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“Mourn not, my own best beloved one”—said Charles Maitland, as he pressed his betrothed Mary to his bosom—“and yet, while I chide your grief, I own that this expression of your regard awakens in my heart emotions of exquisite delight, as it convinces me that I am beloved—beloved by one, without whose affection this world would be to me a wilderness and life a burden. But let the sad melancholy which fills our minds at the thought of this separation be over balanced by the cheering prospect, that in one short year we shall be again united—united never to part. Let this miniature remind you of one, whose thoughts will ever be with you, and as you look upon it, remember the vows which we have uttered in the presence of Him, whose smile has thus far blessed our loves, and who, I doubt not, will ensure to us the fulfillment of our fondest wishes. Let us, my Mary, now implore his grace without whose approbation vain will be our hopes”.—They knelt, and the deep, tremulous tones of Charles Maitland’s manly voice, in all its thrilling fervour, supplicated heaven’s richest and choicest blessings upon his Mary; he prayed that He, “who never slumbereth or sleepeth” would ever protect her, and that his guardian love would suffer no evil to come nigh her. With enthusiastic ardour he poured forth his soul, and commended their best interest to Him, who, he was assured, would in infinite wisdom overrule every event for their good, and, in his own time, permit them again to meet. He ceased and for a moment they remained in the same devout posture, as if they would fain continue to indulge such high and holy converse. They arose and the sweet and holy peace displayed in the countenances of each, told that He, “who is over present to all who call upon him” had lent a listening ear to their supplications, and while they were yet speaking, had vouchsafed the blessing. One more fond embrace and they separated, and not till the last trace of his noble figure was lost in the distance, did Mary turn from the spot where herself and her lover had parted.

The parents of Mary Lee and Charles Maitland had been intimate companions from their earliest youth. Mr. Lee and his friend Maitland had learned their early tasks together, and they had shared, in the same University, the bright laurels of academic glory. Mary’s father chose a profession so congenial to his feelings and character, and became a clergyman, and when he settled in the romantic town of L—— Mr. Maitland established himself there in mercantile business. Many years had passed over them in bright and uninterrupted happiness; and in their children were the parents’ virtues concentrated. Mary was the only child of her parents, and her excellence, in its full force, was appreciated only by those who knew her best. Of brilliant talents and extraordinary beauty, which was heightened by a smile of benevolence, that ever rested upon that love lighted face, she secured the friendship of all who could estimate her virtues, and many were the attached and admiring friends who walked in the light of her talents and piety. The poor welcomed her as their ministering angel, for such indeed she was to them in the hour of sickness and want. Many poor ignorant souls were taught by her the way to heaven, and whose last breath was spent in blessing her, as the means of leading them to repose their hopes of eternal happiness in the only saviour of sinners. An attachment, ardent and unabating, had ever existed between Mary Lee and Helen Maitland, who, elegant in mind as in person, was every way worthy to be the bosom friend of her “sister Mary” as she used fondly to call her. From her earliest childhood, Mary had been the inseparable companion of Helen and her brother, and sanctioned by their parent, even in their youthful days, Mary and Charles would promise to love for each other. With Mary did Charles visit the sick and the dying, the poor and the afflicted, and while listening to the instructions which she never failed to impart to the ignorant and unenlightened. While he hung upon the lips which spoke of the mercy, tenderness, and love of the Redeemer he learned to trust in Him and find sweet peace in believing. Their fondest, and dearest hopes were connected with each other, and although Charles was necessarily separated from the home where his heart remained, to continue those studies with greater facilities, which he had commenced under Mr. Lee’s tutor, every month brought to Mary some pledge of his affection; and he returned from time to time, to witness the increasing loveliness of his Mary, and to renew his protestations of unaltered attachment. When his education was completed, his filial regard bid him to take the weighty cares of his father’s increasing business upon himself, as this dear parent’s constitution was feeble, and his health uniformly delicate. Had he followed the dictates of his inclination, he would have preferred the untried and useful life of a clergyman, which profession his distinguished literary attainments and promising talents would have eminently adorned. But to this noble minded youth, the path of duty was the path of happiness and peace; and in that he ever walked. As soon as he had satisfactorily arranged his business, he claimed the hand of Mary, which her parents had pledged when he should be located for life. They gave him their hearts’ fervent blessing, and directed him to Mary, to name the happy day which would give to them a son, whom they now loved, next only to their darling daughter. Blushingly she yielded to his solicitations, that in one short month they should be united forever. But before that period had elasped an unforeseen occurrence delayed their happiness. The business in which Charles was engaged was extensive, and a partner was located in Paris, who transacted the business there. He had died suddenly, and left the affairs of the firm in such a state, that it was necessary that Charles should be there as soon as possible. His last interview with his betrothed bride has been described, and we leave him to indulge the reflections which filled his mind as he left his native village, while we introduce to our readers the companion of his journey. Edward Winthrop was a young man possessed of an ample fortune, polished manners and insinuating address. At college, he had been the intimate friend of Charles, whose pure and generous nature indulged no suspicion, that Edward did not possess all the noble qualities which his warm enthusiastic ardour led him to believe existed under an exterior so bland, and fascinating. Had he been permitted to know the motives which actuated Edward Winthrop, he would have recoiled with horror from the wretch, who meditated destruction to his peace. In the confidence of friendship, the fond lover had shown his friend the miniature which he ever wore next his heart; and when Edward gazed on the heavenly beauty of that face, a fiendish jealousy took possession of his soul, and he determined to leave no means untried, to secure this angelic being for himself. Indulging as he did the contemptible belief, that no female heart could resist his irresistible personal attractions even when her affections were pledged to another. When that other, he allowed himself to think, was so inferior in external fascinations, he doubted not that he could easily secure the love of this fair one, whose beauty had so powerfully affected him. But when at the expiration of their academic career, he complied with his friend’s earnest desire that he would accompany him to his beloved home, a favour however which he had determined to bestow long before it was requested, he found that Mary Lee’s heart would be no easy conquest and he read in the fond enthusiasm of her sparkling eye, as it rested upon Charles, destruction to his wicked hopes. But when his friend, with a countenance radiant with happiness, informed him that his Mary had consented to become his wife before another month should elapse, envy knew no bounds, and while, with a bland smile, he expressed his congratulations—malice was rankling at his heart—and his joy was unbounded when the news arrived which compelled his friend to leave his lovely Mary. Apparently in the enthusiasm of friendship, he offered to accompany him. With delight did Charles accept his proposal, happy in the thought, that he could speak of his Mary’s perfections to one who knew her and could respond to his enthusiastic emotions.

After Charles’s departure Mary and Helen were seldom separate—Helen idolized her brother, and his virtues, his talents and his goodness were the inexhaustible theme of their conversation. After he reached Paris the first vessel informed them of his safe arrival, and assured his darling Mary, that amid the cares and bustle of business, her loved image was ever present before him, and he delighted to reflect that time and absence would not diminish the love which she had confessed for him. He spoke of his friend, and with enthusiasm descanted upon his kindness, and the happiness which his society afforded him. Mary and Helen had no secrets between them, and the moment Mary had perused her letter, Helen became acquainted with its contents.—“I must acknowledge” said Mary, as they discoursed on the subject which Charles’s letter had suggested, “that I have no penetration—for notwithstanding Mr. Winthrop’s fascinating appearance, I fancied I could discern in him many unamiable qualities—but I was mistaken, I doubt not, and while he is worthy of the affection and confidence of my Charles, he shall have my friendship.”—Helen replied not—for although she had not confessed to her own heart how deeply she was interested in her brother’s friend, yet it was evident that she had not regarded his particular attentions to herself with indifference—Time passed on, and every vessel assured Mary that she was remembered. Six months had elapsed since his departure, and one evening Mary received a letter which chilled her warm heart—there was no particular expression which she could detect as peculiarly deficient in affectionate warmth, but it seemed cold and formal—She knew not why, but she felt a reluctance that Helen should peruse it; “but,” she reflected, “perhaps, my jealous love may imagine a coldness when it does not exist—I should not compare his expressions with the excessive fondness which my heart feels for him.” She immediately sought Helen and gave her the letter. She perused it in silence and exclaimed—“Charles must be much engaged in his business, for his heart is evidently much more intent upon that than upon this letter when he penned it.”—Mary felt that her suspicions were correct; at the moment, she wondered why she had not thought of the probable reason of it. She assented to Helen’s remark, and dismissed all doubts from her bosom, although this letter did not afford her such unmixed delight, as his previous communication had done. . . . Two months passed and Mary heard nothing from Charles—at the expiration of that period, she recognized his well known hand in the superscription of a letter directed to her, and with an agitation for which she could not account, she opened it, and her eye vividly glanced over its contents—It was short and cold—He said nothing of the pressure of business, or apologized for disappointing her—Helen had brought her the letter, believing as she did that it would assure her darling “sister” of the continued love of Charles, and awaken in her fond heart unmingled delight; but in Mary’s distressed and anxious countenance, she noticed how its perusal affected her, and eagerly she took the letter from the trembling hand which offered it—What can my brother mean said she, after she had read it?—How changed—How unlike the enthusiastic devotedness which ever characterised his affection for you—and then, as she saw Mary’s agonized expression, she endeavoured to comfort her, with all the tenderness of her nature—She conjured her to remember the many years of uninterrupted happiness they had spent together, when Charles was ever affectionate and ardently attached to her; she reminded her of the many proofs of his love, which she had received, and assured her that there must be some cause of which they were not aware, which had thus strangely altered him. And then as Mary called to mind the scenes of her youth when her faithful memory portrayed the unnumbered instances, when his every word, look and action evinced his deep, fervent affection, and when she remembered that his conduct had not in any instance been marked by change or sickness, it was the more inexplicable, and she determined, with all the excusing indulgence of woman’s nature, to take no notice of this alteration; and her reply was affectionate and tender as her letters were wont to be. Helen promised her friend that not a word should pass her lips relative to the change in his letters, and Mary’s self command prevented her fond parents from suspecting that she was not the same light-hearted being that she had ever been. . . . Another letter came, and its never varying theme was the disinterested kindness of his friend, and although this was a subject interesting to Helen she could not forgive the evident want of regard for Mary’s feelings which Charles displayed, while he coldly expressed his friendship for her, but allowed himself to dwell with all the warmth of his nature upon his “dear Edward.” She expressed her indignation with bitterness, but Mary reproached him not. In silent anguish she reperused the letter, hoping to find one epithet of endearing tenderness applied to herself. But no—such were profusely lavished upon his friend, and it was plain that he no longer indulged those feelings for her, which it was once his delight to confess. His subsequent letters were “few and far between,” and at the expiration of a year, he wrote that his business would detain him longer in France. This intelligence was a death blow to Helen’s hopes, for she fondly believed that his return would revive his fondness for Mary, and impatiently she had looked forward to it. And now she would fain have written to her brother, and reproach him for his conduct, but Mary would not permit it. Her feelings were unaltered save in one respect. She had thought her Charles a faultless being, and in his noble countenance she had delighted to trace the evidence that every manly virtue dwelt in his heart—but now her unhappy experience had taught her, that he had one weakness, which would ever form a barrier to her happiness. An inconstant heart, she could not but acknowledge, Charles Maitland possessed, and where was her security, if new scenes could thus readily efface her image from his heart? These were reflections which she indulged in secret, for seldom did she allow herself to speak of him even to the friend of her bosom. She replied to his formal letters, although her pride would not permit her to express the tender love with which she still regarded him, and schooled her heart to adopt a style as stiff and cold as his own—Yet still she loved him. Her love had grown with her youth, and she felt that she could cease to regard him with the fondest affection, only when she ceased to live. It was as intense as it was deep, and she knew that he occupied a place in her heart, next only to her God. Now was the time to test the reality of her piety, and she did not allow herself to indulge the deep withering grief of her heart. Her life had been an uninterrupted day dream of sunshine, but now was the dark reality of sorrow. Her face was not so radiant with happiness as it was wont to be, and her step less light and gay, but she was uniformly cheerful, and none but Helen suspected the secret grief which was wringing her heart. She now devoted more of her time to visiting the sick, and while reading to them the precious promises of God’s holy word, she felt that here was her only consolation, and that in the bright world to which she directed the dying, she should bless the chastening hand which had taught her to realize that this world “was a broken reed to lean upon.”—She did not hope that death would soon terminate her existence—She felt that her parents’ happiness centered in her, and for them, for Helen and for her God, she was willing to live. She avoided the favourite spots which were endeared to her as scenes which had witnessed Charles’ fond endearments, for she felt that it was wrong to indulge the agonizing grief that they awakened. She looked forward to the future with calmness—for she had resigned herself and all that was dear to her, into the hands of her Heavenly Father, and with sweet childish confidence she ever prayed “Not my will, but thine be done.” Had Helen not understood the nature of her friend’s piety and known the source of her consolations, she would have doubted the sincerity of the affection which she had professed for Charles, but she knew that hers was a heart, which when it had once loved would love for ever, and her regard increased almost to adoration, as she witnessed her calm resignation. By the tacit consent of each, Charles was seldom the subject of their discourse, but when his name was mentioned, her changing cheek and unusual agitation betrayed her thrilling emotion, and showed that it touched a chord, which extended through the inmost recesses of her loving heart. Oh! there is a holy constancy in woman’s love, which neither neglect or unkindness can diminish—Though its object prove unworthy and the honour of his name is stained with infamy—Though his is the hand that deals the blow against her peace, and makes this world to her a wilderness—Yet upon him she has poured “the rich profusion of affection’s cup,” and his voice is still the sweetest music to her ear, even as if was wont to be, when with impassioned fervour he first confessed his love; his eye is the light of her existence, although it kindles not with the fond enthusiasm which, in happier days, told her all she wished to know—In the sadness and melancholy of her darkened prospects, one smile from that being, in whom are centered her best and holiest affections, is to be the sun-light, which can cheer her darkest hour and bid all gloom depart.

