quired possessed a controlling influence over him of the most despotic character. From small quantities he proceeded to larger, and from private libations, swallowed the ruinous draughts more publicly. Step by step, he proceeded as before; neither love, duty, character, or happiness, had power sufficient to restrain him; he appeared either incapable, or indisposed, to consider the inevitable consequences of the course he pursued.

"Smitten in the very core of her being by the baseness of him she ardently loved, his poor neglected wife sank gradually towards the tomb. So callous had he now become, so brutalised in his feelings, that he could gaze upon the pale and emaciated features of the once lovely Juliana, unmoved.

"At length the parting scene came. He was hastily summoned from a convivial party, to attend the death-bed, and receive the last wishes and advice, of his scarcely less than murdered wife! He came; but when he arrived, the patient sufferer had almost reached the goal. Life flickered in the socket, and the slightest gust appeared sufficient to extinguish it for ever! She was lying insensible. He leaned over, and for a moment gazed attentively upon her faded form, and seemed to feel. Presently she revived, and fixing her dying eyes upon him, seized his hand with strong feeling, and faintly exclaimed—

"O my dear, my own dear Adolphus, I am about to leave you! Be kind to our dear children;-turn to Him from whom you have departed-and-prepare to meet me in a holier happier land.' Her hand unclasped its hold, and fell by her side; her eyes closed silently, with a soft smile upon him she was leaving; and—

'One gentle sigh alone

Escaped her peaceful breast,
And then, without a moan,
She rose to peace and rest.'

"A wild and agonising grief seized upon the wretched Claremont, as that soft, but to him accusing smile, relaxed in the rigour of death. He wept like a child, and called in fearful ravings upon his lost, his injured Juliana. So he continued, until nature was exhausted, and half unconscious of surrounding objects, he was borne by some attendants from the chamber of death.

"Scarcely had the earth closed upon the mortal remains of Mrs. Claremont, before several insulted and irritated creditors seized upon all the infatuated man possessed, and left him once more an unpitied beggar. To escape the hand of justice, and to leave a place he could no longer live in with peace or quiet, he fled to London, and there, amidst the noise and bustle, the glare and parade of that over-crowded city, strove to forget the world and himself. For a while he supported a wretched existence upon a small sum which he had preserved from the wreck of his affairs; but that supply was soon exhausted, and then utter destitution stared him in the face.

"Meanwhile his children were kindly provided for by a sister-in-law of

VOL. I.-NO. VII.

EE

their deceased mother, who loved the helpless and innocent sufferers for their mother's sake. She was a lady of property, and on her own responsibility engaged the premises in which their father had made and squandered away a fortune, which she again caused to be opened for their benefit, under the superintendence of an experienced and trusty servant. The sympathy of the public was excited towards the children of a woman who had been so highly esteemed, and they testified their respect to her memory by lending their support to her offspring. The trade which before had been transacted at the house,-but which Claremont's conduct had destroyed,―revived, and a competency was obtained for their respectable maintenance and education, as well as to enable them to enter upon eligible callings in after-life.

"Once again Claremont returned to take, as it appeared, a last farewell of his children and the scene of his dishonour : like a midnight assassin he entered the town, where in former days his name had been respected by all classes. He accomplished his object; the heartbreaking adieu was sounded, the last squeeze of their tiny hands was taken, and then rushing in frenzy to a thicket a few hundred yards distant from this place, he terminated his career of folly by ending his life with a pistol. His body was interred in the churchyard of the town in which he had lived, but his spirit seems still to haunt this spot, the dismal moanings of which are often distinctly heard during the raging of the storms with which the Moor is visited."

The narrator closed his tale, for which I thanked him, and then retired to rest, wondering at the credulity and superstition of the Moormen, and sighing over the folly of the life, and the untimely death, of Adolphus Claremont.

KIRKE WHITE'S SOLITUDE ANALYSED.

