed all her earthly enjoyments to follow him—who had shared, without a murmur, his exile, his poverty, & his misfortunes. Achbor bitterly reproached himself for his past unkindness: he bowed his head upon his hands, and deep sobs burst from his labouring breast. Whilst indulging in these mournful reflections, a loud peal of thunder shook the hut; the earth yawned, and the rocks were rent, and the roar of the waters was like the rush of an armed host in the day of battle. Achbor sprang from his seat, and guided by the lightning entered his wife’s apartment. The faint cry of an infant met his ear. That feeble sound made itself audible through the moaning of the storm. He was a father—and a momentary thrill of pleasure shot thro’ his heart. As he threw back the door of the chamber, the old woman who had attended his wife stood before him in tearful silence. “Azuba!” he said, “hast thou no word of kindness to proclaim to a father on the birth of his first-born?”

“Can there be joy, Achbor, in an hour like this? You are a father—but your wife is dead!”

A fierce cry burst from the lips of the bereaved Prince: he smote his breast, and rushing past the messenger of evil tidings, approached the miserable pallet on which his wife lay. The first dark shade of death rested upon her once lovely face. The flower was withered: it was no longer his bright—his beautiful Zamora he looked upon, but a cold dark mass of unmeaning clay.—“Miserable wretch that I am!” he exclaimed: “accursed be the day on which I was born—the hour when reason first exerted her empire over my mind and I became an inheritor of this world’s misery! Happy are they who never weep—they to whom sorrow is unknown—whose ears have never been pierced, or their hearts wrung by the grief of man!”—“Blessed are the eyes that weep,” said a thrilling voice near him, whose unearthly sweetness was more melodious than the sigh of the south wind over beds of roses. The moaning of the tempest was no longer heard, and the moon broke through the clouds, and shed a soft light upon the scene of woe and desolation. The fierce passions which had shook the breast of Achbor were suddenly hushed. “Sorrow,” continued the invisible speaker, “can alone unlock the gates of joy. The soul of man must be tried in the furnace of affliction, and pass through the dark valley of the shadow of death before it can inherit the glorious birth-right which is only purchased by tears.”

The exiled Prince eagerly turned his eyes towards the spot from whence the voice seemed to proceed; but blinded by the excess of light which suddenly filled the room, he sank prostrate on the ground, and bowed his face upon his hands. A rosy cloud, like that which heralds the approach of day, enveloped, and partially concealed, the face and form of a female of exquisite beauty. The stream of golden radiance that emanated from her person rested upon the cold pale brow of the lifeless Zamora, and the countenance of the dead, before so dark and unlovely, assumed the expression of a sleeping angel.

“Beautiful Spirit!” said the astonished Achbor, “by what name shall I address you?”—“Achbor,” said the heavenly vision, “I am the Spirit of Joy—the Spirit which the children of men seek continually, but seek in vain.”—“And why have you sought the abode of the wretched,” returned the Prince, “when all without is desolation, and all within is despair?”—“Sorrow, like the storm which convulses the frame of nature,” said the Spirit, “is only for a season. The clouds which envelope the heavens will pass away before morning unbars the gates of light, and leave no vestige in the azure sky, of their blackness and deformity. The sun will come forth and gladden the earth with his beams; Creation will rejoice, and all her wild tribes will lift up a cry of thanksgiving to the munificent Being who called them into existence; and the voice of grief, and the sullen and discontented murmurs of ingratitude and pride, will only be heard in the dwellings of men.”—“And why is man, the noblest work of the Sovereign Creator, alone destined to feel His wrath, and be denied those blessings which the meanest insect is permitted to enjoy?”—“Man has filled this beautiful world with violence, and is it not just that he should reap the fruit of his own iniquity?” returned the Spirit. “My face to him is veiled in the cloud, and he can no longer rejoice in the fulness of my joy. The earth knows my coming, and Nature stretches forth her arms to receive me. The Spring lays her garlands at my feet, and Summer greets me with her fervid smile. My voice is in the murmur of many waters, and resounds thro’ the deep azure of the cloudless skies, but its melody is unheeded by man. His eyes are dim—his ears are heavy—his heart is wedded to earthly pursuits and pleasures, and will not be instructed. To him, Nature pleads in vain; for he resigns for the trifles of time, the golden promise of immortality. A virtuous life, and a death of peace, can alone remove the veil from his eyes, and restore to him that felicity which his guilty ambition forfeited, and which, in his hours of innocence, I was commissioned by Heaven to bestow.”—“Is happiness merely a name?” said the sorrowful Prince. “Does the smiling face conceal an aching heart?”—“Laughter is no true sign of joy,” said the Spirit. “It is the mask which grief often wears to conceal its tears. A wise man will not seek for happiness in a world where all things perish. You have sought me, Achbor, in the halls of kings—in blood and toil—in the smiles of beauty—in the dance and the wine-cup—in the cottage, and on the throne—and you have not found me. Were I to unveil my face, you could not enjoy me. Whilst the alloy of earth mingles with your spirit, this beautiful world will still appear to you a barren wilderness.”—“Alas!” returned the Prince, “I perceive that sorrow, and not happiness, is the inheritance of man! Beautiful Spirit!” he continued, prostrating himself at her feet, “you have deigned to visit me in an hour of mortal grief;—hear, I beseech you, my earnest request, and grant a father’s prayer. Bestow upon that sinless child the happiness which is denied to his fallen race. Let his existence be bright, and without a cloud;—let the voice of grief be unheard in his dwelling, nor the tears of sorrow dim his eyes;—let him behold you face to face, and let his days be prolonged upon the earth!”—“Your wish is granted, Achbor,” said the Spirit, “and your son shall be happy as long as he wishes to make no acquaintance with grief; but in the hour he seeks sorrow, he shall surely die.”—“Be it so,” returned Achbor; and as he ceased speaking, the bright cloud suddenly disappeared, the shadow of night descended upon the apartment, and tears and silence gathered round the dead.