Many were the times, as in the calm expressive hour of twilight, which she ever devoted to the holy, saint-like purpose of invoking the blessing of heaven upon the absent one, who, in the bitterness of her soul, she felt had been faithless and inconstant to his vows, would Mary Lee take his miniature from her bosom, and recalling the tenderness and fond love with which he presented it to her, would gaze on the mild features of that noble face, that smile so benign and heavenly, which beamed from an eye, in whose expression genius and sweetness were so softly blended, and then she felt in the depth of her fond heart, that he was as dear to her as ever—The spirit of the past came over her, and she would allow her soul to linger upon the sweet scenes which dwelt in memory’s land, and she lived o’er again the bright days of her childhood when Charles Maitland had appeared to her all that she thought or imagined of human perfection, and when the past became a present reality and the happy hours of other times came back again, she ceased to remember that he had ever been to her other than the same fond being, to whom she had yielded up her young affections and with all the heart’s deep fervency she prayed, that God would protect him—would ever be near to bless and comfort him—would make his days on earth joyful and bright—and with a disinterestedness irreparable from a woman’s love, she asked that the sorrows destined for him might all be hers, and that his heart might never know a pang—an emotion—save that of joy and happiness. After this hour of setting day, she was ever calm and peaceful and when the hour of family prayer drew nigh, her voice, so full of pathos and power, seemed to add new beauties to those inevitable breathings of the Psalmist, which she generally selected as most expressive of her devotional feelings. Her piety was daily becoming more fervent and devoted, and well it was for her that she cherished its holy influence, for an hour was coming when she would need all the power of Heavenly consolation, for soon she was to lose the friend whose love had cheered her whole existence and who was indeed the sister of her heart. Helen became the victim of a cold, which settled upon her lungs, and soon it became too evident, that her earthly course, so bright and joyous as it had promised to be, was soon to terminate in the grave. But she was prepared to die. Mary’s instructions, and the tender earnestness with which she pressed upon her the importance of making the saviour her friend, while she was in life and health, had not been lost upon her, and she had given her heart, with all its youthful hopes, to One who now supported her in this trying hour. When the startling truth was imparted to her, that soon she must be taken from those she loved only less than God—that she must forever close her eyes on this beautiful earth—she felt that she could not be resigned, but this was but a momentary cloud—it soon passed away and she could say with joyful exultation: the less of this cold world, the more of Heaven—the briefer life—the earlier immortality. One subject only occasioned sad emotions. She could not but hope, that she should see her fondly beloved brother before she died, and as in his last letter he informed them of his intention to return immediately, she looked forward with anxious anticipation—and fondly trusted that ere she bade adieu to earth, she might have the happiness of seeing Mary and Charles as happy in their affections as they were wont to be—Mary was her constant nurse—she would permit no other hand to administer her medicines or prepare her food. She watched over her with unceasing solicitude and in her absorbing devotion to her friend, Mary for a time almost forgot her own sorrow—She would read to the dying, give the rich promises of the Bible, so fraught with comfort to the believing sinner, and in her own thrilling eloquence, directed her friend’s mind to that happy world, where there is no more sin or sorrow—where no tears would mingle in her never ceasing song, and where her soul, freed from aught that could tarnish its purity, would forever dwell in the bosom of her God. At such times the kindling enthusiasm of her eye and the glow of feeling that rested on her cheek, showed that death was associated in her mind, with all that was elevated and happy—she thought less of leaving earth than of entering Heaven.

The crimson light of the setting sun shone gloriously through the trees, and was reflecting into Helen’s apartment, on the evening of a day, in which she had been unusually feeble; she expressed to her weeping friends who stood around her dying bed, her sense of the near approach of death—I feel that before another morning, said she, my sun of life will have set to rise no more—but mourn not my beloved friends—my fond mother—my tender father—my dearest Mary—I love you all; but I am willing to leave you; for “I know that my Redeemer liveth” and that unworthy as I feel myself to be, I have an interest in his salvation—yes! This mortal shall put on immortality. At this instant a travelling carriage was heard—it stopped before the door—a faint flush passed over the cheek of the dying girl, and her eyes beamed with unearthly lightness, as she murmured, “my brother!” Soon he was at her bed-side and with a countenance expressive of the agony of his soul, he caught her thin trembling hand, and with uncontrollable emotion, pressed it to his lips. He seemed unconscious that any other being was present, and each member of that mournful group seemed incapable of aught, but giving vent to their grief, in low stifled sobs—“Oh my brother!” breathed Helen, “heaven has heard my prayer, and will, I doubt not, give me strength to say what my heart desires—I will not reproach you Charles, for this is not an hour for the exercise of any, save the kindest feelings of the soul—and your own conscience, if you allow its soft, truth telling voice to be heard, will tell you how guilty you have been in throwing from you the love of one whose affection and tenderness never failed. But my brother, Mary will forgive you, although you have so deeply wounded her gentle heart, and now let me unite your hands, even as I hope your hearts will soon be.” She joined their passive hands in hers, and bowed her head upon them. The room was still, and the deep grief of those who stood around her dying bed, had for a moment been diverted by a scene so strange and inexplicable. To her parents, Helen’s words were the first intimation they had received, that Charles was other than the faithful devoted being that he had once been. The sensible impression of sorrow might be traced in the noble features of Charles Maitland’s face, but no expression of remorse touched its manly features—and when his dying sister spoke of his guilt, his lip quivered with proud defiance—but she noticed it not.

They raised her head, but her angelic spirit was before the Throne of her God. Personal feelings were disregarded for the time, and Charles and Mary sympathised in each other’s sad emotions. Mr. and Mrs. Maitland were not strangers to the piety, which had shed around their daughter’s dying bed, the bright lustre of a Christian’s hope, and in this hour which tried their souls, they experienced its efficacy. Yet they mourned as ever do fond parents the loss of a child near and dear to their hearts, and Charles endeavoured to raise their thoughts to that Heavenly world where he doubted not the spirit of his sister mingled with saints and angels, in praising Him who had redeemed her. And while Mary listened to the soul cheering consolations which he presented, she felt that he was the same devout Christian that he once was, but she read in the sorrowful expression—the deep seated grief which rested upon his features, that he was not the light-hearted, joyous being from whom she had parted. Occasionally his molting eye rested upon her, with a tenderness which thrilled to her inmost soul. But with it an expression of deep reproach was mingled: She felt that she deserved it not and she turned her face from his ardent gaze, that he might not discover in her tearful eye, the sad feelings which almost overpowered her. He evidently avoided a private interview, and when his parents noticed his altered demeanour towards that gentle being, whom they loved with parental affection, they sought the earliest opportunity of learning its cause. “Question me not on that subject,” he replied, while his cheek glowed with emotion and his manner betrayed uncommon agitation—“question me not, if you would not drive me to madness,”—and he paced the room with quickness, and pressed his hand to his forehead as if he would fain shut out the reflections which haunted him.

That evening the form of Helen Maitland, dressed in the robe of whiteness which adorns departed innocence, was laid upon her bed—Sickness had not stolen from her one grace which death had not restored. So thought Mary Lee, as she stood beside her departed “sister” and gently kissed her pale marble brow—“Sweet spirit,” she murmured, “thou art at rest—a rest how holy—Oh that my work on earth were done, and that it was my Heavenly Father’s will that I should soon follow you.” “And is there nothing here for which you would desire to live”? said a voice near, and the low music of whose words touched her heart. She turned and Charles Maitland stood beside her, and gently taking her hand—“Oh Mary, there was a time,” but recollections are painful—He drew her to a seat and continued. “Think not that I would reproach you. He who reads my heart can see no feeling towards you, save tenderness and love, but I cannot rest till I learn from your own lips, that you no longer love me. I had determined that you should never know the anguish which has rent this bosom, for my pride would not permit me to confess that my affection had survived your own. But my sainted sister’s dying words have awakened strange emotions within me, although I am as free from the guilt that she mingled with my name, with such fearful reproach, as her own blessed spirit. She said too that you would forgive me—perhaps I have erred—I know I have, by loving you even as I should have loved my God, but of Him only should I ask forgiveness”—He ceased—for Mary’s hand trembled violently within his own, and her whole frame appeared agitated. With great effort she said: “Charles, I feel that it is my duty no less than your own, to speak freely, frankly. I cannot understand your meaning. You express yourself, as if mine had been a faithless heart and that your own had been unchanging.” “And is it not so Mary? Surely your letters but too plainly prove it, for they have been characterised by cold and studied expressions, which spoke in language too evident, to be misunderstood.” “But you will allow, Charles,” said Mary, “that you could not accuse me of this, till my pride would not permit me to adopt any other language, having such convincing proof that you had ceased to love me.” “What!” exclaimed Charles, “such proof never existed, You have forgotten circumstances which are but too well remembered by me. Allow me to offer for your reperusal, letters which have caused in my heart, emotions of keen and bitter anguish.” He left the room, but returned immediately and gave to the astonished Mary a small packet. “If you wish it,” said he, “I will retire till you have perused these letters.” “No,” she replied, with a proud consciousness of her faithful devotedness. “I have never yet penned a line to you, which I should hesitate to own or peruse in your presence.”

Charles gazed on her as if he almost doubted the evidence of his senses, and then turned from her to contemplate the angelic countenance of his departed sister.

Mary opened the letter which bore the date of her first communication; it was affectionate, but she wondered that she had not expressed her ardent feelings in a warmer language. The next was friendly, but she was convinced that her heart had never dictated expressions so common place. She looked at the superscription; it was written in her own hand, she was perplexed.—With a hasty and agitated movement, she glanced over the remaining letters. They were all short and cold—“Here has been some fatal mistake,” she breathed rather then said. Charles turned—“Would that it were indeed such!” he ejaculated—“Charles,” said she, in a low trembling voice, “in the presence of Him, whose eye is ever upon me, and before this emblem of immortality, which reminds me that soon I too shall appear before God, I solemnly assure you, that I never penned those letters, and that my love has known no change.” Here was no room for doubt. Charles Maitland believed her words, for well he knew the sterling principle of Mary Lee. “Then you are my own, dear Mary, even as you used to be,” he murmured, as he clasped her to his bosom. “Oh what a load you have removed from my heart! Now I understand it all. You too have been cruelly deceived, I doubt not; tell me, my Mary, have my letters the same cold, indifferent character?” “They have indeed,” she replied. “And yet you reproached me not, when I harshly censured you. Oh! Mary, I am unworthy of you.”

