Ellustrated Article.

MANUSCRIPT OF A MURDERER.

For the Olio.

DARKNESS is upon my days, and the shadow of desolation is flung over my soul. The bright flowers of my youthful time have been withered by the Simoom blast of revenge. The beauty and purity of my young spirit's imaginings have been thwarted, and I am now, like the fabled wanderer of old, a man of desolation and darkness. I seem to have been created to be the sport of fortune, and the scorn of nature, for no human being has ever endured so much misery as I have done, and no creature bearing the impress of man ever possessed so hideous a form and countenance as I do. It is said that my mother even refused to suckle me because of my deformity, and that my father on the same account determined never to behold me, and for that purpose bribed a miserable old hag to adopt me as her son. When I had attained that age at which I was capable of reflection, I formed an idea that the VOL. III.

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female I addressed as my parent bore no consanguinity to me, for I appeared loath some even to her sight. It would be unnecessary to expatiate upon my hideous deformity; suffice it to say, that I scarcely bear one mark of being a human creature. In my childhood I was of a sullen disposition; not because I wished to be so, but because I could not meet with any being that would sympathize with me. I had conceptions glorious beyond description, magnificent beyond the power of language to portray; but who was there to share these emotions with the lonely in soul? Not one! I was gifted with the most acute sensibility, and I enjoyed all the beauties of nature with the greatest possible zest. The roaring ocean, the towering mountains, the picturesque vale, the flowers, the streams, the sunshine, and the starlight were all hallowed by a spell of glory that I had flung around them in my imagination. I rose in the morning with the lark, and wished that like him I could soar on vo lant wing towards the gate of heaven; and when I retired to rest, my dreams were fraught with bright visions of love+ liness, holiness, and purity; and the

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morning and the evening, and the sun shine and the starlight, would have brought to me unbounded joy, could I have found any one to participate in it. Thus a shadow was thrown over my heart, and a blight over my young and ardent spirit. I could not form a fellowship even with the brute creation, for they abandoned me like my fellow-man. By degrees I became vindictive. When man shunned me I hated him. I felt that revenge was in my power, and was determined to avail myself of it. My first victim was the idol of my soul-Annabel. She was pure as holiness, fair as the untainted snow, and her cheeks were tinged with the blush of the rose-her eyes they were brighter than the brightest stars of heaven, and her soul was noble and heroic, as that of the dying martyr; but she loved me not-she shunned me more than she would have done a viper. By the framer of the mighty universe, I would have suffered pangs beyond human endurance, to have enjoyed one smile from her; but it was all in vain for she was inflexible in her resolves; and when I approached her, she fled from my presence with the swiftness of

lightning. I well remember I was once resolved to have an interview with her, and I tracked her into a wildwood glen, where I thought I might tell her how devotedly attached I was to her. The heaven sparkled like sapphire with nought to deform its beauty, save a few silvery fleecy clouds that seemed like the happy home of some blessed spirit sailing to its place of eternal peace and rest. I muffled myself up in my cloak and approached her. She was reading, and as I came nearer to her, I breathed her name; but the harsh and discordant tones of my voice startled her, and she shuddered. I told her in as eloquent language as I could how much I adored her how I would shed my last drop of blood for her

-and that I would forsake even my hopes of heaven to live in her society. Oh I told her far more than I can now remember-and she answered me with scorn, detestation and loathing. She uttered a vow of so dire and fearful an import, as to for ever exclude her from heaven if she became my wife or lived in my society. Maddened beyond endurance at the entire impossibility of winning her affections or reconciling her

to my person, I resolved that no one should enjoy a treasure upon which my soul dwelt with so much devotion. She told me that she would prefer death to accepting my proposal, and I answered that death should be her portion. I will not relate the manner of her death. It was a scene of horror and darkness, such as froze up the current of my blood; my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and my limbs as if palsied could not perform their functions. Good God! I stood before the face of heaven, my hands reeking with the blood of the object I most loved on earth. My emotions may be more easily conceived than described. With my own hands I dug her grave in that secluded spot, and upon it I planted wild flowers. I visited the grave daily, and have frequently held imaginary conversations with her sainted spirit. For some time I did not attempt to court the society of any person, as I found a pleasure in my loneliness when seated near the grave of my beloved Annabel. Dreams-joyous dreams, thronged around my heart of what felicity I might have enjoyed, had my countenance been agreeable, and my person engaging, or if I had been so fortunate as to have gained her love, and that she had adored me with the same devotion of soul that I did her. Sometimes I imagined that this bright picture was real, that I have lived over years of bliss, and that

"The blessed household voices"

gladdened my heart with their music.

I was a lonely solitary wanderer, society kept aloof from me, and for what cause?-simply for being what I had been created. I enjoyed my mental faculties equal to all, and superior to many of my fellow-nen. I breathed the free air of heaven on the mountain top equally with the rest of mankind. But I was deformed.

