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Suckling in riper knowledge, thy mental and physical covetings will be appeased,

"With verdure that will ever last."

The amative and the sedative; the choleric and the sanguine; the phlegmatic and acetic, by dipping here a little, and there a little, will meet with the honeycomb, or Museum of Entertainment, culled by an industrious Hive of Bees, our genius-gifted and enlightened Correspondents, who are not wearied in well doing. For our mutual encouragement, notwithstanding the Polypii for cheap literature and unparalleled bargains, we need only state the fact in proof of the popularity of the OLIO, and great sale of the volumes to the present time, that we are reprinting manifold portions, the issues of which will render complete sets, at sight; or, on demand.

And, finally, Gentle Reader, in deference to well-judged hints, personal convictions, and acquiesced yieldings, thou and the Public are hereby informed, for the keeping the Engraving untarnished by intrusory type, as in the earlier volumes, the blank space will be preserved in the New Volume; each page will be longer and wider; and the letterpress more proportionally increased, so that matter and manner will devise considerable improvement.

As we go on, rejoicing in our way, none daring to make us afraid, other advantages are contemplated. The future will be diligently explored and sedulously cultivated, that the choicest fruits of Intellectual Amusement be properly ripened to the taste; and, still relying on generous patronage continuing to shine on our Numbers, our Parts, and our anatomical whole, we bid respected and sincere farewell till next half yearly meeting.

Olio Office, Jan 28, 1833.

THE EDITOR.

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Reminiscences of a Missionary. the wildest flight of imagination would

CYRIL ASHBURNE;

OR,

THE EXILE OF THE CANADAS.

A TALE OF EMIGRATION.
For the Olio.

We seek the fields and fountains, where the quiver'd Indian roves,

And leave our native mountains for lone Canadian groves. OLD SONG.

OUR good ship, the Hope, had advanced inidway on her passage to the Canadas, and though so many degrees and classes of society were to be met with amongst its passengers (chiefly emigrants), yet the prevailing tone of quiet demeanour and unobtrusive good-nature of the majority seemed a tacit law in our little world, and all spirits appeared harmonized or quelled by its influence; we had shared so many vicissitudes of weather, and other inconveniences incidental to a long and not very prosperous voyage, that VOL. X

have dreamt of mingling; some there were who had left England willingly, and with the brightest hopes of a new Eldorado in the wilderness, which was reserved for their discovery; but in the faces of many who appeared the calinest, you saw a sudden pang quiver the lip and furrow the brow, or read far down in the depths of a tranquil eye, the settled sorrow of an exile's heart. Amongst the many females on board, there was one whose husband had a sanguine heart and hope of all the wonders he should perform, when once arrived in the Land of Promise; and this girl (for she had not yet seen twenty summers, and had all the fresh and luxuriant bloom of a village beauty), was ever seen with a smile dimpling her ripe lips, and dancing in her large black eyes. One night I was enjoying the splendour of the moon and the freshness of the rising breeze, almost alone upon the deck, when I heard a woman's voice singing in the stillness

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In the sighing wind of twilight above your quiet graves;

Oh! happy is your slumber, and the haven ye have won,

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But I must not sleep beside ye, when my weary race is run:

Ye lived, ye ancient patriarchs, within your native glen,

From the laughing hours of childhood, to threescore years and ten; And saw your children's children for your dying blessing kneel,

But your hearts were never sadden'd by the sorrow they must feel;

The ploughshare will be driven o'er your cottage hearth, my sires,

The green corn freshly waving where arose your household fires;

And we go forth as branded by the restless curse of Cain,

And our banished eyes shall never behold your graves again! There's one-my first born darling! already shares your rest, With the green turf laid above him, like a bird within its nest;

Oh, I reared thee on my heart, love, with a

mother's blissful pride, 'Till thy sunny beauty darken'd-thy voice of gladness died;

Thy young blue eyes were heavy with the

shadows of the grave,

And thy sinless life was yielded to the Mighty

One that gave;

This heart was not quite broken, my lost and lovely one,

While I had thy grave to gaze on-thy name

to weep uponBut now thy very ashes-oh, sorrow deep and wild, Even death will not unite us, my first and

fairest child!

In some wild and pathless desert, or beneath the ocean brine,

Thy mother's dust may perish, but can never mix with thine!

Oh, for that home beyond the grave, where the pilgrim's toil is o'er,

And my boy, a smiling angel, may be mine for evermore!

As the last words died away the songstress arose, and passing me to descend to the cabin, the moon shone on her face, and large heavy tear-drops dimmed the black eyes of our village Euphrosyne, the fair Lucy Springfield.