We must draw a veil over the scene that followed. There are emotions too holy and unearthly to be exhibited to the world, and such were those, which Charles Maitland and Mary Lee now experienced. It is enough to know, that when they separated that night, it was with the sweet and happy consciousness that each to the other, had been faithful and unchanging.

The next day, all that remained of the lovely and beautiful Helen Maitland was consigned to its kindred earth there to remain, “till the last trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.” Mary saw her friend laid in her last home with calmness and resignation, and although she mourned her loss, she felt that she would not recall her, for she was assured that for her “to die was gain.”

Six months afterwards, one May’s bright morn, Charles and Mary sealed their nuptial vows—it was an union of hearts, and in that hour of thrilling happiness, they recognized their Heavenly Father’s love, in his dealings towards them, and unreservedly devoted themselves to his service—In taking a retrospective view of the past, they sometimes dwelt upon their last separation and the deception which was practised upon them, for they had discovered that it was the base ingenuity of Edward Winthrop, which had procured and rewritten for his own depraved purposes, those letters, which had been the cause of so much misery to this now happy pair—but long since has he been summoned before his God. After he learned that Mary was forever lost to him, notwithstanding the skill which had contrived, and the wickedness which had executed plans which, he doubted not, would eventually secure his object, he abandoned himself to the indulgence of every vice, as if he hoped to drown in dissipation his disappointment and remorse. His constitution was soon enfeebled, and in less than a year after Mr. Maitland’s marriage, he was summoned to attend his dying bed—no ray of hope lighted up his countenance—all was dark, and drear and comfortless. He made a full and free confession of his guilt, and while Mr. Maitland endeavoured to direct his expiring vision to the only hope of the guilty, his spirit fled forever.

Often do Charles and Mary speak of the virtues and piety of their dear departed sister, but not as those who mourn without hope, for they look forward with joyful confidence to the time when they shall be reunited,

Happy in each other, and dispensing to all around the blessed influence of their talents and piety, Charles Maitland and his still lovely wife pass their days in unsullied happiness. No cloud darkens the horizon of their hopes, for they are raised above the dark atmosphere of earth, and anchored fast by the throne of God. A softened and more elegantly portrayed reflection of her husband, Mary reposes beneath his protecting tenderness, and walks in the light of his piety, with confiding happiness, while she seems hardly conscious of a separate existence, and as her lovely boy, in the laughing joy of childhood, rests his sweet blue eyes upon his mother’s face in the winning beauty of infancy, she tells him of one whose love is better than a mother’s, and, while his mind is tender and sensible to impression, she plants the seeds of moral goodness there, and with a parent’s fond assiduous care, cherishes the growth of every virtue.

MARIA.

Bedford, 17th April, 1833.

From the (London) Ladies’ Museum.

F. W. N. BAYLEY.

Translated for the Museum, from the “Lit de Camp.”

Mort Dieu! you shall hear what happened at the hospital of the camp of St. Nicholas, and what was the result.

Two Genoese, volunteer soldiers of the Republic, had demanded admittance into a French legion. In the idea that they might prove useful upon occasion, they were incorporated in the light troops commanded by the count De Vaux.

Giacomo the father, a man more calcined by the frequent use of ardent spirits, than by the corrosion of age, had an enormous head with a frightful expression of countenance. A broad forehead, strongly marked by forked veins, almost black with excess of blood, and commencing much beyond the temples; a tuft of hair, hard and coarse as that of a horse stood up straight and brush-like at the summit of his scull; he wore large mustachios which hung over his mouth and covered his under lip. A thousand times he was heard to swear by his soul and the evil one, when, in action, he happened to bite this hair in endeavouring to tear his cartridges. Large fiery red eyes scintillated under his grey eyebrows, which were drawn in a horizontal line.

What a singular being was this Giacomo! True! And he was perhaps less hideous in his physical appearance than when closely examined in his moral state of brutality. When a man, pierced through the body was breathing his last convulsive sigh, when the last sound of the death rattle was in his throat, and other men turned their heads aside, Giacomo looked on with a ferocious smile, or burst into the laugh of a hyena or of a chakal.

Again, what a singular being was this Giacomo the Genoese, who was enrolled in the legion of the count De Vaux. But still more extraordinary, perhaps, was his son the ex-contrebandist. One habit distinguished him from his father; in the different encounters which they had with custom house officers, during their nocturnal expeditions and the transport of articles of fraud, if any of the revenue officers were killed (and it was generally the case), Giacomo the elder first directed his attention to the bottle.

But his son went to the purse. Money was his only passion; hatred and gaming were his two loves, his true, intimate, and profound affections. He was particularly a gambler to excess, it was a rage, so much so that one day, having nothing left to risk on a card or the dice, he offered to stake the soul of his mother.

One night a French soldier, a gambler also, did not appear at the calling of the roll, nor was he ever seen again. I cannot help thinking, (since I have known the anterior life of these two Genoese,) that it is most likely the young Giacomo had pushed him into some deep ravine, after a gaming quarrel.

The next day we had a grand affair. Several times, our body was the first to charge. Giacomo seemed on roses, and revelled in the delights of a true swordsman. For want of ammunition, his son had thrown aside his rifle, and seizing one of the enemy by the body, wrung him in his hands like the branch of a tree. But the Corsican at length got the advantage, and harpooned him with his teeth in the part above the eye, and tore his eyebrow and the flesh. He, on feeling the blood cover his lips, put forth his immense tongue, like a bull-dog caressing his sores. The bursting of a bomb, which occurred at that moment terminated the struggle: the Corsican had disappeared, carried I know not whither, and the Genoese tiger was rolling at the distance of some paces, gasping and nearly stifled.

Giacomo’s son was recovering from his contusions but not from the bite; when on the 5th of May, we arrived in front of the camp of St. Nicholas. It was decided that it should be immediately besieged, and orders were given to that purpose.

Towards the close of the day in the enemy’s ranks was seen a man who was remarked without being sought for; a commanding genius was displayed in his countenance, and a germ of grandeur, like an imperial emblem, appeared to play around his head; near him and closely following, was a superb woman, beautiful and young; she was a copy of those statues we meet with in Italy, at the doors of the temples, her complexion resembled that of certain voluptuous fresco paintings. She was mounted on a black charger, and attached herself to the Corsican chief who appeared to be her husband. It was impossible not to feel a profound sentiment of interest for this woman whose intrepidity impelled her (although enceinte) to share the perils of a soldier.

The next day the field of St. Nicholas belonged to us.

Nothing was heard, but a few shots in the distance, when all at once an unexpected explosion took place within an hundred paces of me, and struck Giacomo in the jaw. The ball had broken several of his teeth and split his mouth two inches beyond its usual size. Giacomo fell on the ground howling. It was horrid to see him thus, and his rage was frightful.

I have not enough to kill me at once, said he to his son; I am then condemned to die in an hospital, tonnere!

And he rolled in the dust gathering it up with the blood that flowed from his wounds. His son was dumb on his knees before him and looking on with a stupid stare.

The old Giacomo was placed on a litter, and transported to the hospital—Tonnerre, tonnerre! cried the patient according to his usual custom.

—One shot from a carabine and my end is certain. By San-Giacomo, my patron, let me! let me die in peace, I only want you to go for my son. . . .

Giacomo, the son arrived . . .—Child, said his father to him, this ball is driving through my head, you must take it from hence with a knife or a sabre, no matter how; but you must take it from there. . . .

It is all I bequeath you . . . with my vengeance, continued he with difficulty turning on his side.

And this is not a trifle, for all the harm the Corsican has done me. . . .

This is what I intend that you should do with what I leave you. . . . Giacomo, the son, was all ears, and, but for a shudder that shook him by intervals, he might have been taken for a stone.

—First vengeance!

The enormous mouth of the wounded man opened with joy at this word; but it was with difficulty he closed it again.

—Vengeance!—Slaughter in honour of me as many of these brigands as you can.—And the son coldly repeated the sentence.

—As to the ball, to lodge it in the heart of a chief would be too little.—But listen.—When you meet with that woman so beautiful.—That woman whom you saw at the camp of St. Nicholas, take aim! and fire on her and her child, dost thou hear?

And the son, in a low and monotonous tone repeated each word after his father, as a scholar would a prayer which we learn him.

—I am content—In the mean time I suffer much, you may commence.—Take my knife, it is the sharpest.—Ah! first pour me out a few drops of brandy, the least in the world; it will be long ere I drink any more, unless however there be a tavern up there—or down there—

Accordingly, the Genoese took the osier bottle and poured several drops on the torn flesh. And then came oaths, his eyes seemed starting from their orbits, tears of rage, frightful convulsions and gasping for breath.

He died under the knife of his son, for his son kept his word: and when he was dead all the army would see, before he was buried, the man who had spoken a long time, wanting the half of his head.

Shortly after that, and after our victorious entry into the town, the son of the old bandit perceived the beautiful enceinte, but had not time to take aim at her, so rapidly did she disappear.

In the mean time our success continued, and the Corsicans were so discouraged to see Pascal Paoli their chief quit his country and sail for Leghorn that they at length submitted to the valour of the French army.

It was an evening at Ajaccio—Giacomo played yet, but he had just lost his all; neither bread or shelter remained to him.

—What? hast thou nothing left? asked one of his friends.

—No.

—Search better, Giacomo.

He again sought in his pockets and drew from thence a ball all marked by teeth and still dyed with blood.

—A ball!

—It is of silver!

—Perhaps it would not be staked, but it is of lead and I will keep it.

Much laughter was excited by this attachment to a piece of lead.

—Well, friends, we must give ourselves some pleasure to-morrow!

—It is the 15th of August, the Assumption of the Virgin, a great holyday at Ajaccio, cried one of them.

As the conversation continued among the members of this joyous society, Giacomo alone remained silent.

—This devil of a flayer has been buried in reflection ever since Corsica has belonged to France.

—Yes on my faith; ever since the war has ceased, Giacomo has been sick.

—I see what it is, throw him a well filled purse, another town to storm, with fixed bayonet, and you will see him laugh.

—Why was not I carried off by a cannon ball at the battle of Ponte-Novo! and then I should neither be the butt of your silly jokes, nor reduced perhaps to perjure myself by not fulfilling a vow.

—Art thou taking offence? asked one of his comrades shaking his arm.—

—A vow! cried another catching the words of the questioner;—and what is it?

—It shall be for me, if I cannot send it to its address! murmured Giacomo rolling between his fingers, and then putting into his empty leathern purse, the ball of chewed lead.

—Adieu, adieu, Giacomo! then, said his friends who understood not the mania of his sorrow.

—Adieu comrades!—And Giacomo remained alone.

—It is more than three months, said Giacomo talking to himself, that I swore to my father to avenge him with the same weapon that struck him! When then shall I again find this woman, I have killed many of theirs, I have not been false to the memory of my father, but her! her!. . . .

He was torn by agitation; and in a sort of madness, he fell heavily on his bed, but slept not; he thought of his losses and his oath at the bed of death. Daylight surprised him still buried in reflection.

At the hour of the morning when the sun tints the edifices of Ajaccio with a pale red, all the bells commenced executing their wild but grand harmony. This concert drew Giacomo from his lethargy, and he felt an internal heat which seemed to enlarge his frame and redouble his strength.—That is perhaps her knell or mine; perhaps the death warrant of both; the day will be beautiful and the fête brilliant, added he after having looked at the sky through the window.—Oh! yes, very brilliant, for this is the 15th August 1769.

He proceeded to the church.—Superb were its ornaments, and its altars flaming; gold and tapers shone throughout the edifice; chanting, music, and incense rose in clouds from the cold paved floor, on which the congregation was devoutly kneeling to the arched roof. In an alcove elegantly decorated with richly embroidered silks, the Virgin decked in pearls, and beautiful, from her celestial look of candour and her worldly apparel, was presented to view.

—What splendid pictures! said one of Giacomo’s friends.

—I prefer the diamonds of the Madonna, answered a second.

—What a number of handsome women, remarked another.

—I want but one! said our Genoese in a low voice;—and I am seeking . . .

His eyes rolled on all sides, even to the walls. The time of retiring came, all looked joyous but Giacomo.

