; plaint was carried before the emperor. The cause had become much involved, as the slave, tired of her first master, maintained that she belonged to the soldier and the writer produced pretty clear evidence of the slave being his property. The emperor, who at first affected to be embarrassed and undecided how to act in so perplexed a case, attended for a time to other complaints; when, on a sudden, calling for ink, he caused the pen, in the most unaffected manner, to be given to the slave, that she might assist him to it. The slave gave it back replenished, with so much dexterity, and with so good a grace, that the emperor judged immediately that she must have been used to the duty, and said to the slave angrily-' You cannot belong to the soldier; you must certainly have been in the service of the writer, and in his power you shall remain.' The wisdom of the monarch was the admiration of the whole empire. The history of Shah Jehan's sons is still more remarkable than that of any of their predecessors,_and will form the subject of our next sketch. TO THERESA. ON HER BIRTH-DAY. It comes! it comes! that happy day, And there is feasting in the hall, And laughter in the dance's maze; Theresa! thou art now in life, B. Ah! ever thus may virtue guide With more of joyance than of tears. Let those who know thee, bask them there : For me, it is not given to prize The beauties of the young and fair. It is thy birth-day! Every face THE DYING SISTER. D. S. L. PALE and wan on her couch she laid, And o'er her bent an angel form, Who prest the fair hand to her breast, But she knew, tho' its pulse and its veins were warm, That her sister was sinking to rest. And must we part? and the flowery wreath "That affection has wove be thus torn? And thy sweetness pass over the wond'ring earth, 'Like the balmy breath of the morn? 'Yet, stay, and while these sad tears are shed, 'Let me print on those lips the last kiss!' But the lips were cold, and the spirit had fled To the realms of eternal bliss. The op'ning bud, in its happiest day, By the cruel storm has been riven; Too pure for this world, 'twas hurried away The bell has been toll'd, and the requiem's note, And the fairest name that creation e'er wrote, Has been wash'd away with a tear. J. T. J. THE WEST INDIAN ASSASSIN. In the close and wood-bound vale of Pedro, situated in the parish of St. Ann, and nearly in the centre of the island of Jamaica, stood a small and lonely turret, dignified by its northern architect with the name of Edinburgh Castle. It commanded the only pass leading directly from the south side of the island to the north the defile is scarcely an hundred yards across; and the mountains which inclose the solitary vale, arise on either side to an almost Alpine height. On this spot, which might have been selected for a new Thermopyla, there dwelt a wretch whose birth disgraced the land of the mountain and the flood:' his name was Hutchinson: he possessed a few negroes, acquired a small property, and first stocked it with the strayed or stolen cattle of his neighbours. His slaves were the participators of his crimes; they were recently from Africa; their native habits were familiarized with the sight of blood; and the mistaken sense of duty, if not their characteristic cruelty, taught them silence and submission, though the dark and midnight crime of assassination stains not the nature of the unprovoked African. Yet no traveller who attempted that defile, however poor or wretched he might be, ever escaped the confines of their owner's narrow territory. The needy wanderer would sometimes call for refreshment at the only habitation which for many miles had cheered his weary eye, but it was the last he was destined ever to behold. The wealthy passenger was alike the mark and victim of his unerring aim, from a loop-hole under which he was compelled to pass. A thick-set hedge of log-wood had also been so prepared by the road-side, at a short distance from the house, that while he could detain in conversation any one who might pass during the time that he was engaged in his cattle-fold hard by, his slaves from behind the fence could leisurely take aim at the devoted victim. It was not, however, money which the murderer thus sought. A savage disposition, wrought perhaps by some injury inflicted on him in early life, an unnatural detestation of the human race, could be gratified only by the sight of blood, and the contemplation of human agony; for if his destined victim were infirm, or sick, he carefully revived his strength; or if he could behold him first in fancied security, in a convivial assembly, or perhaps happy in the bosom of his family, it gave him greater satisfaction to inflict the blow which cut him off, and increased his appetite to relish the expiring struggle. To enjoy the gory spectacle, he first dissevered the ghastly head from the palpitating body: his most pleasing occupation was to whet his streaming knife; the gloomy temper of his soul was sated only by a copious flow of blood; and when he could no longer gaze upon the decaying countenance, he placed it high in the air, in the hollow trunk of a cotton tree, where vultures might complete the horrid deed. The mangled carcase was thrown down one of those deep and hollow drains which are peculiar to mountainous countries of volcanic origin, and whose mouths, descending perpendicularly, conduct the torrents, which periodically fall, to the level of the ocean. Nor were his crimes for many years suspected, though his society was shunned; so artfully did he contrive to conceal a character which otherwise might have been charitably pronounced insane. Justice, however, was at length gratified by the punishment of the guilty monster. Callendar, the manager of a property in the same vale, had suffered much from the depredations of the cattle which strayed from the castle, and having driven some back to their owner, requested that they might not be allowed to trespass so again. Whether Hutchinson was not prepared for the visit, or whether he only waited for a more gratifying display of cruelty, does not appear; but Callendar was hospitably entertained, and dismissed with assurances which satisfied him. The murderer returned his visit ; and with apparent cordiality passed the day with him. But his victim was watched, and as he shortly afterwards rode past the fatal bedge, a rifle-bullet stretched him on the earth. An unsuspicious victim confined to his bed in the turret above, beheld the transaction, and effected his timely escape. The assassin was unmasked, and fled the whole country was alarmed, and in pursuit; when no less than forty-seven watches were found in his chests, and the number of persons who, within a few years, had strangely disappeared, raised an immediate suspicion of their fate. The unfathomable charnel-house, which Hutchinson had imagined would not give up its dead, was searched upon the information of one of the guilty slaves; and, suspended on the point of a projecting rock, at the depth of many feet, was discovered, by the help of a bundle of lighted straw, the mangled body of the unfortunate Callendar. The abyss which yawned below had more effectually received his other victims. Hutchinson, in the meantime, escaped to sea in an open boat, from the port of Old Harbour; he succeeded in reaching a vessel under sail; and when the vigilance of Sir George Rodney intercepted his flight, he threw himself into the waves, from whence he was rescued for a still more ignominious end. The enormity of his crimes might be exceeded by his hardened insolence before his judges; but his reckless gaze upon the instrument which was to convey him before the tribunal of his Maker, finds no parallel in the history of crime or punishment: nor can the annals of human depravity equal the fact, that, at the foot of the scaffold, he left an hundred pounds in gold to erect a monument, and to inscribe the marble with a record of his death. If the enormities of this man's crime should beget incredulity in the reader, we beg to refer him to the pages of the Annual Register,' and the Rev. Mr. Bridges' Annals of Jamaica;' to the second volume of which we are indebted for the particulars. THE LION. THE famish'd lion quits his lair, |