BY GEO. R. TWINN, AUTHOR OF "IS IT PEACE?" &c.

It is a truth none will venture to deny, that man can never know what happiness is while sojourning on earth. Contentment is the lot of none; I never met with a being perfectly satisfied: had he been, felicity surely would have been his; we might indeed have stated that such a one was the only really happy. To suit ourselves-calmly to resign ourselves to prevailing circumstances-is an effort our natures can seldom achieve: from it many advantages result; and to those few who, as far as they can, do act thus, the faint gleams of happiness are visible. The heart is so easily affected and acted on by surrounding objects and attractions, that the experience to guide its yearnings and regulate its movements is of an importance seldom valued as it should be. Its chief prompting is to create a notion of dissatisfaction. How evident is this to the philosopher-to him who deeply studies man! He finds the soldier pining to be once more a rustic, pleased with his native village, his cottage, and the

smiles of his wife: the flattered attendant on the "crowned one" feels he should, in his proper sphere, be more at ease; he sighs for the former days he joyfully spent in retirement: the poor outcast, begging his bread from door to door, often wishes he were a monarch; and this principle of not being satisfied with our condition in no way ameliorates our sorrows or our state; nor does it heighten joys: it feeds the flame of discontentit adds evil to evil.

Now, he who can curb this wildness of the heart-can check its improper desires, and hold it in perfect submission-presents us an example worthy of imitation. Such a one, I think, may be found in Kirke White: a serious perusal of his "Solitude," a poem fraught with feeling, has led me to this conclusion. That no regard for the station he occupied in life was his—that no undue pain made him lament he was not a sharer of the smiles of patronage, with wealth on its side, is very evident: it was no vexation for hopes laid low-for expectations never realised; it was not anguish for frustrated plans or schemes to promote his welfare, thwarted by the interposition of malice or envy. What says he?

"It is not that my lot is low,
That bids this silent tear to flow;
It is not grief that bids me moan,
It is that I am all alone."

Not only had Kirke White softened the wild aspirations of his heart, and subdued its too ardent expectations, but he appears to have so guided it, that it was influenced by the most sympathetic and kindly feelings. We may picture the "martyr student," with his pale brow, and cheek faintly relieved by the deceitful hectic, with his slow and steady pace rambling through the woods, or down the shady lane; his eye eagerly scanning the commingled beauties around him, made still more enchanting from the sunset. How joyed his mind to hold sweet communion with Nature! It was then revelling in its own peculiar sphere, feasting on things whose origin was immediately from heaven, and garnering from all— even from the wild weed-some morality, rendered more impressive from the simplicity of the source that conveyed it.

"In woods and glens I love to roam,

When the tired hedger hies him home;
Or by the woodland pool to rest,
When the pale star looks on its breast.
Yet, when the silent evening sighs,
With hallowed airs and symphonies,
My spirit takes another tone,
And sighs that it is all alone."

The gentlest susceptibilities, the tenderest emotions, must have thrilled in his bosom-every spring of love and affection must have been in unison. The tale of pity must have agonised it and gained commiseration-the cry of sadness must have caused it pain, and drawn the tear from its crystal cell, to sympathise with the sufferer. The heart must

have been baptized in feeling's holy flow, or it could never have given forth such pathetic strains as

"The autumn leaf is sear and dead,

It floats upon the water's bed:

I would not be a leaf, to die

Without recording sorrow's sigh."

