Imatges de pàgina
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"welcome to all thou hast wished! Forgetfulness is thine-forgetfulness of misery and disappointment. There flow the Waters of Oblivion; drink then, and be blessed!"

"I have thought anew of it," replied Sadak, "and hate the selfish and coward draught."

"Fool?" said the Deev, " ever changing and uncertain! but now thou didst call for death, yet fleddest to behold him near as the sparrow from the eagle. Bethink thee that, hereafter thou wilt wish and in vain, for these happy waters: the evils of thy life shall haunt thy remembrance with bitterness unceasing. Then thou wilt long for oblivion; but mortal comes not twice here. Drink, then, and secure peace while it offers."

Sadak paused-for a moment he wavered-It was but for a moment; "No!" he answered, "I will not drink! Thanks for thy offer and thy aid, though I wil not avail myself of it. I will depart as I

came.

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"Depart!" shouted the laughing Deev, "how and when? Thinkest thou the boat will bear thee back in safety, who hast mocked its master, and despised his gifts? Trifle not! Did I bring thee hither to return with the memory of what thou hast seen-to prate to clay things like thyself of the fallen splendour of our race?-Once anore I bid thee drink."

"I will not!" answered Sadak. The Deev bent on him a look of darkness and of rage. His colossal figure shook with fury, as the mountain heaves and swells on the birth of an earthquake, lightening blazed in his eyes, and his voice was nigh choked as he thundered once more "Drink?"

Sadak spoke not-moved not.
"Then perish ""

The Deev twisted his hand in his victim's hair, raised him from the ground, and hurled him far aloft into the air. He rose to a fearful height, then turned and fell. The Waters of Oblivion received him-they parted and closed again over adak for ever.

NAVAL DISCIPLINE WITHOUT

FLOGGING.

LORD COLLINGWOOD.-As his experience in command and his knowledge of the disposition of men increased, his abhorrence of corporal punishment grew daily stronger, and in the latter part of his life, more than a year has elapsed without his having resorted to it once. "I wish I were the Captain for your sakes,”

cried Lieutenant Clavell one day to some men, who were doing some part of their duty ill; when shortly after, a person touched him on the shoulder, and turning round, he saw the Admiral, who had overheard him. "And pray Clavell, what would you have done if you had been Captain?" "I would have flogged them well, Sir," "No you would not Clavell, no you would not," he replied; "I know you better." He used to tell the Ship's Company that he was determined the youngest midshipman should be obeyed as implicitly as himself, and that he would punish with great severity any instance to the contrary. When a midshipman made a complaint, he would order the man for punishment the next day; and in the interval calling the boy down to him, would say, "In all probability the fault was your's; but whether it were not, I am sure it would go to your heart to see a man old enough to be your father, disgraced and punished on your account; and it will, therefore, give me a good opinion of your disposition, if, when he is brought out, you ask for his pardon," When this recommendation, acting as it did like an order, was complied with, and the lad interceded for the prisoner, Captain Collingwood would make great apparent difficulty in yielding; but at length would say, "This young gentleman has pleaded so humanely for you, that, in the hope that you will feel a due gratitude to him for his benevolence, I will for this time overlook your offence." The punishments he substituted for the lash, were of many kinds, such as watering the grog, and other modes now happily general in the Navy. Among the rest was one which the men particularly dreaded. ordering any offender to be excluded from his mess, and be employed in every extra duty, so that he was every moment liable to be called upon deck for the meanest service, amid the laughter and jeers of the men and boys. Such an effect had this upon the sailors; that they have often declared that they would prefer having three dozen lashes; and, to avoid the recurrence of this punishment, the worst characters never failed to become atten

It was

tive and orderly. How he sought to amuse and occupy the attention of the men appears in some of these letters. When they were sick, even while he was an Admiral, he visited them daily, and supplied them from his own table; and when they were convalescent, they were put under the charge of the Lieutenant of the morning watch, and daily brought up to the Admiral, for examination by him. The result of this conduct, was, that the

sailors considered him, and called him their father; and frequently, when he changed his ship, many of the men were seen in tears for his departure. But with all this there was no man who less courted, or to speak more truly, who held in more entire contempt, what is ordinarily styled popularity. He was never known to unbend with the men, while at the same time, he never used any coarse or violent language to them himself, or permitted it in others. If you do not know a man's name," he used to say to the Officers, "call him sailor, and not you-sir, and such other appellations; they are offensive and improper." -Corres. of Lord Collingwood.