Outside, the streets and roads were strewed with palms and roses, the latter, red and white; blue-bottles, starred daisies and saffron colored broom, all producing an odour that intoxicated like music, like opium, or the balmy kiss of woman; and the sky seemed to take part in this fête, for it was blue, transparent, and cloudless; there were tents erected every where, and each avenue was shaded.

When the moment for the procession arrived, the crowd directed itself towards its passage: all Ajaccio flowed into the street through which it was to pass. And then reiterated cries of wild joy, and showers of flowers; and the young women wore precious stones, and the people were dressed in their best clothes, all taking pleasure in seeing and being seen by others.

At length a general sound of bells announced that the procession had commenced.—It was beautiful! by my faith it was. Fresh, ruddy faces, framed in white and embroidered ornaments, with veils and ribbons floating, banners of all colours, and standards ornamented with gold, oriflams of flame color, with large silk tassels; artificial garlands parodying nature, singing, an odour of wax, and again aeriel, vapory music; religious hymns, and priests in files with rich copes, followed by numerous boys of the choir. Next, between two lines of soldiers, came a colossal silver statue of the Virgin, the heritage of a past age bequeathed to the piety of a living one; after, to close the march, came the nobility of Ajaccio, the remains of ancient patrician families.

—And Giacomo! what has become of Giacomo? demanded his comrades. And they sought for him with their eyes in the crowd without success. But their attention was soon diverted by a choir of young girls who passed, and for a moment they forgot Giacomo. . . .

But soon.—Look, there . . . follow the line of my finger.

—It is true, and what is he doing? The questioner raised himself on his feet to see better, and with the aid of his neighbours, . . . he saw: . . . God! how fixedly he looks at a woman standing on a terrace opposite to him!

—A handsome woman faith! Giacomo! Giacomo! One of them tried to call him, but an officer of justice silenced him, because he troubled the public peace.

—But what in the devil’s name does he hide under his mantle? . . . How pale he is!

—See how he frightens these women who retire from near him.

In truth Giacomo trembled in all his limbs: a fatal project weighed on his brain; by the agitation of his features, and the disorder of his motion, those near him almost understood his purpose, and moved back in terror. Giacomo perceived it not, but continued to watch the person on the terrace, who was collected in pious prayer.

But at the moment that the train was closing, a pistol went off, a groan was heard, and the beautiful enceinte fainted.—A ball had passed over her head.

The confusion was such that the assassin escaped, and no one knew what became of him.

In front of the house into which the inanimate woman was transported, the people were gathered in crowds. Some said she had received a ball in her heart, and that after her death she was still admirable. Others pretended it was not in the head she was wounded, but that herself and child were struck by the blow. Many even went so far as to say, that he who had killed her was a discarded lover.

But nothing of all this was true, nothing, for the explosion alone had frightened the young woman, and the ball had been so badly directed that she scarcely heard its whistling.

Every person of distinction thronged into the apartments; among whom were several physicians who came most opportunely, for the young lady experienced a crisis. Two minutes after, she was reclining, pale and discoloured, on her couch, the curtains of which were for a moment closed around her.

Each one questioned the other, and awaited with anxiety for the result; at length the invalid revived, the oldest of the physicians held up in his arms the being who had just received life.

Child! thy patrician ancestors figure in the great book of gold. Thou wilt not disgrace them, but add to the glory inherited from them. Son of Letizia Kamolini; grand-son of the holy standard bearer of Saint Nicholas, Governor of Florence, to thee returns the name of the Ursins: Son of Charles Bonaparte—Hail!

Napoleon was born.

The following letter, lately received from Mr. St. John, the Author of ‘Lives of Early Travellers,’ and other works, will be read with interest by his many friends, and, we think, by the public generally.

An ingenious apparatus has lately been constructed by Mr. Hicks, of Wimpole Street, for roasting by gas. It is extremely simple, and, as we can testify, very perfect in operation. The meat is stuck upon an upright spit or spike, round the base of which is a metallic ring, like the oil receiver of a table lamp; and on the outside of this ring is a fissure, through which the gas issues in regulated quantities. The meat being spitted and the gas lighted, a copper cone is lowered over the whole, and the roasting is effected by the heat radiating from the sides of this cone. A duck, a pigeon, a leg of mutton, and a very large piece of beef were roasted in our presence; and certainly, the duck and the pigeon, of which we partook, were excellent. Much, however, remains to be done, before the invention can be made serviceable. There are numberless uses for a kitchen fire, besides roasting; and few families will be inclined to admit the most horrible of all nuisances, a gas-pipe, into their house, on the mere chance of an occasional service in this way. Neither do we think it will ever be found so effective for general purposes, or so cheap as some of the portable kitchens which can, by a lamp or two pennyworth of charcoal, cook a whole dinner; but Mr. Hicks is an ingenious man, and no doubt many applications and improvements will hereafter suggest themselves to him.

BY A LADY,

The Author of “Tales of the Heath,” &c. &c.

“Cease your entreaties dearest Caroline, I cannot eat,” said Colonel Maberly, rising hastily from the table overcome with emotion which he had ineffectually endeavoured to suppress—“No my love I cannot eat,” and throwing himself upon the sofa, the tears of feeling rolled down his manly cheek. His wife no less alarmed, at the expression of grief depicted on the pallid countenance of her husband, than at conduct so opposed to the usual cheerfulness and gaiety of his character, affectionately taking his hand, implored him to allow her to share his griefs, and no longer conceal from her the cause whatever it might be, that had given rise to sensations or so distressing a nature.—“You are aware my Caroline,” he replied, “that we have recently had some trouble with our men, owing to a spirit of disaffection which had betrayed itself among them, particularly among the recruits.—I am sorry to say that Joe Miller through his friendship for one (who enlisted at the same time, and from the same village as himself) has become involved in the scrape.—Decisive measures have been deemed necessary to check the rising evil, and the offenders, on their conviction before a court martial, which has just terminated, have been sentenced to suffer death!”

Joe Miller had been, and very deservedly so, a great favourite, not only with his Colonel, but also with every man in the regiment, for on many occasions he had manifested a nobleness and generosity of conduct that had secured him the general esteem of his comrades, though his ambitious spirit had not yet become quite reconciled to the restraints of military discipline, for he had only been a few months in the service,—yet he had breathed his first breath in the family of his noble Colonel, his father after many years faithful service had died in their employ, leaving this lad then very young, with an infirm widow, wholly unprovided;—the industry and steady exertions of Joe Miller towards the support of his mother, and his care and tenderness of her, became a theme of universal encomium in his native village, where many a parent would hold him up as an example to their rising progeny. He had just attained his eighteenth year, when his mother died, and he resolved from that moment to enter the army,—declaring that to serve his country, under the command of Colonel Maberly, was now his highest ambition. An intimacy blended with feelings of strict friendship, had from their earliest days existed between Joe, and another young man of the name of Norman; they had been born in the same village, christened in the same church, and on the same bench had received the first rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, a similarity of circumstances as well as fortune seemed simultaneously to attend these youths—for Norman too, had lost his father, and, stimulated perhaps by Joe’s example had also performed his duty towards his remaining parent in a very praiseworthy manner, for she in a great measure depended upon her son’s exertions for her daily subsistence.—The hour of trial however had arrived, Joe enlisted, and Norman determined to do the same, notwithstanding the persuasive arguments held out against such an act, by his mother, and also by his friend—all their rhetoric was of no avail, and on the same day they both entered as privates the —— Regiment of Foot, commanded by Colonel Maberly; it had been a source of gratifying pride, and happiness to that noble minded commander, that the officers and men of the corps to which he belonged, had been such as fully to maintain the brilliant reputation it had gained in the service; it may therefore be readily credited, that an appearance of disaffection and insubordination was productive of the most poignant regret—in the present instance it was doubly painful, as at least he knew that one of the offending party was a man whose character before had never known the stigma of reproach, and who, he now felt sure, had fallen rather the victim of injudicious influence, than from any bad propensities of the heart.—Thus do we account for the contending emotion which had betrayed itself in the conduct of Colonel Maberly on the morning to which we allude at the commencement of our narrative. The humane nature of that officer led him to intercede for a mitigation to the awful sentence—his application was not in vain—out of the six culprits, three only were to suffer, as an example to the rest, but as all the condemned party were considered equally guilty, it was arranged that they were to cast lots for the decision. Fortune favoured Miller, he drew a prize—his comrade, and the friend of his earliest days however was less successful—and, as he saw him remanded to the condemned cell, his heart which had never shrunk from personal danger or privation now yielded to the influence of acute feeling for the hopeless situation of his unhappy friend.—That firmness which is supposed to characterize the soldier now for a moment forsook him; he fainted and would have fallen to the earth, but was supported by the arm of his less afflicted companion—if animation had been suspended, it returned however with invigorated firmness, and an energy of mind gigantic in its nature.—Upon recovery finding himself at liberty, this noble minded youth flew to his Colonel, and soliciting, obtained permission to visit his hapless companion in his wretched cell. He found the miserable man in the arms of his aged and afflicted mother, who having been apprised of her son’s disgrace, had walked many miles, that she might embrace and bless him before his death, an event which her aching heart told her, she could not long survive.

Miller entered the abode of misery unobserved by his friends, in breathless anxiety he stood gazing on a scene, that would have melted a heart less susceptible, and more hardened in scenes of woe than his had been,—after a pause of some moments, and, as if unconscious of the act, he exclaimed: “I will save him! oh yes, I will save him, for his own,—for his poor widowed mother’s sake; I am equally criminal, and if the sentence be just towards him, it is equally so towards me; besides, I have no ties upon earth—my poor mother is gone, and none will now be left to suffer by my untimely death—yes, Norman, thy friend will save thee, and thy poor mother’s heart shall not on thy account be broken!”—He advanced extending his hand to his unfortunate companion, who with his two fellow sufferers, was doomed on the following morning, to pay the penalty of the sentence decreed to them by the court-martial. Norman, who had caught indistinctly the last sounds as they escaped the lips of his friend, seized with a convulsive grasp the proffered hand, while big drops of anguish rolled down his pale but manly cheek.—“Save me! Miller,” he exclaimed, “ ’tis impossible, no, my sorry doom is irrevocably fixed,—it cannot be—but my poor, poor mother, do not let her die of want”—And turning hastily round he gazed on her, the gaze of wild distraction and uttering a groan that would have pierced a heart of steel, he sunk into a stupor from which neither the efforts of Miller, or the tears of his poor mother could rouse him. “We have now no time to spare,” said the former, “fortunately, Norman and I are of the same height,” and stripping off his coat and cap he placed them on his unconscious companion, whose aberration of mind would at any other period have given rise to the most serious alarm; the exchange of apparel had however hardly taken place, and the unhappy man had sunk into a corner of his cell in a state of torpid insensibility when a file of guard entered and demanded their prisoners. The fatal hour had arrived;—without uttering a sentence, Miller threw aside his coat and surrendering himself to the unsuspecting guard walked firmly but silently forth with his fellow sufferers, taking care however, by dropping his head on his bosom to conceal with all possible care his features. As the prisoners appeared on the fatal platform the sound of the muffled drum gave a solemn, and mournful announcement of their approach—the whole troops in the garrison were drawn up to view the warning spectacle—As Colonel Maberly cast a glance through the ranks, he observed that Miller was absent, a feeling of displeasure ruffled his brow, but it was not the moment for investigation—Again an awful and lengthened pause,—a death-like stillness pervaded the ranks, not a sound was heard, and many a brave fellow who had unflinchingly encountered the dangers of the field of battle now turned pale, and sickened, while he listened for the dreaded but fatal word which was still unuttered, when a cry of “stay—stay—for Heaven’s sake stay” was echoed through the crowd, and Norman deathly pale rushing to the spot threw himself on the bosom of his friend, exclaiming; “No, Miller, no, this is too much, it cannot be allowed, I am the man to suffer, and not you.” Colonel Maberly advancing demanded an explanation which Norman gave in so feeling a manner that it had its due weight upon every by-stander, he concluded by stating, that the unparalleled offer made by his generous comrade, had so overwhelmed his mind, that he had fallen for a time into a state of perfect torpor totally insensible to what was passing. But he thanked God, that he had been restored to a state of consciousness before it became too late—the moment that reason returned, and the remembrance of his friend’s offer rushed across his mind, he had torn himself from the arms of his mother, and was now ready to meet his fate! The Colonel who had given an attentive ear to what had passed, and evidently much affected by the recital, advancing towards Miller, said, addressing his men, “soldiers, this brave fellow commands our protection and esteem, he must not go unrewarded—the proceedings for this day are stopped, the prisoners must return to their cell, and I will do all in my power to obtain their pardon and release.” The urgent application conveyed to the commander-in-chief by the colonel had its full effect—in a few days Miller was summoned to the quarters of his commanding officer, and from his hand, received the full pardon and release not only of his early friend, but also of his companions in distress; at the same time he was informed, that the commander-in-chief, had ordered his appointment, as Sergeant of the Regiment: this was only his first step to promotion, for the late peninsular war afforded him an opportunity of gathering laurels in the field, and at the close of that eventful epoch, he had the honor of holding the rank of adjutant in his Majesty’s —— Regiment of foot, esteemed by his brother officers, and respected equally by the men.

