with me. She loved the nursery-girl much better than me, and that was a source of constant grief and vexation. I used frequently to send away the girl, and let Caroline cry as long as I dared, to punish her for not choosing to have me feed her, and dress her, &c. I fear it was to gratify my own temper as much as to govern hers, that I exerted my authority. None but those who have subdued their own passions are fit to be entrusted with children. They may otherwise love children, but they will not be just towards them.

It was in the month of June-a bright, balmy day-such an one as seems designed for human enjoyment, when, to be happy, we have only to open the heart to the sweet sunny influences around us; and yet, if the heart is not right, how wretched we may be! I was unhappy that day. Some difference with my husband had occurred at the breakfast-table. Since the birth of my daughter, we had lived in much better harmony; he had been more reasonable, as he knew I must attend to the child, when anything had gone wrong in our household affairs. And I believe he loved me more as the mother of his child than as his wife; for he was doatingly fond of Caroline, and our chief difficulties now arose respecting her. He insisted that I was harsh with her, and that it made her obstinate; and then he told a long story about his own mother, and how she used to persuade her children-not hire or drive them-but reason with them.

We had differed that morning in our opinions respecting the time when Caroline should be obliged to learn her lessons steadily. I wanted her to commence then, for she was three years old; my husband thought it was well enough if she chose to learn, but insisted that no compulsion should be used. But, notwithstanding what he said, I went out and purchased books, and determined to commence that very day, and that she should take her lessons at regular hours every day, whether she were or were not pleased. I came home in no pleasant humour; for I had bowed to a lady who did not return my salute, and I felt enraged at her insolence. With these feelings of anger uppermost in my mind, I entered the nursery. Never shall I forget the sweet looks of my child at that moment. She was sitting on a cushion, with her face towards the door; the sunlight streamed through the window curtain, its beams fell on her paleyellow hair, and the ringlets seemed clusters of pure gold. The nursery-maid had been twisting roses among her curls, and the little creature was passionately fond of flowers; so, when I entered, she looked up to me with a laugh of such heartfelt joy that I had come to see her pretty roses, and her blue eyes sparkled with a light that made the sunbeams dim-it was the light of a happy and innocent heart.

I have brought a new book for you, Caroline," said I,

"My roses, mother; see my pretty roses!" said the child.

I turned to the maid, and bade her take off the roses, for Caroline should say her lesson.

I spoke sternly, and Caroline began to weep; I minded nothing of her tears, but took her on my knee and gave her the book.

me.

She threw it on the floor, and cried for her roses. I ordered the maid to go down with the roses; and, when she was gone, I told Caroline that she should pick up her book and read to She refused to pick up her book; she was obstinate; but then I had provoked it by my own imprudence in teasing her to read when her mind was engrossed with another object. I should then only have told her of the rose, how it was spelt, and shown her the picture of it, and told her stories about it, that would have made her interested to learn more. What tyrants we are with our children, when, instead of aiding their ideas, we would force them to understand ours!

I had not succeeded to make Caroline pick up her book, when the maid entered to say Mrs. F was in the parlour. Mrs. Fwas a very proud and very fashionable lady, and I was glad to receive a call from her; but, in my struggles with Caroline, I had quite discomposed my dress, and this made me excessively angry with the child. Never before had I felt so towards her. I wanted to punish her severely. The maid offered to take her, but I bade her go down and say I would come soon; and then I told Caroline I should shut her in my dark closet while I was gone. She had always been afraid to be alone in the dark, and one of the very few things in which I had uniformly indulged her was to have a light burning through the night. If she ever awoke, and found herself in the dark, she had always been frightened.

When I told her I should put her in the dark closet, she screamed as loudly as possible, and I hurried her in quick, before she had time to yield, because I feared Mrs. F. would hear her shrieks. I locked the door and took the key, to prevent the maid from letting the child out, as I thought that would destroy all the salutary effects of the punishment. I tell all these minute particulars that I may be judged truly. I confess my faults; but yet I did not seem to myself to act unreasonably at the time. Are there not others who have deceived themselves, and been cruel when they only meant to correct?

Caroline had given one long shriek as I shut the door. "Mother! mother! it is dark! all dark!" was the last I heard her say.

Mrs. F was extremely polite, and she stayed a long time-I cannot tell how long. My heart misgave me every moment; I wished she would go, for I thought of my poor babe. But she had to tell me of her new bonnet, and ask my opinion of the trimming, and advise me to employ her milliner-such was our discourse while my child was dying!