66

NOTHING BUT HEARTS.

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It must have been the lot of every whist player to observe a phenomenon at the card-table as mysterious as any in nature. I mean the constant recurrence of a certain trump throughout the night-a run upon a particular suit, that sets all the calculations of Hoyle and Cocker at defiance. The chance of turning up is equal to the Four Denominations. They should alternate with each other, on the average-whereas a Heart, perhaps, shall be the last card of every deal. King or Queen, Ace or Deuce, still it is of the same clan. You cut-and it comes again. Nothing but Hearts!" I had looked in by chance at the Royal Institution; a Mr. Professor Pattison, of New York, I believe, was lecturing, and the subject was-"Nothing but Hearts!" Some hundreds of grave, curious, or scientific personages were ranged on the benches of the Theatre;-every one in his solemn black. On a table in front of the Professor, stood the specimens ; hearts of all shapes and sizes-man's, woman's, sheep's, bullock's-on platters or in cloths, were lying about as familiar as household wares. Drawings of hearts, in black or blood-red, (dismal valentines!) hung around the fearful walls. Preparations of the organ in wax, or bottled, passed currently from hand to hand, from eye to eye, and returned to the gloomy table. It was like some solemn Egyptian Inquisition-a looking into dead men's hearts for their morals.

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The Professor began. Each after each he displayed the samples; the words "auricle" and "ventricle" falling frequently on the ear, as he explained how those "solemn organs" pump in the humar breast. He showed, by experiments with water, the operation of the valves with the blood, and the impossibility of its

revulsion. As he spoke an indescribable thrilling or tremor crept over my left breast-thence down my side-and all over. I felt an awful consciousness of the bodily presence of my heart, till then nothing more than it is in a song-a mere metaphor-so imperceptible are all the grand vital workings of the human frame ! Now I felt the organ distinctly. There it was!-a fleshy core-aye, like that on the Professor's plate-throbbing away auricle and ventricle, the valve allowing the gushing blood at so many gallons per minute, and ever prohibiting its return!

The Professor proceeded to enlarge on the important office of the great functionary and the vital engine seemed to dilate within me, in proportion to the sense of its stupendous responsibility. I seemed nothing but auricle, and ventricle, and valve. Ï had no breath, but only pulsations. Those who have been present at anatomical discussions can alone corroborate this feeling, how the part discoursed of, by a surpassing sympathy and sensibility, cause its counterpart to become prominent and allengrossing to the sense; how a lecture on hearts makes a man seem to himself as all heart, or one on heads causes a phrenologist to conceive he is "all brain."

Thus was I absorbed ::-my "bosom's lord," lording over every thing beside. By and bye, in lieu of one solitary machine, I saw before me a congregation of hundreds of human forcing pumps, all awfully working together-the palpitations of hundreds of auricles and ventricles, the flapping of hundreds of valves!-And anon they collapsed-mine-the Professor'sthose on the benches-all! all!-into one great auricle—one great ventricle—one vast universal heart!"

The lecture ended.-I took up my hat and walked out, but the discourse haunted me. I was full of the subject. A kind of fluttering, which was not to be cured even by the fresh air, gave me plainly to understand that my heart was not in the Highlands," nor in any lady's keeping-but where it ought to be in my own bosom, and as hard at work as a parish pump. I plainly felt the bloodlike the carriages on a birth-night, coming in by the auricle, and going out by the ventricle; and shuddered to fancy what must ensue either way, from any "breaking the line." Then occurred to me the danger of little particles absorbed in the blood, and accumulating to a stoppage at the valve,-the "pumps getting choked," -a suggestion that made me feel rather qualmish, and for relief I made a call on Mrs. W- The visit was ill chosen and mistimed, for the lady in question, by dint of good nature, and a romantic turn

true.