Joy hovered over the cradle of the infant Jared, and the sunshine of continual peace rested upon his brow. Childhood, youth, and manhood, were to him one bright uninterrupted season of felicity, and life a perpetual spring—a sea without a storm—a sky without a cloud—a beautiful beam emanating unbroken from the source of light. The waves of time swept over that placid brow; but like the sportive breeze which skims the surface of the summer ocean, left no traces of their course. In his person the doom of humanity was reversed. Every moment had its peculiar enjoyment, and the past, the present, and the future, were harmonized into one. To Jared, all things were beautiful, fair, and good; every feeling allied to rapture was his; but the tenderness of grief he had never known: sorrow, poverty, and disease, were by him unfelt and disregarded for the tutelar Genius which presided at his birth flung her glittering veil over the busy scenes of life, and concealed the miseries of mortality from his view. He lived in the light of her countenance, and his face reflected back the sunshine of her presence. Joy sparkled in his eyes, dwelt in his smile, and became audible in his voice, which, like some sweet melody heard in the stillness of the night, sent a thrill of rapture to the listener’s heart. Jared was happy, but his joy was entirely confined to his own bosom. There existed no sympathy between him and the sons of men. They could not comprehend his feelings, and he did not seek to participate in theirs. The source of his felicity was a fountain sealed, at which no man could quench his thirst. He was an object of envy to the vicious, and the good felt in his presence the same awe with which they would have regarded a visitant from the other world. Even Achbor shrunk from his caresses, and contemplated his beautiful aspect with secret fear. He reproached him continually with a want of sympathy in his sorrows; and Jared answered with the same serene smile, “that he was a stranger to grief.” The ungrateful father upbraided the good Spirit for having given him a son devoid of human feelings, and lamented the insurmountable barrier she had placed between them.

Unable to comprehend his discontented repinings, Jared left his father’s hut to enjoy his cloudless existence in the deep solitude of the forest—to inhale the perfum of the flowers—to listen to the voice of the breeze and the music of the waters—to join in the chorus of the birds, and to watch the young antelopes gambolling in the shade. His eyes were never weary of contemplating the beautiful face of nature, her charms were ever new to him, and in storm or in sunshine spoke gladness to his heart. He listened with as much pleasure to the deep voice of the thunder when it echoed among the rocks, and shook the distant hills, as to the soft sighing of the Southern breeze. His spirit traversed the rolling cloud and rose in proportion to the grandeur of the storm; and he bared his brow to meet the rushing torrents, and drank in the tears of heaven with eager delight. He saw in the grief of man, only those showers with which nature refreshes the earth. His anger was like the voice of the thunder which heralded the early and the latter rains; and he met the clouded brow, and the tearful visage with the same feelings of joyful serenity with which he contemplated the storm. Satisfied with all things—happy in all things, he drank the delicious freshness of the wave and sought no richer viands than the fruits of the earth—no softer pillow than her bosom, no higher privilege than to live with her. His heart unagitated by human passions was rich enough to vivify itself, and hope and fear, were alike strangers to his breast.

One beautiful summer evening, while wandering among the romantic passes of the mountains, Jared discovered a lonely secluded dell encircled by lofty rocks, whose rugged sides were covered with flowering shrubs, and their summits crowned with lofty cedars that lifted their spiral heads proudly towards heaven. In the centre of the dell was a large well, and a stone was rolled before its mouth to prevent the water from being absorbed by the heat of the sun, or defiled by the fallen leaves. To this well the Shepherds that inhabited the plains came every evening to water their flocks. Jared sat down on a piece of the fallen rock and was soon engaged in a delightful reverie—now watching the upward flight of the eagle, or listening to the cooing of the doves in the branches of the cedars above him—when the soft bleating of sheep diverted his attention and through the narrow defile by which he had entered the glen, a numerous flock approached the well, guided by a beautiful young woman arrayed in the simple garb of an Armenian Shepherdess. Jared had never before seen the human countenance on which he wished to look again, and a new sensation of joy shot through his frame. He rose from his seat and hastened to her assistance—rolling the stone from the mouth of the well he speedily filled the troughs with water. The dark eyes of the young Mehetabel, encountered the joyous glances of the happy Jared, and his sunny smile found its way into the maiden’s heart. She thanked the youth for his courtesy, and turned blushing away.

“Do not leave me beautiful creature,” said Jared as she was about to depart. “Come and sit with me beneath the shade of these trees and listen to the soft cooing of the doves.” “It is growing late, gentle youth,” said the timid Mehetabel, “and the flocks have far to go, and they must be folded before the wolf and the tiger are abroad.” Jared accompanied the Shepherdess home, and assisted her in folding the flock; and returned by the light of the moon to his cave in the forest. He dwelt with delight on the charms of the beautiful Mehetabel, and his dreams were full of joyous anticipations of the morrow.

The morning came, and Jared again met the fair Shepherdess.—The summer fled away, and the fields were white with the harvest, but no cloud had darkened the smooth brow of Jared. His love, like his life, was unruffled by a shade of care. Mehetabel was, like other mortals, subject to occasional fits of gloom, and she could not enter into the fulness of his joy; but for a while she was happy in the idea that she was the cause of it. But the beautiful Shepherdess was of a melancholy disposition and with the inconstancy of her sex, she began to grow weary of the eternal smile which rested upon the lips of Jared. If she was ever so sad or discontented he still smiled, and if she wept, his gay laugh was a mockery of her grief; and if she were sick, he appeared entirely insensible to her pain.

One evening Jared found her in tears, and she greeted his rapturous salutation with downcast eyes and a sullen brow.

“You do not smile upon me to-night Mehetabel,” said Jared, tenderly embracing her, “I cannot comprehend these frowns that mar your beauty.”

“Alas Jared! how can I smile and appear glad, when my father is dead?”

“What is death?” said Jared, “that it should cast a shade upon your brow. Is it not a calm delightful sleep, that ushers in a brighter day. I die every evening, Mehetabel, & awake every morning to fresh enjoyment.”

“Cold, insensible Jared,” cried the weeping Mehetabel. “You do not love me, or you would share in my grief. Nay, turn not your countenance upon me; those unnatural smiles pierce me to the heart.”

Jared raised his sparkling eyes that had never been dimmed with tears, to her face, but his joyous countenance only increased her sorrow, and she turned weeping away. “Cruel Jared, leave me to my own misery if you will not share my grief.”

“Surely it must be a pleasant thing to weep,” said the son of Achbor, thoughtfully, and a shade of discontent, for the first time, darkened the sunshine of his brow. “Since the sons of men seem so anxious to court sorrow, why has heaven denied me a blessing which the whole human race enjoy? Teach me, loveliest Mehetabel to share your grief.”