As every publication of the day contains either some account of this intended expedition or remarks on the subject, we also wish to join in giving publicity to the plans of the party who have set out on their perilous journey.

In common also with our sex, we enthusiastically admire bravery in man, and wish to bring our humble tribute of praise to the already laden shrine. May then the gallant Captain Back and his companions succeed in their undertaking beyond their most sanguine hopes: may they feast on delicious venison and the delicate hump of the Buffalo to epicurean content; may game of all kind abound in their path; may the dark-eyed Esquimaux beauties receive them with welcoming smiles, and spread the softest skins for the repose of their white guests: lastly, may they succeed in finding the retreat of the unfortunate victims of man’s all-aspiring ambition after science, if they yet live, bring them home in triumph, and reap the reward of their courage and humanity.

The following remarks from the “Monthly Magazine” will expose the undertaking in a rather different point of view from that in which it is generally seen, and as we have not noticed that they have been extracted by any other American journal but one, which is not in very extensive circulation here, we offer them to the speculation of our readers, begging them to bear in mind that it is an extract, and not our opinion we publish.

“The various attempts of our scientific navigators, who in recent years have gone forth to break the icy barriers of the North-West passage to the shores of the Americans, have yet produced no result beyond the very amusing volumes which detail the adventures of Parry, Franklin, and the other enterprising spirits who have pierced the recesses of the Polar Seas and Regions. For very many years the attention of the public has been at intervals engaged with the buzz of preparation for the departure of expedition after expedition; and, though all hope of substantial commercial gains to be had from the discovery of a North-West passage, has long since passed away, it is yet creditable to the British, that for purposes purely geographical large sums have been cheerfully expended.”—“The nation of shopkeepers” is always in the van to promote the extension of the domain of science.

Enough has been discovered of the Polar Regions, to prove that, in the event of a discovery of a passage, no regular use could be made of that icy track of navigation; and before many years the completion of a canal or railway across the Isthmus of Panama, by cutting off a navigation of ten thousand miles round Cape Horn, will form the long-desired communication with all the shores of the Pacific, and supersede the necessity of a precarious and dangerous passage by the Polar Sea. Still to this wealthy and magnanimous nation, it is undoubtedly an object worthy of very considerable expenditure, to complete the geographical theory of the earth—to solve the mysteries of the polarity of the needle—to examine the vegetable and mineral productions of the Polar world—and to carry the lights of Christianity and civilization to the roaming natives of those dismal and solitary regions.

It has therefore been with no ordinary interest, that we have watched the progress of the late subscriptions for the equipment of an expedition in search of the gallant and enterprising Captain Ross and his brave companions. And if in the exercise of our duty to the public, we think it expedient to point out the inefficiency of the plan proposed, assuredly it arises from no want of sympathy and deep interest in the fate of our enterprising countrymen, now perhaps pining in the agonies of famine and “hope deferred.”

The principal members of the land expedition have, we believe, already embarked at Liverpool for New York and it is presumed they will arrive at Montreal, the real starting-point, on the 10th of April. The route to be then pursued, is the usual one for the fur traders in the employment of the Hudson’s Bay Company, by the Ottawa, French River, the great lakes, and Lake Winnepeg, to the Great Slave Lake, which comprises a distance of two thousand five hundred miles from Montreal. This point is expected to be reached in the middle of July; and at the great Slave Lake, Indian guides and hunters will be engaged to accompany the party to the Great Fish River, which falls into the Polar Sea, and is about three hundred miles, at that point, from the wreck of the Fury. The mode of travelling upon the lakes is by canoes of birch bark; but at Cumberland-house, one of the four stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the party will embark in batteaux which are better adopted for conveying the provisions tents, ammunition, and stores. The chief dependence for food, will consist of pemmekan, or the dried flesh of Buffaloes or rein deer, with such game as may be procured upon the way.

The expedition will winter at the Great Fish River; and previously to retiring to quarters, Captain Back proposes to proceed, for a limited distance down the river, in a light canoe, with eight well-armed companions, in the hope of obtaining some information respecting Captain Ross and his companions, from the Esquimaux.

In the ensuing spring, the whole party will proceed down the river to the wreck of the Fury, which is supposed to lie about three hundred miles from this spot. Though it appears that the course of this river has never yet been explored, and insuperable obstacles may intervene, to defeat the entire purpose of the project. Should the party however, succeed in reaching the wreck of the Fury, and no trace of Captain Ross be there discoverable, it will then be necessary for Captain Back and his companions to retrace their steps to the winter-quarters at the Great Fish River; and in returning, it is intended to erect land-marks and signal-posts on peaks and capes, to arrest the attention of Captain Ross and his comrades, should they happily be endeavouring to return by land.

In the second spring, the expedition will again emerge from winter quarters at the Great Fish River to the shores of the Polar Sea; and after due search in various directions in the summer of 1835, if it should fail in discovering any satisfactory tidings of Captain Ross and his party it will set out on its return to England.

Our readers will observe, that the expedition first traverses on foot a distance of three thousand miles of country, from Montreal to the Great Fish River, and this without horses, bread, or convenience of any description whatever—their sole subsistence, during their immense route, being dependent upon supplies of pemmekan, and game casually upon the way. Then, after the exhaustion and debility occasioned by the privations and fatigue already undergone, commences the winter in quarters at the Great Fish River, with a continuation, for five long months of unvarying animal food; and, in the spring of 1834, begins the true labour of the expedition. We fear indeed that cold, privation, and disease, will thin the numbers of the party, before emerging from their winter-quarters—and that few of those who survive will ever return to winter-quarters again, in the following year. Of all the attempts hitherto made to winter in the Polar Regions, we believe a very scanty remnant of the crews have ever resisted the effects of cold, scurvy, and mental despondency: and greatly do fear that, of the present expedition, few will again reach their native country. Allowing that no dangers threaten the party from the Indians, the wolves, or other enemies of the stranger in those regions, we can see no substantial relief which can be afforded to Captain Ross and his companions, by men who will themselves be exhausted, and in no better condition than their fellow wanderers in those solitary regions. It is also worthy of remark that if Captain Ross and his party be now in existence, and within a distance of three hundred miles from the Great Fish River there is every probability that they will yet find their way, stocked with supplies from their own vessels, to the settlements of the Hudson Bay Company. Upon a full review of the project of the land expedition, and the necessity of passing at least one entire winter in the Polar Regions, we are compelled to express our fears, that it will prove utterly futile and unsuccessful.

We cannot but think how infinitely more judicious it would have been, to have concentrated all the subscriptions of the public, and the donation of the government, upon the single purpose of fitting out a steam-vessel, to proceed in the present spring, to the wreck of the Fury. The necessary search might thus have been affected in a single summer. If Captain Ross and his comrades be now in existence, still, the intervention of another year, which must elapse before the arrival at the Polar Sea, of Captain Back, may be fatal to the party. But a steam-vessel, departing in the present spring, would arrive at the wreck of the Fury very early in the summer, and there replenishing her fuel, by breaking up the timbers of that vessel, might proceed to the very highest latitudes ever yet attained, and return in security in the autumn.

A steam-vessel of the smallest burthen—thirty or forty tons—would be sufficient for the purpose proposed, and, being partially rigged, the voyage to the confines of the ice might be made, without the consumption of any fuel whatever: by the use of sails, in periods of fair wind—and at all available times, the stock of coal to be conveyed might be much reduced, without detriment to that celerity of operation which must be the soul of this enterprise. We believe that steam offers the only certain mode of reaching the scene of the fate of Captain Ross:—for we hold it to be highly improbable that he has not penetrated far beyond the wreck of the Fury. The most reasonable conjecture is, that, by means of steam, he has advanced into trackless fields of ice, from which on the exhaustion of his fuel, he has never been able to emerge. We think it highly probable that he still exists—for his arrangements were made for an absence of many years—and in every probability his vessels are yet unharmed, amidst mountains of impassable ice.

No sailing vessel will in any probability ever reach this ill-fated crew:—for when we recall to mind the rapidity of the adverse current, and the heart-breaking toils of Captain Parry and his companions, who strove in vain to accomplish even the remaining fifteen miles to the 84th degree of the north latitude, in order to secure the reward of £10,000 offered by the Board of Longitude, we feel assured that no effectual progress will ever be made in the seas, except by the use of steam.

We therefore submit to the patrons of this generous undertaking, that a steam-boat will be the only effectual vehicle of proceeding in quest of our gallant countrymen: and most devoutly do we wish a prosperous termination of an enterprise which ranks among the foremost of these humane and magnanimous efforts, which pre-eminently distinguish this country from all surrounding nations. The managers of the affair have already committed one glaring absurdity: let them not, after this fair warning, be guilty of another.

The following brief view of the European external possessions of Great Britain, we abridge from an article on the British Empire in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine:

Besides the United Kingdom, the Principality of Man, and the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, near the coast of France all which may be included under the name of Great Britain, the British hold Hanover on the continent,—the rock and light-house of Heligoland, opposite the mouth of the Elbe, and principally interesting as a geological relict of the old but now submarine, north of Europe,—the fortress and city of Gibraltar, commanding the western mouth of the Mediterranean,—the isle of Malta and Gozo, near the middle of that sea,—and the string of Ionian Islands lying along the coasts of Albania and Greece, and incorporated into a federal republic, of which Britain was burdened with the protectorate by the Congress of Vienna.

Hanover, adds that magazine, belongs less to this country than to the present line of Kings, who retain it as their original patrimonial possession. Its law of inheritance forbids the accession of a female to the sovereignty; so that in the event of the Princess Victoria ascending our throne, it will pass to the Duke of Cumberland. No loss will hence accrue to Great Britain, either in profit or honour; as it mingles us up with the affairs of the continent, while, at the same time the British nation has not the slightest control over the acts of its government. The population is 1,600,000. The only valuable European possessions are the Mediterranean ones; and they are the only sort of external strongholds which Britain ought to retain for the purpose of intimidating or influencing the other European powers, Gibraltar and Malta are maritime stations of the first rate excellence. Malta has a harbour unsurpassed any where; and the situation of Gibraltar is invaluable. Gibraltar and Malta, draw off fully £240,000 per annum. From their nature, they will never be able to support themselves; as they are not so much colonies as out-works, external fortifications. The sinecure and overpay, the Reform Act will correct. Their commerce is quite trifling. Malta should be a free port. Britain should never have had the Ionian Islands, and will doubtless soon see to their confederation with Greece. An important southern power would thus be strengthened, and Britain freed of a useless, and therefore cumbrous burthen. Their population is only 180,000.

OR
Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi.
WITH REMARKS BY A FRIEND.

This is a lively little book, and cannot fail to be sought after and read with pleasure by all the admirers of Boswell’s Johnson, and the Memoirs and Anecdotes of Dr. Burney. It consists of letters and observations concerning men and books of the days of Burke and Johnson, as well as those of Byron and Scott, and contains much about those eminent men, and others scarcely less distinguished, which the world will be thankful to know; nor is this all: whenever the lady has written a letter, or made some remark, sarcastic or serious, the gentleman, her friend, gives us an explanatory dissertation, often much to the purpose, and always in a kindly spirit, if not a discerning one. This renders the work a great curiosity in its way; we only wish that the editor, or author, or whatever he is, had known the lively and sarcastic relict of the great English brewer and the Italian fiddler earlier in life, that he might have made a more extensive collection of her clever letters and smart sayings.

