ther, as I last saw her, comes over me as a pleasant dream." He looked on the picture, and sighed as he put it into her hands. "Farewell," he said, "all I can do for thee I will, and God's blessing be ever with thee!" He pressed her hand kindly. Marian's heart was full, and she could but weep her thanks, as the General touched a small silver bell, when the door was opened, and she passed forth from the presence of General Cromwell with renewed hopes and a thankful spirit.

Not many days after this interview, Marian's nurse came to her, and informed her that Herbert Lisle, her beloved husband; was at liberty, that he had been with her, and desired her to tell Marian he was impatient to behold her once more, and to bid her farewell, as he had given his promise to the State to depart forthwith, and his steps were therefore watched by their emissaries. She added, that he would expect Marian at her cottage, at the close of that same evening.

It were needless to speak of Marian's gratitude, when she heard that Herbert was really at liberty,-of the many affectionate messages to him with which she charged her nurse-of the trembling impatience with which she awaited the appointed hour to behold him.

Evening came, at length, and the darkening clouds, and the moaning of the wind, seemed to portend a storm; but Marian heeded not these gloomy appearances. She had kept aloof in her chamber from the family all that day, under the plea of indisposition, and it was quite dusk, and all was still in the house, ere she ventured forth. With noiseless steps she passed down the garden at the back of the house, and unfastened the door at the extremity of it, which led into the fields, and hastened onwards, as she believed, unheard and unobserved.-Once or twice, as Marian proceeded through the lane which led to the cottage of her nurse, she thought she heard a footstep behind her. She stopped, and listened intensely, but all was perfectly still and she felt certain that she had been deceived, that the sound had been merely the rustling of the wind through the hedge. In a few minutes she gained the cottage, and, hastily unfastening the latch, she entered. There was a light in the room, but Marian saw no one but her nurse. "Where is he?" she exclaimed. The old woman pointed to an inner apartment; but Herbert hrad heard the sound of her voice, and he rushed forth, and caught Marian in his arms. "Beloved of my soul!" said the young Cavalier, as he tenderly bent over his weeping wife,

"Bless thee, dearest!" said her husband, as he passed his arm around her waist, and her head reclined on his shoulder.

They had stood thus for a few seconds, beside the window, when Herbert quitted his position, and advanced towards the inner apartment, whither a sudden call from the nurse invited him. Marian had taken but a single step to follow him, when the report of a pistol was heard, and Marian, with a deep groan, sunk on the cottage floor.

Herbert flew towards her: he raised her in his arms: but the ball had entered her side, and the blood flowed freely. Herbert bent over her in indescribable agony. Her face was deathly pale; but her eyes turned with fondness on her husband, as, with difficulty, she articulated-This stroke was doubtless meant for thee. Oh, the bliss that thou art safe, and that I may die for thee? My poor father!" she murmured faintly, as her head dropped exhausted on his shoulder.

"Help! instant aid, in the name of God!" wildly cried Herbert; and the nurse, scarcely less distracted, hastened to obtain assistance.

Help is vain," said Marian; "I feel it here ;" and she pressed her chilly hand on her side. The dews of death were on her forehead; but her arms were clasped firmly around her husband's neck.

"It is a bitter 'pang to leave thee!" sighed Marian; "but a few more years, and thou wilt be with me, free from sorrow, and from suffering."

The last word was scarcely distinguishable. She sighed heavily: Herbert felt the arms which were around him relax in their grasp her gentle soul had fledit was only the lifeless corse of his beloved Marian which he pressed distractedly to his bosom, and gazed on in mute but unutterable despair.

saw her in the arms of a young cavalier, though he distinguished not that it was Herbert Lisle, he witnessed their endearments, and fraught with madness at the disgrace which he imagined had been thus brought upon his family, he drew forth his pistol and aimed it at Herbert. But Marian, his sister, was fated to be the unhappy sufferer from his deadly purpose. He stayed not to know the event; as fearful of pursuit, he hastened immediately from the spot. Bitter was his repentance, when he found that he had sacrificed his beloved sister; and when the true circumstances of the case were made known to him, he was unable to bear his reflections, and sailed soon after for America, where he died at the close of a few years.

From the moment of Marian's death, Herbert Lisle was a melancholy man ; and though Matthew Godfrey, softened and almost broken hearted by the misfortune which had befallen his family, blessed and forgave him ere he left England, he moved no more in scenes of gaiety, for the light of his existence had passed away for ever; and, soon after the restoration of King Charles the Second, he died at his paternal mansion, in Kent, young in years, but willingly resigning the load of life which had pressed heavily upon him since the death of his ever fondly-remembered Marian.