Tears filled his eyes as he ceased speaking, and a pang of unutterable anguish filled his heart. The blow was mortal, and he sank dying at her feet. The veil which had concealed the miseries of life from his view was suddenly removed—the face of nature was changed, and the whole earth resounded with the cries and groans of man. “Ah wretched Jared,” he said, “why were you not contented with the happiness that heaven permitted you so long to enjoy. You are justly punished for your ingratitude, in seeking an evil which was hidden from your view; a knowledge whose fruit was death.”

Then seeing his father approach the spot, he continued in a mournful tone; “Achbor behold your son! A son that can now sympathize in your sorrows, for he has experienced a heavier reverse of fortune than the loss of a crown, and his heart has been pierced with a grief yet deeper than your own!”

“Alas!” said the white-haired mourner, bending sorrowfully over the corse of his son. “The ways of Providence are just. Death can alone restore happiness to a fallen race!”

This excellent Sermon was preached on the conclusion of the year 1832—a year, the most disastrous ever known in the history of Canada. The venerable Archdeacon has dedicated it to Lord Aylmer, by whose desire it was published; and after it was actually in press, “he also received a letter, signed by a number of persons of the first respectability in his congregation, conveying their expression of the same desire.” Of the sermon itself we will merely say, that independent of the melancholy interest belonging to the subject to which it is devoted, it demands universal attention for its plain and energetic pathos, its passages descriptive of the fearful scenes exhibited during the prevalence of the pestilence, its touching, yet manly exhortations, its simplicity and strength of language. Several sentences in the following extract strongly reminded us of parts of De Foe’s account of the dreadful plague in London.

The appendix composed by Dr. Mountain from “materials hastily thrown together,” and “from very rough and very slight notes taken at the first opportunity after the occurrence of each separate incident that was noted,” contains several very interesting facts, which exhibit the contradiction and weakness of human nature, when suffering under the visitation of a fearful and desolating pestilence. With such ample materials as Dr. Mountain must necessarily possess, and from the active part he took as a minister of religion, in this scene of horror, we regret that he has not expressed his intention of compiling a narrative of the pestilence in Lower Canada.—The little he has already done towards it in the sermon and appendix, shows how capable he would be of doing it well on a larger and more circumstantial scale. Such a work would be a public benefit—for the more the world knows of the Cholera, the sooner, in all probability will a remedy be discovered for it. In the absence however of such a work, we proceed to extract the most striking facts from the appendix to the sermon:

Dr. Mountain thus very modestly remarks on the facts which came under his observation, at all bearing on the much disputed point, whether the Cholera be contagious or not.

The following facts we present to our readers in the order in which they occur.

From these thrilling and painful passages we turn to others of a description still more painful, and representing human nature in colors still more disgusting. As there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, so there is but one step from horror to levity, one extreme commonly producing an opposite extreme. An instance of levity, however, more striking than any mentioned by Dr. Mountain, occurred in England during the prevalence of the Cholera. A manager of a theatre, announced one evening, that on the next, a Farce, to be called the Cholera, would be performed. Before the hour for its performance arrived, the scoffer had fallen a victim to the destroying angel, whom he had thus profanely derided.

We will dwell no longer on these fearful and appalling-scenes; but, as if emerging from the valley of death, into the regions of light and cheerful day, we will refresh ourselves with a passage of exquisite beauty and truth:

By a wise and merciful ordination of a beneficent Creator, the human mind Chameleon-like, assumes a colour from the passing moment, as the clear blue lake reflects on its surface the fantastic forms of the clouds sailing through the Heaven above. Thus fashioned, the mind dwells not long on the same objects; even amid the gloomiest horrors, a ray of cheerfulness will shed its benign influence over suffering man, and divert his thoughts from sorrowful and painful subjects. Moreover when the mind is ill at ease, all without, wears an air of tranquillity and peace. The happiness banished for the moment from our own minds, seems to have been borrowed by nature, to heighten her loveliness and charms. Who that has walked out from the chambers of death and tribulation into the woods and fields, teeming with life, and vocal with the music of nature, but has felt a spirit of peace gradually allaying the troubles and afflictions of his heart? Every object on which he looks around proclaims the doctrine of immortality—the doctrine of a temporary death and decay succeeded by a glorious resurrection and renewal. The peace which steals over us on such an occasion may be blended with melancholy and sorrow, but it is a sorrow of a healing, not of a bitter description. Captain Basil Hall has said, that when the hammock containing the corse of a deceased sailor, is let down through the port-hole into the sea, the splashing of the water occasioned thereby, provided the ocean be calm and the day be enlivened by sunshine, produces a sensation of cheerfulness in the bystanders; and if we recollect rightly, the Quarterly Reviewer dilates with pleasure upon the truth and the poetical beauty of this remark. Does not the cheerfulness of sensation experienced on such occasions arise from the peculiar influence of nature? The same sensation would not be created, were the burial at sea to take place amid the fury of a tempest. The peace of nature leads the bystander to consider of a peace hereafter, which no storm will interrupt; a peace which he trusts, will gild the immortal existence of the being who has recently departed to that bourne from which no traveller returns.—These thoughts may produce the cheerfulness mentioned by Captain Hall—and thoughts of a similar nature doubtless threw their shadows over the mind of Dr. Mountain, when contemplating the scene he has briefly, but beautifully and feelingly, described in the above extract.

With these remarks, we take our leave of Dr. Mountain. His labors, and the labors of the Clergymen of all denominations during the past fatal year, can never be sufficiently rewarded in this world; and should Providence in its dispensations, think fit to visit our sister Province a second time with so fearful a scourge, may their valuable lives be spared; may the pestilence pass by their doors, as the destroying angel passed by the doors of the Israelites! Let us indulge the hope, that the present year may be saddened by no such scenes of terror as the past. Having adopted every sanitary precaution both as members of families, and of society at large, let us pursue our accustomed avocations without alarm, but with minds prepared to meet the evil should it occur, with promptness, energy and fortitude.—From an excellent little book,^[8] which ought to be in the hands of every one, we extract the following sensible remarks, which we hope will dissipate the sadness that may have clouded the minds of such of our readers as have followed us through this gloomy article.

