Caymans, and with short tacks beat up along shore. As the current sets upon the land, do not shallow your water to less than seven fathoms. Show a light to the prize each time you tack, and call me the moment anything appears.'

receiving the greetings of a band of frank, open-hearted I was speedily assisted into the boat, British seamen. and conveyed on board, where I received every kindness which my enfeebled state required. The ship I was now aboard of was the Eagle of Bristol, The moment I heard these orders given, I felt my heart Captain Germain; she had taken in a cargo of sugar and flutter with joy, and began to ruminate on the means of rum at Savanna-le-Mar, for the port to which she beescape. Short tacks along shore,' and 'a current set- longed, and intended to sail with our fleet, but meeting ting on the land,' seemed to present a most favourable with some detention in getting aboard her cargo, had not opportunity of escape, and I immediately determined to got round to Negril Bay in time. The captain was unembrace it. If I could but reach the land, I could, I willing to wait the next convoy, and had resolved to make a run home singly. My account of the Spitfire's doings thought, easily prevail on some of the natives to take me excited in him extreme anxiety, and almost induced him out in one of their turtle boats to some English or American ship that might be passing, and I would thus obtain to put back for Jamaica. But a strong adverse current a passage either to England or the States. I had in the would have rendered this a most tedious business, and Fortuafternoon observed several duppers of oil under the bows he ultimately resolved to proceed westward. of the long boat, which the Spitfire had taken from one nately we escaped, and running along the gulf stream as far to the northward as the banks of Newfoundland, we of her prizes. Could I but get one of these emptied, it would prove a good buoyant article, and, with its assist- bore up to the eastward; and after a good passage withance, I would be none afraid of a distance of five or six out sighting a sail, we, on the 5th of December, took a miles; but I could not expect to succeed without assist-pilot aboard in the chops of the Bristol Channel. From the crew of the pilot-boat, which had on the day ance, and I resolved, therefore, to intrust my secret to the cook, and solicit his aid." With the assistance of before left Barnstaple, I learned that there was a ship the cook, the writer effects his escape during the night, loading for the Clyde, and I applied immediately to the and, after great sufferings, reaches the shore. captain to be put aboard of the pilot-boat about to return to that port, to which request he considerately and most kindly assented. I suppose, Clewline,' said he, 'that you account your deliverance and passage home a sufficient recompense for the assistance you have given us on the voyage?" I assured him that I did, and that as long as I lived I would consider myself his debtor. 'Well, well,' he replied, since you intend to book me as one of your creditors, put this little item to the account.' In saying this, he slipped ten Spanish dollars into my hand, which he cordially shook, and bade me good bye. The same evening saw me snugly ensconsed by the parlour fireside of my worthy hostess, Mrs Devols, whose kind motherly solicitude, joined to the sisterly attention of her amiable daughters, well nigh banished all rememthe harbour, and found there the brig Eliza of Penzance, brance of past sufferings. Next morning, I repaired to completing her cargo of cider for the Clyde. On giving the captain a brief sketch of my recent history, he frankly agreed to give me a passage round. We sailed on the 10th, and on the 18th, after an absence of rather more than five months, I had once more the pleasure of entering the docks at Greenock.

"When I awoke, the sun was twelve or fifteen degrees high, shining full in my face; and, on looking round, I saw a ledge of rocks near at hand, twenty or thirty feet above the level of the sea. As fast as my weary limbs could carry me, I hastened to the summit to see how the land lay, when, to my astonishment and grief, I found I was on an island of barren rocks, separated from the Caymans by a channel several miles in width. The whole island, or cluster of rocks, was not above a mile in circuit, with scarcely a vestige of vegetation. Here, indeed, was a miserable prospect. Had there been any hope of a set of the current from the westward, I would have ventured with my dupper across the strait; but I knew from experience that there was a perpetual current setting to the westward, preparatory to its rounding the west point of Cuba, and forming the gulf stream. Gloomy, however, as my prospects were, I had still cause of gratitude. Had the Spitfire been a mile farther to the westward before she tacked, I would have missed the island altogether, and the chances would then have been fifty or a hundred to one that I would have perished. Besides, I was fairly clear of the pirates, and this thought of itself reconciled me to my dreary and destitute fate. My first object was to take a survey of my dominions-by no means a tedious task-and ascertain what were their resources. In one respect the survey was gratifying, as near the east end I found a pool of rain-water, brackish a little by the spray, but still fit for use. This, and a few shell-fish, appeared to be the whole of its supplies. There was not a vestige of wood of any kind. Some dried sea-weed lay scattered about, which I thought might burn, but I had no way to ignite it, and could neither, therefore, get any means of cooking the shell-fish, nor of making, by smoke or fire, a signal to any vessel

that might heave in sight.

6

PRESBURGS.

People must now be smart about every thing. We find the following specimen of that sort of eloquence in a provincial newspaper, the object being to recommend the Presburgs, a kind of biscuit baken by a tradesman named Turner:-" Turner's Presburgs.-The refinements adopted in biscuit-making have elevated into the rank of an art that which was formerly a mere process of housewifery. We are satisfied that natural genius is as requisite in baking a good biscuit as in producing a good picture. Many people can do both, in a certain kind of way; but to few alone are given the fine percep tions essential to a first-rate painting or a high class Presburg; and we have no hesitation in asserting that of the two Turners (for we only know of two), the one is not more distinguished for his gorgeousness of colour in the first line, than the other for purity of taste in the second. The three classes of biscuit introduced to us

from Mr Turner's manufactory, consist of a wine biscuit, a coffee biscuit, and a biscuit for general uses. The first wears the appearance of a little passover cake: its peculiar character being an entire absence of any of those distinctive qualities by which other biscuits are marked. It is what philosophers would term a biscuit in the abstract-the very thing for a wine-drinker. When a person asks for a biscuit, as an accompaniment to his glass of port or sherry, he does not mean a sweet one, nor a hard one, nor a soft one, nor one with any other quality you can name; all he wants is a biscuit: and Mr Turner is the man to supply him. The second is, essentially, what its name designates; and seems as necessary an adjunct to bring out the rich aroma of a cup of coffee, as a walnut or an olive to adjust the palate to a glass of fine old port. The third biscuit is not only remarkable for its pleasantness, but for its novelty of form. The biscuits of this class are cut into a variety of figures, like the pieces of a dissected map; and when put together by a hand skilled in such exercises, a certain number of them form an entire square. The idea is ingenious and novel; and seems to admit of useful extension. Why not apply it to geographical amusements? The putting together a map of Europe, in which every state should be configured by a biscuit, would be an agreeable entertainment for young persons. A number of witty conceits would arise during the progress of such a game. One, perhaps, would remark that Greece did not fit in well with Turkey; another, that Poland was lost, and so on. In conclusion, we may observe, and our readers will probably agree with us, that if any thing could be more pleasant than such a use for these biscuits, it would unquestionably be-the eating of them."

