the very circumstance which would have deterred ninety and nine females out of every hundred from cherishing any thing like affection for the victim of so awful a dispensation, excited in Fanny's heart a sentiment which, originating in the purest commiseration and sympathy, terminated in the most ardent, the most faithful, the most devoted, love. The compassion which she first felt for the sufferings which she heard that he underwent in the paroxysms of his disorder, and the interest which she took in his welfare, grew insensibly upon her; nor was she conscious of the full force of that passion, which was to destroy her own earthly happiness, until the certainty of that destruction brought with it the conviction of her irrevocable attachment to the poor maniac. The return of one of those fearful visitations which ever and anon came upon him, at once assured her, that the wreck and ruin of his mind was irretrievable, and that the tranquility and peace of her own heart was gone for ever. From that hour, she became the constant soother of his afflicted spirit, the calmer of his troubled thoughts; and "ministered to a mind diseased" so effectually for a time, that at length-"so fondly Hope will err"—she even hoped that her fondness had exaggerated the extent of his affliction; and the sad reality of her terrible forebodings gave way to the almost bewildering expectation of yet triumphing over that worst of earthly ills. Peachcroft became calm, composed, nay cheerful; he conversed rationally; and seemed in all his deportment a regenerated being. Restored, as he believed himself to be, to the enjoyment of reason, gratitude dictated the only reward that he could make to her, whose solicitude and tenderness had effected that restoration-and they were married. They lived together for some few years, apart from all society; never inviting a guest within their doors, and declining the hospitable invitations of their kind-hearted neighbours, lest some sudden excitement might once more defeat the success of Fanny's assiduous attention. She, for her own part, renounced all intercourse even with her relatives; and he no longer associated with his former friends. The only companion of their secluded home was a large rugged wolf-dog, seemingly as unsocial in disposition as the villagers imagined Peachcroft had become, and never leaving the house but to follow his hapless master and Fanny through the garden or the fields. In these, which were then considered Peachcroft's years of sanity, he never was seen to pass the boundary of his own grounds, and scarcely indeed the threshold of his house, by day; but in the twilight, or the dusk of evening, or the shade of night, he and Fanny would roam through unfrequented paths. Alas for Fanny!-little did she deem by what a sacrifice the quiet of a few months or years was to be repaid. She had succeeded, beyond her most sanguine expactation, in averting for a time those sufferings, which while they lasted, reduced the manly form of Peachcroft to the imbecility of very idiotcy; but the wound was only 66 skinned and filmed," the work of ruin went on silently, but surely, within; and Fanny, unconscious of the dangerous precipice on which she stood, was gay, was happy once more, buoying herself up with the delightful self-delusion, all the while her own intellect was gradually and imperceptibly yielding to the influence of sympathy and association. Their rambles were no longr confined to their own grounds; yet still they never appeared by day-light in the village. They generally left their cheerless dwelling before dawn, and seldom did they return to it before midnight.

He went he knew not whither-mad he was ! Now that "the fit was on him," he would sally forth through the orchard, accompanied by his ever faithful attendants, and as they set out, even in the same order and procession did they return:-Heachcroft walking a few paces in advance, then poor Fanny followed, and after her came the dog; and the animal, as if conscious of his master's infirmity, was never observed, while thus following them, to rouse himself from a state of sullen vigilance, or to give way to any show, or semblance, or sense of anger, no matter what efforts the wondering peasants might make to divert him from the track, or to provoke his rage. Tacitly, and invariably at the same self-regulated distance, did he follow in their footsteps, withersoever they might lead. In these excursions, no customary or beaten path was ever trodden; the leader made his heedless way through the open country that lay before him, crossing hedges and ditches of every height and dimensions, with an indiscriminate and almost indescribable alacrity, whilst his unwearied and apparently indefatigable followers held on the same undeviating and unhesitating course, "thorough brake, thorough briar, thorough fen, thorough mire." Throughout all Peachcroft's wanderings, Fanny never complained, never murmured, never paused, never spoke ;—but despair was praying stilly, slowly, surely, upon her heart and brain. Hers was that love which can neither be tired out, nor cured, nor conquered, nor destroyed, but which fastens upon its object and holds on to the last. The strange and melancholy procession which I have just described was never seen on its way back to the village till night had shadowed o'er that spot of earth, which was for years their "biding place," and which had for them—yea, even for them, desolate beings—as in truth they were-the charm, and the solace, and the sacredness, of HOME!