To all those who peruse this our “Canadian Literary Magazine,”—by the by, we expect every body will do so, and apportion to it the laudatives which are doubtlessly its due—we recommend “Waterton’s Wanderings in South America.”—He has rectified some fallacies imbibed in our scholastic days and which had grown with our growth. For example, until our acquaintance with the aforesaid quarto, we had always esteemed the Ai, or Sloth, the most defective and unhappy of ruminant animals; that its progressive movement was tedious and almost imperceptible, effected too, not without pain; that, when in pursuit of the aliment necessary to eke out its miserable days, it toilfully ascended a tree, after tardily crawling from limb to limb, and denudating it of its foliage and bark, incapable otherwise to descend, it tumbled like an inanimate lump to the ground and suffered no trivial concussion; that, after lying awhile in a torpent state, it prepared for its migration to another tree, which, if but a few feet distant, proved the weary travail of a day, from the contraction of its feet and their clumsy adaptation; that these, short as they were, out-measured its legs, which latter so obliquely protruded from its body, that the sole of its foot was brought rarely in contiguity with the earth; that, to shift its station, which it never did, save when goaded into exertion by the keenest cravings of appetite, its toes were trailed circularly along the ground, in such manner as to make its advancement slow, halting, and unsightly; that, at every step, it uttered a moan indicative of anguish, declaring by its weepful eyes, as plain as any poor Ai can, that man is not the alone animal which “goes mourning all the day long:” yet little designed as it seemed, for any kind of fruition, it was described, and truly so, of all other created things the most tenacious of life.—We remember an anecdote of a Sloth’s having been suspended by its feet, and subsisting 40 days in that position without nourishment or sleep. Alas! he, who by such hellish experiment demonstrated this fact, must have been nothing but a very fiend with the veil of humanity thrown over his shoulders. Richly did he merit the infliction of the lex tahosis in his own person.

Thus have pseudographers been wont to picture the Ai—and gentle reader, for we trust our readers are gentle, and many of them fair too, could there have been a creature contrived more to excite the sympathies of our nature? We, at all events, whose mould is not precisely that of the Apollo Belvedere, because our dexter pedestrial extremity, Byron like, is rounded off in a knob; and the leg, or which subserves as such, and attaches it to our trunk, emanates thence, indirectly as it were, occasioning, we must confess, a hitch in our gait, not very dissimilar to this limping, anomalous Ai—we have hitherto hugged ourselves with the grateful idea, that we could beat such an incondite mass of animality out and out. But naturalists are apt to hallucinate as well as other bipeds; consequently we now discover the foregoing to be a wicked and monstrous libel, and that the Sloth ought, by no means, to have afforded a by-name for indolence.—He turns out a brute of more estimable properties, and truly we beg his pardon for the indifferent light in which we had regarded him. Instead of being cramped & constrained in his animal economy, his limbs are most judiciously suited to his habitudes and peculiarities. Instead of being doomed, as a kind of punition for his reprehensible edacity, to destroy the very source from which he derives his sustenance, he is comparatively harmless and inoffensive. What, though he be, for some inscrutable reason, fated to go sorrowing along, while on earth, is not man’s destiny the same? It is the theatre of our tribulation as well as the Ai’s—aye, and like us, he looks above for rest and happiness. When aloft in a tree, amidst his native solitudes, he is agile enough and possesses only this one spice of the devil in his disposition, that he is ever “busy in a gale of wind.” Nor is he the puny, contemptible poltroon represented, imploring the commiseration of an approaching enemy by his wo-begone visage and snivelling: no—like a gallant hero, he will manfully defend himself, though obliged to sprawl on his back for that purpose.

For the information of our juvenile readers, who may be anxious to contemplate and enquire into the works of nature, to discover the names and properties of all her creation, we mention from Linnæus that the solivagant Sloth, belongs to the

The two Sloths mentioned by Waterton appear to be the B. Trydactylus and the B. Didactylus of Linnæus, and are thus described by the latter.

We leave Waterton to delineate the Ai, whose character he has so ably vindicated, in his own felicitous style.

“This (South America) is the native country of the Sloth. His looks, his gestures, and his cries, all conspire to entreat you to take pity on him. These are the only weapons of defence which nature hath given him. While other animals assemble in herds, or, in pairs, range thro’ these boundless wilds, the sloth is solitary, and almost stationary; he cannot escape from you. It is said, his piteous moans make the tiger relent, and turn out of his way. Do not then level your gun at him, or pierce him with a poisoned arrow; he has never hurt one living creature. A few leaves, and those of the commonest and coarsest kind, are all he asks for his support. On comparing him with other animals, you would say that you could perceive deficiency, deformity, and super-abundance in his composition. He has no cutting teeth, and though four stomachs, he still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals. He has only one interior aperture, as in birds.—He has no soles to his feet, nor has he the power of moving his toes separately. His hair is flat, and puts you in mind of grass withered by the wintry blast. His legs are too short; they appear deformed by the manner in which they are joined to the body, and when he is on the ground, they seemed as if only calculated to be of use in climbing trees. He has 46 ribs, while the elephant only has 40; and his claws are disproportionably long. Were you to mark down upon a graduated scale, the different claims to superiority amongst the four-footed animals, this poor, ill-formed creature’s claim would be the last upon the lowest degree.

“Let us turn our attention to the Sloth, whose native haunts have hitherto been so little known and probably little looked into. Those who have written on this singular animal have remarked that he is in a perpetual state of pain, that he is proverbially slow in his movements, that he is a prisoner in space, and that as soon as he has consumed all the leaves of the tree upon which he had mounted, he rolls himself up in the form of a ball, and then falls to the ground. This is not the case.

“If the naturalists who have written the history of the Sloth had gone into the wilds, in order to examine his haunts and economy, they would not have drawn the foregoing conclusions; they would have learned, that though all other quadrupeds may be described while resting on the ground, the Sloth is an exception to this rule, and that his history must be written while he is in the tree.

“This singular animal is destined by nature to be produced, to live and to die in the trees; and to do justice to him, naturalists must examine him in this his upper element. He is a scarce and solitary animal, and being good food, he is never allowed to escape. He inhabits remote and gloomy forests, where snakes, take up their abode, and where cruelly stinging ants and scorpions, and swamps and innumerable thorny shrubs and bushes, obstruct the steps of civilized man. Were you to draw your own conclusions from the descriptions which have been given of the Sloth, you would probably suspect that no naturalist had actually gone into the wilds with the fixed determination to find him out and examine his haunts, and see whether nature has committed any blunder in the formation of this extraordinary creature, which appears to us so forlorn and miserable, so ill put together, and so totally unfit to enjoy the blessings which have been so bountifully given to the rest of animated nature; for, as it has formerly been remarked, he has no soles to his feet, and he is evidently ill at ease when he tries to move on the ground, and it is then he looks up in your face with a countenance that says, ‘have pity on me, for I am in pain and sorrow.’