NOTICE RESPECTING AN OLD INSCRIPTION. In the 470th number of the Journal, in an article entitled The Spirit of Old Inscriptions, allusion was made to a particular legend, of the locality of which we were doubtful. The point is thus satisfactorily cleared up for us by a northern antiquary :

Without a moment's delay, I hurried off to Cartsdyke, to throw myself into the arms of my venerated parent. Alas! I found she was no more! The stunning intelligence which appeared in the newspapers, that the Waterwitch had been found bottom up near Rothesay, and that her crew must have perished, was too much for her; she never held up her head afterwards; and three weeks before my arrival, she was consigned to the tomb. There was but one more connecting link between Scotland and myself. Was Mary spared? Was she still true? I trembled to inquire, lest the last arrow in fortune's quiver In the town of Peterhead, of which the Earls Maresshould have been shot off against me. I entered an innchal were superiors, at the north end of the Longate, that partially overlooked her dwelling, and there, sitting stood an old castle belonging to this family, built prior at her parlour-window, with a desponding, drooping look, to 1593, the date of that town's charter. In the wall of weeds in which she was robed on my account? The haif. said: Quhat. say, thay: Doe ye Weil: and. lat. was the very form of Mary herself! Were these sable this castle was a stone bearing the inscription, Thay. thought was thrilling, and I was on my feet to rush over on the dangerous effects which the sudden appearance lines through the post-office, stating that Tom Clewline of one from the dead might produce. I sent her a few was still above hatches; that he was still true to his Mary, as the needle to the pole; that if she still cherished his remembrance, she was to pass down William Street that day at noon. This would apprise me that all was as I wished, and I would call on her in the evening at

My first care was to clean out my dupper properly, and fill it with fresh water, lest evaporation should dry up my supplies, and my next to provide for my sleeping conveniences. In this latter affair I succeeded sufficiently into her arms. I suddenly checked myself, by reflecting yame. say.' When the ruin was pulled down, this stone

to remove all anxieties on that score; I collected a large quantity of the dried sea-weed, and in sheltered situations made up eight or ten beds, so that, whatever wind

blew, I could find protection from it in some of them. My next concern was the victualling department; but my prospects here were sorry enough. My appetite was so fierce when I awoke on the first day, that I verily believe I could have dispatched all the six biscuits and the junk, with which the kind cook had supplied me. But in these, as in other matters, we must look a little

way ahead. I broke each of my six biscuits into two, cut the salt junk into a dozen of pieces, and thus converted my store into twelve days' provisions, to be eked out with such shell-fish as I might collect; and I hoped,

nine.

my inn, and, sheltered by Venetian blinds, counted the
At a quarter to noon I took my seat at the window of
moments that had to elapse, ere I should feast my eyes
with the sight of one dearer to me than all the world
besides. Ere the vibrations of the last sound of twelve

was preserved, and it is still to be seen built into the wall of the house that occupies the site of the more by the Keith family at or after the Reformation from ancient building. The motto seems to have been adopted popery, to defy the clamour that would naturally arise among the adherents to the papacy on the secession from them of a family of such weight and influence. This view is strengthened by the fact, that in 1593, when George Keith, fourth Earl Mareschal, founded and largely endowed Mareschal College in New Aberdeen, that the tainted by, and free from, prelatic and popish influence, youth in these northern parts might get an education unwhich yet prevailed at King's College, Old Aberdeen, he was so pestered with, Thay haif said,' that he boldly college, Thay. haif. said: Quhat, say. thay: Lat. yame. say. The old building was levelled only the other week, to give place to one of the chastest and most handsome academic erections in the kingdom; and with good taste the Senatus have resolved to put up the inscription over the door of their great hall, along with several others supplied by the walls of the old fabric.”

canoes, or some English West Indiaman, might approach before the expiry of that time, that some of the Cayman had passed away, there passed my beloved Mary-the planted on the west front of the south wing of his new sufficiently near to see me and send relief.

It would be about as monotonous an affair to describe my daily doings on this barren spot, as it was to spend my time there, and I shall not stop to detail them at present. During a stay of ten days I never saw but one sail, and she passed hull-down to the southward. On the third day I caught a turtle napping on the beach, and soon turned her over. She kept her head so closely within her shell, that I had great difficulty in getting my knife to bear on her neck; but I succeeded at last, and found her blood very refreshing. It was the only thing I got warm during my stay on the island. The flesh was exceedingly unpalatable, and, without the aid of good cookery, could never become a favourite dish at a Lord Mayor's dinner; but her eggs, of which there were about two hundred, were very agreeable food, and, when dried in the sun, formed, with my daily supplies of shell-fish, a comfortable addition to my scanty stores of beef and

biscuit.