La Belle Assem.

LOVERS' MEETINGS.

They met !-'twas in the busy scene,
Where bustling commerce reigns;
Where all her courtiers round her throng,
And press their petty gains.-
And many a mingled crowd was there,
And many a face between;

But their young eyes met in one glance,
As though none else had been!

In that one look, what years of speech Came trembling to their hearts, Sweet as the silent rich perfume

The new blown rose imparts?
And, as they slowly lingered past,
Fond thoughts spread o'er their minds
A mystic haze, like summer's dew,

That o'er the warm scene climbs :
That look, like sailors' silent words
That flutter in the air,
Had meaning in it, and it told,

That love had sent it there?

Days, weeks, and months went slowly on,
Went sad as well as slow;
And Fate seem'd bidding each, the hope
Of meeting to forego:

Sadly each counted o'er the hours,
That weaken'd, as they fell,

Hope's heav'nly nectar, with the drops
From disappointment's well!-

They met !-how kind the chance that led
Them both to Thespia's shrine !
They heard!--but poor to them, I ween,
The poet's words divine!
For words they had themselves, and these
Weighed all the poet's tale;
And, ere they parted, asked and gave
A meeting in the vale!

They met !--the evening breeze was there,
Singing its love-spun lay;
The twilight smiled a blessing down-
Fair substitute for day !-

While heav'ns white lamps their soft beams gave

To cheer th' enchanting hour,
But not so bright as might disclose
To vulgar eyes love's bower!

They met !-What moments of delight
Flew rapidly along;

Unmark'd, unthought of, till the lark
Woke morning by his song!-
How often did they strive to part!
But still the fond "adieu !"
Brought new-born kisses to their lips,
The parting to renew !

With many a vow of endless truth,
Each sought a lonely home,
Where social pleasures could not break
The depth of sorrow's gloom!
Their happiest hours were gone, and poor
The chance that might again
Give love so blest a time as that,

Spent on the night-dew'd plain;
For friends were stern, and cruel pride
Because the youth was poor, and rich
Forbade love's hopes to shine,

The maid of heart divine !

John Keats was handsome, indeed his face might be termed intellectually beautiful; expressed more of poetry than even his poetry does, beautiful as it is, with all its faults, and these are not few. It was such a face as I never saw before nor since. Any one who had looked on it would have said "That is no common man." There was a lustre in his look which gave you the idea of a mind of exquisite refinement, and high imagination; yet, to an observing eye, the seeds of early death were sown there; it was impossible to look at him, and think him long-lived. Jeremy Taylor says, in one of his admirable sermons, that "there are but few persons upon whose foreheads every man can read the sentence of death, written in the lines of a lingering sick ness;" but on his forehead it was written sufficiently palpable for some to read it as they ran.

These signs were somewhat contradicted by a look of strength and durability about his chest and shoulders, which might have deceived a casual looker-on; but he who could perceive the inner-workings, who could estimate the wear and wasting which an ardent, ambitious, and restless intellect makes in the "human form divine," must have felt persuaded that the flame burning within would shortly consume the outward shell. His spirit was like burning oil in a vessel of some precious and costly wood, which when the flame has consumed its nutriment, will then burn that which contained it. U like the pyre that consumes the devoted widow of the Hindoo husband, where we may see the fire but not the victim, in him we saw the fire and the victim too. He, however, was a self-devoted martyr to intellect, and not to a senseless and brutal custom; and if literature had its army of martyrs, as Religion gloriously has, his name would not be forgotten in its calends.

Poor fellow, I shall never forget him; those who did not know him, and who have only read his too early productions may; but those who knew him well never if there be any fellowship in man, can, and human kindness be anything more than a word. He was kind, affectionate, a delightful friend, an excellent companion, a young man wiser than his years, a true and tender brother (this affection it was that sacrificed his life,) a boy in ook, but a man in mind, a mortal in seeming, but a spirit in spirit. Shelley, who with all his liberal opinions, was at heart an aristocrat (and I speak this not offensively) slighted him till he knew his worth, but knew it too late. He afterwards made some amends in his "Ado

nais," an extravagant rhapsody; and yet there is in it a true portrait of that young man of genius, who, if he had lived, would have proved himself the only mind worthy to be placed side by side with Milton in blank verse and epic genius.