“It mostly happens that Indians and Negroes are the people who catch the Sloth, and bring it to the white man: hence it may be conjectured that the erroneous accounts we have hitherto had of the Sloth, have not been penned down with the slightest intention to mislead the reader, or give him an exaggerated history, but that these errors have naturally arisen by examining the Sloth in those places where nature never intended he should be exhibited.

“However, we are now in his own domain. Man but little frequents these thick and noble forests, which extend far and wide on every side of us. This, then, is the proper place to go in quest of the Sloth.—We will first take a near view of him. By obtaining a knowledge of his anatomy, we shall be enabled to account for his movements hereafter, when we see him in his proper haunts. His fore legs, or, more correctly speaking, his arms, are apparently much too long, while his hind legs are very short, and look as if they could be bent almost to the shape of a corkscrew. Both the fore and hind legs, by their form, and by the manner in which they are joined to the body, are quite incapacitated from acting in a perpendicular direction, or in supporting it on the earth, as the bodies of other quadrupeds are supported by their legs. Hence, when you place him on the floor his belly touches the ground. Now, granted that he supported himself on his legs like other animals, nevertheless he would be in pain, for he has no soles to his feet, and his claws are very sharp and long, and curved; so that, were his body supported by his feet, it would be by their extremities, just as your body would be were you to throw yourself on all-fours, and try to support it on the ends of your toes and fingers—a trying position. Were the floor of glass, or of a polished surface, the Sloth would actually be quite stationary, but as the ground is generally rough, with little protuberances upon it, such as stones, or roots of grass, &c. this just suits the Sloth, and he moves his fore legs in all directions in order to find something to lay hold of; and when he has succeeded, he pulls himself forward, and is thus enabled to travel onwards, but at the same time in so tardy and awkward a manner, as to acquire the name of Sloth.

“Indeed, his looks and gestures evidently betray his uncomfortable situation; and as a sigh every now and then escapes him, we may be entitled to conclude that he is actually in pain.”

“Some years ago, I kept a Sloth in my room for several months. I often took him out of the house, and placed him upon the ground, in order to have an opportunity of observing his motions. If the ground were rough, he would pull himself forwards, by means of his fore-legs, at a pretty good pace, and he invariably shaped his course towards the nearest tree. But if I put him upon a smooth and well-trodden part of the road, he appeared to be in trouble and distress: his favorite abode was the back of a chair; and after getting all his legs in a line upon the topmost part of it, he would hang there for hours together, and often, with a low and inward cry, would seem to invite me to take notice of him.”

The pictures, therefore, we may have seen of the Sloth resting on the ground, or on the branch of a tree, are fictions. He is very rarely found in the former position: he leaves a tree only from casualty: in the latter, never; for he rests under the branch; he travels too, dependant from it, and sleeps dependant from it.

“Hence, his seemingly bungled conformation is at once accounted for; and in lieu of the Sloth leading a painful life, and entailing a melancholy and miserable existence on its progeny, it is but fair to surmise that it just enjoys life as much as any other animal, and that its extraordinary formation and singular habits are but further proofs to engage us to admire the wonderful works of Omnipotence.

“It must be observed that the Sloth does not hang head downwards like the Vampire. When asleep, he supports himself on a branch parallel to the earth. He first seizes the branch with one arm, and then with the other; and after that, brings up both his legs, one by one, to the same branch; so that all four are in a line: he seems perfectly at rest in this position. Now, had he a tail, he would be at a loss to know what to do with it in this position: were he to draw it up within his legs, it would interfere with them; and were he to let it hang down, it would become the sport of the winds. Thus his deficiency of tail is a benefit to him; it is merely an apology for a tail, scarcely exceeding an inch and a half in length.

“I observed, when he was climbing, he never used his arms both together, but first one and then the other, and so on alternately. There is a singularity in his hair, different from that of all other animals, and, I believe, hitherto unnoticed by Naturalists; his hair is thick and coarse at the extremity, and gradually tapers to the root, where it becomes fine as the finest spider’s web. His fur has so much the hue of the moss which grows on the branches of the trees, that it is very difficult to make him out when he is at rest.

“The male of the three-toed Sloth has a longitudinal bar of very fine black hair on his back, rather lower than the shoulder-blades; on each side of this black bar there is a space of yellow hair, equally fine; it has the appearance of being pressed into the body, and looks exactly as if it had been singed. If we examine the anatomy of his fore-legs, we shall immediately perceive by their firm and muscular texture, how very capable they are of supporting the pendant weight of his body, both in climbing and at rest; and, instead of pronouncing them a bundled composition, as a celebrated Naturalist has done, we shall consider them as remarkably well calculated to perform their extraordinary functions.

“As the Sloth is an inhabitant of forests within the Tropics, where the trees touch each other in the greatest profusion, there seems to be no reason why he should confine himself to one tree alone for food, and entirely strip it of its leaves. During the many years I have ranged the forests, I have never seen a tree in such a state of nudity; indeed I would hazard a conjecture, that, by the time the animal had finished the last of the old leaves, there would be a new crop on the part of the tree he had stripped first, ready for him to begin again, so quick is the process of vegetation in these countries.

“There is a saying amongst the Indians, that when the wind blows, the Sloth begins to travel. In calm weather he remains tranquil, probably not liking to cling to the brittle extremity of the branches, lest they should break with him in passing from one tree to another; but as soon as the wind rises, the branches of the neighbouring trees become interwoven, and then the Sloth seizes hold of them, and pursues his journey in safety. There is seldom an entire day of calm in these forests. The trade-wind generally sets in about ten o’clock in the morning, and thus the Sloth may set off after breakfast, and get a considerable way before dinner. He travels at a good round pace; and were you to see him pass from tree to tree, as I have done, you would never think of calling him a Sloth.

“Thus it would appear that the different histories we have of this quadruped are erroneous on two accounts: first, that the writers of them, deterred by difficulties and local annoyances, have not paid sufficient attention to him in his native haunts; and secondly, they have described him in a situation in which he was never intended by nature to cut a figure—I mean, on the ground. The Sloth is as much at a loss to proceed on his journey upon a smooth and level floor, as a man would be who had to walk a mile in stilts upon a line of feather beds.