On the morning of the eleventh day, when I awoke, I, according to my daily custom, ascended the summit of the rocks to look out, and had the unspeakable gratification of seeing a ship of pretty large burden within two miles of the shore. She had got becalmed during the night, had been drifted by the current thus close to the rocks, and when I first saw her, she had her boats ahead pulling her off shore. How I did shout! Besides bawling out at the top of my voice, I took off my shirt, held it up by the sleeves as a flag, and, animated by hope and fear, I ran eastward and westward along the ledge, till I was like to drop with fatigue. My voice was not heard, but my signal was observed, and I thought it one of the most beautiful sights ever witnessed, when I saw a white English ensign run up at her peak, as a signal that relief was at hand. The two boats continued to pull till the ship had a good offing, after which one of them came towards the shore. I beckoned the crew into a safe creek, and in a few minutes was surrounded by, and was

same sylph-like form-the same graceful step-the same
lovely countenance, beaming with intelligence, serenity,
and love, which first won my affections-every thing the
same, but a tinge of grief which was already beginning
to give way to happiness and joy. She is still true,
then,' I ejaculated, and happiness unalloyed is mine!'
How bitterly accused myself for not appointing an
earlier hour of meeting! The lingering hands of the
steeple clock seemed glued to the dial-plate, and every
hour appeared almost as intolerably long as the period
spent on the Cayman islet. I positively thought they
would never pass. Pass, however, they did. Nine
struck; the well-known tap was given at the door;
was opened by Mary herself; and in a moment we were
locked in each other's arms. The thrilling emotions of
that ecstatic moment amply repaid me for past sorrows,
and will, I think, go far to neutralise the bitterness of
any that may yet be in store for me. After a respectful
period dedicated to the memory of my parent, Mary
became mine; and the only stipulation at our union, on
her part, was, that I would never again put her hap-
piness in jeopardy by a day's fishing in the Firth of
Clyde."

CURIOSITIES.

A stump orator who will not abuse his opponent. A
politician who will argue a mooted question without
getting angry. An actor who does not think himself
perfect in his art. An artist who places a modest esti-
mate on his abilities. A candidate who does not think
he is fully entitled to the suffrage of the people. A miss
of fifteen who has not begun to think of a husband. A
political editor who can tell the truth without making
wry faces. A letter from a lady that has not a P.S. at-
A lawyer who conscientiously docks his
tached to it.
fees. A schoolmaster who does not wish it understood
that he knows every thing. [We may add, a school-
master who is well paid.]-American paper.

it

NOTE TO THE ARTICLE on life assurance, in no. 474. When this article was written, nearly two months ago, we were not aware of the extent to which the public was indebted, for the exposure of the West Middlesex Company, to the Scottish Reformer's Gazette, published at Glasgow. We take the present opportunity of paying our humble tribute of praise to that newspaper, for the great gallantry which it showed, first in denounc ing an extensively fraudulent and dangerous concern, and then in withstanding the attempts made by the impostors to frighten them into concession. We cannot but feel the liveliest concern in learning that the law expenses incurred by the Gazette in resisting the company amounted to L.600, a sum far too great for one or two individuals to lose in behalf of the public, and we therefore would respectfully suggest the propriety of setting on foot a subscription, with a view to its reimbursement. We beg leave to say that we shall be happy to take charge of any sums which may be remitted to us on this account, and to forward them along with our own mite. It appears to us that the leading individuals connected with every life assurance company and society in the kingdom are particularly called upon to contribute

to such a fund.

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 19, Waterloo
Place, Edinburgh. Sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London;
J. MACLEOD, Glasgow; and all booksellers.
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Complete sets of the Journal are always to be had from the
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DINBURGH

JOURNA

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,”
"CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c.

NUMBER 479.

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST. CONSIDERABLE harm seems to arise, in many instances and ways, from the want of a right understanding as to the spirit of past things.

We must all have been sensible of a tender and relenting feeling towards things which, when they existed or pressed upon our immediate attention, might have been extremely disagreeable and inconvenient. A kinsman, very pestilent during his life, will, when dead, be thought of, not only without the least trace ́of anger, but with kindly feelings. An awkward old building, which used to be a grievous obstruction in a public thoroughfare, will, when removed, be regarded as an interesting object, and people will be glad that at least drawings of it have been preserved. A custom, long thought noxious-let it be discontinued for some years, and we shall find ourselves looking back upon it as having been “a very pleasant old affair after all." Even difficult and distressing circumstances in one's own early history will, after a sufficient interval of time, come to be the subject of pleasing reflection, and almost of regret the disagreeables being forgotten, and nothing but what relieved and cheered remaining on the memory. Evil-doers, whether upon a great or small scale, often become objects of kindly feeling when they have thoroughly "ceased from troubling." Nero, we can never forget, had flowers strewed upon his and grave; the most wretched monarch that ever lost a crown through wickedness and folly, left a party behind to cherish his name and cause in secret, amidst the all but universal execration. It is the same feeling which makes us so often discover the great merits and lament the sorry fate of men whom, while they were in life, we neglected. Living, they were fellow-racers in the great competition; perhaps they were not exactly so good as they might have been; there was no saying what evil they might yet do. But, dead, their ill as well as their good is at an end; pity takes, in our bosoms, the place of emulation, and we now think there were worse people in the world than they. It seems to be this relenting feeling towards the dead which dictates the universal suavity of epitaphs. Truth could tell many awkward stories of the good fathers, kind husbands, and genuine Christians, of stone and marble; but she would not be listened to; and "of the dead nothing but good" is a maxim which every body would practically be found to entertain and stand by. We are inclined to trace this habit to a native feeling of the mind-one of the primitive instincts of our nature, the relative object of which is the Past-just as there are faculties relating to certain other abstract things (for instance, the beautiful and the ludicrous)—and the converse of that other well-recognised feeling which regards the future and produces the emotion of hope. As the feeling for the future invests all its objects in agreeable colouring, so does this feeling for the past put all its objects into the finest and most pleasing condition. A thing is beheld in prospect; it glitters with beauty: onward it comes, and, nearing our gaze, is found to be not only homely but unpleasant. It passes, and falls into the rear, and, beheld by the retrospective eye, instantly flashes again into beauty-beauty equal, though dissimilar-beauty always increasing as the object recedes into the regions of the dim and the unknown. A law somewhat analogous to that of refraction seems to affect the circumstances relative to us, and our feelings regarding them are entirely ruled by the angle in which we behold the swift-passing scroll on which they are painted.

Take the more familiar case of hope. Hope beguiles us of present care; it furnishes the mind with pleasing ideas; it cheers and sustains us under the pres

us from both the future and the past. It is contem-
plated clearly, coolly, exactly, by the intellect, and
may be considered as the prose of the mind. The
future and the past are the subjects of two finely-sure of immediate difficulties. But hope will be abused
disposed feelings, and may be considered as part of the
mind's poetry. Johnson seems to have been sensible
of this when he said, "Whatever removes us from
the present, tends to advance us in the scale of think-
ing beings;" for, though it is not directly an intellec-
tual improvement, it certainly produces, as all abstract
states of feeling do, a general elevation of our nature
for the time.

