the body was carried by the reeling sailors to the grave, to render to the elements the infinitely small portions of matter it still retained.

And yet that snowy-headed, very old woman, that almost obliterated form of mortality, had enshrined, until a few hours before, an ardent hope, an intense and exquisite feeling! Her story was interesting. She was a native of Marseilles, but had gone to America in her early days. She had seen the War of Independence; had been married three times; had had children and grandchildren, but had survived them all. Though surrounded by comforts and by friends, with whom she had spent many more years than are generally allotted to human life, as old age began to be felt, she felt with it an eager longing to see, ere she died, the land of her birth; and this desire became more ardent when the infirmities of years should have precluded the apparent possibility of her supporting so long a voyage as from Baltimore to Marseilles. At length she would talk of nothing but her own France, la belle France; and protesting she should not sleep quietly in her grave unless she saw again the coast of Provence and Marseilles, she determined, to the surprise of every body, to undertake the voyage. But by this time the rapid decay of old age was so visible, that the masters of several vessels refused to treat with her for a passage, never imagining that any thing so frail could survive three days on board of ship. The captain who at last received her, related, that during the voyage across the Atlantic, when they had very stormy weather, he several times thought her dying, and even dead-that she revived a little as they got within the Straits of Gibraltar, but sank into a state of lethargy the day after. She could no longer assist herself, and it was with difficulty he had been able, now and then, to pour a little liquid nourishment down her throat. She had not uttered a syllable for several days until the preceding evening, when the captain, on telling her they were very near their journey's end, could hear her murmur "Marseilles!"-and her hands were closed as if in prayer as she named her native city. That morning, as the vessel came in sight, the captain gave her the welcome information, at which she rallied, as though the fabulous elixir had been administered to her. She was carried, at her eager request, to the deck. They laid her down on some sail-cloths and a mattress, and she steadfastly fixed her dim eyes on the rocks of Provence, that every moment increased to the sight. By degrees, even her dull organs could distinguish the steeples and houses of the town peering above a pale grey line of rock and hill-they became more and more pronounced, and as the ship entered the Quarantine Port in the island, she could see the towers of her own parish-church of St. Roch on the hill in the old town-but before the ship was anchored, the old Marseillaise had ceased to breathe!

I have made mention of Christmas-eve. It was my lot to pass my birth-day, Christmas-day, and the New-year in quarantine; and though perhaps a trifle, the recollections of these seasons of festivity in former years did not tend to lighten the dulness of my solitary and uncomfortable confinement. We had some miserably-bad, and even cold weather. The fire-place in my apartment (of which be it said, in passing, neither door nor window shut properly) was so large, and so very ill-constructed, that in spite of a ruinous dépense in wood, I never

could keep myself warm on these rigid nights. The chimney, moreover, was so wide and open at top, that whenever it rained, it rained on my fire; and there I used to sit, shivering over its embers, and almost choked with the smoke.

After the first ten or twelve days, the strictness of my quarantine was somewhat abated. I was permitted to extend my promenade from the corridor to the court below, and, in company with my gardien, to perambulate nearly the whole extent of the Quarantineground, which is much more extensive even than I had fancied. In its vastness, and in its outer walls, it reminded me of the Arsenal and Bagnio of Constantinople; but instead of being crowded like those places, the Lazzaretto of Marseilles, during all my stay, was almost awfully solitary and still. There was scarcely a soul to be seen; and I have gone through court-yard, and enclosure after enclosure, and looked into I know not how many of the immense warehouses recently built for the reception of susceptible Levant merchandise, without seeing so much as a bale of goods. The Greek war; the piracies long exercised in all parts of the Archipelago; the impoverishment of the Eastern countries on the Mediterranean; bad crops of cotton in Egypt, and other circumstances, had held the trade of Marseilles (which is principally with the Levant) in check for some time, and may account for the loneliness of the Lazzaretto.

From this irksome solitude and restraint I was released at lastthe time, so long to look forward to, having glided away as happier hours will do, though not so rapidly. On a beautiful morning, like that on which I had arrived at Marseilles, and at an early hour-after I had been fumigated with sulphur and I know not what I was told by my dapper friend, the officer, that, on the payment of a long account of fees and expenses he presented, I was at liberty to walk out. I paid and went, experiencing, as I crossed the gloomy threshold of my prison, that thrilling, bounding joy, that one who has been a prisoner, though but for a short time, must feel.

C. M. F.

MY PENSION.