-principally estimated by her young and female acquaintance, had acquired the reputation of being all heart.' The phrase had often provoked my mirth,but alas! the description was now over Whether nature had formed her in that mould, or my own distempered fancy, I know not, but there she sate, and looked the Professor's lecture over again. She was like one of those games alluded to in my beginning "Nothing but Hearts!" Her nose turned up. It was a heart-and her mouth led a trump. Her face gave a heart-and her cap followed suit. Her sleeves puckered and plumped themselves into a heart shape-and so did her body. Her pincushion was a heart-the very back of her chair was a heart-her bosom was a heart. She was, "all heart" indeed! Hood's Whims and Oddities.

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supper.

Hark! thro' the air we hear the shepherd's pipe Woo the calm evenings breeze, whilst he bewails

The approaching dark, as in his ears the bat

Hums out the peal of night. Within their palace The burden rested bees count o'er their earnings And sing o'er their days labour, or some sen tinel

Seizes by the wing the lazy, thievish drone; And executes the traitor. The muttering surge Just chafes and foams against the sullen shore Venting its grumbling sorrow for some wreck ; While list'ning Neptune strikes his silent tri

dent.

And checks the hurrying waves. The sleepy

echo

Listlessly from his low resounding cave, Returns the lover's whisper on the wind, O fair and sportless Even!

PORTRAIT OF LORD BYRON

"Lord Byron's face was handsome; eminently so in some respects. He had a mouth and a chin fit for Apollo, and when I first knew him, there were both lightness and energy all over his aspect. But his countenance did not improve with age, and there were always some defects in it. The jaw was too big for the upper part. It had all the wilfulness of a despot in it. The animal predominated over the intellectual part of his head, inasmuch as the face altogether was large in proportion to the skull. The eyes also were set too near one another; and the nose, though hardsome in itself, had the appearance,

when you saw it closely in front, of being grafted on the face, rather than growing properly out of it. His person was very handsome, though terminating in lameness, and tending to fat and effeminacy; which makes me remember what a hostile fair one objected to him, namely, that he had little beard, a fault which, on the other hand, was thought by another lady, not hostile, to add to the divinity of his aspect,

imberbis Apollo. His lameness was only in one foot; the left, and it was so little visible to casual notice, that as he lounged about a room (which he did in such a manner as to screen it) it was hardly perceivable. But it was a real and even a sore lameness. Much walking upon it fevered and hurt it, it was a shrunken foot, a little twisted. This defect unquestionably mortified him exceedingly, and helped to put sarcasm and misanthropy into his taste of life. Unfortunately, the usual thoughtlessness of schoolboys made him feel it bitterly at Harrow. He would wake, and find his leg in a tub of water. The reader will see (hereafter) how he felt it; whenever it was libelled, and in Italy, the only time I ever knew it mentioned, he did not like the subject, and hastened to change it. His handsome person so far tured to him all the occasions on which rendered the misfortune greater, as pic he might have figured in the eyes of company, and doubtless this was a great reason, why he had no better address. On the other hand, instead of losing him any real regard or admiration, his lameness gave à touching character to both.

He had a delicate white hand, of which he was proud, and he attracted attention to it by rings. He thought a hand of this description almost the only mark remain ing now-a-days of gentleman, of which it certainly is not, nor of a lady either; though a coarse one implies handiwork He often appeared holding a handkerchief, upon which his jewelled fingers lay imbeded, as in a picture. He was as fond of fine linen, as a Quaker, and had the remnant of his hair oiled and trimmed with all character to which this effeminacy gave the anxiety of a Sardanapalus. The visible rise, appears to have indicated itself as early as his travels in the Levant, where the Grand Signior is said to have taken him for a woman in disguise."-Hunt's Lord Byron.

THE STEAM ENGINE.