His fragment called " Hyperion" is the noblest piece of blank verse that has appeared since Milton's. It would be difficult to produce a passage of equal length from Young, or from Blair's Grave, or from Cumberland's Calvary, or Townsend's Armageddon (which is a fine and undeservedly neglected work), or from Wordsworth's Excursion, that might compete with it. It was an overpowering avalanche from the very mountain of the Muses, which ought to have crushed and buried those poor blind moles and miners who are still uselessly labouring to underwork his fame. It was fortunate for his reputation that his booksellers persuaded him to publish it, for there were but two or three pieces in his last volume (Isabel, the Eve of St. Agnes, and one of his Odes) which could have added to his reputation. His publishers, however, should have spared such a silly excuse for the fragment-like appearance of Hyperion: the poet who could write so noble a fragment ought to have been above the idle criticism of the day he should have finished what he had so nobly began, though a million of reviewers had cried "hold!" Would Shakspeare, had he lived in these days, have cared to please such never-pleasable cynicks? Would Milton' The only poet of this time who has placed himself with those great names, set himself above criticism, and then criticism, instead of trampling him under foot, as it would have done, had he been humble, seeing that his spirit would not bow to it, bowed even to prostration to him. This was what John Keats should have done, and he might have lived.

There are few errors in Hyperion. I do not like this simile in it :

"For as in crowded theatres of men Hubbubi ncreases more they call out' Hush!'

It is a very poor anachronism, and what is worse, has in it an air of vulgarity: to come back to earth from the "highest heaven of invention," for such a simile, was as illustrative of sinking as it would have been in Michael Angelo to leave working out his sublime and colossal Moses to carve a cherry stone. It may be excuse enough for so young a poet, that Milton has sinned in the same manner; though some may say that the error

of a great, will not warrant the error of a lesser, poet. It is, of course, inevitable and unavoidable, that we should describe things with which we are not familiar by things with which we are. But what is classical should only be illustrated by classical comparisons; or else should be left alone.

"Hyperion" will do more, in more candid times, to preserve his name, than all the rest of his poetry. It is, to be sure, but a fragment; so is the Theseus among the Elgin marbles; but we may judge by that portion what the entire work must have been. Would to heaven that he had been urged by some one who had influence over his mind to finish it: he should have left the pretty and the fantastic to others he had sublimer powers, which should not have been wasted in minor efforts. But it is now too late to accuse him of the error of neglecting his own reputation. A certain crew among critics did their best to nip his genius in the bud, and it is but justice to them to say that they succeeded.

When we think of the abused and ferocious power which those canker-worms of literature exert upon authors, it makes one envy the good old writers. Then if a man had merit in his works he was read for that merit, and praised without fear and without deduction; he was not damned and made a bye-word of reproach, for scorn to point his filthy finger at, because he was unfortunate enough to know a brother author, who was hostile in taste or politics to the self-created critic; nor was he excommunicated because he was guilty of the literary heterodoxy of publishing in the city instead of Albemarle-street, or in London instead of Edinburgh.

We cannot deprecate this cruel and un just kind of criticism better than in the indignant and forcible language of a writer who has had much more to do with political than poetical criticism, since he wrote this stirring appeal to the common sense of the reading public, and the common candour of critics. The remarks we quote are from a work very little known, entitled "The Contemplatist; a Series of Essays upon Morals and Literature. By William Mudford." He is defending bad authors from the persecution and insult which follow them after their first false step in literature; what we are about to quote may consequently be considered as in some measure inapplicable to the case of John Keats, who, whatever faults he might have as a poet, was certainly not wanting in genius, and a highly poetic mind and imagination; but the passage is so eloquent a deprecation of

the spirit of literary persecution' under which he suffered, that we shall insert it.

"It seems to have passed into an established maxim," says the Contemplatist, "that to write badly is a crime of such magnitude, as admits of no atonement: it so thoroughly strips the delinquent of all social rights, it casts him forth from the hospitable circle of his fellow-creatures with such marks of disgrace and infamy, that humanity itself forbears to appear in his behalf whom all have doomed to relentless persecution. Nothing that is vented against him; no reproach, however bitter; no lampoon, however malignant; no satire, however false, and therefore the more poignant; no ridicule, however intolerable; no contempt, however blasting; in short, not the most savage ferocity which can come into action under the veil of literary rancour, is thought to be misapplied when directed against him who has written without excellence. Common malefactors, for the most infamous crimes, find compassion in some breast; but the bad author none. His miseries are sport; his sorrows are festivity to the literary blood-hounds engaged in the pursuit. The murderer is treated with decency and feeling; and brutality itself disdains, wantonly, to probe the sores of a corrupted heart. But let an author publish a work that is deficient in excellence, who is there that does not think he has a right to lay the feelings of that author at his feet, with all the insulting mockery of derision? Is he not marked out for acrimonious ridicule or lordly contempt ? Is not even his moral character often implicated by some ungenerous sarcasm, or by some facetious parallel? Is he not derided as a dunce, or despised as an idiot? Is not his name mercilessly sported with? And whence is all this? What offence has been committed? What violation of public or private welfare has been attempted? What injury has been, or can be, committed by the publication of a work not just so good as it might be, that it should be thought a fit plea for over-stepping every boundary of feeling and humanity every limit of justice and liberality?