We see it operating very actively as a branch of the poetical, in the writings of Sir Walter Scott. He, of all men, was the poet of the past. It shines alike in his versified and unversified works, and not more in the class of subjects he selected, than in a multitude of minute traits, almost sinking into the character of tricks of composition. He brought up before us the iron castles and iron men of the middle ages, confident that, though they were associated in their own days with barbarism and all that could shock modern and refined feelings, yet, now when gone into the distance, they must delight us through the medium of our sentiment for the past. The plaided Highlanders of 1745, beheld with horror and contempt by contemporary Whigs, and after their defeat scarcely treated as human beings by the soldiery opposed to them, became in his hands late-surviving and most interesting monuments of forms of society long passed away. By the minutest touch-for example, an allusion to the sword worn by all gentlemen down to the last age, or a reference to some slight remnant of clan feeling which he had observed in his youth-he threw his readers, or his hearers (for it was the same in his conversation) upon this sentiment, and enchanted them away for the time from all sense of the vulgar present. Some speak of his verse fictions as showing little poetry, but such persons must be ridiculously limited in their views of what is poetical. They must see that quality only in violent metaphor or flowery language. In the mere narrative of Scott's fictions, there was a rich abundance of a kind of poetry quite independent of trope and figure, namely, this poetry of the past. It was hope's day-dreams reversed-a sanguineness about things dead and gone. In the history of Greek mythology, we see poetry absolutely growing around its objects. First, they would be simply heroes and heroines. But, once passed into gone ages, their memory still surviving, they were raised to the character of gods and goddesses. Apollo was probably in reality but a young barbarian poet: what a personified ideality of beauty did he become in the hands of the successive sculptors and poets of Attica! Juno could be nothing in her proper person above the character of the consort of a barbarian prince. Her queenly beauty and grace, her chariot, Iris, peacocks' tails and all, were “additions" given to her by the sentiment of the past. From Hesiod to Virgil, an immense advance is made in the poetical attributes and characteristics of these old deities; and from this we may infer how homely they were originally, what an ordinary sort of beauty Venus was, and what a commonplace sot was jolly Bacchus. Possibly, Ceres was nothing but a more than usually shrewd farmer's wife. It is unnecessary to pursue a theme, where every mind can in a moment think out for itself all that we could say in an hour. We have done enough if we have disposed our readers to recognise in this feeling for the past the action of a special faculty of the mind.

If the feeling for the past be a special mental faculty, it must, like all others, have a legitimate The present thus becomes a very different thing to sphere of usefulness, and be liable also to be misused.

if we do nothing but hope, or if we allow it to deceive us as to what is true, and the duties placed before us, or what we have for the time to deal with. So, we would say, the feeling for the past is a source of agreeable thought—something in which we may pleasantly lose the sense of a dull or painful present. By a cunning moral chemistry, it converts all unpleasant experiences into happy topics of reflection. As in the history of individuals, so in the history of the race, things which were at the time subjects of dread and disgust, are smiled at when they have gone sufficiently far into the retrospect. Institutions which broke the hearts of men- -the bloody fields where thousands of the innocent fell-the superstitions which marked ignorance and the insane terrors to which it is liable-all become themes of interest under the influence of this feeling, even as ivy and time

"Have soften'd into beauty many a tower,

Which, in its days of hardihood and strength,
Was only terrible."

But the feeling will be abused when it is turned from
its legitimate object, the supplying our minds with sen-
timents of admiration and tenderness towards the past,
and employed in confusing our ideas as to what is right
and proper in the passing business of life. It may be
abused in this way, exactly as hope would be abused
by our being too much under its influence, or allowing
it, as already said, to deceive and confound us with
regard to our immediate duties, or what we have for
the time to deal with. Now, this is an abuse of the
feeling for the past which very frequently takes place,
and to very fatal effect. We see it in a bigoted clinging
to customs and modes, merely because they are old,
and without any regard to the consideration that they
may be unsuitable for the existing state of the world.
It is the source of that fallacy which attributes supe-
rior wisdom to our ancestors, who were in reality the
children of the world, and on most subjects could only
with difficulty make a faint approach to sagacious con-
clusions. By necessity, where things are irrationally
adhered to because they are old, things which are new
have little chance of receiving a candid consideration.
We are then so preoccupied with the reverence for
ancient things, that the very idea of any thing new is
intolerable to us. The proposed new things may be in
perfect harmony with reason, and their utility evident
to all minds which keep reason clear from feeling;
but to another class of minds, in which the feeling for
the past is abused, they will appear to the last degree,
though it is impossible to say why, objectionable. It
is by the active as well as passive opposition of such
minds, that the social progress of nations is in so
many instances delayed indefinitely, or only allowed
to proceed by leaps and starts, involving real danger,
and almost invariably attended with considerable evil.

This reasoning will perhaps appear in a more convincing light, if we reflect on what will be the inevitable fate of any bad system, or style of manners, or prevalent superstition or error, which we now desperately hold by, when it shall, as sooner or later it must, be allowed to decline into the long-withdrawing vale of history. Seeing every similar thing of past times now idealised in beauty and refinement-seeing romance every day arising from the empty mail and ruined towers of the middle ages, grace shining more than ever from the forms of the nymphs, and fawns, and muses of ancient Greece, and the hues of poetry settling always deeper and deeper on the scenes of ancient barbaric pomp and warfare-can we doubt

that there will yet be something equally fine in every one of the bad things of our own day, let them once become proper objects of the feeling for the past? Were any of those things, now the subject of so much pleasant meditation, to be suddenly reproduced in its reality, how should we be startled by it in the midst of our present enjoyments! How insufferable would it be, for instance, to be compelled to "follow to the field some warlike lord," whom we now contemplate with complacency as a being of the past ! Yet that hardship once did exist: the men of the fourteenth century suffered it in England, and our grandfathers were liable to it in Scotland. Was it not then as great an error in those who exerted themselves insanely to keep alive the feudal system, as it would be now for any one to endeavour to revive it? There is certainly no difference between the cases, except with respect to practicability. It would now be vain for any one to try to enforce the system of ward-holding; but it was once possible to exert one's self to keep it in vigour and prevent its abolition. It was but as yesterday that the sites of many busy cities in America were the haunts of Indians, with whom the scattered settlers had to keep up a constant warfare. Already the poet and the novelist are coming forward with agreeable fictions made out of the different state of