By whom I was created, and whose blood flowed through my veius, were questions that I could not answer; but I was determined to be informed on that point, and one day a lucky thought, at which my heart bounded for joy, occurred to me: I clandestinely searched the boxes of the person I called Mother, and in a secret part of one of them was the identical instrument that was to ensure the payment of á stipulated sum from my real parents to my nominal one. I kept my discovery secret, but retained the bond; and as I was in the habit of leaving my home occasionally for a day or two in my lonely wanderings, I conjectured that I might make a visit to the

place of my nativity without exciting suspicion as to the cause of my absence. Accordingly I departed early in the morning, and walked until nightfall, at which time I reached my father's residence. I did not dare to be seen before dark, and therefore hid myself in an outhouse. The night was extremely dark, which greatly favoured the object I had in view, and having left my hiding place, I clambered over the garden wall, and there beheld through the chamber window the family seated round the fire. How my heart burned with rage when I beheld the happy group of which I.by nature ought to have made one, and my brain throbbed with intensity of agony, and I beat my bosom violently. I had but one course left. I felt conscious that I was entitled equally with any part of my family to a participation of the blessings of home, and in an instant I was on the threshold, I rushed forward into the hall, thence into the room, and presented myself to my astonished parents. I marked their extreme agitation upon my entrance, and as if a sense of the duty they owed to their offspring had smitten their con-, sciences, a short pause ensued

"Why stand ye aghast?" exclaimed I, loudly, "I am your brother-son of the same father and mother as yourselves; and though I received not nutriment from the same breast, yet was I entitled to it. The lioness will protect her young, but the human species forsake their offspring, because, forsooth, the countenance and the form are not pleasing to the sight!"

"Madman!" shouted my father with vehemence ; "thou hast drawn down upon thyself my vengeance, and thou shalt repent thy temerity!"

Suffice it to say, upon the representations of my father, that I had escaped from my keepers, I was treated as a madman, bound hand and foot, and conveyed to an asylum, where the rigorous treatment that I underwent, caused a delirium; in. which state I made my escape, and returned to the outhouse near my father's residence. My object was revenge, dire and bloody revenge; acting under the impulses of insanity, I now sought the life of one or both of my parents. Yet even here I had short lucid intervals, when glimpses of recollection of my former hopes haunted my imagination, which, in my desolate situation, were like the rich gleams of sunset pouring their deep effulgence upon some ruined temple, to which there still clings some vestiges of its former grandeur and magnificence,

I lay concealed for some time, until an opportunity occurred of gratifying my revenge-of glutting my desire for blood.

sensations at

It was the hour of sunset, and the whole glory of the heavens was congregated in one rich flood of crimson, when I observed my mother leave her home. My seeing this were indescribable; for the recollections of my wrongs, and her inhumanity, rushed upon my brain, and added to the intensity of my insanity. I followed her, and overtook her a short distance from the house. She fainted upon the sight of me. grappled her by the throat, and exulted as I beheld her blacken in the face. I then scooped out a grave, and buried her in a place where she could not easily be discovered W. C. LOVELL.

ODE TO POETRY.

(For the Olio.)

I

Sweet muse of Poetry! thy pow'rful art
Cheers the afflicted, soothes the broken heart,
Thee would I follow through thy mystic bower,
When thunders roll and awful tempests lower.
The pearly dew of odour breathing morn,
The fragrance which on evening's winds is
borne,

Th' oppressive noontide heat, the vesper bell,
Alike my wanderings with thee shall tell :
Whether of hopeless love thou form'st thy song,
Or the sad dirge employ thy mournful tongue;
Whether on Pindar's fiery matchless lyre,
In myrtle shades thou dost our breasts inspire;
Or if on Goldsmith's silver harp thy song,
Like Orpheus' lyre, should charm the giddy
throng;

Still would I follow the celestial strain,
When spectred Midnight stalks along the silent.
plain.

The poet went at Mars' command,
By verse Laconia's sons to rouse,
Learn them to conquer by the muse;
Over their hosts Confusion and his crew
Triumphant reign'd, and Discord's trumpet
blew;

Despair and Fear their blasting influence shed,
Tartarian fiends on all their bodies fed;
Courage and Honour, weeping as they go,
Desert this scene of heart appalling woe;
But see! the godlike man appears, whose song
Shall soon redress the Spartan's wrong,
Relieve them from Oppression's rod,
Messenia conquer by his nod;

His dauntless voice he rais'd, and thus address'd

The mixed throng that near him press'd.

"By your great Lycurgus' shrine,
Who prepar'd your laws divine;
By your country and your king;
By your priests whose voices ring,
In yon sacred temples praying,

On your heads their blessings laying;
By your lov'd parents who repose
Amidst those sweet Elysian joys,
Arouse you from your idle beds,
No longer lay your slumbering heads
On a soft couch of down:

Fight bravely for your lov'd abodes,
Ye men be heroes! and ye heroes, gods!"

