"Then this is not my child?" exclaimed she, with increased astonishment.

"If you have a child there, it certainly is not," answered Jonathan, a little surprised; "for I left your brat in the charge of Blueskin, who is still among the crowd in the street, unless, as is not unlikely, he's gone to see your other friend disciplined at the pump."

"Merciful Providence," exclaimed the female. "Whose child can this be?"

"How the devil should I know?" replied Jonathan, gruffly. "I suppose it didn't drop through the ceiling, did it? Are you quite sure it's flesh and blood?" asked he, playfully pinching its arm till it cried out with pain.

66

My child! my child!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheppard, rushing from the adjoining room. "Where is it?"

"Are you the mother of this child?" inquired the person who had first spoken, addressing Mrs. Sheppard.

"I am-I am!" cried the widow, snatching the babe, and pressing it to her breast with rapturous delight. "God be thanked, I've found it!" "We have both good reason to be grateful," added the lady, with great emotion.

"'Shlood!" cried Jonathan, who had listened to the foregoing con. versation with angry wonder, "I've been nicely done here. Fool that I was to part with my lantern! But I'll soon set myself straight. What ho! lights! lights!"

And, shouting as he went, he flung himself down stairs.

"Where shall I fly?" exclaimed the lady, bewildered with terror. They will kill me, if they find me, as they would have killed my husband and child. Oh God! my limbs fail me."

“Make an effort, madam,” cried Mrs. Sheppard, as a storm of furious voices resounded from below, and torches were seen mounting the stairs: "they are coming!-they are coming!-fly !---to the roof! to the roof!"

No," cried the lady, "this room-I recollect—it has a back-window."

"It is shut," said Mrs. Sheppard.

"It is open," replied the lady, rushing towards it, and springing through the outlet.

"Where is she?" thundered Jonathan, who at this moment reached Mrs. Sheppard.

"She has flown up stairs," replied the widow.

"You lie, hussy!" replied Jonathan, rudely pushing her aside, as she vainly endeavoured to oppose his entrance into the room; " she is here. Hist!" cried he, as a scream was heard from without. "By G-! she has missed her footing."

There was a momentary and terrible silence, broken only by a few feeble groans.

Sir Cecil, who with Rowland and some others had entered the room, rushed to the window with a torch.

He held down the light, and a moment afterwards beckoned, with a blanched cheek, to Rowland.

"Your sister is dead," said he, in a deep whisper.

"Her blood be upon her own head, then," replied Rowland, sternly. "Why came she here?"

"She could not resist the hand of fate, which drew her hither," replied Sir Cecil, mournfully.

"Descend, and take charge of the body," said Rowland, conquering his emotion by a great effort. "I will join you in a moment. This accident rather confirms than checks my purpose. The stain upon our family is only half effaced: I have sworn the death of the villain and his bastard, and I will keep my oath. Now, sir," he added, turning to Jonathan, as Sir Cecil and his followers obeyed his injunctions, "you say you know the road which the person whom we seek has taken ?" "I do," replied Jonathan. "But I give no information gratis!” "Speak, then," said Rowland, placing money in his hand. "You'll find him at Saint Saviour's stairs," answered Jonathan. 66 He's about to cross the river. You'd better lose no time. He has got five minutes' start of you. But I sent him the longest way about." The words were scarcely pronounced, when Rowland disappeared. "And now to see the end of it," said Jonathan, shortly afterwards, passing through the window. "Good night, Master." Three persons only were left in the room.

These were the Master

of the Mint, Van Galgebrok, and Mrs. Sheppard.

"A bad business this, Van," observed Baptist, with a prolonged shake of the head.

“Ja, ja, Muntmeester," said the Hollander, shaking his head in reply; "very bad-very."

"But then they're staunch supporters of our friend over the water," continued Baptist, winking significantly; "so we must e'en hush it up in the best way we can."

"Ja," answered Van Galgebrok. they hadn't broken my pipe."

"But-sapperment!-I wish

"JONATHAN WILD promises well," observed the Master, after a pause: "he'll become a great man. Mind, I, Baptist Kettleby, say so."

"He'll be hanged, nevertheless," replied the Hollander, giving his collar an ugly jerk. "Mind, I, Rykhart Van Galgebrok, predict it. And now let's go back to the Shovels, and finish our brandewyn and bier, Muntmeester."