There is nothing in these views but what may have occurred to others before; but it may be an advantage thus to trace them to an active principle of our nature, and to separate the abuse of that principle from its use. Let it again, then, be observed, that the love of the past appears to be a primitive faculty of the mind, designed, like hope, or the feeling for the future, to entertain and cheer us through life. But it is only a blind sentiment, requiring, like all the other sentiments, to be directed by reason to its right objects, and kept in its proper sphere of action. While we use it as a kind of poetry, we use it rightly; but when we bring it into the arena of active life, apply it to existing things, and allow it to confound us in our judgments, we abuse it, and are in the way of perpetuating evil or preventing good.

opposite to the house, he addressed them, as if he had
never heard of the proposal to break the windows,
and said, "Now, my brave lads, let us give him three
cheers to show that we are not afraid of the British,
and be off." He cheered instantly, and they all joined.
At the close of the last cheer, he gave the word, 'Off
to the State-House and suited the action to the
word so rapidly, that nobody had time to suggest or
do any thing else. Arrived at the State-House, he
said, 'Let us give three cheers for America, and lock
up the helm in the State-House.' 'America for ever!
Hurrah! hurrah! The key of the cellar was ob-
tained, and the helm locked up; three cheers were
given for ourselves;'' dismiss' was then uttered, and
acted on by his walking away, and all followed his
example. As the whole proceeding had been illegal,
Mr
send up to the State-House for his helm in
went quietly to the ship, and desired the
the night. He did so; put it on; and when the sun
rose, he was down the Delaware on his voyage to
England.

captain to

Washington Streets, lay a piece of ground named the Potter's Field, or burial-place for strangers. Interments in it had long been prohibited, but it contained some graves and monuments enclosed by railings. There was a strong desire in the minds of many enlightened citizens to clear these away, and to turn the ground into an ornamental square, as it now lay in the heart of the city; but every proposal to obliterate them was resisted by the public sentiment, although no living person could be found who was interested in any of them. Mr suggested to a marble-cutter to carry off the monuments quietly, and by slow degrees, at dead of night. In the course of two years, they all disappeared mysteriously, nobody knew how. The rails followed. Nobody interfered; nobody noticed the change until it was complete. He employed men quietly at night to level the surface over the graves. Thus was completed, in less than three years, without any authority whatever, a change which the enlightened residents had in vain solicited permission to accomplish. The ground being reduced to a waste, the civic corporation, without any hesitation, voted money to enclose it with a handsome rail, to plant it, and to furnish it with gravel walks. It is now Washington Square, one of the greatest ornaments and a great benefit to the city."

of a ball or a donation from the civic corporation. He then proceeds: "I have endeavoured to discover the motives which have maintained this system in full energy for a century. In the first place, in observing the men in one of their processions, I per ceived that they were almost all under thirty years of age, and of the sanguine, or sanguine-nervous, or san guine-bilious temperaments, which give great love of excitement and action. The midnight alarm, the

rushing to the fires, and the labour and peril in extinguishing them, are agreeable to such minds. Further, their emulation is strongly excited. The point of honour is to be first at a fire. The director of the first engine that arrives, becomes director-general of all the engines for the evening. He is, as it were, the commander-in-chief of an allied army during a battle. If the director be not out, the engineman who first attaches his hose to the water-pipe assumes that high honour. There are no recognised differences in rank from different classes of citizens, and that this adds in this country, but it struck me that there are, in fact, plebeian and patrician fire-companies, drawn to the ardour of the competition. The company attached to each engine amounts to from twenty to one hundred men, and it starts from its stationAnother anecdote of the same gentleman is equally house as soon as two or three have arrived to direct would the active denizens of these cities like a pro- Between Walnut and Spruce Streets, and Sixth and dragging it. The competition to be first is so ardent, things, so recently past; and this is well-but how characteristic of the way to manage the people.' its movements. The people in the street assist in posal to bring back the Indians, and renew in reality brain was left awake to watch for the word 'fire,' or that ambitious young men sleep as if a part of the what is now so pleasant in description? Yet any one formerly endeavouring to maintain the Indians in the sound of the State-House alarm-bell. They will their warlike condition, would have been guilty of an hear either, when no other inmate of the house is conoffence exactly to the same purpose. There certainly scious of the slightest sound. They will sometimes put can be no doubt that, when any one, under the influon their boots and greatcoats, and carry their clothes, ence of abused feeling for the past, exerts himself which lie readily bundled up, in their hands, and dress to preserve things which reason has long and loudly declared to be unfavourable to human happiness, he at the fire. In rushing along the streets, they often run down and severely injure passengers who are in is as reprehensible as any one would be who should their way; or if one of themselves fall, the rest drag endeavour to bring back similar barbarisms into the on the engine regardless of his fate, and often break midst of a refined and quiet population. his legs or arms with the wheels. When two engines arrive at a fire at the same time, the companies occasionally fight for the first place, and then a desperate and bloody battle will rage for a considerable time, while the flames are making an unchecked progress. Add to these evils the circumstances that fires occur so frequently, that the firemen are kept in a state of almost constant excitement, and that Sunday furnishes no respite from their labours. They are often called out on very trivial alarms; and being once abroad at midnight hours, they adjourn to taverns, and pass the night in nocturnal recreations. Troops of boys, also, attach themselves as volunteers to the engines, and acquire idle and dissolute habits. In short, the firedepartment, which at first sight appears to present a noble specimen of civic devotion and disinterested benevolence, turns out, on a closer scrutiny, to be a Mr Combe deplores the eagerness of the Americans convenient apology for excitable young men indulgin the pursuit of wealth, at the same time that he sees, ing in irregular habits, which, if not clothed with an in their situation, great temptations to that error. official and popular character, would expose them to He says "The Scripture proclaims that he that MR COMBE has here presented the result of his ob-hasteneth to be rich falleth into a snare; and the Ame- the evils of the voluntary fire system have been so censure by a strictly moral community. In Boston, servations on the United States, during a residence of ricans afford striking examples of the truth of this severely felt, that it has been abandoned, and a reguabout two years in various parts of the country. Many proposition. The philosophy of the text is, that larly organised and paid corps of firemen now serves readers will object to the prominence which the au- capital, time, and labour, are necessary to the produc- in that city." No wonder after this that a newspaper thor has given to his favourite science and to theolo- it, we must give an equivalent, and every equivalent in forcible terms the evils incurred through "the intion of wealth; that before we can legitimately obtain writer, signing himself" A Father," should point out gical matters; but the book is nevertheless calculated also requires time, labour, and capital, for its produc- fatuation of fire-engines!" to make a considerable impression on both sides of the tion. He who hastens to be rich, therefore, tries to At New York Mr Combe met with an extraordiAtlantic. It contains a vast amount of curious infor- create wealth, or to acquire it, without complying with nary illustration of his science, in a girl of eight years mation respecting the States, and particularly respect-ins, he is blind to the obstacles which she presents Mapes. This child, by an accident four years before, these natural conditions. But nature is too strong for of age, the daughter of a scientific gentleman named ing the social condition of the people and the practical to his success, and he falls into a snare. operation of their government; the whole being ac- that, in a rich and extensive country, a few indivi- three and a half inches, over that part of the brain It is true lost a piece of her skull extending to about three by companied by reflections, which, whatever be their duals may, by gambling and speculation, acquire sud- supposed to perform the functions of self-esteem and origin—whether only the intellect of the writer, den and labour must have been employed to produce closed, the father was struck with the variety of wealth; but some others must lose as much. love of approbation. or a system of genuine though unacknowledged phi- the wealth before it could be lost and won; and these movements in the brain, and its great mobility during losophy-are certainly marked by that unity of chamen produce nothing. They shuffle property from one mental excitement, producing, as he said, a sensation racter which in general distinguishes only the results hand to another, but the nation is in no degree made in the hand when placed on the integuments, as if one of a true science. Mr Combe does not spare the richer by their speculations. All young Americans, were feeling, through a silk handkerchief, the motions Americans, where he observes any thing amounting therefore, should be trained to understand the real of a confined leech. He felt as if there were a drawto a national fault; but the view which he gives of to submit to them as they would do to the command-motion in the brain." To this extent the case only laws by which wealth is produced and distributed, and ing together, swelling out, and a vermicular kind of them is upon the whole such as they cannot reasonably be offended by. We have not space to enter more particularly into the merits of the work, but shall endeavour to convey some notion of its contents by a few extracts. The following "note" strikes us as one involving, under the form of mere anecdote, an important principle:

"NOTES ON THE UNITED STATES." *

"The American people may be led by promptness, good nature, and tact, but they will not be driven. In 1812, previously to the declaration of war against England, the mob of Philadelphia seized the rudder of a British brig, lying at the wharf, to prevent her from sailing, there being at that time no legal authority for detaining her. Mr, a highly respectable and well-known citizen, met them dragging the rudder through the streets in triumph; he joined them, and hauled the rope and cheered with the rest. They proposed to go and break the windows of the British consul. He went with them; and when they came

ments of the Bible."

In their defence, he says that, though acquisitive, they are not sordid. They expend their wealth freely, and, where the object meets their approbation, they are even munificent in their donations. * I heard a scientific gentleman defend his countrymen and himself against the charge of excessive acquisitiveness in the following pithy sentences: I have always,' said he, pursued wealth, because I saw that I could accomplish nothing without it. A sordid mind is indicated by the uses which it makes of property, and not by the pursuit of it. I employ two men to assist me in my scientific analyses and experiments, and pay them a thousand dollars per annum. If I had not bought lots of ground which have doubled in value, I could not have done this; so that, in point of fact, the money acquired by my lots is devoted to the extension of science."

In a note occurring early in the book, Mr Combe describes a parade of boys at Philadelphia in attendance upon a carriage representing a fire-engine, the performed voluntarily throughout the United States. object being to train them to act as firemen a duty He afterwards mentions, that not only are the fire*Notes on the United States of North America, during a Phre-engines voluntarily attended and worked by young nological Visit in 1838-30-40. By George Combe. 3 vols. Edin- men, but they even keep up the engines and hose at their own expense, assisted occasionally by the profits

burgh: Maclachlan and Stewart. 1811.

After the wound had been

resembles some others of a similar nature, which have been laid before the medical world without challenge; but the surprising part of the case follows:-" With permission of her father and mother, I kept my hand for some minutes gently pressing on the external integuments over the site of the injury, and distinctly felt a considerable movement, a swelling up and pulsation, in the organs of self-esteem; and the same movements, but in a less degree, in those of love of approbation. When I began to talk to the child, she was shy and bashful, and at first would scarcely speak. The vivid movements in self-esteem indicated that amidst her extreme bashfulness this organ was active. As I continued to converse with her, and succeeded in putting her at her ease, the movements in selfesteem decreased, while those in love of approbation continued. I spoke to her about her lessons and attainments, not in flattering terms, but with the design of exciting self-esteem; and the movements increased. Again I soothed her, and they diminished. This was repeated, and the same results ensued. Her to solve; she was puzzled, and made an intellectual father gave her several questions in mental arithmetic effort, and the peculiar movements in the organs of self-esteem and love of approbation ceased; only a gentle and equal pulsation was felt. She solved the question, and we praised her: the peculiar movements

the bandit's face, he said, "What colour are your eyes?" Tragine opened his eyes widely, and, at that instant, the courageous mayor threw his arms around the robber, and pinned him as in a vice, exclaiming at the same time, in a voice of thunder, "You are my prisoner! Help, my friends, help!" When the bandit saw his mischance, his struggles to get at his carabine were fearful. But he was in the hands of a man as bold and vigorous as himself. The combatants fell both on the floor; Tragine wrought with the force of desperation to pull out one of his pistols; but the mayor relaxed not his grasp, and, indeed, to do so would have been to give Tragine an opportunity to sign a passport for him to another world.