We had weathered a tempestuous day, and evening was falling darkly around us with fitful gusts that kept the captain and sailors fully employed, and we were gathered together in the principal cabin, beguiling the time and the apprehensions of the females, by the recital of legends and anecdotes, and whatever the imagination or the memory of those present could supply, when one of the passengers (who was remarked for his steady and grave demeanour, and unshaken placidity of manner), was called upon to contribute his share of the evening's amusement; he was a landholder in the Canadas, and was returning from England, whither he had been summoned by business, at least so much the undying spirit of curiosity had elicited respecting him; his attire bespoke his substantial but unpretending station in life; and his sun-burnt hands and weather-darkened features shewed him inured to toil. At the first glance he seemed a man far beyond the middle period of life, for his dark hair was more than partially grey, and his high forehead deeply furrowed; but if any sudden exultation lighted up his deep grey eye, and animated his finely formed countenance, he looked as if thirty years was the utmost limit of his age, and you felt that sorrow or sickness had prematurely silvered the locks and clouded the brow. He at first denied our solicitation on the plea that his memory was exhausted, and his imagination not brilliant enough to aid him, until at last finding the storm increase, and a gloomy silence and anxious fear settling on every heart, the Canadian related, with frequent pauses, and at times a hurried rapidity, the following story:

"The infancy and youth of Cyril Ashburne, were passed in a substantial farm-house in one of the western counties of England, where his forefathers had dwelt for many succeeding generations; the property had been

leasehold, but that was expired, and it was now held at a very high rent, which however, the luxuriant crops and good management of the tenants, enabled them to pay with the utmost punctuality. Cyril became possessed of the farm by the death of his parents, just as he reached the dawn of manhood, and his nerves seemed strung with hardier vigour as he reaped the first crop on the lands which had been tilled by his fathers for a hundred years; all went well with him. Frances Herbert, the orphan daughter of the late curate, (who dwelt a fair and gentle creature in the village, and had the greatest number of scholars of any schoolmistress within ten miles round, for the children loved her pleasant looks and low musical voice), had been his earliest choice, and it was with a proud heart that Cyril Ashburne led her home to the Orchard Farm, its fair and smiling mistress. Two children early blest their union, and some happy years passed away without a shadow to dim their felicity, though an increase of rent (for the young heir of the manor was wild and dissipated), called for increasing care and activity; a wet and unsuccessful season threw the first blight on their hopes, but Cyril was not be cast down by the first change of fortune, and his brow was still unclouded; but succeeding and rapid misfortunes followed -a blight was on his corn-his cattle died summer floods mildewed the crops-and the last of the Ashburnes looked upon the home of his childhood, and felt that it must pass from him and his for ever. The rent-day arrived, and bitter was the pang, and burning the blush, with which the first of the tenants of the Orchard asked for a respite; it was granted, but when again applied for, a stern denial struck the iron deeper into the sufferer's soul. The lord of the manor, then on his estate, sanctioned the decree of his steward, and a threat, which withered up the heart of the suppliant, drove him in baste from the presence of the relentless utterer. He had still one hope; his maternal uncle, a stern old miser in the county town, was after many struggles applied to, but in vain; and the broken-hearted Ashburnes were thrust forth wanderers, and without a home. A small cottage received them, far away from the scenes of their former happiness, but still among friends who remembered the past, and sought to alleviate the present; but Cyril Ashburne was an altered man, the pride of his

independent heart was broken; if he looked on his children, what was be fore them but the beggar's destiny? upon his wife, a life of incessant toil without hope, must wither her still delicate beauty prematurely before his eyes, and he almost spurned the bounty which supported them and prolonged his life. Frances had changed also, for she shrunk from her destiny, and her murmured laments added to the anguish of the ruined man. All he trie proved fruitless to restore their for tones, until at last a gleam of hope darted through the darkness of their fate. His stern old uncle, moved more by the contempt and scorn which was manifested against him by his neighbours for his hard-hearted conduct, than by the tears of the innocent children and the destitute father who implored his help, offered to advance, to be repaid with heavy interest, if they would expatriate themselves, and seek in the Canadian colonies the good fortune which had forsaken them in their native land. Cyril, who had long vainly tried to win even this cruel boon, felt the first throb of transport which had warmed his heart for many months, and set forth from the town through storm and darkness to his desolate home, hoping to bring back the smile to the sad face of Frances. As he lifted the latch, he felt how dear she was, and that life could have no charm unless it was shared with her; he threw back the door, and beheld→→→ was it indeed reality! A young ani handsome man clasped the waist and held the hand of Frances, her head lay on his shoulder, and his lips presse the lily of her delicate cheek; the husband looked, and felt the fire of hell within his heart; he had no weapon, but he rushed forward, there was a fierce struggle-a wild shriek !—and Frances lay senseless at his feet. The stranger rushed forth, but not unhurt; blood marked his flight, for the blow he received was fierce and heavy, and if repeated, would have left murder on the soul of Cyril; but as he paused to wrench from his neck the white arms of Frances, and looked upon her as she fell before him, the wounded man escaped, and left the fallen one at the feet of the broken-hearted husband. She arose with wild shrieks, and words which were but fuel to the madness of the moment; he snatched his children from their sleep, and bidding them curse the mother who had disgraced them, he thrust her forth into the dark