Mrs. Piozzi is known to the world by the partiality of Dr. Johnson; by her own entertaining anecdotes of the great philosopher; her Tour in Italy; the inimitable biography of Boswell, and by her suddenly throwing aside the weeds which she wore as the relict of Thrale, and giving her hand to Piozzi, an Italian musician, who was instructing her daughters. All these circumstances united in rendering her name a name of note. But she had merit all her own. She was lively, witty, and handsome; wrote agreeable verses—satires too, upon occasion; had a singular knack of paying compliments; could be, and was, ironical and sarcastic on those who displeased her; invited to her house all who were distinguished in her day for science or genius; and while she sat at the head of her first husband’s table, was seldom without the presence of such men as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Boswell, and Burney, among whom she divided the good things of this life with a readiness of hand and a grace which showed she thought the task a pleasant one. It was generally suspected too, that the displeasure of Johnson at her second marriage originated in something like disappointment; he had perhaps expected to be consulted, nor has this surmise been at all discountenanced by the lady herself: but it is neither for their fame nor philosophy that rosy young widows make the second choice among the sons of men; and Johnson, who knew the world well, could not be ignorant of this. We have sometimes been inclined to set down Boswell’s visible dislike of the lady, after she became Mrs. Piozzi, to her discontinuing those frequent and welcome invitations to venison and wine, to which neither Johnson nor Boswell were insensible. But we shall detain our readers no longer, and proceed at once to spread before them some of the choice things of the book.

The first person we are introduced to, is Mr. Gifford, the satirist and critic: her conduct on meeting with him, shews how well she could command a temper which she acknowledged was touchy:—

“She, one evening, asked me abruptly if I did not remember the scurrilous lines in which she had been depicted by Gifford in his ‘Baviad and Mœviad.’ And, not waiting for my answer, for I was indeed too much embarrassed to give one quickly, she recited the verses in question, and added, ‘how do you think “Thrale’s gray widow” revenged herself?’ I contrived to get myself invited to meet him at supper at a friend’s house, (I think she said in Pall Mall,) soon after the publication of his poem, sat opposite to him, saw that he was ‘perplexed in the extreme;’ and smiling, proposed a glass of wine as a libation to our future good fellowship. Gifford was sufficiently a man of the world to understand me, and nothing could be more courteous and entertaining than he was while we remained together. This, it must be allowed, was a fine trait of character, evincing thorough knowledge of life, and a very powerful mind.”

She loved to look back, in her old age, to the days when she lived at Streatham, and enjoyed the company of the wise and the witty:—

“Sometimes, when she favoured me and mine with a visit, she used to look at her little self, as she called it, and speak drolly of what she once was, as if talking of some one else; and one day, turning to me, I remember her saying, ‘no, I never was handsome; I had always too many strong points in my face for beauty.’ I ventured to express a doubt of this, and said that Doctor Johnson was certainly an admirer of her personal charms. She replied that she believed his devotion was at least as warm towards the table and the table-talk at Streatham. This was, as is well known, Mrs. Thrale’s place of residence in the country. I was tempted to observe that I thought, as I still do, that Johnson’s anger on the event of her second marriage was excited by some feelings of disappointment; and that I suspected he had formed hopes of attaching her to himself.—It would be disingenuous on my part to attempt to repeat her answer; I forgot it; but the impression on my mind is that she did not contradict me.”

In one of her conversations, she said, that when Lady Howe cut down Pope’s Willow, fourscore years after the poet planted it, the common people cried shame! and struggled for chips and twigs: she had a tea chest made out of it. She made a pause, and then began to speak of Johnson, of whom she related the following story, which shows that she had a touch of the vixen rather than that the Doctor was deficient in moral propriety:—

“Johnson was, on the whole, a rigid moralist; but he could be ductile, I may say, servile, and I will give you an instance. We had a large dinner-party at our house; Johnson sat on one side of me, and Burke on the other; and in the company there was a young female (Mrs. Piozzi named her,) to whom I, in my peevishness, thought Mr. Thrale superfluously attentive, to the neglect of me and others; especially of myself, then near my confinement, and dismally low-spirited; notwithstanding which, Mr. T. very unceremoniously begged of me to change place with Sophy ——, who was threatened with a sore-throat, and might be injured by sitting near the door. I had scarcely swallowed a spoonful of soup when this occurred, and was so over-set by the coarseness of the proposal, that I burst into tears, said something petulant—that perhaps ere long, the lady might be at the head of Mr. T.’s table, without displacing the mistress of the house, &c., and so left the apartment. I retired to the drawing-room, and for an hour or two contended with my vexation, as I best could, when Johnson and Burke came up. On seeing them, I resolved to give a jobation to both, but fixed on Johnson for my charge, and asked him if he had noticed what passed, what I had suffered, and whether, allowing for the state of my nerves, I was much to blame? He answered, ‘Why, possibly not; your feelings were outraged.’ I said, ‘Yes, greatly so; and I cannot help remarking with what blandness and composure you witnessed the outrage. Had this transaction been told of others, your anger would have known no bounds; but, towards a man who gives good dinners, &c. you were meekness itself!’ Johnson coloured, and Burke, I thought, looked foolish; but I had not a word of answer from either.”

We have some suspicion that the story of Henry of Richmond, and the sword with which he fought at Bosworth, is apocryphal; can any of our antiquarian friends throw light upon it?—

“King Henry VII, when Earl of Richmond, and on his way to fight Richard the Third at Bosworth, stopped for a day at Mostyn-hall, and on leaving, told Lady Mostyn that, should he be victorious, as he hoped to be, he would, when the battle was over, send her his sword by a special messenger, whom he should despatch from the field. He won the day, and sent the sword, as he promised; and for ages it hung in the armoury at Mostyn. But a good old lady of the family at length observing that the hilt was of pure gold, and exclaiming that it was a pity metal of such value should lie useless, had the handle melted down, and converted into a caudle-cup. The blade was lost.”

Our friends of the north will be glad to hear that Johnson’s dislike of the Scotch was assumed, not serious—if his serious cuts and thrusts would have been sharper than his feints, the Scotch are as well without them:—

“She greatly admired, she said, the Scottish people, admitting that I was right in observing, as I did to compliment her, that Boswell was an obtuse man, and did not understand Johnson, when he represents him as malevolently disposed towards Scotland; while, in fact, his sarcastic mode of speaking of that nation, was only his way of being facetious. This led her to remark that she know the famous John Wilkes well, and had often enjoyed his fine ‘conversational talents.’ She recalled the droll retort of Wilkes, when he one day overheard Johnson enlarging on the subject of human freedom, and cried out, ‘what is the man saying? Liberty sounds as oddly in his mouth, as Religion would in mine!’

“Reverting to Makenzie, she said she did not, any more than Doctor Johnson, think highly of his ‘Man of the World;’ and that Johnson whose name she frequently introduced, was the reverse of illiberal with regard to Scotland, or Scottish genius; for that he particularly took opportunities of applauding both; and was one time speaking most praisingly of Thomson, when a Scotch gentleman came in; on which Johnson immediately desisted; and said afterwards, that he ‘could not endure to hear one Scot magnify another, which he knew would be the case.’ ”

Mrs. Piozzi occasionally says a word or two in her letters of such new books as engaged the attention of the Coterie, of which she was a talking and corresponding member. In the following passage, she discusses Godwin, and dismisses Scott in a few words:

“Godwin’s new romance pleases nobody: though I like the story of a man, who, early crossed in love, lives quite alone, treating his servants as mere automata, and only desiring to remain undisturbed: till—the fall of some planks discovers to him that an attorney, and his nephew, were settled in quiet possession of his spacious mansion, and ample domain; and that his domestics were at the command of those men, assisting to keep him up as a confirmed lunatic. *  *  *

“The ladies are all reading Rob Roy, long waited for, and in my mind, good for little. ‘Frankenstein’ is a filthy thing; and ‘Mandeville’ a dull one; they have their admirers however.”

What follows is far better, and very pleasingly told:—

“There is a new book come out since I wrote last; or did I mention it to you before? Frankenstein. His female readers are divided strangely; one girl told me she was so affected reading it alone, that she started up, and rang the bell from the agitation of spirits. Another lady said, ‘Lord bless me, what alarmed her, I wonder! it is a rhodomontading story; I slept over it.’ But it is, as you observe, according to the frame one’s mind is in. A petty shopkeeper in Westminster once related to me, how she went with many others to see the great Duchess of Northumberland’s funeral; it took place at night, for the purpose of increasing the solemnity; and she was buried in Henry the Seventh’s chapel. When at last one lamp alone was left burning on the tomb in that immense pile of gothic architecture, and the crowd was pushing to get out, Mrs. Gardner (that was her name) lost her shoe; and endeavouring to regain it, lost, as it were the tide of company; and heard the great Abbey-doors close on her, with a sound that reverberated through all the aisles, precluding every possibility of making her case known to those without. ‘Dear, dear! and what did you think, Mrs. Gardner, and what did you do?’ ‘Why, to be sure, Ma’am, I thought I should catch a shocking cold; so I wrapt two handkerchiefs round my head and throat; and crept into a seat in the choir, as they call it, where I fell fast asleep; not without a good deal of uneasiness, lest the ’prentice boy—since my poor husband’s death—should lie a bed in the morning, and the shop should be neglected; till those sexton fellows, or whatever you call them, should let me get home to breakfast.’ If ever I told you this ‘round, unvarnished tale’ before, the ladies will recollect it; but I think it is not among my potted stories.”

From authors, it is but a step to actors and actresses, respecting Miss O’Neill, she writes as follows:—

“Miss O’Neill has fascinated all eyes; no wonder: she is very fair, very young, and innocent-looking; of gentlest manners in all appearance certainly; and lady-like to an exactness of imitation. The voice and emphasis are not delightful to my old-fashioned ears; but all must feel that her action is appropriate. Where passionate love and melting tenderness are to be expressed, she carries criticism quite away. The scene with Stukely disappointed me: I hated to see indignation degenerate into shrewishness, and hear so lovely a creature scold the man in a harsh accent—such as you now are hearing in the street! My aristocratic prejudices, too, led me to think she under-dressed her characters; one is used to fancy an audience entitled to respect from all public performers; and Belvidera’s plain black gown; and her fine hair twisted up, as the girls do for what they call an old cat’s card party, pleased me not. While—the men admired even to ecstasy, as perfectly natural, that which I believe delighted them chiefly—as it was frequent and fashionable.”

That the spirit of Scotland was strong in Helen Maria Williams, may be seen by a single anecdote:—

“Did I ever tell you of a Count Andriani, who dined with Mr. Piozzi and me once in Hanover square? Helen Maria Williams met him, and whispered me before dinner, how handsome she thought him. He was very showy-looking; and had made a long tour about our British dominions. While the dessert was upon the table, I asked him which was finest—Loch Lomond or the lake of Killarney? ‘Oh, no comparison,’ was his reply; ‘the Irish lake is a body of water worth looking at, even by those who, like you and I have lived on the banks of Lago Maggiore, that much resembles, and little surpasses it; the Highland beauty is a cold beauty truly.’ Helen’s Scotch blood and national prejudice boiled over in the course of this conversation; and when the ladies retired to the drawing-room after dinner, ‘I was mistaken in that man’s features,’ said she; ‘he is not handsome at all, when one looks more at him.’ Comical enough, was it not?”