The struggle was terminated by the entrance of two men whom M. Joule had planted close at hand. One of them seized the formidable carabine in the first place, and then they threw strong cords around the bandit's body and arms. Thus bound, he was conveyed next day to the town of Foix, and lodged in the old rock-perched castle of the counts of that place. The whole country flocked out to see the notorious Tragine, and a general rejoicing took place throughout Ariege. The capture took place about the close of 1840, and the bandit, we believe, yet awaits punish

ment in the castle of Foix.

THE SCOTCH PENNY CHAP-BOOKS. LAST summer, in walking through the splendid public markets of Newcastle, we were not a little surprised to find, from the exhibition of literary wares on sundry stalls, that a class of small pamphlets, of Scottish origin, formerly known throughout the country as "penny chap-books," were in great repute in that part of the world, and were issued in considerable variety from a press in the town. We had seen nothing of the kind in Scotland for the previous ten years, and had almost believed that the "chap-books" had disappeared from the face of the earth. But here, after banishment from the land of their nativity, do they seem to flourish as prosperously as they did in the Lothians half a century ago.

afterwards got the office alluded to in the capital of
the west. He describes himself, under the designation
of John Falkirk, in the following manner: John
was a curious witty little fellow, with a round face and
a broad nose. None of his companions could answer
the many witty questions he proposed to them; there-
fore he became the wonder of the age in which he lived.
Being born of mean parents, he got no education,
therefore his witty invention was truly natural; and
being bred to no business, he was under the necessity
of using his genius in the composition of several small
books. The most extensive of all Dougald's works
was a metrical History of the Rebellion,' which was
a great favourite with Sir Walter Scott, and which
seems to have been an early production, having on the
title-page,

Composed by the poet D. Graham;

In Stirlingshire he lives at hame.'
He was also author of two well-known songs of con-
siderable merit, Turnimspike,' and John Hieland-
man's Remarks on Glasgow. An old bookseller, who
remembered him personally, told Mr Motherwell, that
Dougald was an unco glib body at the pen, and could
screed aff a bit penny history in less than nae time.
A' his works took weel. I never kent a history o'
Dougald's that stack in the sale yet.' Indeed, this
odd being, who undoubtedly possessed an abundant
vein of coarse humour, and much shrewdness of ob-
servation, as well as knowledge of the peculiarities of
his countrymen, has certainly been honoured by more
numerous republications of his works, chiefly from the
classic presses of Falkirk, Paisley, and Glasgow, than
any author who ever lived, Shakspeare and Scott not
excepted."

carry the latter passion so far as to wager respecting the
crawling of worms.
The majority of the English pass
their time in taverns. They there drink beer, smoke
tobacco, and curse their king and his ministers."

POPULAR INFORMATION ON FRENCH
LITERATURE.

FOURTH ARTICLE.

CONTEMPORARY, or nearly so, with Alain Chartier, a notice of whom opened our observations on the litera

ture of France in the fifteenth century, flourished a number of poets of some merit. Their compositions, however, like those of our own earliest poets, are but little read even by their countrymen, in consequence of the comparative roughness and rudeness of the language in which they are written; and to foreigners the very names of the authors are scarcely known. François Villon, Charles d'Orleans, Oliver Basselin, and Martial de Paris, are, exclusive of Chartier, the most noticeable of these fifteenth-century poets. Ballads, and compositions of the ballad order, as already mentioned, formed the favourite shape in which the muse of France exercised herself in these times.

François Villon was born at Paris in the year 1431. He is remarkable as having been a robber by profession, or next thing to it. Before the age of twentyfive, he had been several times in the prison of Chatelet for theft, and, soon after that epoch of his career, was condemned to death for a larceny of a more serious kind. He himself tells the whole story, with great coolness, in his verses, and he confesses that hanging seemed to him rather an unpleasant kind of sport. Yet he amused himself, with the prospect of an ignominious death before him, by writing a punning epitaph upon himself, and composing a ballad on the contemplated exposure of his body. After all, he escaped the doom he had brought upon himself, by an appeal to parliament. He then addressed an associate in some gay verses, of which the following is an example:

"Of my appeal what think you now?
Say, Garnier, did I right or wrong?
Ev'n beasts, man, guard their skins, I trow,
And must be bound by cord or thong,
Or much to yield its hide each grudges.
When, then, I set me down to thrum
An invocation to my judges,

Was it a time, man, to be dumb?"

The success attending the literary efforts of Dougald, it is evident, depended on the very low taste for literature at the period, but much more on the total want of any cheap literature of an improving, and, at the same time, entertaining tendency. Taught to read, but furnished with no rational means of bringing the accomplishment into use, and also prevented by the manners of the period from indulging in cheerful and harmless recreations, the lower Scotch fell back upon the penny chap-books as almost the only mirthful spot on which they could set their foot. Nothing is more certain than that if society be deprived of the means of innocent amusement, it will seek indulgence in that which is vicious; and we find that no sooner is the unwholesome restraint withdrawn, than the habits of the people will bound into the right path. The taste for reading in Scotland has, to a remarkable extent, experienced this change. As long as no other cheap literature existed than that which we have described, nothing else, as a matter of course, was purchased; but no sooner had something of a more wholesome nature made its appearance, than the former entirely disappeared. No act of the legislature, no denunciations from the pulpit, no effort of a public police, or private benevolence, could have accomplished in a tenth part of the time what was effected simply by doing nothing but holding out the temptation of a more agreeable and respectable means of entertain- have begged for his bread. According to some acAfter this period, Villon is known to ment. We do not believe the chap-books are now to counts, he spent part of his later years in England be seen any where in Scotland, except among the under the protection of Edward IV.; but, at all very dregs of the community; they are gone for ever, with all their debasing influences, and, as it events, he died young. His works are not numerous. His Lesser and Greater Testaments, written seems, are only issued from a press in Newcastle to respectively at twenty-five and thirty, and a small meet a demand among the lower and unreclaimed number of ballad pieces, form the whole of his writpart of the community in that busy part of Northum-ings. His vein is satirical and coarse, but he is adberland.

A DUTCH IDEA OF AN ENGLISHMAN.