These lines confirm all, and strengthen my assertions. They reveal to the "mind's eye" of the writer, the history of one now laid beneath the sod of his native churchyard. Once-when I first knew him—he was a young and ardent lover of poesy; eagerly he perused every book the votaries of the Muses cast upon the public tide; the morning sun and the evening star found him alike devoting his time after his favourite manner. Nothing pleased him more than to leave the haunts of menthe busy mart, and noisy town-and saunter leisurely through fields all bright with flowers and rich in songs: the charms expanding on all sides were to him pages of lore he used to ponder over. Tired of his ramble, he would stretch himself beneath some verdant shrub, and resting, with the aromatic wild thyme blossoming around his head, would ruminate on men and things. Keenly he understood the beautiful in nature, and everything that stood in rich sublimity : the wood-lark's note, the opening bud, the silver clouds, were to him sources of unfeigned delight and joy. Alas! Time blights the fairest and the best; Death culls his victims without any distinction; he neither spares the young and smiling, nor the aged and the trembling-neither the wise and gifted, nor the unlearned and the poor. Disease seized the body, and consumption made sad havoc on his frame; but although the eye was dimmed, the cheek turned pallid, and the sufferer wasted and tortured on the thorny couch of sickness, yet the mind was in no way enervated; all its aspirations beat as warmly as when health decked the brow; all its relish for poesy and mental blossoms was as keen as ever. The pangs of the frame-the struggles of disease, and the long hours of suffering, were often abated by his being indulged with some kind friend's reading to him a favourite volume; and many strikingly pathetic poems from his own pen, written in his distress, alleviated in a great measure his bitter lot. At length the summons came, and Adolphus, my friend, was freed from the chains of earth, to share, I trust, the realms of the blest. Many a tear has been shed over his grave by Friendship, and his memory is now renewed, for continually on his lips were the lines last quoted:

"I would not be a leaf, to die

Without recording sorrow's sigh."

May we not with much truth assume that such as has been described was the temperament of Kirke White? the general tone of all his writings seems to corroborate this idea.

"The woods and winds with sudden wail

Tell all the same unvaried tale;

I've none to smile when I am free,

And when I sigh, to sigh with me."

Here, then, we learn that Nature's page was the one great source of instruction to the youthful poet: his contemplation and study convinced him all was doomed to perish: the leaves strewing the woodpath told him everything should fade; and the plaintive breeze, gathering the lament, wafted it onwards: it re-echoed the lamentations and sighs of the moralist.

Surely his must be a heart seldom influenced by kindly motives or skilled in the "diviner lore," that can behold the setting sun, the fading blossom, and the withered leaf, and not gather from them the lessons they were intended to convey. Wisely were they designed to improve us to convince us, that we are not to place too strong a confidence in present existing circumstances; but to glean from Nature's movements the moralities and truths the "living page" on all sides displays.

What a beautiful and heartfelt lament is that contained in the concluding lines of the stanza, last given! The good feelings and beatings— the promptings and inclinations of his heart-a —are there most delightfully set forth. How striking is the contrast they bear, when we remember the misanthropic lines of Byron, in "Childe Harold's Farewell Song !"

"Oh why should I for others sigh,

Since none will sigh for me?"

We are compelled to admire the character of Kirke White, and to deplore the early departure of so bright a star from the firmament. The accompanying extract is from his own pen :-"I imagine myself placed upon an eminence above the crowds who pant below in the dusty tracks of wealth and honours. The black catalogue of crimes and of vice-the sad tissue of wretchedness and woe- -passes in review before me; and I look down upon men with an eye of pity and commiseration. Though the scenes which I survey be mournful, and the ideas they excite equally sombre ;-though the tears gush as I contemplate them, and my heart feels heavy with the sorrowful emotions which they inspire;-yet are they not unaccompanied with sensations of the purest and most ecstatic bliss." These are sentiments that do honour to human nature-that solicit profound admiration, and mark him, whose conduct is thus actuated, as a true philosopher and a philanthropist. A proof that Kirke White did not possess a depraved imagination—that source of sorrow and evil-is very evident, from a mature consideration of the concluding stanza of "Solitude." Fancy lent to his meditations her pleasing charms; but an undue intercourse with her ideal beauties was not indulged in. He seems to have been perfect master of his heart, and to have most wisely regulated his actions.

The attentive peruser of the poem now considered, cannot fail