ness of the midnight storm, and fastened his door against her, even when he saw her fall at the threshhold! How Cyril Ashburne passed that night, and yet lived to see the light of morning without becoming a frenzied ideot, he himself knows not; but morning came, he went forth with his children, and was never again seen in the village where he was born, and where his whole race lay buried; he exiled himself to the Canadas, and the fortune for which he cared not was showered upon him; his children bloomed and grew up bold and beautiful; but he scarcely dared to look upon them, for the blue eyes of the little Alice, and the sunny brow of the joyous Frank were too like her's who had lain so long in his bosom, and broken the heart on which she had reposed. His uncle died, and left his hoarded wealth to the man who, a few years before, had knelt in vain for the smallest portion of it to save him from disgrace and ruin; then it could have saved him, now it was worthless; it would have purchased the Orchards, now on sale, but could I bear to return with the blight of dishonour on my name?could I bear to look upon the home she made a paradise, and feel that No, no; I vested the wealth in the names of my children, gave my last sigh to England, and return again a willing exile to the Canadas. 'But Frances,' said a young girl of the party, did you not hear of her? Cyril turned to the the speaker, his brow was wet with the dew of anguish, and his cheek pale as marble. Yes, yes, she lived in splendour; her seducer, the very man whose dissipation and cruelty had driven forth his unhappy tenants from their homes, bore her away in triumph. What was the despair of her husband to her?what the forsaken cries of her desolate children? she revelled in a princely mansion, they had but poverty and sorrow. Oh, Frances! Frances! may the curse long smothered and unspoken in this broken heart, now reach thee in the splendid halls of infamy.'

"It has, it has,-oh, Cyril, curse me not again!" and from the darkness of the cabin, a woman rushed forward and fell kneeling and weeping at the feet of the exile; we all rose to assist, and lifting her up, for she had fainted, the long dishevelled curls of fair hair fell back, and we recognised one of the passengers, whose mourning dress had led us to believe her a widow, and whom sickness and a wish for seclusion had confined to her cabin almost all

the voyage. After a moment's struggle, Cyril arose to leave the cabin, but his wife (for it was indeed Frances) seemed to feel his intention even through the trance of her anguish, and breaking from our hold, she cast herself before the door." But one word, Cyril, one word," she implored, oh, it was thus you cast me from you when I was still innocent-still faithful-hear me now, guilty and penitent as I am: long had Lord Helington sought my smiles, for he had accidentally seen me when want drove me forth to tasks to which I had never before been exposed; he tempted me amidst my poverty, he offered me the Orchards as a gift-but I shrunk from him with abhorrence. I turned to you; but oh, your heart was changed; I dared not breathe the story in your ears, for there was darkness in your looks ever; I felt the words to which I had listened, like fire in my heart; I thought they had even blighted me by their sound; I thought of them in your arms, and turned away, for I deemed myself unworthy of your confiding faith. My persecutor tracked my steps, and dared even to seek me in the only shelter I had left-in your frequent absences from home, and amid the desolation of my heart, his offers appeared so plausible, to restore us to wealthto home-and await the yielding of my own heart in his favour. Cyril, you last stayed away four days when you left us-we had but one meal for all; you promised to return with comfortyou came not; my children cried for bread-it was bountifully supplied; I could not tear it from their lips to cast it to the giver; he came again and again, and on the night of your return, for the first time his arms encircled me, and your eyes beheld the first kiss imprinted on my lips! Cyril, when I felt his arms around me, I shuddered as in the folds of a serpent; and oh, never-never did my heart feel its devotedness to you so deeply; one word would have saved me, but you cast me forth with curses, and amid the darkness and the storm his emissaries bore me away to splendour and despair. You fled-none knew whither, and I, the victim, remained in the power of the destroyer. Luxury and wealth were showered upon me-diamonds sparkled on brow and bosom; but oh, the broken heart beneath! In the swell of voluptuous music, I heard the shriek of my children as I was cast forth for ever; in the soft pressure of hands in the dance, I felt the maddened grasp

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