He spake, and lo! the hellish shades
Fled from their polluted glades,
By hasty Terror sped;
Wan Despair, his leaden wings
Smites on ether, till it rings

With sounds of him who fled;
Discord, Fear, and all their train,
Charon rows o'er Styx again;
Dreading the poet's matchless might,
Confusion steals to endless night.

Hark! the trumpet's warlike sound
Shakes the floating air around;
Glory and Honour fire the poet's train,
While heaps on heaps their boasting foes are

slain ;*.

Now Messenia's power is crush'd,
Sparta's rival's in the dust,

All by the poet done;

With victory he crown'd the land, Made coward hearts a martial band, That they the battle won."

It was the goddess from Aonian bowers,
That gave the poet these commanding powers,
She inspired him to sing,

Gave him celestial strength to bring,

The might of heaven to earth; She from the scabbard drew the shining blade, Bade it return with wreaths that never fade,

And valour's peerless worth.

Her influence benign she gently shed,
And darted beaming glories from his head.

But now great Milton's heav'nly muse
Sparkles bright like vernal dews,

Superior to my theme;
Dryden may equal glory claim
With Pindar, bard of lyric fame;
Fair Nature hails her artless son,

Who snatch'd from error's paths the Drama's

"Genius in England is not an exotic plant,"

We have before adverted to the state of the arts during the reign of his late

sake,

Let martial ardour each brave soul awake,

And all their country own;

to take a cursory review of their condition in preceding reigns. Henry the

Eighth must be considered as the first English sovereign who seriously encour aged the arts, for under him that elaborate penciller, Holbein, flourished and continued to our Virgin Queen' Bess, till ' death danced' him out of this sublunary world. But the rigour which the papists exercised towards the protestants in her reign, totally precluded our artists from deriving any benefit from those states in which the finest specimens of art were concentrated. But the masculine mind of Elizabeth did not let pass how essential the cultivation of the arts were considered as an example of a nation's greatness, or how that the representation of great and glorious actions tended to keep alive the enthusiasm of her people; that she had represented, in tapestry, the destruction of the Spanish Armada, and hung in the House of Lords, where they remain to this day.

Charles the First was an ardent admirer of the fine arts in all its departments, and if Providence had so willed that the reign of this amiable Prince should have passed in peace, unshaken by those terrible convulsions, England might have gloried in her galleries, and envied not the collection of foreigners. Under this sovereign flourished the dignified Vandyke. From this period the arts declined, for limners received but sorry encouragement under the Protectorship. With the Restoration came the flowing curls of Kneller, and Lely, and all their monstrosities of buckram and blackpatches, hoops and stomachers; and continued in the same barbarous style, till the commencement of the reign of his late Majesty, from whence a new era arose, and to the present time has progressively improved, and, "heaven bless the mark," may it never retrograde.

Those obstructions ought to be removed from the path of the rising artists; obstructions which all who are established in the art have but too fatally experienced. The great works by which the country has been rescued from the stigma of incapacity, have been produced by the enthusiasm of individuals who have devoted themselves with the spirit of the Decii; and that those gigantic individual efforts, as they are now made, are of no effect, for want of a place of public reception. The encouragement of the fine arts ought to be the delight and ornament of civilized life. The ar

So called from the air of dignity and nobility, which always distinguishes his paintings, aa the present President is called the graceful Sir Thomas.

tists have strong claims on every class of the community, upon all who duly appreciate the benefits which society at large derive from their labours. Every enlightened individual must feel the intimate connexion which exists between all that is noble and dignified in human nature, by the successful study and prosecution of the fine arts; and every one must be convinced of their value and importance, to the greatness, the prosperity, the honour, and the dignity of a noble and free country. The encouragement of the fine arts is admitted by all mankind, at least by those who have considered the subject in its true light, as not only consistent but interwoven with the glory and honour of a great country, because they are conducive to the excitement of all those feelings and sentiments which do honour to, and confer dignity

on human nature.

The ancient Greeks, who are become proverbial for superlative excellence, made the native artists and their works the principal objects of national employment. The ancient Romans, on the other hand, never rose to any superior excellence in painting or sculpture, and cannot bear comparison with the Greeks: this deficiency was not from want of capacity in the people, but from want of employment by the government, because in architecture where employment was bestowed, the Romans have been justly distinguished, and the remains of their numerous buildings, are to the present hour subjects of regard and contemplation.

When the National Gallery was established, great hopes were entertained by the lovers of the arts that government at length had taken the subject into their consideration, and intended supporting it with the vigour requisite to hold up the country as an object of admiration to foreigners, the present generation, and that which is to come; but, alas! all those brilliant anticipations and sanguine hopes are now vanished; for it is ended-like most government affairs-in a job. We are authorized in making use of this expression, when we see the immense sums that are expended and lavished upon government works, and the pitiful appearance they make when finished,mere chaos of confusion of architecture, a rambling style, neither one thing or the other. The National Gallery has now been established five years, and during this period, not one painting, either by a living or deceased English artist, has been purchased, excepting those which were included in Mr. Angerstein's collection. In the mean while,

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