And now along the nearly strand,

See, swiftly moves yon flaming brand;
Before the midnight watch is past

We'll quaff our bowl, and mock the blast.

A very singular echo has been discovered in the ice house in the Bank-hill, at Berwick, whose effects upon the senses are astonishing and grand. By striking against the inner door, the sound heightens and increases, until its reverberations imitate the rolling of thunder. A small pocket pistol fired when the door is shut produces a roar like a broadside from a man of war. Some musical amateurs have tried it with instruments, and declare its powers wonderful. The flute or violin, played very slow, has a peculiar delightful effect; the tones being reflected with exquisite modulation, and the notes of the voice are vibrated like the harmony of a company of choristers.

Shocking Occurrence.-A letter from Madras states, that the following melancholy spectacle was lately witnessed there :-" A young Gentoo widow, about 21 years of age, came with the cutwall (or constable) to the commanding officer, asking permission to burn herself with her deceased husband; he used every argument to dissuade her from it, but in vain: her family, and

even her own mother abused her for hesitating, by going to the commanding officer. They were very poor, and did not provide sufficient wood and oil: horrid to relate, the poor creature was heard repeatedly to cry out, "more fire! more fire!" and shriek with agony, until the noise of the instruments drowned her cries!

To the Editor of the London Chronicle.-Observing your admission of useful reflections into your paper, makes me beg the insertion of the following.

The comet excites many questions of curiosity, and some may presume to declare its use. Should any of your readers be of this turn, and wish a hint, they may find one in Milton's Paradise Lost, Book II. line 582, &c. and should the poet's idea be extended from the persons to whom he here alludes, to others who once inhabited the earth, but were under the controul of the former while sojourning here; the bare supposition that beings lately residing in mortal bodies, whom we called acquaintances or friends, may now be inhabitants of that luminary, which is whirled with inconceivable rapidity through a boundless space, and alternate excess of heat and cold beyond human comprehension;-the bare supposition of this may excite reflections which may lead to future acknowledgments that the appearance of this comet

has not been without salutary effects on serious minds.

O. G.

The following is the passage alluded to.

A frozen continent

Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile :

The parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire;
Thither by harpy-footed furies hail'd,

At certain revolutions all the damned

Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,
From beds of raging fires to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immoveable, in fix'd and frozen round

Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

Milton seems to think that the comets might be the residence of the damned; he founds his opinion on Job xxiv. v. 19, according to the vulgate. "Let him pass from excessive heat to waters of snow."

Shakespeare has, perhaps, improved on the

idea:

Aye, but to die, and go we know not where,

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick ribb'd ice.

VOL. 1.

M

Measure for Measure.

The following quotations from some of our first poets, may be acceptable.

Lo! from the dread immensity of space,
Returning with accelerated course,

The rushing comet on the sun descends,
And as he sinks below the shading earth,
The guilty nations tremble. But

the enlightened few

Whose godlike minds philosophy exalts,

The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy

Divinely great; they in their powers exult;
That wond'rous force of thought, which, mounting,

spurns

The dusky spot, and measures all the sky;

While, from his far excursion through the wilds

Of barren ether, faithful to his time,

They see the blazing wonder rise anew
To work the will of all-sustaining love;

perhaps

To lend new fuel to declining suns,
To light up worlds and feed the eternal fire.

THOMSON.

Hast thou not seen the comet's flaming light?
Th' illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds
On gazing nations, from his fiery train,
Of length enormous; takes his ample round
Through depths of ether; coasts unnumber'd worlds
Of more than solar glory; doubles wide

Heaven's mighty cape; and then revisits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.

YOUNG.

The Feast of the Rose, by Mr. Upton.

'Twas a sun-dawning morn, in the young month of May, While the dew-drop still glisten'd on each leaf and spray; And the feather'd musicians were tuning their powers, When Miss Rose gave a feast to a party of Flowers.

Dress'd out in bright colours of crimson and green,
And conscious the gardens proclaim'd her their queen ;
From the honey-bee's kisses she gather'd each sweet,
That the friends she expected might daintily eat.

By four of the clock, as a mark of respect,
They were there-and the party were rather select-
For Flowers, like mortals, have both friends and foes,
And the last were forbid-to the feast of the Rose.

The king-cup, the pink, and blue-bell, led the way,
With the violet, auricula, and cowslip so gay;
The lily, the hyacinth, and carnation so grand;
With the butterflower and daisy, like friends, hand in
hand.

The tulip so gaudy, the stock, and the wall,
Came also that day, at their sovereign's call:
But of all the coy virgins that Flora sent there,
Was the primrose so meek, and the snow-drop so fair.
Miss Rose, that no harm might their merriment cross,
Spread around to receive them her mantle of moss :
While Zephyr, e'er fond her commands to obey,
That morning had sent all the rude winds away.

To tell how they revell'd in bliss for an hour,
Or the compliments pass'd between Flow'r and Flow'r,
Is hard to be told,—and indeed it should not;

"Tis enough that they stopt till the sun grew too hot.