“One day, as we were crossing the Essequibo, I saw a large two-toed Sloth on the ground upon the bank; how he had got there, nobody could tell: the Indian said he had never surprised a Sloth in such a situation before; he would hardly have come there to drink, for both above and below the place, the branches of the trees touched the water, and afforded him an easy and safe access to it. Be this as it may, though the trees were not above 20 yards from him, he could not make his way through the sand time enough to escape before we landed. As soon as we got up to him, he threw himself upon his back, and defended himself in gallant style with his fore-legs. ‘Come, poor fellow,’ said I to him, ‘if thou hast got into a hobble to-day, thou shalt not suffer for it: I’ll take no advantage of thee in misfortune; the forest is large enough both for thee and me to rove in: go thy ways up above, and enjoy thyself in these endless wilds; it is more than probable thou wilt never have another interview with man. So, fare thee well!’—On saying this, I took up a long stick which was lying there, held it for him to hook on, and then conveyed him to a high and stately mora. He ascended with wonderful rapidity, and in about a minute he was almost at the top of the tree. He now went off in a side direction, and caught hold of the branch of a neighbouring tree; he then proceeded towards the heart of the forest—I stood looking on, lost in amazement at his singular mode of progress. I followed him with my eye till the intervening branches closed in betwixt us; and then I lost sight for ever of the two-toed Sloth. I was going to add, that I never saw a Sloth take to his heels in such earnest; but the expression will not do, for the Sloth has no heels.”

There, reader, what think you of the Ai now? If you, like ourselves, have been accustomed to traduce this poor creature, you will rejoice that the roving and inquisitive propensities of Waterton urged him to peep into the distant and solitary wilds of South America.

This admiral, second son of Samuel Pellew, Esq. was born at Dover, on the 19th of April, 1757; and, in 1771, accompanied Captain Stott, in the Juno frigate, to take possession of the places discovered by Byron. He subsequently went to the Mediterranean with the same officer, who, on account of some misunderstanding between them, put him on shore at Marseilles.

On the breaking out of the American war, he joined the Blonde frigate, in which he sailed to the relief of Quebec; and soon after removed to the Carleton, in which he distinguished himself in the battle fought on Lake Champlain, on the 11th of October, 1776. In 1777, he was taken prisoner, with General Burgoyne’s forces, at Saratoga; in 1780, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant; and subsequently served on the Flemish coast, in the Apollo frigate; which, while cruising near Ostend, lost her captain, in a smart action with the Stanislaus, a vessel pierced for thirty-two guns, but carrying only twenty-six. Both ships suffered severely in this encounter, which terminated in the escape of the Stanislaus to the harbour of Ostend.

For his conduct on this occasion, Pellew obtained the command of the Hazard sloop, stationed in the North Sea; and, on the 31st of May, 1782, he was promoted to the rank of post-captain. In 1783, he commanded the Dictator, of sixty-four guns, in the Medway; and afterwards, the Salisbury of fifty guns, on the Newfoundland station. During this period, he twice jumped overboard, to save a fellow-creature from drowning; though, on one of these occasions, he was labouring under a severe indisposition.

At the commencement of the war with the French republic, he obtained the command of the Nymphe; with which, while on a cruise in the channel, he captured a French frigate, called this Cleopatra, after a remarkably close and well-contested action. For this service, Captain Pellew was immediately knighted, and appointed to the Arethusa, of forty-four guns, attached to Admiral Warren’s squadron. On the 23rd of April, 1794, the Arethusa, and three of her consorts, while cruising off Guernsey, fell in with four of the enemy, of which, after a spirited action, they captured three. On the 23rd of the following August, he succeeded, with the boats of the fleet, in destroying a French frigate and two corvettes, which had been driven on shore by the British fleet; and, in October, while cruising off Ushant, with a small squadron, under his own command, he captured a large French frigate, called the Artois. In the early part of 1795, being then under Admiral Warren, he was directed to attack a French convoy, of which he captured seven, and destroyed eleven vessels, within sight of the Isle of Aix. Shortly afterwards, he was again placed at the head of a small squadron, with which he took and destroyed fifteen sail of coasting-vessels.

On the 6th of January, 1796, he performed a noble action at Plymouth. The Dutton, East Indiaman, being driven in by stress of weather, struck near the citadel, and the sea broke over her, until all her masts went by the board, and fell towards the shore, the ship heeling off with her side to seaward. At this critical moment, Sir Edward Pellew, observing that the gale increased, and knowing that the flood tide would make a complete wreck of the vessel, earnestly entreated some of the spectators to accompany him on hoard, to attempt rescuing the crew; but the port-admiral’s signal midshipman, Mr. Edsell, alone volunteered his services. With great difficulty and danger, by means of a single rope, they reached the wreck, from which they succeeded in getting a hawser on shore, and saved the whole crew. For this heroic act, Pellew received the freedom of Plymouth; and, in the following March, was raised to the dignity of a baronet.

He shortly afterwards went on a cruise with the Indefatigable, and four other frigates; during which, he captured a fleet of French merchantmen, L’Unite, of thirty-eight guns and two hundred and fifty-five men, and La Virginie, of forty-four guns and three hundred and forty men. On the 13th of January, 1797, with his own frigate, and the Amazon, he attacked a large French ship, off Ushant; from which, however, after an engagement of five hours’ duration, he was compelled to sheer off, for the purpose of securing his masts. During the action, the sea, it is said, constantly ran so high, that his men were often up to their waists in water; and, in the course of the following night, the Indefatigable narrowly escaped being wrecked. The next morning, when her commander intended to have renewed the battle, he perceived the enemy lying on her broadside, with a tremendous surf beating over her. At five o’clock, the Amazon struck the ground; but the whole of her crew, with the exception of six, who stole away in the cutter and were drowned, reached the shore, where they surrendered as prisoners of war. Of those on board the French ship, which proved to be Les Droits de l’Homme, of eighty guns, upwards of thirteen hundred unfortunately perished.