Their wanderings were not directed by motive or object; neither were they limited by any prescribed space, nor regulated by any attention to time or circumstance; save only that they never appeared in the village in "the garish light of day." In the one unwearied order of march, in sunshine and in shower, in calm or storm, did the unhappy maniac, with his only earthly companions, his wife and his dog, traverse a tract of twenty or thirty miles, day after day, in ever-changing directions; but his favourite ramble was toward the Hill-country, amongst the rugged acclivities of the Cotswolds.

Strange as it may seem, though he held aloof from all society, yet the person, history, individual character, capacity, and vocation, not merely of the long established inhabitants of the village and neighbourhood, but of the stranger and temporary sojourner amongst them, were known to Peachcroft: and if, in some of his capricious moods, he encountered any of them in his walks, or they passed him as he stood on the grass-plot in front of his door gazing on the heavens-bareheaded, and apparently wrapt in contemplation of the celestial sphere--he would stamp upon the earth in rage, and denounce them for intruding on his "sublime and sacred studies,”-calling each by name, as he raved aloud, and seeming, at such a moment, the embodied creature of the poet's fancy:-

He raves, his words are loose

As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense;
So high he's mounted on his airy throne,
That now the widd has got into his head,
And turns his brains to frenzy.

In these wayward fancies, standing as he was wont, with his poor Fanny at his side, and his faithful dog reclining at his feet, attracting and surrounded by a vast concourse of people, he would distinguish even in the gloom of night any person whom he had before known, and address him in terms of severe invective and reproach. On some occasions, he would appear in his "uuroofed observatory," as he termed the glass-plot, and, imagining that he held high and holy converse with an immense assemblage congregated in the stars, he would invoke their favour, protection, and fellowship. Then, calling aloud to the planets, he would tell them of "his visits to Diana, with whom he had banquetted on the cold fragments of a tough old owl; they had had a race first, but he found the infernal fowl so tough that he and Diana dragged the drum-sticks through their teeth!" One of his rhapsodies may thus be versified :

We've been up to the planets-Fan and I—
Jocundly feasting in the deep blue sky.
As for old Jupiter, that sparkler yonder,

With belts and moons, and satellites around,
A merrier host, a kinder, or a fonder,

'Mongst all our brother-gods, I've never found.
The more upon his royal cheer I ponder,

The more his gladdening praises shall resound.
Ay, his was something like old Hospitality-
Cordial and free-a lesson to Morality.

And then friend Jove !-why what infernal work he
Made with the old tough drum-stick of that turkey!

In these his "fantastical humours," he would conceit that he had travelled a long journey with the "Lady Moone," upon whose train the stars were but so many spangles; and drunk syllabub with Jupiter-his worthy old friend Jupiter his favourite Deity.

Of all Peachcroft's antipathies, and they were latterly numerous, that excited by the obnoxious tax-collectors of his day was the most inveterate. On one occasion his hatred, and the fury excited by their invasion of his territories, had nearly proved fatal to the leading man of office. They had repeatedly called upon him, but in vain, for the payment of various assessments, and he had as repeatedly threatened to "dash out their desperate brains," should they attempt to enforce their demand. At length, the collector, attended by two constables, appeared at his door, determined to execute a warrant of distress. Seeing his castle thus beset, he formed an instantaneous resolution to destroy his besiegers by stratagem; and, assuming the appearance of a pacific and even of a friendly disposition, he affected to 66 regret the trouble they had in calling so often for such a trifle," and declared "if one of the party"—and he named the person—“ would come up to his apartment unarmed and unattended, every thing should be settled in full." This arrangement was promptly acceded to; and he then desired his wife to open the door, but to admit no one but the person whom he had so named. Thus far his scheme succeeded, and when that one rashly ventured to ascend the narrow winding staircase, and entered the room, Peachcroft dexterously contrived to fasten the door upon his intended victim; then, seizing the poker, he attacked him in the most desperate manner. Once did he succeed in striking the defenceless object of his fury, whom he would certainly have murdered, had not the party below broken into the house and rescued him from the Maniac's