There is much good sense and discernment in her letter regarding the pleasant vale of Llwydd:—

“We are spoiling the sublimity of this vale of Llwydd; cultivating the fine heathy hills, lately so brown and solemn, like dressing old, black-robed judges up, in green coats and white waistcoats. Sir John S. has done better, and planted his mountains to a large extent, eighty acres, with fine forest timber. Many friends think it a folly; but he says, and I say, that in forty years, the wood will be worth us much as the estate below. And what signifies tearing men and horses to pieces, to cultivate and manure these upper regions, which will be more profitable when more in character. The folly was in forgetting to sow turnips among the plantations, which they help to keep clean; and pay labourers besides. Never was seen such a harvest; all our wheat will be in by to-morrow night, and oats ready to be cut on Monday morning. But—while corn is ripening, the people are ripening; a spirit of discontent pervades every part of Europe, I believe. The labourers wages at the Cross are twenty-one shillings this day, for the week; and when my father lived at old Bachygraig,—the date of which is cut in the weather-vane, 1537; the house which Mr. Beloe, God forgive him, has said that dear Mr. Piozzi pulled down,—they were only five shillings; yet in those days, I mean in 1740, or then about, all were pleased and happy, with their oat-bread and butter-milk; nor dreamed of wearing shoes, and eating roast meat, except at Christmas and Easter. Those who can unriddle this enigma are better financiers and deeper politicians than I am. Besides that, these fine guinea o’week labourers will be treated with good bacon dinners every day. My father’s hinds as we called them, fed themselves out of their five shillings, and were happy, and their cottages clean, and the renters willing to keep a pointer for the squire besides. What a letter is this! exclaims dear Mrs. —— from our H. L. P.! But Solomon says little can be expected from those ‘whose talk is of bullocks;’ and I like to enter into the detail of this, my first and last place, well enough. Adieu, dear friends; for a short time, thank God! I wonder where at Bath you will fix your residence?”

At page 128, we are told that Allan Ramsay’s lyrics were not written by the author of the ‘Gentle Shepherd,’ but by some young men of talent, who frequented a tavern kept by a person of the same name as the Scottish Theocritus. We suspect that none of our antiquarian friends in the north ever heard of this. Mrs. Piozzi remarked too, says her friend, that for her part she had a suspicion that the ‘Gentle Shepherd’ itself, was written by a person of the name of Thomson! This person of the name of Thomson is the author of the ‘Seasons,’ and we have no doubt that the facetious lady was trotting, as it is called, her reverend friend; we hope he has related no other of her experimental stories.

The first number of Greenbank’s Periodical Library has been forwarded to us by the publisher; it is a solid looking, and beautifully printed pamphlet. We know not which to admire most, the individual spirit and enterprise of our neighbours in the States, in undertaking works of genius, or the liberality of the Re-public in encouraging them. The publication in question is the third on the same, or nearly the same plan which has issued from the press in Philadelphia within the last year, and apparently with equal chance of success excepting perhaps that of priority. The prospectus which may be seen on the cover of the Museum will speak for itself as to the cheapness and other advantages offered by the “Periodical Library.”

The following extract from the life of “Pestalozzi” contained in the first number, will probably prove interesting to many of our readers who know by experience the difficulties to be encountered by founders and teachers of charity schools:—

Regardless, though not ignorant, of the incalculable difficulties that awaited him, he followed the call of humanity, and leaving his family behind him, proceeded to Stantz. The new Convent of the Ursulines, which was in progress of building, was assigned to him for the formation of an asylum for orphans and other destitute children; and ample funds were provided for making the necessary arrangements, but in a country which war had converted into a desert, it was not easy, even with an abundance of pecuniary means, to procure without great delay the most necessary implements of such an establishment. The only apartment that was habitable on Pestalozzi’s arrival, was a room of scarcely twenty-four feet square, and this was unfurnished. The rest of the edifice was occupied by carpenters and bricklayers; but even if there had been rooms, the want of kitchen utensils and beds would have rendered them useless.

Meanwhile, upon the news being spread that such an asylum was about to be established, the children presented themselves in scores; and, as many of them were unprotected orphans, some without place of shelter, it was not easy to turn them away. The one room which served for a school-room in the day, was at night provided with some scanty bedding and converted into a sleeping room for Pestalozzi and as many of his pupils as it would hold. The rest were quartered out for the night in some of the surrounding houses, and came to the asylum only in the day time. Under such circumstances it was impossible to introduce any sort of regularity, or even to maintain physical cleanliness; and disorder being once established in the house, it was a most difficult task to check it afterwards among a number of children whose previous habits were so unfavourable to order. Diseases, and those of the very worst description, were imported from the beginning, and not easily got rid of in a house where, at first, no separation was possible; besides which, the dust occasioned by the workmen, the dampness of the newly erected walls, and the closeness of the atmosphere, arising from the numbers stowed together in a small apartment, at a season which did not allow of much airing, rendered the asylum of itself an unhealthy abode.

Considering all these circumstances, the state of the house, the condition of the children, the privations and hardships to which Pestalozzi was exposed, and the exertions which he was obliged to make, there seems to be no exaggeration in the description which he himself gives of this experiment as of a desperate undertaking. Indeed, even after the first impediments were removed, its success must have been very problematical. The constitutions of the children were impaired, their minds hardened, and their characters degraded by the course of life which they had been obliged to lead since the disaster. Some of them were the offspring of beggars and out-laws, whom not the national calamity, but the vicious courses of their parents, had reduced to the extreme of wretchedness, and who were inured to falsehood and impudence from their earliest childhood. Others, who had seen better days, were crushed under the weight of their sufferings, shy and indolent. A few of them, whose parents had belonged to the higher classes of society, were spoiled children, accustomed formerly to all sorts of enjoyment and indulgence; they were full of pretensions and discontent, depressed but not humbled by their misfortunes, envious of each other, and scornful towards their more lowly companions. The only thing which they had all in common was the physical, intellectual, and moral neglect to which they had been exposed, and which rendered them all equally fit objects of the most unremitting care, and the most simple and patient instruction.

The whole of this burthen devolved upon Pestalozzi, who from a wish to economise his funds, in order to extend the benefit of the institution to the greatest possible number of children, and from the impossibility of meeting with teachers whose views were at all analogous to his own, provided with no other assistance than that of a housekeeper. The task was not in itself an easy one, but it was rendered still more difficult by the interference of the parents, whose general feeling of dislike and distrust against Pestalozzi as a protestant, and an agent of the Helvetic government, rendered them the more disposed to indulge in those whims and caprices by which teachers of all classes are so frequently impeded in the discharge of their duties, but most of all those who have no other interests to serve than those of their pupils. Mothers who supported themselves by open beggary from door to door, would, upon visiting the establishment, find some cause of discontent, and take their children away, because “they would be no worse off at home.” Upon Sundays especially, the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, cousins, and other relations of various degrees, made their appearance, and taking the children apart in some corner of the house, or in the street, elicited complaints of every kind, and either took the children with them, or left them discontented and peevish. Many were brought to the asylum with no other intention than to have them clothed, which being done, they were removed at the first opportunity, and often without an ostensible reason. Others required to be paid for leaving their children, to compensate for the diminished produce of their beggary. Others again wanted to make a regular bargain, for how many days in the week they should have a right to take them out on begging errands; and their proposal being rejected, they went away indignantly, declaring, that unless their terms were acceded to, they would fetch away the children in a couple of days; a threat which some of them actually made good. Several months passed away in this constant fluctuation of pupils, which rendered the adoption of any settled plan of discipline or instruction utterly impossible.

Unfavourable as all these circumstances were to the success of the establishment designed by the Helvetic government, they were perhaps the most favorable under which Pestalozzi could have been placed for those higher purposes for which he was destined by Providence; and the Convent of the Ursulines at Stantz, which as an orphan asylum ceased to exist before the expiration of a twelvemonth, will live for ever in the history of the human mind, at the school in which one of the most eminent instruments of God for the education of our species, was taught those important principles which he was called to discover and promulgate. The first benefit which Pestalozzi derived from the hard necessity of his position, was, that he saw himself stripped of all the ordinary proofs of authority, and in a manner compelled to rely upon the power of love in the child’s heart as the only source of obedience. The parents, as we have seen, did not even affect to support him; so far from feeling any moral obligation towards him, they treated him with contempt as a mean hireling, who, if he had been able to make a livelihood in any other way, would never have undertaken the charge of their children. This feeling, instilled into the hearts of the pupils, and supported by their natural indisposition to order and submission, established from the beginning a decided hostility between Pestalozzi and the children, which by harsh treatment and violent measures would only have been increased, so as to produce irrevocable alienation. The adoption of any of those crafty systems of rewards and punishments, by which the external subduing of every foul and unclean spirit has been elsewhere accomplished, was, under the circumstances of the case, entirely out of the question, even if Pestalozzi had been capable of making himself head policeman in his school. The only means therefore, by which it was possible for him to gain any ascendancy over his pupils, was an all-forbearing kindness. He felt himself unable, it is true, entirely to dispense with coercive means, or even with corporal chastisement; but it must not be forgotten that his inflictions were not those of a pedantic despot, who considers them an essential part of a system of performances through which it is his duty to go, but those of a loving and sympathising father, who was as much, if not more than the child himself, distressed by the necessity of having recourse to such measures. Accordingly, they produced not upon the children that hardening effect which punishment generally has; and one fact particularly is on record, in which the result seemed to justify his proceedings. One of the children who had gained most upon his affections, ventured, in the hope of indulgence, to utter threats against a schoolfellow, and was severely chastised. The poor boy was quite disconsolate, and having continued weeping for a considerable time, took the first opportunity of Pestalozzi’s leaving the room, to ask forgiveness of the child whom he had offended, and to thank him for having laid the complaint, of which his punishment was the immediate consequence. Such facts, however, far from convincing Pestalozzi of the necessity or the propriety of punishment, on the contrary proved to his mind the extraordinary power of love, which, if to be once established as the basis of the relation between teacher and child, penetrates the heart of the latter even when the former assumes for a moment the character of wrath, the measure of his forbearance being exhausted by an excessive offence. Indeed, from the manner in which he expressed himself subsequently on the subject, there can be no doubt that if he had entered his career at Stantz with all those feelings and sentiments with which he left it, punishments of any kind would have been applied by him much more rarely, if not entirely dispensed with.

While Pestalozzi was thus in matters of discipline reduced to the primary motive of all virtue, he learned in the attempt of instructing his children, the art of returning to the simplest elements of all knowledge. He was entirely unprovided with books or any other means of instruction; and, in the absence of both material and machinery, he could not even have recourse to the pursuits of industry for filling up part of the time. The whole of his school apparatus consisted of himself and his pupils; and he was, therefore, compelled to investigate what means these would afford him for the accomplishment of his end. The result was, that he abstracted entirely from those artificial elements of instruction which are contained in books; and directed his whole attention towards the natural elements, which are deposited in the child’s mind. He taught numbers instead of ciphers, living sounds instead of dead characters, deeds of faith and love instead of abstruse creeds, substances instead of shadows, realities instead of signs. He led the intellect of his children to the discovery of truths which, in the nature of things, they could never forget, instead of burdening their memory with the recollection of words which, likewise, in the nature of things, they could never understand. Instead of building up a dead mind, and a dead heart, on the ground of the dead letter, he drew forth life to the mind, and life to the heart, from the fountain of life within; and thus established a new art of education, in which to follow him requires, on the part of the teacher, not a change of system, but a change of state.

It is interesting to see, from Pestalozzi’s own account, how deeply he was still entangled, even at this advanced period of his life, in the trammels which are imposed upon the mind, from the very moment of birth, by the present unnatural state of education; and nothing can afford more decided evidence of its baneful effects than the long protracted bondage in which it kept a man who had begun to struggle for his emancipation, before his enslavement was completed. He acknowledged himself that, deeply impressed as he was, long before his going to Stantz, with the insufficiency not only of the prevailing systems of the day, but even of his own experiments at Neuhof, yet, if necessity had not forced him out of all his old ways, he should hardly have come to that childlike state of mind, in which it was possible for him freely and willingly to follow the path of nature. But he found himself in a position in which he had no opportunity of proposing to himself any scheme of his own, nor of choosing his own course; he was obliged, without taking thought for to-morrow, to do every day the best he could with the means which Providence had placed in his hands. There is no period, either in his previous career, or in the subsequent pursuit of his newly discovered principles, when he was so truly independent, not only of external influence, but even of himself, as we find him at Stantz, and it is thither we must follow him, if we wish to know him thoroughly.

There, in the midst of his children he forgot that there was any world besides his asylum. And as their circle was an universe to him, so was he to them all in all. From morning to night he was the centre of their existence. To him they owed every comfort and every enjoyment; and whatever hardships they had to endure, he was their follow sufferer. He partook of their meals, and slept among them. In the evening he prayed with them, before they went to bed; and from his conversation they dropped into the arms of slumber. At the first dawn of light it was his voice that called them to the light of the rising sun, and to the praise of their heavenly father. All day he stood amongst them, teaching the ignorant, and assisting the helpless; encouraging the weak, and admonishing the transgressor.