In addition to the prizes already mentioned, Sir Edward Pellew’s squadron had, up to the end of 1798, captured sixteen armed vessels and privateers, mounting, in the whole, two hundred and thirty-eight guns. He continued to serve in the Indefatigable until the spring of the next year, when he removed to the Impetueux; and, in 1800, he was despatched, with a fleet of eighteen sail, to co-operate, in Quiberon Bay, with the French royalists. This expedition, as well as a subsequent one to Belleisle, being attended with no success, the squadron under his command proceeded to blockade Port Louis, in the Mediterranean; where one of his lieutenants captured a French brig, called Le Cerbère.—He soon after accompanied Admiral Warren on the expedition against Ferrol; and, served subsequently, for a short time, under the orders of Admiral Cornwallis. In 1802, he became a colonel of marines, and member of parliament for Barnstaple; in which latter capacity he made an able speech in defence of Earl St. Vincent, who was then at the head of the admirality, on the 15th of March, 1804, when a motion was made for an inquiry respecting the naval defence of the country.

On the renewal of hostilities, he was appointed to the Tonnant, of eighty guns; on which occasion, with a view to procure the services of a respectable schoolmaster for the ship, he offered, by advertisement, to add £50 to the government allowance, out of his own pocket. Having shortly afterwards taken a ship, on board of which the wife of a French deputy had embarked with £3000, the produce of her property, to join her husband in banishment, at Cayenne, he restored to her the whole of the sum, and paid, from his private purse, that share of it to which his subordinates were entitled.

He was next employed, with the rank of rear-admiral of the white, as commander-in-chief, on the East India station. In 1806, he took, or destroyed, thirty vessels at Batavia; and in the following year, completely annihilated the Dutch naval force in the East Indies. On the 28th of April, 1808, he was made vice-admiral of the blue; and, after having received an address of thanks from the ship-owners and underwriters of Bombay, he returned, in 1809, to England.

In 1810, he hoisted his flag on board the Christian VII. and was employed at the blockade of Flushing. He subsequently removed to the Caledonia, of one hundred and twenty guns, and succeeded Sir Charles Cotton, as commander-in-chief on the Mediterranean station. In 1814, he was elevated to the peerage, by the title of Baron Exmouth, of Canonteign, and made admiral of the blue. On the 2nd of January, 1815, he became a knight companion of the Bath; and, on the return of Buonaparte from Elba, he assisted, with a squadron, at the reduction of Toulon, and the restoration of the King of Naples.

In March, 1816, he sailed to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli; whence, after having concluded treaties for the abolition of Christian slavery (inter alia) he returned to England in June. On the 20th of the next month, the Algerines having already violated the terms of their treaty, he was directed to hoist his flag on board the Queen Charlotte, of one hundred and eight guns, and proceed with a squadron to obtain satisfaction. He arrived off Algiers, with fifteen sail of the line, four bombs, and six Dutch frigates, on the 27th of August. Early the next morning, he sent a boat ashore, with a flag of truce, to announce the demands of the British government. After a delay of three hours, during which a sea-breeze enabled the fleet to set into the bay, the boat was seen returning, with a signal that no answer had been obtained. Lord Exmouth immediately made his final preparations for the attack that ensued, of which the following, with a few abridgments, is the account published by his secretary:—“I remained on the poop with his lordship, till the Queen Charlotte passed through all the enemy’s batteries without firing a gun. There were many thousand Turks and Moors looking on, astonished to see so large a ship coming, all at once, inside the mole; opposite the head of which she took her station, in so masterly a manner, that not more than four or five guns could bear upon her from it. She was, however, exposed to the fire of all their other batteries and musketry.

“At a few minutes before three, the Algerines fired the first shot, at the Impregnable. Lord Exmouth, seeing only the smoke of the gun, before the sound reached him, said, with great alacrity, ‘That will do!—Fire, my fine fellows!’—and before his lordship had finished these words, our broadside was given.—There being a great crowd of people, the first fire was so terrible, that, they say, more than five hundred of the Turks were killed and wounded; and, after the first discharge, I saw many running away under the walls, upon their hands and feet.

“My ears being deafened by the roar of the guns, I began to descend the quarter-deck. The companies of the two guns nearest the hatchway wanted wadding; but not having it immediately, they cut off the breasts of their jackets, and rammed them into their guns instead. At this time, the Queen Charlotte had received several shots between wind and water.—All the time of the battle, not one seaman lamented the dreadful continuation of the fight; but, on the contrary, the longer it lasted, the more cheerfulness and pleasure was amongst them, notwithstanding the firing was most tremendous on our side, particularly from the Queen Charlotte, which never slackened nor ceased, though his lordship several times desired it, to make his observations. At eleven o’clock p. m. his lordship having observed the destruction of the whole Algerine navy, and the strongest part of their batteries, with the city, made signal to the fleet, to move out of the line of the batteries; and, with a favourable breeze, we cut our cables, with the rest of the fleet, and made sail, when our firing ceased, at about half-past eleven. When I met his lordship on the poop, his voice was quite hoarse, and he had two slight wounds, one in the cheek, the other in the leg; and it was astonishing to see the coat of his lordship, how it was all cut up by musket-ball, and grape; it was, indeed, as if a person had taken a pair of scissors, and cut it all to pieces. The gunner of the Queen Charlotte, an old man of seventy, said, ‘that in his life, he had been in more than twenty actions, but that he never knew or heard of any action that had consumed so great a quantity of powder.’ ”

The consequences of this attack were, a public apology, from the Dey, to the British consul: the recovery of three hundred and eighty-two thousand dollars, for Naples and Sardinia, and the liberation from slavery of four hundred and seventy-one Neapolitans, two hundred and thirty-six Sicilians, one hundred and seventy-three Romans, six Tuscans, one hundred and sixty-one Spaniards, one Portuguese, seven Greeks, and twenty-eight Dutch.

On his return to England, Lord Exmouth was raised to the dignity of a Viscount, and received the thanks of both houses of parliament, as well as a sword from the city of London, and a splendid piece of plate from the officers who had served under him in the expedition. In the autumn of 1817, he was appointed to the chief command at Plymouth; where he continued, with his flag in the Impregnable, of one hundred and four guns, until February, 1821. At the close of the war, he was serving in the Mediterranean; and, on his retiring from command, the flag-officers and captains on that station presented him with a piece of plate worth five hundred guineas. In addition to his other honours, he obtained a grand cross of the Bath, and a diploma of LL.D. He was also appointed vice-admiral of England.