savage grasp. Peachcroft was immediately secured and brought in close custody before a bench of magistrates, assembled at Petty Sessions in a neighbouring town. After a long and patient investigation, it was decided that he should immediately be sent to a lunatic asylum in an adjoining county, but at a distance of thirty miles from his home. When that decision was pronounced, he was instantly, but with considerable difficulty, subjected to the restraint of a strait waistcoat. The scene that followed leaves even the most imaginative description far, very far, behind. There Peachcroft stood, like the spirit of the subsiding tempest, murmuring over its meditated wrath, sullen and baffled, but no longer boisterous; and there, too, by his side stood his own devoted Fanny, clinging to him with a fidelity and firmness worthy of the best days of Rome's best women. But when she heard the order issued, which was to separate them for the first time since their sacred union-and Heaven only knows what sufferings she had borne up against during that trying period, what wayward moods she had encountered and subdued, what perils even of life she had passed through-but when she heard that stern mandate spoken, all was forgotten, save the dreadful thought even of a temporary separation. She fell upon her knees before the assembled magistrates, and with bitter and fast-falling tears besought them "not to send him into such confinement, but, in mercy, to restore him to her care and to her protection." An imperative sense of public duty could alone have enabled the firmest heart to withstand the supplications of this self-sacrificing being. The wretched object of her solicitude and of her prayers, although bereft of reason and regardless of all else, was, in his discourse with her, calm, collected, and even apparently rational. Her arms were closely, convulsively, clasped around his neck, as, with tears of anguish bursting from her eyes, she still implored that he might not be sent away from her; and Peachcroft, neither caring for, nor heeding, any being on earth besides her, hung over her in unutterable fondness, till at length, as if suddenly restored to the full consciousness of his situation, he raised his head, and, mildly addressing the magistrates, besought and prayed them that "if he must be made the inmate of such an asylum, she too, at least, might be allowed to accompany him thither." Such a request could not, of course, be complied with; but she hoped, even to the last moment, that he would not be torn from her; nor did this anxious expectation entirely forsake her until she saw the chaise, which was to carry him away, drawn up at the door of the public office. When the death-like certainty burst upon her, there she stood a dreadful spectacle

Maddening and gathering strength in her despair, As the roused storm-bird cleaves the troubled air. She clung with desperation to her husband, whilst he struggled, with all the strength left him by his bondage, to retain that liberty of which he never before had been deprived, and to resist the determined efforts with which the officers of justice forced him towards the carriage; but, as they had succeeded in handcuffing him, all his efforts failed, and he was ultimately lifted to his seat, and they drove off. Her “great despair" was not so easily subdued. She caught and grasped the door of the chaise, wildly entreating that "as they had never been a single day or hour apart since they had been married, she might now share his imprisonment." Although several of the by-standers endeavoured to unfix her grasp, she held on

A 2

determinedly, and was dragged with the vehicle for a considerable distance through the mud and mire of the street; when, fearing that her life might be the sacrifice of her desperation, the populace stopped the carriage, and she was taken away by the united force of several constables, and carried in a state bordering upon insensibility to her wretched home. There she remained for some time sullenly silent. It was thought prudent to place a female attendant in the house with her, to watch over her, and perform the menial duties of the place; and this woman endeavoured, but vainly, to soothe the violence of her mental anguish during the first day of her husband's absence. On the second, she appeared absorbed in gloomy meditation, which was mistaken by her attendant for resignation. On the morning of the third day, when the woman rose to resume her work, she knocked at her chamber door-and knocked repeatedly, but received no answer. She became alarmed, lest in the excess of her affliction the poor creature might have committed suicide; until her alarm gave place to astonishment, on perceiving that the lock, not only of that apartment, but also of the street-door, was unfastened. Fanny was no where to be seen; but a note was found on the table, in her hand-writing, requesting that "her attendant might not be uneasy at her absence, as she was only gone to see her husband, and should return home in a few days.” Up to this period, Fanny had endured her wretchedness for long years, and yet her mind was unsubdued. Every thing in the house seemed in perfect order, just as it had been placed on the preceding evening; but evidently her bed had not been occupied. It thence became manifest that the unhappy woman had set out on her lonely pilgrimage soon after night-fall. The poor creature had indeed done so; and, as no regular conveyance offered at such an hour, she must have walked her dreary journey of thirty miles before the dawn of day, for with the first beam of light she was observed in front of the asylum, with her eyes fixed eagerly and immovably upon the door, watching for its opening. She never quitted her station, nor altered her position till she obtained admittance; and then her fatigue, had it been a thousand-fold what it had been, would have been amply compensated, for she was once more permitted to behold her own Reuben Peachcroft, and to remain with him during the greater part of the day. She remonstrated with the keeper on the cruelty and injustice of detaining her husband from his home and from her; but she was assured that every thing was ordered for the best, and in the hope of effecting his perfect restoration; that, had a contrary course been adopted, her mode of treatment would only have fostered the malady, and rendered him perhaps utterly incurable; whereas now, he might in all human probability be enabled to return to her in a few months. Appeased and satisfied in some degree by these assurances, Fanny once more sought her deserted and desolate habitation, and, in even a shorter period than she had ventured to anticipate, Peachcroft was restored to her, with a mind as clear, as collected, and as rational, as if he had never been afflicted; but it was certain that his health had been impaired by involuntary confinement, and the restraint so unavoidably imposed upon him. From the period of his return home, he was never known to leave his house in the day-light, and he was soon almost forgotten in his seclusion and obscurity, when, at the end of many weeks, public interest was again excited for his fate by the rumour of his death!;