"THE STEAM ENGINE," says Mr. Farey, in his treatise recently published, " is an invention highly creditable to human genius and industry; for it exhibits the most valuable application of phi

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losophical principles to the arts of life, and has produced greater and more general changes in the practice of mechanics than has ever been effected by any one invenion recorded in history. All other inventions appear insignificant when compared with the modern steam engine. A ship, with all her accessaries, and the extent of knowledge requisite to conduct her through a distant voyage, are most striking instances of the intellectual power of man, and of his enterprising disposition. The steam engine follows next in the scale of inventions, when considered in reference to its utility, and as an instance of the preserving ingenuity of man to bend the powers of nature to his will, and employ their energies to supply his real and artificial wants; but when we consider the steam engine as a production of genius, it must be allowed to take the lead of all other inventions. The natives of Britain will more readily grant this preeminence to the steam engine, from the circumstance of its having been invented and brought into general use by their countrymen within a century; and particularly as it has been one of the principal means of effecting those great improvements, which have taken place in all our national manufactures within the last

thirty years that amazing increase of productive industry, which has enabled us to extend our commerce to its present magnitude, could never have been effected without the aid of this new power. In fact there is every reason to suppose, that if the steam engine had not been brought into use, this country, instead of increasing in wealth and prosperity, during the last century, would have retrograded greatly, because the mines of coals, iron, copper, lead, and tin, which have in all ages formed so considerable a portion of the wealth of England, were at the beginning of the last century nearly exhausted, and worked out to the greatest depths to which it was practicable to draw off the water by acqueducts and simple machinery; and without the aid of steam engines it is probable, that fuel, timber, and all the common metals, would long since have become too scarce in England, to have supplied the necessites of a numerous population."

LORD BYRON'S DISLIKE OF HIS COUNTRY.

He cared nothing at all for England. He disliked the climate; he disliked the manners of the people; he did not think hem a bit better than other nations, and tad he entertained all these opinions in a

spirit of philosophy, he would have been right; for it does not become a man of genius to give up,' even to his country, what is meant for mankind.' He was not without some of this spirit; but undoubtedly his greatest dislike of England was owing to what he had suffered there, and to the ill opinion which he thought was entertained of him. It was this that annoyed him in Southey. I believe if he entertained a mean opinion of the talents of any body, it was of Southey's, and he had the greatest contempt for his political conduct (a feeling which is more common with men of letters than Mr. Southey fancies): but he believed that the formal and the foolish composed the vast body of the middle orders in England; with these he looked upon Mr. Southey as in great estimation; and whatever he did to risk individual good opinion-however he preferred fame and a sensation,' at all hazards-he did not like to be thought ill of by any body of people.-Hunt's Lord Byron.

THREE FINGERED JACK.

OBI; OR, THREE FINGERED JACK, THE FAMOUS NEGRO ROBBER, was the terror of Jamaica, in the years 1780 and 1781, he was an obi-man, and by his professed there were also many white people, who ncantations, was the dread of the Negroes believed he was possessed of some supernatural power. He had neither accomfought all his battles alone, and either plices nor associates, he robbed alone killed his pursuers, or retreated into difficult It was thus that he terrified the Inhabitants, and set the civil power, neighbouring militia at defiance for two

fastnesses where none dared to follow him.

years.

;

and the

At length allured by the rewards offered by Governor Dalling, in a proclamation dated the 12th December, 1789, and by a resolution which followed it of the house of Assembly, two Negroes, Quasher and with a party of their townsmen went in Sams, both of Scots Hall, Maroon Town, search of him.

