and simple, and may appear uninterest- || ing to you, and the greater number of your readers; but it is, nevertheless, very interesting to me; and I think it does my heart good to relate it, as it recalls to my mind what I once waswhat I still might have been-and what I now am. It may, perhaps, be instrumental in warning the young, the gay, and the thoughtless, of my own sex, to steer clear of that whirlpool where all my prospects of happiness have been wrecked, and swallowed up for ever. And that whatever they may suffer, or whatever they may be made to believe, never to part with their virtue; for it is only by preserving that inviolate that they can secure love and esteem from the other sex, respect from their own, the approbation of their own hearts, or the love of their Creator. I am, Sir, Your most obedient and wretched M. M. The SPY sends his kindest respects to M. M. and requests to be favoured with a contiuation of her correspondence, WILL AND DAVY, A SCOTCH PASTORAL. WHERE Yarrow pours her silver billow Wild Yarrow's mountain strains to hear. DAVY. "Ah! Will, these purple heather blooms, Cheer up your heart, for once be gay! Screw on your flute, and join the lay." WILL. "Ah! shepherd cease; thy idle strain Cease, shepherd, cease,-the case is yours; DAVY. "How can I strike one plaintive sound Their pliant limbs they keenly brace, "The Plover whistles in the glen; The Tewit lilts above the fen; Even the hoarse Curlew strains her throat, The drowsy moon sinks, pale, to rest; "From proud Mount Benger's top, the sun His airy course has scarce begun ; His orient cheek is resting still Upon the grey cairn on the hill. The scarlet curtain of the sky, A wreath'd and waving canopy! Sweels like the dew on mountain flower, Or frost-work in the southland shower. "The Yarrow, like a baldrick, thrown Loose on the vale, lies bent and 'lone; A silver snake, of every dye That gilds the mountain, tincts the sky! And slowly o'er her verdant vales "Saint Mary holds, her mirror sheen, "Her purple bosom sleeps as still "Ah! God of nature! such a scene! By fragrant breezes softly driven The mountain harp now ceas'd to ring; But still on ether's waving wing, From Echo's cave was born along The dying measures of the song: With eye entranc'd, and head declin'd, They listen'd to the waving wind; Hung on the cliff-born fairy lay, Till the last quaver died away. "The Twa Craws," have been again and again prevented from taking their flight, for want of an adequate space to show them in. The "Observer," is come to hand: his theme is certainly worthy of The Spy. EDINBURGH-Printed at the Star Office, (price 4d. a single Number, 4s. 6d. per quarter, deliverable in town, and 5s. when sent to the country), by A. & J. AIKMAN, for the PROPRIETORS ; where Subscriptions, and Communications, (post paid), will be received. paper has now a considerable circula-lege of walking; at the same time, it tion, and as you seem to delight in benevolent and friendly communications of the moving kind, I presume to trouble you with a statement of the following grievances, which it is not in my power to redress; but which, I trust, will be done by the community at large, if once they are made acquainted with them, through the medium of your publication. Business calling me to Edinburgh some weeks ago, and being detained longer than I expected, I visited the College, and other public buildings; together with the benevolent institutions, such as the Asylum for the Blind, &c. After taking a walk round the Calton-hill one day, and a view of the brave Nelson's monument, being in a mood of melancholy, I went down to the Canongate, and entered the prison there, which is deemed the ill best of the two. And here, Sir, it would require your animating pen, or that of the "Man of Feeling," to point in proper colours the condition of many of the sons of woe in that mournful place. is only frequented by those of the lowest order. The first object which caught my attention, was a young woman of an interesting appearance, with a child in her arms about ten weeks old. She told me that she was confined by order of the Sheriff, because she had gathered a few potatoes from a farmer's field, to which she was prompted by hunger. After a solemn admonition, and a promise on her part, that she would never again invade the right and property of another, I gave her a small donation, which she received with full eyes, and seemingly with a full and a grateful heart. As to the other common prisoners in the hall, some were playing at games, others were drinking, and not a few were singing; annoying the women in the hall by their impious and obscene language; and seemingly no more affected with their shameful condition than the gloomy walls which surrounded them! Afterwards, I was permitted to enter the rooms of the prison, or rather cells of woe, for with no propriety can they be called rooms. There were only four small panes of glass in each window, which admitted little or no light, and that light still obscured by the old rusty iron bars on the outside of the .wall. In one of these rooms, or cells, I found one gentleman of great respectability, (possessed of considerable landed property, and, as I learned, able and willing to pay every man,) stretched on a bed without curtains. He had been a considerable time from home, and not expecting such a catastrophe, was quite unprepared for it. To add to his calamity, the messengers who conducted him there, hardened in wickedness by hourly acts of insolence and inhumanity, would not so much