"Alas!" cried Mrs. Sheppard, relieved by their departure, and giving way to a passionate flood of tears; "were it not for my child, I should wish to be in the place of that unfortunate lady."

A VISIT TO THE CHATEAU OF CHILLON.

"Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar."

LEAVING Geneva in the steamer at eight o'clock in the morning, I arrived at Vevay at four o'clock on the same day. I say nothing of the deeply blue waters through which I passed, and the fine scenery of either shore. Transferring them to words, will not make more vivid their image on the memory.

While taking a lunch at " The Three Crowns," in Vevay, I desired the landlord to send me a batelier, as I wished to arrange for a visit, by water, to the Chateau of Chillon. In a few minutes a woman, under an immense straw hat, ornainented with a single blue ribbon, and whose broad rim, at every step, flapped-gracefully if you please upon her shoulders, entered my apartment.

"Ah! is this the oars-woman?" inquired I.

She courtesied.

"Eh bien," I continued, "I wish to see Chillon. I am alone, you see-I wish to move quick, and perhaps shall remain there long.— What's the fare?"

"My boat," replied she, " is very handsome, très jolie. You shall have two good bateliers. Eight francs, Monsieur. I have taken many English to Chillon."

Eight francs!" exclaimed I; "too much, altogether too much." "Ah, Monsieur, it is two hours away from here, and my boat is very good."

I'll give you two," said I.

She shook her head.

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Very good. Landlord, call me another batelier."

"Six francs," said the Swiss dame.

"Be quick, landlord," said I.

Four francs, Monsieur," said the woman.

"And who are to be my bateliers ?" asked I.

"Myself and my daughter," she replied.

"Aha, your daughter! Is she young, and does she sing?"

'Oui, Monsieur."

A bargain was closed. In two hours I was under the walls of Chillon. I saw upon them, largely written, the words,-" Liberté et Patrie." They belong to the ensigns of the Republic of Vaud. Tyranny, said I, has at length ceased here, and over one of its strongholds its foe is now triumphant. While surveying the Chateau from divers points, I read out of a pamphlet before me some passages touching its history. It was built by order of a Duke of Savoy, in 1238, as a prison of state. For that purpose it served until 1536, when it was besieged and subdued by Charles V., assisted by troops from Geneva and Berne. Descending into its vaults, the conquerors found, among other prisoners, three citizens of Geneva, who once had been among its magistrates, and François Bonnivard, an illustrious name in the annals of that Republic. It is his character and career which have surrounded these desolate walls with interest. He was born in 1496. He studied at Turin. On the resignation of his uncle, he became Prior of St. Victor, at Geneva. This Republic he adopted;-drawn, he says, by love of its liberty, whose inter.

ests he now ardently espoused. Marrying those interests, his offspring was, alas! but a dungeon and chains. He declared himself the defender of Geneva, against the Duke of Savoy. By that Duke was Geneva captured. Bonnivard, taken prisoner, was thrown into the dungeons of Chillon in 1530. In the vigour of his years, in the full vivacity of his spirit, in the highest energies of his intellect, in the perfect bloom of his affections, we find him torn from the sphere wherein those qualities are so useful and so graceful, and chained to the pillar of a damp dungeon. There he pines away, without the satisfaction of feeling that his miseries tend to redeem, or in any way to benefit, his adopted country. But, Martyr-patriot, your sufferings have been not altogether in vain. Thinking of you, shall hearts in every age feel their devotion to liberty waxing fresher and more strong; and deeper, sterner, and more destroying shall grow their hatred of oppression. It is the sound of chains like yours which arouses to deeds of retribution the free spirits of the world, and from out your dreary dungeons shall go for ever forth, "appeals from tyranny to God."

Entering beneath the huge portals, I found myself descending into the cells, under the conduct of a female. "The jailer of Bonnivard had not so pleasant a voice as yours," said I. God hasten that time, when all the political dungeons on the earth and under the earth shall be entered only by persons with motives like mine, and I may well add, under like fair guidance.

"There are seven pillars of Gothic mould
In Chillon's dungeons, deep and old:
There are seven columns, massy and grey,
Dim with a dull imprison'd ray."