The moment she was gone I rushed up stairs, and called "Caroline! Caroline!" as I unlocked the door. She did not answer. She lay extended on the floor of the closet-her eyes rolled up till only the white glared in their socketsher features convulsed-and purple as with suf

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That melts or ere it touches them. I know
Small mercy lives in that expressive eye,
Full of all malice and too cruel fraud.
I ne'er did hope reprieve from such as thou,
Who lack'st the human touch within thy heart
That links the common brotherhood of flesh!
Thy dark profession has chang'd nature's self.
O, black-brow'd Sophist; O, most evil rules,
That bind the priest to his all loveless lot;
(Nay I will speak), that rashly do forbid
Sweet tie of wife to outcast such as these,
And thus ye sour, all cruelty to woo

Is your delight and recreative joy;

Thence burning Autos and pale victims, like The one who is before ye!

Father Ig.

Tears drop down For thy depravity, O heartless youth!

La Barre. Yea, hypocrite, the crocodile's false

tears!

Father Ig. Peace! or I'll strike thee on thy recreant mouth!

La Barre. Ay, 'twill become thy calling to the life!

Father Ig. Audacious! In short space thy boastful mien

Will be exchang'd for abject humbleness
When the sharp knife shall prove-
La Barre.

What demons men,
In fair Religion's garb, can haply turn!
But for Heav'n's sake—that Heav'n ye so traduce-
Go; leave me to myself, to commune with
The thoughts ye cannot curb or penetrate.
I will not answer more-it wearies me;
And I am wearied both in frame and mind,
And fain would seek repose to gather strength
For that dark hour of coming agony

I must endure! [Throws himself down.] NeverO, never more

Will this pulse throb-this heart leap to the swell
Of joy-fraught tenderness; emotions sweet
Of youth in its first glow of hope and trust:
Never-O, never more! Life's bitter knell.

O Heav'n, through this great anguish bear me up!
By the blood-drops of lone Gethsemane;
By the deep woe that hung on Calvary,
Father and Saviour, O, thy mercy pour
On this poor sinful head! Dread Golgotha
Spreads out before my fix'd bewilder'd sight--
Darkness and torture, and the obnoxious grave!
[Falls in a stupor, ending in sleep.]
Con. O, brother, let us leave him to refresh
That lacerated heart; poor wounded deer,
That for short space forgets the hunter's shout
And his approaching end.

Father Ig.

What heresy

Is this, from priestly lips like thine? For shame! Out on thy weakness for this Godless youth!

Con. [Bending over La Barre.] Poor boy! May-be thou hast a mother, who

Will weep hot tears of hopeless agony.
[Touching him.] Thy brow is burning, coal-like,
to the touch,

And thy poor fingers ice-this trembling hand.
I would that thou wert in thy lowly grave;
For then thy sufferings sad would all be o'er.
But now

Father Ig. Out on such mawkish pity! Fool,
To whimper over the young viper's fate.
Go, crush these idle feelings from thy heart,
And not disgrace thy calling by such acts!

Con. Brother, thou may'st be right; but I have still

Some fell misgivings, in this fearful case,
Whether humanity is not disgrac'd

In the harsh sentence that was pass'd on this
Alas! though erring, most unhappy youth!

THE WOODLAND BROOK. The Pine-tree had closed its tale with the disheartening and somewhat dubious prospect of a continuation; his last words had died softly away, and over the whole forest there fell a deep repose. One sound alone was heard amid the solemn stillness-the plashing against rock and root, in broken murmurs, of the Brook, that ceaseless pendulum of the woods. And as it went gurgling on—now brightly glittering in the sunbeams, now dark with the shadow of cloud and forest-while the reflected images were borne trembling on its surface, its unformed tones began to shape themselves into words; and unsolicited, though gladly listened to, by Leaf and Flower, the Brook unfolded its history.

A hallowed stillness lay on the forest, unbroken, as we have said, save by the one rushing sound. Who has not felt the influence of his silence, or failed to recognize in it, as it

were, the Sabbath of inanimate Nature? The wild deer breathe more lightly in their lair;

over the very hunter there steals a gently pleas ing awe, which bids him forget awhile his sport, and sink down on the grass, a sharer in the general repose. "Tis then that prattling brooklets tell the flowers their tale, as ours does now:

"Know any of you whence I spring, or where my fountain-head, as one may know it of the opener meadow stream? It flows forth to the light at once, a tiny rill, over a rock, or down a hill side, growing wider and wider, till the short clothing of grasses will no longer content it--fondly as they stretch to embrace it with their slender stems-but it must needs don the reed's stiff stays, with thin growing tufts, or dusky buttons. Of the mountain torrent, too, the origin is known. On its summit lies the hoary perennial snow-cap, which the sun, at his rising and setting, paints, and the flying clouds deck with many a fantastic veil; while deep in the clefts below gleams the dark blue of the mighty glacier. All on its surface seems fast and unchangeable, but within there reigns activity and life. Ever welling, ever flowing, play

the busy water-drops their game of hide-andseek amid the crevices and pools; for the unwearied God of Day lavishes still his kisses on the rosy necks of the mountain, touching and softening at length its icy heart, and sending forth in tiny rills the offspring of his caresses, to swell, and grow, and seek and find at length an outlet. When first they come forth to the light, they pause, astonished at the wide world before them. Presently, other inquisitive Brooklets run to join them, and thus encouraged, they speed further; no longer tardily lingering, but quicker and quicker still, till, become one living stream, it leaps, like its mountain-cradled neighbour the Chamois, boldly from rock to rock now foaming white and high, as if in rivalry of the surrounding snow-now gliding clear as the unbroken icy mirror-till it descends at length to the plain, and finds pleasing repose in the lap of the meadows.