Quasher before he set out on the expedition, got himself christened, and changed his name to James Reeder. The expedition commenced, and the whole party crept about the woods for three weeks, but in vain. Reeder and Sam, tired with this mode of warfare, resolved on proceeding in search of Jack's retreat, and taking him by storming it, or perishing in the attempt. They took with them a little boy of spirit, and who was a good shot, and then left the rest of the party. These three had not

been long separated, before their keen eyes discovered, by impressions among the weeds and bushes, that some person must have lately been that way. They softly followed these impressions, making not the least noise, and soon discovered smoke. They prepared for an encounter, and came upon Jack before he perceived them, he was roasting plantains by a little fire on the ground at the mouth of a cave. This was a scene in which it was not for ordinary actors to play. Jack's looks were fierce and terrific, he told them he would kill them. Reeder instead of shooting Jack, replied that obi had no power to hurt him for he was christened, and that his name was no longer Quasher. Jack knew Reeder, and as if paralysed, let his two guns remain on the ground, and took up only his cutlass. Jack and Reeder had a desperate engagement some years before in the woods, in which conflict Jack lost two fingers, which was the origin of his name: but Jack then beat Reeder, and almost killed him, with several others who assist

ed him.

Jack would easily have beat both Sam and Reeder, who were at first afraid, of him, but he had prophesied that white obi would get the better of him, and from experience he knew the charm would lose none of its strength in the hand of Reeder. Without further parley, Jack with the cutlass in his hand threw himself down a precipice at the back of the cave. Reeder's gun missed fire, but Sam shot him in the shoulder, Reeder like an English bull-dog never looked, but with his cutlass in hand plunged down head long after Jack. The descent was about thirty yards, and almost perpendicular. Both of them had preser

ved their cutlasses.

Here was the stage on which two of the stoutest hearts began their bloody struggle, the little boy, who was ordered to keep back out of harms way, now reached the top of the precipice, and during the fight shot Jack in the belly.

Sam was crafty, and coolly took a circuitous way to get to the field of action, but when he arrived at the spot where it commenced, Jack and Reeder had closed and tumbled together down another precipice, on the side of the mountain, in which fall they both lost their weapons. Sam descended after them, but he also lost his cutlass among the trees and bushes. When he came up to them, he found that though without weapons, they were not idle. Luckily for Reeder, Jack's wounds were deep and desperate, and Sam came up just in time to save him, for Jack had caught him by the throat with a giant's grasp. Reeder was then with his right hand almost cut off, and Jack streaming

with blood from his wounds; both were covered with gore and gashes. In this state Sam was umpire, and decided the fate of the battle. He knocked Jack down with a piece of rock. The little boy soon came up, and with his cutlass they cut off Jack's head and three-fingered hand, which they carried in triumph to Kingston, and received the promised reward.-Percy Anec

ON SPENCER THE POET. BY Brown.

He sung the Heroic Knights of Fairy land,
In lines so elegant, and with such command,
That had the Thracian play'd but half so well,

He had not left Eurydice in hell.

INFALLIBLE CUREFOR HARD TIMES.

CALCULATE your income, and be sure you do not let your expenses be quite so much-lay by some for a rainy day. Never follow fashions-but let the fashions follow you: that is, direct your business and expenses by your own judgment, not by the custom of fools, who spend more than their income. Never listen to the tales of complainers, who spend their breath in crying hard times, and do nothing to mend them. Every man may live within his income, and thereby preserve his independence. poor his taxes are small, unless he holds an estate which he cannot pay for, in such case he does not own it, and therefore ought to let the owner take it. Industry and economy will for ever triumph over hard times, and disappoint povertytherefore, the general cry, 66 we cannot pay the taxes and live," is absolutely false.

If a man is

TRIBUTARY LINES TO THE MEMORY OF EDWIN THE COMEDIAN.

Here rests his head, and may it rest in peace.
May sorrow vanish, and may trouble cease
Here rests the frolic son of truant mirth,
That nature smil'd on at his dawning birth:
View'd him, delighted, with a mother's eye,
And beckoned Edwin from his infancy;
Whate'er was mirthful to the public gave,
And veil'd his foibles in the silent grave.
Thus the proud column, by the artist's hand,
Braves the high air, an emblem of command
Till, struck by time, its pride is overthrown,
And all its beauty in a moment gone.
No farther seek his praise, or blame to scan,
Or praised or pitied, Edwin was a man.

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