WHAT, take away my Pension! a word with you, Lord Grey;
You cannot be so barbarous ! you mean not what you say.
I have enjoyed for seven years twelve hundred pounds a year,
'Twas granted me by George the Fourth, how can you interfere?
I really hoped you'd think it right to grant me an extension;
It never once occurr'd to me you'd take away my Pension!
The thing's so inconvenient, you'll force me to retrench,—
Indeed retrenchment will not do, you 'll send me to the Bench!
How can you serve a Lady so! oh! if I were a man,
I'd call you out, my Noble Lord, and end you with your plan;
You might retrench in many little ways that I could mention,
But what on earth possesses you to take away my Pension!

You ask about my services; but surely to intrude
And ask a Lady such a thing is little less than rude;
Of course I could explain to you,-My Lord, I say again,

If 'twas my pleasure so to do, of course I could explain;

I'm sure I've many female friends of vastly less pretension,

Who've met with greater recompense--then don't disturb my Pension. July.-VOL. XXXII. NO. CXXVII.

E

Reform may all be very proper in a certain line,

I never can object to it, it's no affair of mine;

Reform the House of Commons, and correct abuses there,

But don't reform my little house in Green-street, Grosvenor-square.
Don't seize my jewels to allay the popular dissension-
You can't appease the Radicals with my poor little Pension.
The Revolutionists abroad have stirr'd up all this fuss,
But can your Lordship tell me what are Paris mobs to us?
Because the papers bore one so about the row at Brussels,
Must English ladies interfere with Foreign people's bustles?
Now be assured, my Noble Lord, 'twas folly set the French on;
You really are not call'd upon to take away my Pension.
Propriety might prompt your economical design

In many cases doubtless,-but believe me not in mine;
Were I alone, I now might make a sacrifice, 'tis true,
But all my Family, you know, have little pensions too;

My Brothers and my Cousins would go mad were I to mention
The revolutionary scheme of giving up a Pension!

I think it would be setting an extremely bad example

In times like these, when people are endeavouring to trample
On all our ancient usages, and raising such a storm
About the Place and Pension List, and Radical Reforın,-
I say, my Lord, that I should feel deserving reprehension
If I-by these intimidated-threw away my Pension.
I'm quite convinced the only way of setting matters right,
And making common people see things in a proper light,
Is, keeping up the ancient aristocracy of course,
And keeping down plebeians with a military force:
The Lower Orders really are so dull of comprehension,
They can't see the utility of granting me a Pension.

The truth is this-(you must not deem these few remarks intrusive)—
The Aristocracy are not sufficiently exclusive,

They call on Mistress this and that, and curtsey at a ball
To people who, in point of fact, are nobodies at all!
I never could perceive the use of smiling condescension-
It makes the upstarts insolent, they cavil at a Pension!
When I am at my country seat, I shun this growing evil,
No member of the middling ranks presumes to call me civil;
I never call on them, and if one dares pay me a visit,
She comes in some old-fashion'd gown, and I and Laura quiz it;
And at the Race-ball once a year I sit the upper bench on,
In high unbending dignity, so I deserve my Pension.

Now pray, my Lord, consider this, you're ruined if you grant
Concessions of the sweeping kind the common people want;
The Aristocracy must not be interfered with thus,
Pray tell me what are starving individuals to us!
To pacify the Radicals, and end all this contention,

We'll call my little income by some other name than Pension.
Of course, my Lord, you can retrench in ev'ry other way,
The Clerks in Public Offices may scribble on half-pay;
The Captains and the Cornets, and the Curates may be fleeced,
(The incomes of the Bishops, by the by, should be increased,)
I see you are convinced, my Lord, and through your intervention
I trust, in spite of Mr. Hume, you 'll let me keep my Pension.

T. H. B.

IN my boyhood I lived much with an old gentleman who called himself my uncle. I never heard, however, that I had either a father or mother who called him brother; and, therefore, I have often suspected our consanguinity was much nearer than he represented. I say I have often suspected such to be the fact; because, whoever might happen to be my parents, they not only kept the secret to themselves, but left me to my uncle as completely as if there were no one else in the world who had a right to look after me, which I am bound, in gratitude, to acknowledge he did, in a way quite unparalleled in the history of all the uncles I have ever read or heard of. Whatever the best of sons could say of the best of fathers, I had the melancholy satisfaction of saying in gilt letters upon black marble, under the organ-loft of church, after the old gentleman's death, as the posthumous tribute of an affectionate nephew.