His hand was daily with them, joined in theirs; his eye, beaming with benevolence, rested on theirs. He wept when they wept, and rejoiced when they rejoiced. He was to them a father, and they were to him as children.

Such love could not fail to win their hearts; the most savage and the most obstinate could not resist its soothing influence. Discontent and peevishness ceased; and a number of between seventy and eighty children, whose dispositions had been far from kind, and their habits any thing but domestic, were thus converted, in a short time, into a peaceable family circle, in which it was delight to exist. The approach of the milder season produced the same effect upon their health, as Pestalozzi’s persevering benevolence had upon their affections; and when those who had witnessed the disorder and wretchedness of the first beginning, came to visit the asylum again in spring 1799, they could hardly identify in the cheerful countenances and bright looks of its inmates, those haggard faces and vacant stares with which their imagination was impressed.

The first and most alarming difficulties being thus overcome, Pestalozzi could now direct his attention towards the best means of developing the powers of his children, and keeping their growing energies employed. This required a degree of regularity which it was by no means easy to obtain; and he had wisdom enough, not to mar their freedom by enforcing more than they were in a state to grant. He knew that a stiff and mechanical uniformity of action is not the way to plant a love of order in the mind; nor a rigid maintenance of certain rules and regulations the means of ensuring ready and willing obedience, and his conduct in this respect, was a practical illustration of the Gospel principle, to cleanse first that which is within, knowing that thereby the outside will become clean also.

He endeavoured, at first, to let the children feel the advantages of order and obedience; and the playfulness of his nature suggested to him a variety of means by which he could catch and fix their attention, whilst at the same time he afforded them real amusement. He was careful never to wear out their patience by too long-continued exercises. If he required silence he would hold up his finger, and ask them to look at it and keep still, till it came down again, and the interval, which they readily granted, he employed in telling them some word or sentence which he asked them to repeat. This being done, he would dissolve the spell, and having allowed them the enjoyment of their freedom for a few minutes, he would, by some other trifle, fasten their eyes and tongues again. The children were thus led on, in mere play, to a more serious attention, and it was not long before they saw how much more easily and successfully he could teach, and they learn, if they consented with one accord to lend themselves to his instruction. The more willingly they submitted to these self-denials, the more progress did they make in the art of self-command, which it gave them true delight to practice, after they had once reached a certain point.

In matters of domestic discipline, he endeavoured, by an appeal to their own feelings and their good sense, to give them such a view of the nature of the case as would induce them to impose upon themselves those restrictions which were absolutely necessary. If some disorder arose from inattention to little things, he would say to them, “You see now, how all this great disorder has come upon us, by a trifling neglect. Does not this show that in so large a household every little matter should be carefully attended to?” At other times if it became necessary to correct a child of some habit, he would tell him: “It is not on your account only, that I must desire you to leave of this practice, but on account of the other boys also, who might learn it from you, and so might acquire a habit which it would be very difficult for them to conquer. And do you not think that you yourself would not get rid of it so easily as you now may, if you saw others doing the same thing, so that you would be constantly tempted by their example?” By these familiar conversations he not only gained his point in almost every case, but he awakened in his pupils a general interest in the maintenance of good order, which proved far more efficient than any of the rules, statutes, and penal inflictions, by which a slavish conformity is commonly enforced. Conscious of the benefits which he himself had derived from his domestic education, Pestalozzi was anxious to give to his asylum the character of a family rather than of a public school. He frequently entertained his children with descriptions of a happy and well regulated household, such as that of Gertrude; and endeavoured to bring them to a lively sense of the blessings which man may bestow upon man, by the mutual exercise of Christian love. But on this, as on all other subjects, he taught more by life and practice than by words. Thus when Altrof, the capital of the canton of Schwitz, was laid in ashes, having informed them of the event, he suggested the idea of receiving some of the sufferers into the asylum. “Hundreds of children,” he said, “are at this moment wandering about as you were last year, without a home, perhaps without food or clothing. What should you say of applying to the government, which has so kindly provided for you, for leave to receive about twenty of those poor children among us?” “Oh, yes!” exclaimed his pupils, “dear yes, Mr. Pestalozzi, do apply, if you please!”—“Nay, my children,” replied he, “consider it well first. You must know I cannot get as much money as I please for our housekeeping; and if you invite twenty children among us, I shall very likely not get any more for that. You must, therefore, make up your minds, to share your bedding and clothing with them, and to eat less, and work more than before; and if you think you cannot do that readily and cheerfully, you had better not invite them.” “Never mind,” said the children, “though we should be less well off ourselves, we should be so very glad to have these poor children among us.”

Or a receipt adapted to the emergency of the times,

(Translated from the French for the Museum.)

There is courage and courage, Montaigne used to say. One man may be brave at the axe and a coward at the sword. Another would fight with pistols and refuse to do so with poniards.

It is with courage as with instinctive terrors. I knew a man who had been in twenty battles and never once trembled, but who shuddered at the sight of a spider; I have known others who, would have ridiculed him, and would themselves have flown to the world’s-end from a lizard or a mouse.

If I were to go back to the source of these natural dispositions, it would carry me too far: to one I should speak of the habits of the infant brought up in cleanliness and luxury and who starts at the sight of the insect which unrolls its net with so much constancy and labour.

To others I should toll of those dislikes for which we cannot account, even to ourselves, real, but inexplicable disgusts. It is the blood which affects the heart at the sight of such and such spectacles. I shall say nothing of ugly or deformed objects, for I do not recognize beauty or ugliness in nature, a form is a form. All is grand, beautiful, proportioned, and well combined in the world; beauty is but relative. Nothing but our egotism has caused us to establish absolute relations of quality between objects, and certes, if toads could write treatises, they would prove by A plus B that the Apollo of Belvidere is a monster.

Here is a dissertation that has carried me out of my way. I was speaking of courage, and of the divers methods of having and showing courage.

Ono of my friends, a Logician and a man of sense, which proves nothing for my sense or my logic, quarrelled with a certain stockholder of a Theatre, one of the thickest of numskulls, but also one of the most violent. The following is the extraordinary language he held forth to me:—

—My friend, I have been grievously insulted.

—My friend, of course you must fight.

—Fight . . . Me fight . . . You speak very much at your ease. . . . Certainly, I want to fight; but hear: I know some people, you, for example, who walk to the ground very quietly. These people’s blood is ever excited as to the 36th degree, it is in a continual ebullition. A spark sets fire. With me the Mercury scarcely rises above zero. It is the fault of my blood, not of my will; for my will says fight:—You noisy persons, who carry 36 degrees, and a high head, you have no merit in facing bullets: but it is possible to equalise all ponderations, and this is what I am about to do; I have already made the trial, and the proof is sure. My blood is at eighteen; a glass of rum will cause it to rise to twenty-one, a second to twenty-four, a third to twenty seven, a fourth to thirty, and two others to thirty-six.

While thus speaking, my friend tossed down six glasses of Jamaica Rum.

—Now; said he, I am upon par, go instantly for my antagonist, I will not wait till to-morrow, you must run, it is time, for I want to profit by my 36 degrees. My courage must not be allowed to evaporate.

I hastened away, but it was half an hour before I could meet with the person I sought for. When I returned, my friend was not to be found, his adversary made me responsible for the quarrel, and I was obliged to fight in the other’s place.

I saw him two days after, and told him that I had done all that was necessary for his honor, but complained of his cowardice.

—You will pardon me, he replied, you remained too long away, and I was perceptibly losing. I wished to again raise myself to equilibrium, got to 39—my legs bent under me, and I was carried home. But I am still determined to fight, and hope soon to meet the rascal who has injured me.

I have since heard that they had met, but that nothing had been said on the subject. My friend has been ever since, unfortunately, either above or below; but he tells me, that as soon as he again finds his equilibrium he will send me word.

(L’Entr’Actes.)

FOR APRIL.

(From the Court Journal.)

The most favourite novelty of the moment is marceline. This material is much employed for pelisses, and for dresses in demi-toilette. The most fashionable colour is iron grey, with somewhat of a violet tint. Pelisses are made with double pelerines, and the sleeves have occasionally one bouffant. Nothing can be more elegant for a promenade dress, than a grey marceline pelisse, made as above described, and worn with a hat of green velours-des-Indes. Pale acanthus green is also a favourite colour in marceline, which promises to supersede gros de Naples this spring.

For evening dresses, velvet and satin are still much employed. There is a great variety of figured silks in very small patterns, which are also extremely fashionable.

The fronts of hats are made to sit very closely on each side of the face, and are slightly raised up in front: the crowns are still small and simple. Flowers are disposed in one or two bouquets; if two, the one must be larger than the other. They are fastened by a riband, which is merely twisted round the stalks without bows, and which is afterwards brought over the ears to form the strings. Very little trimming is placed under the brim; but sometimes, instead of surrounding the face by a ruche of blonde, the strings only are trimmed, and in the centre is fixed a rosette of riband.

The favourite flowers for hats are hyacinths, primroses, lilacs, and several varieties of green fancy flowers.

Very pretty evening dresses are made of printed silk. The corsages low, and with a stomacher point; short sleeves in two bouffants. In front of the corsage a drapery, and at the back a mantilla of tulla. In the centre of the corsage is a row of plain stain bows; the last at the bottom of the point, with long ends. A satin bow behind, and short bows ornamenting the sleeves. A dress made after this description, may also be worn with long sleeves.

With a low dress, young ladies occasionally wear a gauze riband, as a sort of necklace. After passing round the throat, it is tied in front in two bows and long ends, which are fastened by a broach to the top of the corsage.

Turbans are at present a very favourite head-dress. Some are made of velvet and richly figured silks, and others, of a higher description, are composed of white gauze, sprigged with gold or silver. They are usually ornamented with one or two bird-of-Paradise feathers; but some are worn quite plain, without any ornament. These latter are denominated turbans à la Juive, or à la Moabile. They are fastened by a string which passes under the chin.

Jewelry.—Ornaments, such as necklaces, earrings, bracelets, &c. were perhaps never so little worn by fashionable women as at present. On the other hand, a profusion of jewelry is frequently displayed on the corsage and sleeves of the dress. The draperies are confined on the shoulders and bosom by broaches of great value. The prevalence of the corsage en pointe has given rise to the introduction of a new ornament of jewelry. It consists of a triple broach, connected by chains. The first separates the folds at the top of the bosom, the second is placed in the middle of the corsage, and the third at the extremity of the point. The broaches may be of cameos, mosaic, or precious stones. We have seen one composed of three clusters of diamonds, set in the form of stars, and connected by small chains, set with seed diamonds; it was worn on a dress of epuc colored velvet, and the effect was most brilliant. These bijoux are also made of pearls, torquoises, &c. They are called épingles de corsage, or épingles à l’Agnes Sorel.

Application to business, attended with approbation and success, flatters and animates the mind; which in idleness and inaction, stagnates and putrefies. I could wish, that every rational man would, every night when he goes to bed, ask himself this question. “What have I done to-day? Have I done any thing that can be of use to myself or others? Have I employed my time, or have I squandered it? Have I tired out the day, or have I dozed it away in sloth and laziness?” A thinking being must be pleased or confounded, according as he can answer himself those questions.—Chesterfield.

AT THE EXECUTION OF THE DESERTER.

Persons wishing to discontinue their Subscriptions, or to whom the Museum is sent by mistake, are earnestly requested to return the numbers as soon as received, by post or other conveyance, and as far as lies in their power, uninjured; several individuals have allowed as many as four numbers to be forwarded to them, before giving the least information on the subject, and then return them not only with the pages cut, but so soiled and otherwise injured that they are perfectly useless, although we are entirely out of numbers of the same date.

Distant subscribers are respectfully requested to forward the first six months subscription for the Museum to the respective Agents, or to the Office in Montreal.

Punctuation and spelling have been changed silently to achieve consistency.

[The end of The Montreal Museum Volume 1 Number 6 edited by Mary Graddon Gosselin]