." I

Among these columns I now passed. "This is the ring of Bonnivard," said the damsel. "He was chained here for six years. Here are still traces of his footsteps in the stone pavement." walked round the pillar, and seating myself upon the adjacent rock, perused the "Prisoner of Chillon," by Lord Byron. The name of its author, carved, by his own hand, was upon one of the columns before me. But how indifferent seemed to me the poem! I knew the truth about Chillon, and I was now reading Byron's fiction. The truth is far more impressive than the fiction. Byron's prisoners are all from his brain :-three brothers, two of whom die, and their survivor whines out lamentations, that never could have come from the soul of Bonnivard. Why did not the poet take the simple truth, and surround it with illustrations from his great genius? Then might the poem have been worthy of the spot. Now, Bonnivard's praises, his noble self-sacrifice, his lofty patriotism, his onward courage, are all unsung. And what are these walls without that associated patriotism, and courage, and self-sacrifice? Chillon may give some interest to the lines of Byron, but, in my mind, those lines add nothing to the interest of Chillon. They are quite merged and forgotten in the mightier impressiveness of those other associations, full of truth and full of dignity, that invest these sad memorials of the vengeance of the Duke of Savoy. And yet how many are there, with whom this spot is interesting, only because, forsooth, Lord Byron rhymed about it. "Have you made the visit to Chillon?" asked I of an Englishman, a few days ago. “ Chillon, Chillon?" muttered he, half inquiringly. "Yes, dear," interrupted

his wife, "Chillon, the castle about which Byron wrote that beautiful poem, you know." "Ah, yes," said the gentleman; "I'm told it's quite a place since Byron wrote about it. A good many English visit it, I'm told."*

I desired to climb up to the grated window, and get a view of the exterior scene. "Oh no, Monsieur," said the guide, "you will have a much finer view from up stairs." I was resolved, however. What did I care for the view from her kitchen window? I wished to look abroad from the crevice through which the prisoner's eyes, all glazed and lustreless, had so often looked. Lake Leman lay before me. The sun was just setting. Had Bonnivard ever turned sigh. ing, from a scene so fair, back to the desolation of his prison? Of all the lovely forms of nature about this far-famed lake, the one before me outrivalled any thing I had yet beheld. No wind was stirring, and its waves were still. The sun, descending behind a cluster of clouds, was reflected therein. Its image was like a vast ingot of burning gold. A moment after, the appearance was changed, and by a fortunate position of the clouds, its light streamed down into the far depths of the lake, 'and for an instant I seemed to behold therein a city with a thousand golden spires. As the sun disappeared, the picture was again changed. The many-coloured light was scattered far over the waters, and Leman was as if a thousand rainbows had been broken into fragments upon its polished breast. The shadows came down. Once more the scene was varied. last expression was the fairest. Words can give no conception of it. Imagine one vast, wide-wavering, out-spread mantle of changeable silk. But I forget the snow-blanched Alps, rising high in the dis. tance. I forget "Clarens, sweet Clarens," upon the right;—the Rhone upon my left, bursting, as it were, through a garden into the lake; and those little vessels of delicate construction, faintly and far distant seen, as if painted upon the sky. And there is a moral association about these objects. It lends to them one fairest charm. It is of a later time. For a moment Bonnivard is forgotten, and Rousseau arises. This is the scene of his Heloise. There are the mountains and the waters, which he once peopled with affections, The heart of Rousseau seems to live and beat in all things within the view of yonder Clarens,-the home of Julie, of Claire, and of St. Preux. I turned inward to the cell. The darkness had descended. Already were the damps and solitude beginning to oppress me. A single hour had sufficed to fill me with chills and with dreariness. Alas, for the wretched prisoner of six long years!

The

The other apartments of the Chateau were visited, the chamber of the tyrant Duke, and many cells. They have but little definite history attached to them. I took leave of my fair conductress, and as the boat bore me swiftly from the lessening castle, I fell into some reflections.

Since Bonnivard's death, three hundred years have passed away. Great have been the revolutions in the civilized world. Mighty and many truths have been revealed. Each generation pronounces itself wiser and happier, better and more free, than that which preceded it. Man's destiny and his rights have been more clearly revealed, and more widely promulgated. Tyranny is denounced with a louder and more general voice. We look back with horror upon * This gentleman, whoever he was, did not come from Great Britain. good many English visit it, I'm told," is not the remark of an Englishman.-ED.

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