It was one of his favourite maxims, (and, being a favourite, no one was allowed to question it,) that "we should always think to-day and act to-morrow;" in other words, that we should take second thoughts for our guide, and consider first ones only as our desires, which seldom square with our interests. He would frequently enforce this admonition by sundry pertinent observations, all of them tending to show, that if men did not set about coaxing themselves into good-humour with their first thoughts, (which, for the most part, he said, were nothing but their wishes,) they would not so often have to lament the consequences of their actions; and he generally wound up his advice by exclaiming, "it was second thoughts saved me from Widow Woakes." These words were so constantly on his tongue, that they became, at last, a sort of proverb with the family; insomuch, that whenever any circumstance happened fortunately, which might have fallen out unfortunately, had first intentions been followed, the usual congratulation was, "Thank God, we have escaped Widow Woakes!" My uncle's account of the Woakes affair was this :

"I had very early subscribed," said he, "to the doctrine of Sir Thomas Brown, (in his Religio Medici,') who says, 'the whole world was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman; man being the whole world, and the breath of God; woman, the rib, and crooked part of man.' Like him, I was resolved 'never to marry once,' and 'commended their resolutions who never married twice.' Moreover, I was particularly impressed with the truth of what followed these opinions-"

Here the old gentleman would make a sudden pause, and look strange things, as if there were something in the "opinions" he valued so highly, of a very doubtful character. I was not easy, therefore, till I had rummaged over his books, and found a copy of the " Religio Medici;" but I must refer the "curious reader" to p. 154, edition 1645, of that once celebrated work, (whose bold scepticism and whimsical speculations provoked the philosophy of Sir Kenelm Digby and the metaphysics of Alexander Ross into the field of controversy, and called forth the admiration of the learned Guy Patin, though, as he

says elsewhere, "he naturally hated the English, and thought of them with horror,") because it is not the custom, in these days, to write and speak of certain matters so plainly as our unsophisticated ancestors were pleased to do.

"The fact is," he would continue, shaking his head, “I never was a man to make up to the ladies, having always felt in their company like adventurous discoverers by sea and land,—an apprehension of rocks, quicksands, laughing hyenas, and weeping crocodiles. But, forty years ago, when I was at Bath, Mrs. Susannah Woakes made up to me with such determined vigour, that it seemed I must fall into her hands, as birds are said to drop, in spite of themselves, into the expanded jaws of the rattle-snake, fascinated by the glare of its terrific eyes.

"Not that I was fascinated; for, though the widow was tolerably young, that is, not more than three and twenty, and really beautiful, and infinitely sprightly, and as graceful as the Graces themselves, still there was one ugly circumstance-she was a widow! I repeat, therefore, I was not fascinated; but I was uncommonly puzzled what to do with her. She had made such a dead set at me, that, while I was thinking of nothing in the world but how to get away from her, the world itself, or, what is the same thing, the circle of my friends and acquaintance, (which is all that any man means when he talks of the world,) was thinking of nothing but the inevitable certainty of my approaching union with the "charming widow." Nor was this all. The more intimate of my friends, they who thought it became them, as friends, to advise me for my good, were incessantly eloquent to convince me of my happy fortune: so that, what with the constant fire of the Widow herself, and the broadsides of my friends, I was in a fair way of being made to surrender, and laid up for life, as a sheer hulk, in Woakes's dock.

"I have heard of a man hanging himself to stop his wife from going to a ball, after he had vainly tried all gentler modes of persuasion; and I was very near perpetrating a similar act of folly. I all but yielded to my first thoughts, and married the widow, simply because I had derogated so far from my bachelor dignity as to allow the world to consider me a husband elect. My second thoughts, however, saved me.

"It was in the month of August that the widow began her manouvres, and, towards the middle of October, I perceived things were coming to extremities. There was no possibility of my holding out another week. I could not account for this increased activity in the enemy's movements; but they so crippled my means of defence, that I was every moment in dread of being made prize of. I took advantage of darkness, therefore, set all my sails, and escaped during the night. In plain English, I packed up my trunks, without saying a word to any body, ordered a post-chaise to the door an hour after my usual time of going to bed, and set off for the Lakes. I learned afterwards that the widow, inconsolable for my loss, married, the very next week, Sir Boobykin Gosling, Bart., a descendant of the ancient family of the Goosecaps, whose ancestors came in with the Conqueror, and one of the branches of whose genealogical tree produced the renowned men of Gotham.