But let us pause for a moment, and consider under what conplicated pain a delicate and apprehensive mind must labour, who sees every art employed to render him an object of ridicule and contempt-the public called upon to feast at a banquet, where his heart and mind are served up for the repast? Think how contracted is the circle of human happiness; why, then, delight so much in the production of human misery, that you can, unprovoked, fix a sting in the bosom

of an unoffending individual, whose only crime is, that his talents are beneath perfection? Prove that the want of ability, that the mere publication of an indifferent book is a crime, and one that entitles its perpetrator to malignant aspersion and unfeeling scorn, and then I consent that, as a crime, it meets its due punishment: but, until that be done, I must ever consider the wanton abuse of such writers among those actions which a wise and feeling mind should blush to remember."

With every sentence of this eloquent appeal to the better feelings of critics in general we most cordially agree: the entire paper, indeed, should be framed and hung up as a sort of homily, in the closets of all critics, to teach them two moral lessons which they are, too prone to forget, humanity and humility.

İLUSCENOR.

TO MISS S - GD.

On the Death of Mr. →→→→

Nay tho' the wave closed o'er thy love, Mourn not, he left a world of woe; And thou indeed, didst truly prove, How deeply rankling was the blow.

Oh! weep not, that he left a scene But seldom free from toil and care; Save, when thy form would intervene, For all was gay when thou wert there.

Did he not love? methinks a sound
Comes gurgling from the limpid wave;
Methinks he wildly looks around,
Alas, no friendly hand to save.

He thinks on thee-it is a spell
He struggles hard with angry death
Exhausted, murmurs 'love farewell!'
And gives to thee his latest breath.
'Tis ever thus when true hearts meet
'Tis ever thus with holy love;
Its halo is too pure and sweet;
Love's only native sphere 's above.

Then mourn not-dry that tearful eye,
For, oh! to thee it still is given,
That thou, dear girl-wilt surely die,
And meet-to part no more-in heaven.

Farewell!-farewell!-thou wilt refuse,
To weep at heav'ns supreme decree;
Farewell! sweet maid-forgive the muse,
The stranger muse-who thinks of thee.
EB. COLLINS.

THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

THE account of the last moments and character of the gallant but ill-fated hero of Corunna here inserted, we extract from Colonel Napier's History of the Peninsu

lar War, who states by way of giving additional value to his work, one of great interest, that many of the transactions he has therein related, he was an eye witness to, and as we are well aware that all narrations that are founded upon fact, are valued highly, and read with intense interest, we cannot refrain from giving the following:

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"From the spot where he fell, the general who had conducted the attack was carried mortally wounded to the town by a party of soldiers. The blood flowed fast, and the torture of his wound increased; but such was the unshaken firmness of his mind, that those about him, judging from the resolution of his countenance that his hurt was not mortal, expressed a hope of his recovery. Hearing this, he looked steadfastly at the injury for a moment, and then said, "No; I feel that to be impossible.' Several times he caused his attendants to stop and turn him round, that he might behold the field of battle; and when the firing indicated the advance of the British, he discovered his satisfaction, and permitted the bearers to proceed. Being brought to his lodgings, the surgeon examined his wound, but there was no hope; the pain increased, and he spoke with great difficulty. At intervals, he asked if the French were beaten ; and addressing his old friend Colonel Anderson, he said, "You know that I always wished to die this way." Again be asked if the enemy were defeated; and being told they were, observed, "It is a great satisfaction to me to know we have beaten the French." His countenance continued firm, and his thoughts clear; once only, when he spoke of his mother, he became agitated. He inquired after the safety of his friends, and the officers of his staff, and he did not even in this moment forget to recommend those whose merit had given them claims to promotion. His strength was failing fast, and life was just extinct, when, with an unsubdued spirit, as if anticipating the baseness of his posthumous calumniators, he exclaimed," I hope the people of England will be satisfied, I hope my country will do me justice!” The battle was scarcely ended, when his corpse, wrapped in a military cloak, was interred by the officers of his staff in the citadel of Corunna. The guns of the enemy paid his funeral honours, and, Soult, with a noble feeling of respect for his valour, raised a monument to his me

mory.

Thus ended the career of Sir John Moore, a man whose uncommon capacity was sustained by the purest virtue, and governed by a disinterested patriotism