splinters, and knock the His Highness, it is true, Beachy's head, shiver Deal into two Reculver steeples into one. contemplated a bellicose state, ceremoniously proclaimed according to the usage of polite nations: but suppose some outlandish savage, as uncivilized as unshorn, say from Terra del Fuego, animated with an insane hostility to England, and burning to test his skill in Pyrotechnics-might not such a barbarian be tempted to dispense with a formal declaration of war, and make a few experimental essays how to introduce his treacherous combustibles into our perfidious towns and hamlets? Foreign incendiaries for me, rather than native; and accident or Spontaneous Combustion before either! But if we must believe in it home-made— surely, in preference to the industrious laborer, suspicion should fall on those sturdy trampers that infest the country, the foremost to crave for food and money, the last to ask for work, and one of whom might light up a dozen parishes. If it be otherwise, if a class eminently loyal, patient, peaceable, and rational, have really become such madmen throwing about fire, it is high time, methinks, with universal Artesian borings, to begin to scuttle our island for fear of its being burnt. But no-that Shadow of an Incendiary, with uplifted hands, and streaming repentant eyes, disavows with earnest gesture the foul intent; and shadow as he is, my belief acquits him, and makes me echo the imaginary sigh with which he fades again into the foggy distance between me and Port Sydney. It is in your power, Sir James Graham! to lay the Ghost that is haunting me. But that is a trifle. By a due intercession with the earthly Fountain of Mercy, you may convert a melancholy Shadow into a happier Reality—a righted man-a much pleasanter image to mingle in our waking visions, as well as in those dreams which, as Ham let conjectures, may soothe or disturb us in our coffins. Think, Sir, of poor Gifford White-inquire into his hard case, and give it your humane consideration, as that of a fellow-man with an immortal soul-a "possible angel”— to be met hereafter face to face. To me, should this appeal meet with any success, it will be one of the dearest deeds of my pen. I shall not repent a wide deviation from my usual course; or begrudge the pain and trouble caused me by the providential visitings of an importunate Phantom. In any case, my own responsibility is at an end. I have relieved my heart, appeased my conscience, and absolved my soul. SONNET. TO MY WIFE. THINK, sweetest, if my lids are now not wet, For unworn love, and constant cherishing— When thou art fretted-rather than to sing THE MARY. A SEA-SIDE SKETCH, Lov'st thou not, Alice, with the early tide Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast For the low sun to shoot at with his pale Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann'd So, some ten days ago, on such a morn, The Mary, like a seamew, sought her spoil Amongst the finny race: 't was when the corn Woo'd the sharp sickle, and the golden toil Summon'd all rustic hands to fill the horn Of Ceres to the brim, that brave turmoil Was at the prime, and Woodgate went to reap His harvest too, upon the broad blue deep. His mast was up, his anchor heaved aboard, His mainsail stretching in the first gray gleams. Of morning, for the wind. Ben's eye was stored With fishes-fishes swam in all his dreams, And all the goodly east seem'd but a hoard Of silvery fishes, that in shoals and streams. For Ben had the true sailor's sanguine heart, And summ'd the net proceeds. This should have brought Despair upon him when his hopes were foil'd, And sow'd his seed afresh.-Many foul blights No goodly houses on the Goodwin sandBut a small humble home, and loving nights, Such as his honest heart and earnest hand Might fairly purchase. Where these hopes too airy? Such as they were, they rested on thee, Mary. She was the prize of many a toilsome year, And hard-won wages, on the perilous sea Of savings ever since the shipboy's tear Was shed for home, that lay beyond the lee;She was purveyor for his other dear Mary, and for the infant yet to be Fruit of their married loves. These made him dot Upon the homely beauties of his boat, Whose pitch black hull roll'd darkly on the wave And when she ventured for the deep, she spread Of babes and mothers—many an anxious eye Where is she now? The secrets of the deep And sighs are heard from weather-beaten men, Dark, sunburnt men, uncouth, and rude, and hairy, While loungers idly ask, "Where is the Mary?" |