Southern readers, we should suppose, know nothing of the appearance or nature of these once popular productions of the press, and we may be allowed to describe them. The penny chap-books, so called from being sold by a humble order of chapmen or pedlars, might be defined as the earliest attempts at literature in Scotland, designed for merely popular amusement. Each book consisted of about a sheet, or twenty pages, of the coarsest texture and typography, and embellished with a few cuts in the rudest possible style. The subject-matter of the works corresponded with these unpromising appearances, and was such as hardly to bear being mentioned. A few of the books had a religious turn, such as the "Prophecies of Mr Alexander Peden," or the "Laird of Coul's Ghost;" but the bulk of them were of quite an opposite character, and plentifully interspersed with broad humourso broad, indeed, that the witticisms, like those of Boccaccio, could by no means escape the attention of the reader. A number of them-for instance, "The History and Comical Adventures of Lothian Tom," "Leper the Tailor," and "The Merry Exploits of George Buchanan"-contained narrations of all manner of practical jokes and schemes of roguery; while others, such as "The Comical Sayings of Paddy from Cork," were upon the whole a degree less horrible and more amusing. But no good can be said of any of them; and without an unreasonable stretch of authority, they might all have come within the jurisdiction of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Yet, strange as it may seem, the penny chap-books constituted for many years a universal literature among the lower classes of persons, both old and young for a period of at least fifty years not fewer than a hundred thousand sheets could have been disposed of annually; each new generation eagerly purchasing and perusing them, as far as we ever heard, without remonstrance from either parents or clergy. That a people paying such respect to the external observances of religion, and consuming so large a portion of their time in religious polemics, should have calmly witnessed, if not been amused with, the constant inundation of this species of ribaldry, is a fact only to be accounted for by the inconsistencies which prevail in human "I advise you, my dear readers, to study the English character and behaviour. It does not lessen our sur-language. Although it is by no means one of the most prise to know that the greater part of these worthless elegant, it may be sometimes useful to you. But as for productions emanated from no higher source than the imitate them. The Englishman, born upon an island, the manners of the English, I would counsel you never to bellman or public-crier of Glasgow. The name of has retained always the peculiar characteristics of an this person was Dougald Graham, and his history is islander. The chief people of the country are haughty, not without some interest, as neither was his brain and ever indulge their passions. They hold in esteem all without a certain kind of talent. From the Paisley that their own land produces, and detest what comes Magazine, a work published a few years ago, but now from others. Their countrymen comprise, in their eyes, very rare, a brief biographical memoir of Dougald has all that is good, brave, and trustworthy; while foreignbeen compiled for the letter-press connected with a ers are held but cowards and deceivers. One may gadroll series of etchings now in course of publication, ther from their books with what disdain they speak of entitled Geikie's Sketches of Scottish Character. This other nations. The Germans, the French, and, above all, memoir is as follows:the Dutch, are the objects of their sneers; and the name of dog is a common one with them for strangers. Even those of the English who have received a careful education, and who, in consequence, may have some amiability and kindliness, retain, nevertheless, much of their repulwhile two boxers strike out one another's eyes, or lame sive and cruel nationality. They look on with pleasure one another. Even the women clap their hands at such spectacles, and give ribands to the victors in token of approval. The populace are shameless, gross, and savage. They are fond of racing, gambling, and betting; and

"It is a curious fact, that one man, Dougald Graham, long town-bellman of Glasgow, was the author of nearly all the chap-books which circulated among the people during the past century. This personage was born about the year 1724, at Raploch, in Stirlingshire, and died in the year 1789. He was for some time in service at Campsie, and, according to an account of him given by the late Mr Motherwell in the Paisley Magazine, joined the Pretender in 1745. Dougald

A gentleman who lately made a tour in Holland, has handed us a small book which he purchased as a curiosity in Rotterdam: it purports to be a work for the instruction of young persons, and contains various coloured engravings, representing inhabitants of different countries, accompanied by letter-press descriptions in the Dutch language. One of the engravings represents an Englishman, who is gaily dressed in top-boots, yellow buckskins, and a red waistcoat, and is jovially carousing in a tavern, with a foaming tankard in one hand and a cup in the other. This pretty fair hit at our national sottishness, is accompanied with a definition of character, of which we have not very much reason to be proud. As John Bull, however, cannot be the worse for hearing it, we offer the following translation:

His sentence of death being commuted to banishment for life, Villon quitted France, but was permitted to always showed himself interestedly gracious to historeturn, some years afterwards, by Louis XI., who rians and satirists, in which latter class our poet made no mean figure. But this incorrigible being speedily returned to his criminal courses, and, on the score of he lay for three years, till released a second time by a new felony, was again thrown into prison. Here

Louis XI.

mitted to have polished the style of versification of his
day. Not finding any good lengthened specimen of
his verses, we shall merely translate one stanza of a
little moralising ballad for our readers.

"I know a fly in milk full well;
Show me the dress, the man I see;
Good days from bad ones I can tell ;
I know an apple by the tree.
Point me the juice, I know the plant
I see when things alike do show;

I know who works-who won't, or can't;
All but myself, in short, I know."

Charles d'Orleans was a person of a very different character from Villon in all'imaginable respects. He was the eldest son of Louis of France, Duke of Orleans, and was born at Paris in 1391. From boyhood, he showed a wonderful aptitude for letters; and, sustained captivity, defeat, and many other ills, they throughout his lengthened career, during which he formed to him a precious and inalienable source of consolation. Imbued with a love of poetry, he beder and amatory. On the whole, they are exceedingly came himself a poet. The most of his pieces are tentasteful and pleasing, and indicate a mind of uncommon refinement and sensibility. We offer to our readers the following little specimen of the poesies of this prince :

"In sorrow's dark and lonesome grove
I chance to find me on a day,
And meet the deity of love,

And hear her ask me of my way;

I answer, that to make me flee

To these dark woods fate long since chose,
And that she well might title me

A wandering man who knows not where he goes.
With sweet and condescending smile,
Replies she, Friend, if I but knew
Wherefore thou sufferest this while,
I would give willing aid to you.

I set thee once in pleasure's way,

Nor know how thou that way did'st lose;
It grieves me now to see thee stray,

A wandering man who knows not where he goes.