The female attendant who still waited upon Fanny, had not seen him for nearly a week; but, attributing his nonappearance to indisposition, she did not entertain the slightest suspicion of the fatal truth, till, on entering their sitting-room, one morning, she beheld a most apalling sight. A large fire was blazing on the hearth, extended before which lay the inanimate body of Reuben Peachcroft, with an immense quantity of clothes piled upon it. Kneeling beside the corpse was his distracted Fanny, who gave the first indication of her own insanity, as, bending over the insensible object of all her tenderness aud all her care, with her lips pressed closely to his clay-cold and livid lips, she breathed into his mouth, in the maddened hope of reanimating his lifeless frame. All that could be gathered from her wild ravings was, that he had become mute and cold three or four days before. In her frenzied state, she must have acquired infinitely more than her natural strength to have enabled her to carry the body, as she obviously must have done, down a flight of stairs; for in his life-time he was, as I have before described him, a tall, muscular, and lusty man, and she was small and slight of stature.She had then laid the corpse before the fire, piled mattresses, beds, bed-clothes, and clothing of every description, upon it, and watched for its resuscitation. Some persons living in the immediate neighborhood were soon called in, and in spite of the resisiance of the frantic woman, the remains of Peachcroft were decently prepared for interment. To this, after some time, she consented, as reason, at intervals, broke through the fearful mist that overclouded her faculties. She seemed to recognize every person that approached, and at length was induced to speak on the mournful subject of her departed husband's funeral. But when the dismal morning came, and with it came the necessity of fastening down the coffin, and shutting his beloved features for ever from her sight, her distraction became boundless, and the throes of her agony were so intense, that it seemed as if every fibre of her frame were rending in the struggle, and every sob were the last convulsive sigh of a breaking heart. "This could not last,"but in her delirium she declared that "he was still alivehe had spoken to her-he could not die-oh no!--he could not die and leave his own poor Fanny in the desolate and dreary world without him." At length-"she wept not, so all stone she felt within."

The undertaker's ungracious and ungrateful duty was then performed. She heard the screws as they were driven into the coffin, and the world had closed for ever upon the unconscious, and innocent, and beloved cause of all her misery. The violence of her grief gradually subsided;— again she spoke with calmness of the funeral, and at length expressed her determination to follow to the grave as chief and sole mourner. Oh, the alternate weakness and mightiness of sorrow, oppressing us, and sinking us down to the earth at one moment, and in the next, raising us in the sublimity of despair, and fortifying us in our very hopelessness, against the severest trials, but to subdue us into childishness at last! The mournful procession soon commenced, and Fanny, supported by the arm of her humble attendant, followed with tottering footsteps to the grave.— Her bitter lamentations fell upon every ear, and every heart sympathized in her affliction. She saw not, heard not, heeded not, the assembled crowd. "Her heart was with her love, in the cold, cold grave," and the peopled earth was a wilderness and a solitude to her. She never

hope of hearing some tidings of the lonely and desolate creature. But the doors and windows were all fastened, and it seemed like a deserted place. On enquiry, I found that about the time when she ceased to tread her accustomed paths, she had suddenly left her home at the dead of night, and wandered no one knew whither. The summer and the autumn passed away, and still she returned not. The winter had set in with more than its wonted rigour, and having risen one morning earlier than usual, for the purpose of accompanying some friends on a pedestrian excursion to a neighboring town, my way to which lay through the churchyard where Peachcroft had been interred, my attention was directed to the spot where a plain slab marked out his grave, by the dismal howl of a dog. I hastened thither and, stretched upon the frozen sod that covered his remains, lay his poor Fanny, apparently in the agonies of death.One hand rested upon the neck of the faithful wolf-dog, and with the other, she had evidently been endeavouring to trace her own name on the stone which covered the last earthly resting-place of Reuben Peachcroft. I raised her in my arms, as she faithfully murmured-"The first of December-Reuben-Reuben!" and, with that name on her lips, her spirit passed away. It was the anniversary of the day on which they had laid her Reuben in the earth.Family Magazine.