as permit him to go to his lodgings for what might in some measure contribute to his comfort through the night. It was apparent to me, and to others, that the man to whom he was indebted, was actuated by malice and enmity, marked and severe, but neither calm nor dig. nified. "Man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, Plays-such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep." In another apartment, I found a young officer, of polished manners, who had been in several engagements in Spain and Portugal, confined for a small sum, owing to the inattention of his agent while he was with a shooting party. As he had recently arrived in prison, without being permitted to wait on, or write to a friend, arrangements were making for his emancipation. I saw also a writer, a young man, detained for a very few pounds, to whose exertions, when at liberty, a widowed mother and some younger children. were indebted for their support. But you may conceive my surprise, when I saw an old Lieutenant of the navy, whose family have great prospects. He displayed a martial air; and his few remaining hairs, now blanched with age, conveyed the appearance of a veteran, who (I learned) had sailed round the world with Captain Cook; and who had been inured to warfare and calamities from his youth. There was also there, one of the most respectable tradesmen in Edinburgh, who offered to pay twenty shillings in the pound, and to produce a sufficient surety; all which was den ed him by a man from Glasgow, on his marriage day, with a lady in Edinburgh.—In place of appearing "Serenely bright in bridal smiles arrayed," immediately after the marriage ceremony, he desired his agent to make sure of the debt. It was well that the bride was unacquainted with his harsh and rigorous treatment, or she must have recoiled at the idea of taking such a barbarian to her arms. It would be tedious to recount the other scenes of woe which I witnessed: some supported by their fellow-prisoners-wives meeting their husbands, and weeping bitterly for the want of subsistence to themselves and children at home-and also some motherless children deprived of the advice and support of their fond parents. The minds of some of the prisoners were weakened by adversity, and soured by disappointment; whilst others were sustaining their trials with exemplary resignation. The struggle, however, produced effects on their health, which || tain - -, for those under his charge, were alarming to themselves and their friends. By the bye, how preposterous is the idea, that none can be liberated on a sick bill, without the surgeons swear that death will be the consequence of their confinement? A man may be in very bad health, by constant confinement, without air and exercise, although there is no immediate prospect of his dissolution. What horrified me much, also, were the iniquitous demands made by the Keeper of the prison :-With no decent apartment, no bed-clothes, and scarce. a chair to sit down on; having coals and candle, and their provisions to furnish, the miserable inhabitants there have to pay him eight or ten shillings a week, by way of room rent; and two and a half per cent of the sum for which they are incarcerated; and all this sanctioned by the Magistrates of Edinburgh, whom I know to be gentlemen of humane dispositions, who delight to do justly, and to maintain the common offices of humanity. Where then are the ameliorations proposed by the benevolent Howard, who visited the jails in this and in other countries, who was examined before the House of Commons, and whose good qualities will be ever mentioned with esteem and admiration? Let the Magistrates, and others of gentle manners, visit the prisons; let suitable furniture be provided for the miserable hovels; and then, but not till then, let those in a superior line, who have the misfortune to be placed in them, pay an adequate rent. I wonder, indeed, that the benevolent gentlemen who so often send guineas and dinners to Cap. have never taken cognizance of the above enormities. Of Captain. (whom I did not see,) I have heard good accounts, but I was more than once shocked with the unfeeling behaviour of his Turn-key. Many of the unhappy prisoners were waiting for cessios; and, although it is a mournful truth, that the one-half who ask them ought neither to ask nor to obtain them, (the only consideration which brings them into contempt,) yet is it any wonder, that men who experience increased dejection, from unexpected embarrassed affairs, should ask that mercy from Heaven, and the laws of their country, which is denied them. by their fellow-men. These merciless. creditors too, while they punish the persons, and injure the health of their debtors, materially injure their own interests, for who ever paid by being imprisoned! So far from it, I saw a common man from the west country, who said that he offered seven shillings a-pound a year ago; and now, by his confinement, and the expence of cessio, &c. he could not pay them one penny. If you and your readers have read the above with sympathy, you and they will still have the goodness to follow me, whilst I conclude this paper with some few observations. And, in the first place, whilst I have pleaded the cause of the unfortunate and the oppressed, and inveighed occasionally not with too acrimonious language I trust, against the oppressors, painting the characters of woe, to humanize their flinty hearts. I would observe, that firmness and a dignified severity of conduct, may be requisite towards fraudu |