"But whence come I-the hidden woodland Brook? No child of ice or snow, ye seek my Spring in vain or if ye trace my steps, fancy I must be born beneath yon massy stone, or behind yon grassy hillock. But no! far off, from amid the roots of some old gnarled tree, I laugh at your researches. Now do I veil my sparkling surface beneath a thousand plants and flowers; now sink unseen among a pile of stones, which, emulous of the forest's greenery, have decked their hoary heads with festal crowns of moss. But still I keep flowing on, and drip forth ere long to view, though keeping ever the wood's secret-that of my origin. Listen, however, and I will tell you now whence I was born.

"Aloft, on a light cloud, slow moving over the plain, there sat a gentle Elf, the Fairy Queen's favourite tirewoman, arranging her mistress's jewels. From out of its casket she drew forth a long, long string of costly pearls, a present from the Sea! Guard well these tears of Ocean,' Queen Titania said to her, they are my most precious gems; and well they may be, for locked deep within his fastnesses, the Fisher risks his life to bring them forth to day, and shining and solid as they have become, their lustre wears yet the dimness of the eye that wept them.' The Fay, aware of this, would fain hold up the gems she too was fond of, to try if they would look brighter in the sunshine; but pearls are not like precious stones, which shine with borrowed lustre; the Tears of Ocean close fast within their heart their inward radi

ance.

"Behind the Fay sat Puck, the rogue, torment of men and elves; and unobserved by her, while lost in admiration of her charge, the frisky spirit cut the string, and down rolled the pearls, first all about the cloud, and from thence to the ground. The poor Fay sat a moment stunned with surprise and fear, then gathered her affrighted wits, and fell down from her cloud after the trembling treasures. But as, while floating in empty air, between the clouds and earth, she marked the bright tiny balls, rolling and glancing, now here, now there, on

every side of her, she was tempted to give them hopelessly up, till, spying in a green field below a thousand pearls glittering among the grass, and on the flowers, she naturally took them for her scattered gems. So taking the casket in her hand in which the pearls had been locked up, she began, as busily as she could, to gather them up again.

"But long ere it was full, Titania's favourite fancied that it was not the tears of Ocean she was gathering, but those wept by the Flowers, and she turned sadly away to seek farther. Here she beheld tears drop from a mother's eyelids, as she hung over a dying child, and caught them--those tears such as lovers shed, and those were gathered-aye, tears everywhere, til the casket overflowed.

"Oh! what a world of tears are shed upon the earth! and what a stream flows ever from men's eyes! whose source, though manifold, is still the same- that human heart, which grief, or sympathy, or penitence, nay, oftener joy must touch, to set the wondrous streamlet flowing! Wondrous, indeed! and magical in its influ ence! for hard must be that heart which others' tears have lost the power to move! Vainly would such an one escape the touch of pity to say, Those tears affect me not, they flow deservedly.' 'Tis a harsh verdict, and a false one! for they are tears still, and none the less bitter that the heart they flow from has been, per chance, self-wounded!

"Our Fay took all alike, however, equally for pearls, grasped the casket firmly, and took her way to her cloud. The casket she found grew heavier and heavier-for tears, alas! are any thing but light!-and when she opened it, lo! the supposed pearls had all disappeared. Sadly she flew from cloud to cloud-for all held her dear

and told them her distress. The clouds sent down their rain on the earth, to help to discover the lost pearls; and it fell streaming till plants and flowers hung their heads, and the dew-drops were all wasted away-but the real pearls were not to be found. Puck, rogue as he is, was sorry for the poor Fay, whom he intended only to teaze, and not to grieve; so he dived into the bowels of the earth, and got from his friends, the Gnomes, bright shining splinters of ore, and bore them aloft to the Elf, saying, There, you have all your own again, and better and brighter still!'

"The clouds gave over raining, and the Fay rejoiced. But as she inspected the gifts more narrowly, they proved all glittering shams: and she seized, in her indignation at the deception, the cup in which they lay, and threw them from her, so that they fell, in shivered rays of light, on the far horizon, where-deceptive still-they mock in stormy weather with their broken fragments the stately, peace-bespeaking, welcome Rainbow. And often does Puck, the rogue, renew the treacherous device he first bethought himself of, to console the Fairy whom his tricks had despoiled. Nay, when the clouds still weep in sympathy with her remembered sorrows, Puck hies him up aloft with his delusive trea