"MANAGEMENT OF INFANTS."

(Continued from page 150.)

"What tender solicitude is awakened in her bosom for its welfare-what anxiety does she manifest to avert from it every impending evil-what misery she endures in its illness, what joy she experiences in its recovery;-gladly would she, in most instances, sacrifice her own ease and comfort to promote its good;-nay, under circumstances that seem to her to require such a sacrifice, she would cheerfully purchase its safety, at the costly price of her own life; and were her knowledge and ability equal to her affectionate regards and wishes, it would experience an immunity from every ill.

Numerous are the diseases engendered in children by neglect and mismanagement, such as scrofula, rickets, &c. These are often imputed to the impure air of crowded cities and towns. No doubt this has great influence in the promotion of disease, but in almost every instance, it will be found, on close investigation, that the digestive organs are primarily in fault: these disorders of the stomach and intestines are evinced by defective, and in some cases, voracious appetite-large and tense abdomen, a foul tongue, pale and furred-retarded dentition, &c.

Nothing is of greater consequence in the management of children than that they should be kept thoroughly clean. Perhaps in most instances, and more especially in cold. weather, the use of tepid water is the best for this purpose; in this they should be immersed, or well sponged, morning and evening, and rubbed thoroughly dry. How important to a parent must every thing appear, that affects the health, the comfort, and the welfare of a child! Its food and clothing in particular, become objects of interest, because, upon their proper management and adaptation, depends the due developement of its bodily frame. The body of an infant is feeble-its clothing, therefore, should be soft, that

Its

it may not chafe its delicate and susceptible skin. bones, being in their incipient state, are tender and immature-its dress, therefore, should be loose and pliant, that they may not sustain any injury from pressure or restraint. Its joints, muscles, and tendons are yet weak, and require exercise to strengthen them; its attire consequently should be simple, so that it may readily admit of the greatest ease and freedom of motion.

When the infant passes into the child, these qualities should still be preserved, though they will admit of some little modification. If the smiling infant be an object of care and solicitude to its parents, scarcely less so is the lively and active child; its limbs having now obtained a considerable degree of strength and firmness, nature prompts it to a variety of vigorous action, in order that it may make the necessary increase in size and strength. Its clothing, then, should be adapted to encourage and assist nature in carrying on her beneficient designs; the feet should not be cramped by shoes of too scanty dimensionsthe circulation of the blood should not be impeded-nor the symmetry of the body destroyed by any undue restriction. Socks or half-hose should be used in preference to stockings, the tying of which may not be without injurythe different articles of apparel should fit easily to the body, and be frequently renewed, to suit the increase of growth.

Although clothing should be sufficiently abundant to protect the body from the injurious effects of cold, yet a superfluity should be avoided; the latter produces delicacy of constitution, and of the two extremes, too much is worse than too little.

Advancing another step in the career of life, we come next to the boy and girl, taking these terms in their more restricted sense, as signifying the period that elapses between childhood and youth. Perhaps at no stage of its life is the child more insinuating,-at no season does it maintain a stronger hold on the parent's heart,—on no occasion is it an object of greater interest, than when it can run by that parent's side, and is just beginning to give utterance to its simple thoughts, and to express its fears, its wants, its wishes, in the unaffected language of innocent childhood. But although this is a period of great interest, yet the one which succeeds it involves duties of still higher

moment.

It would assuredly be a great improvement in the practice of modern education, were children properly instructed in the first principles of what may be called the SCIENCE OF HEALTH. As much of their future comfort and usefulness depends upon the vigour and energy of their physical powers; they should early be taught what is favorable, and what inimical, to the attainment and preservation of sound health. The unhappy effects of intemperance, and sloth, should be clearly pointed out to them; as well as the generally happy results of activity and temperance. Cases of suffering from ill health, when the consequence of previous though perhaps distant neglect and misconduct, should be exhibited to them, as affording forcible reasons why they should endeavour, in early youth, to lay a foundation for future years of enjoyment and happiness.

There is a vast difference in the original organization of children. It cannot but be supposed that the offspring of mothers who have themselves been the subjects of disease, with all its attendant weakness, must, in some measure, participate in the parent's infirmity, and be less strong and robust than those born under more favorable circumstances.