Lord Exmouth, on his retirement from public life, repaired to his seat near Teignmouth, where he lived in rural seclusion. His sight almost entirely failed him, and rumors of his decease were constantly afloat. He died, however, in the month of January last, at his house at Teignmouth, surrounded by his family—one of whom, the Rev. Edward Pellew, Dean of Norwich, had only arrived in time to take his sorrowing stand by the death-bed on which the most honored hero of the British Navy, and a man the most amiable in all the social endearments of domestic life, was closing his last scene. He had been for a considerable time suffering under severe illness; in the first stage of which he became quite delirious, and was wholly engrossed with the idea that he was then actually engaged in fighting the Dutch fleet. A few days before his death, he appeared to feel himself better; and, on noticing the improvement, said—“I have lately been going too leeward, but now I am working to windward again.” By his wife, Susan, daughter of James Frowd, Esq., he has left two sons,—the present Lord Exmouth, a captain in the navy—and the Hon. Captain Fleetwood Pellew,—and, we believe, one daughter, Lady Halstead. His funeral, in obedience to his own wishes, is to be strictly private.

Lord Exmouth was in every respect, an honour to the British navy. Such an union of lofty heroism, consummate skill, and active benevolence, as he has displayed, is almost without parallel. “He was a most excellent seaman, even while a captain; and took care never to order a man to do what he himself would not. By way of showing a good example, therefore, he was accustomed, at times, when the mainsail was handed, to assume the post of honour himself,—standing at the weather earing, while Mr. Larcom, his first lieutenant, was stationed at the leeward one.”

He is said to have been so unskilful an equestrian, that, not daring to cross a horse, he once rode a donkey while reviewing a body of marines. On this occasion, it is added, he was attended by a favourite negro boy, named after his master, who, having been made acquainted with the vulgar appellation of the animal on which Lord Exmouth was mounted, innocently observed, as he waited by the side of the gallant admiral and his asinine charger, “Here be three Neddy now, massa.”

In his politic, Lord Exmouth was a Tory, and opposed the Catholic Relief Bill, and the Reform Bill, against which he voted by Proxy.

During the American war, the Indians brought into Niagara, among other prisoners, a child under ten years of age, who, together with a black woman who had charge of her, had been stolen from the house of her father, Colonel Cole, in Pennsylvania, on a Sunday, whilst the family were at church.

The child was subsequently brought to Montreal by a publican named Campbell, who purchased her from the Indians, and was there recognised by a neighbour of her father’s, who was also a prisoner of war. On the establishment of a cartel for the exchange of prisoners, the child was considered as such, and arrangements were made to restore her to her friends by the hands of her father’s kind neighbour, who was also availing herself of the benefit of the cartel, and who promised to take charge of her.

On the morning when the cartel was to leave Montreal, the prisoners assembled at the cross. The publican Campbell claimed the child as his slave bought of the Indians, and the Aid-de-camp of the commanding General declined interfering to oppose this barbarous claim, but consented to detain the cartel until General De Speight could be applied to. Application was therefore instantly made, but the General still refused to allow the child to embark with the other prisoners, although the Commissary-General of Prisoners had certified that she was free to proceed.

As the transaction took place in the presence of the other prisoners, and would doubtless give occasion to much reproach on the English flag, a gentleman who happened to be present purchased the child from the person claiming her as his slave, for the price he declared he had paid for her to the Indians, viz. eleven guineas and a half; which being paid, the pretended owner resigned his claim, and handed over to the gentleman the roll of tobacco, and the wampum, which the Indians had given him, as a receipt for the purchase money. No further obstacle then occurred, and the child was herself enabled to carry this opprobrious account to her father’s country.

The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Frederick Haldimand, on being informed of the circumstance, repaid to the gentleman, with thanks, the eleven guineas and a half.

THE LITERARY ADVERTISER

CHAMBERS’

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT

A FEW copies of the above highly interesting work, which contains the most complete view of the life, character, and writings of the great Minstrel of the North, that has appeared, have been just received, and are now offered for sale at the Montreal Gazette office. Price 2s. 6d.

Dec. 18, 1833.

JUST PUBLISHED, and for sale, at the Book Store of Messrs STARK & CUNNINGHAM, a SERMON, preached in Christ’s church, Montreal, on the occasion of the GENERAL THANKSGIVING, on the 6th instant, by the Rev. J. Bethune.

Montreal, Feb. 23, 1833.

JUST PUBLISHED, and For sale at Lesslie & Sons, York, a RETROSPECT of the Summer and Autumn of 1832; being a SERMON delivered in the Cathedral Church of Quebec, on Sunday, the 20th December in that year, by the Venerable G. H. Mountain, D. D. Archdeacon of Quebec, Rector of the Parish of Quebec, examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Quebec.

With an Appendix, containing a selection of some few facts, and particulars of interest, connected by the late awful visitation of the Cholera Morbus.

JUST PUBLISHED, and for sale at the Book Stores of H. H. Cunningham, T. A. Starke, and at the Montreal Gazette Office, Price 2s. 6d.

“Ships, Colonies, and Commerce.”—Napoleon. London: Jno. Murray, Albemarle Street.—Re-printed by A. H. Armour & Co. Montreal.

Montreal, Jan. 15, 1833.

UPPER CANADA CHRISTIAN ALMANAC.

FOR 1833.

THIS interesting and useful Publication, may still be had at the Depository, kept by Messrs. M’Lellan and Henderson, Market Square, also at Messrs. E. Lesslie and Sons, Dundas, and at Mr. Leonard’s, Hamilton.

PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS, H CURRENCY;

TO be Published by Subscription, under the Patronage of His Excellency, SIR JNO. COLBORNE, K. C. B., Lieut. Governor of the Province of Upper Canada, &c. The Honourable and Venerable Archdeacon of York, the Reverend Dr. Harris, Principal of the College, &c. A new and concise System of Arithmetic, calculated to assist the improvement of Youth, by William Phillips, Euthographic Artist, Teacher of Writing, Arithmetic, &c. in Ladies Schools, and in private families.

Subscriptions will be received by Messrs. Lesslie and Sons, York and Dundas; Messrs. Henderson and M’Lellan, Market Square, York; Mr Keating, British Coffee House, and at the Courier Office.

York, October the 27th, 1832.

JUST published, at the office of the Hallowell Free Press, THE HISTORY OF METHODISM IN CANADA.

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

This magazine was transcribed from microfiche of a very old document. There was significant dropout of various characters; in particular many punctuation characters were missing or hard to interpret.

[The end of The Canadian Literary Magazine, No 1. April 1833 by various]