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lively songs failed to overcome, was exacerbated by the harmony of the accompaniments; inasmuch as general stimulants increase the predominant description of feeling of the mind to which they are applied; as for instance, drinking spirituous liquors is well known to heighten instead of alleviating the horrors of a shipwreck. The songs of the Beggar's Opera are probably the most happy of dramatic lyrics. They are indeed the only English operatic songs that have become really and permanently popular. The airs of "Woman is like a fair flower in its lustre," "I like the fox shall grieve," and, "Can love be controlled by advice?" are in themselves beautiful, without reference to the peculiarities of the plot of the piece. For the right appreciation of the duet of "The Miser thus," and of the song of "The Charge is prepared," it must be recollected, that we set out with a highwayman for a hero, and the whole action is under the atmosphere of Newgate. The songs of the Duenna I must always regard as the weakest part of that performance, nor will the Elegiacs of Burgoyne and Jackson of Exeter, in the Lord of the Manor, go far to redeem the English opera from the mediocrity which seems to be its fate. Incledon and Dibdin did their best to make sea songs popular, and for a while they succeeded. Dibdin, however, wanted judgment, for, from his

attempts to clothe grave thoughts in seaman's phraseology, good taste will always revolt. In one of his songs, the resurrection is actually thus allud ed to.

"When he hears the last whistle;
He'll come upon deck."

One might as well think of extracting
the sublime from a shopboard.
"Oh! penny pipers, and most painful
penners

Of bountiful new ballads, what a subject!" But, to be serious—with vulgar slang grave interest can never amalgamate. Divested of this, however, I do not see why the peculiar vicissitudes of a sailor's life might not give variety to the lyric muse, or why the exploits of the "Vikingr," whether of good old Saxon or more modern times, are not as capable of tuneful commemora tion as those of heroes upon dry land. Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic," I have read a hundred times, but have never seen the music, if there is any appended to it. The Storm of G. Á. Stevens, too, no doubt contains passages of high lyrical merit; but it is, upon the whole, by far too much of a ballad. Black-eyed Susan, and Glover's Admiral Hosier's Ghost, are, I think, hardly to be classed as sea songs. The scenes, to be sure, are laid on board of ship, but they embody no feelings or incidents of any consequence, which are peculiar to a sea life.-I am, &c. D. T.

ELEGY I.

WHEN first I sought that smile of brightness,
More pleasing haply from its lightness,
I had but felt a transient grief,
To think our love might be as brief.
For tho' thine eyes, as now, were beaming,
Oh! Leila, I was far from dreaming,
That thou would'st claim, when we should
part,

So large a portion of my heart.
Methought the ice my breast defended
Would only make its fires more splendid,
As sunbeams that in winter glow,
Glance brightest from the wreathed snow.
But, oh! my bosom, which before
Began so lightly to adore,

Would now perversely have thee be
E'en constant in inconstancy.

IF fate will tear thee from my heart,
Without a warning sign depart,
For I can give no answering sign,
Nor faulter a farewell to thine.

VOL. VII.

And, as the harp's enliven'd strain
Doth oft to melancholy wane
Without the players will or care-
So I am sad, ere well aware.
Alas! though I had ever known
My buried heart was turn'd to stone,
I might have known that this would prove
No hindrance to the growth of love.
Which to the flinty rock will cling,
And as the slender lichens spring,
Obtaining life one knows not where,
Strike root, and live, and flourish there:
Or say the fragile verdure drew
Its being from the air and dew;
So love its tender leaf uprears,
Sown but by sighs, and fed with tears.

ELEGY II.

If the last wafture of thy hand
Could let my soul forth where I stand,
If the stabb'd heart would truly bleed,
Then kindness would be kind indeed

E

Were death to part us, I could rest
My sinking head upon thy breast,
And when the agony was past,
My gaze would fade from thine at last.
But, oh! what other pow'r shall break
My lips' last hold upon thy cheek,
Or loose my stiffen'd arms that strain
Thy waist in grief's convulsive pain—
Or from my shoulder's resting place
Turn that pale tear-besullied face,
Or part our trembling hands that clasp
Their latest and long-ling'ring grasp.
If fate will tear thee from my heart,
Without a warning sign depart,
For I can give no answering sign,
Nor faulter a farewell to thine.
Thou wast like angel here below,
And from me, angel-like, must go,
That, losing, I may know, not how,
But that thou art no longer now.

Nor let it dwell with thee-nor pine
That thou hast no adieu of mine;
Ev'n from thyself thy going hide,
Think thou art here, and I have died.
Count me no longer to be one
Whom earthly airs will breathe upon;
But keep, when thou hast ceas'd to grieve,
The legacy of love I leave.
Yes-so preserve my every sigh,
Stored deeply in thy memory,

So hold my love, since we must part,
As if thou had'st embalm'd my heart.
May he to whom kind Heav'n shall give
Once more to bid thy wishes live,
And wake that eye's soft ray, serene,
Be to thee what I would have been.
Give thou to him, with thine, the heart
Thou takest from me, now we part;
Give it, and, of that heart possess't,
He shall be true as well as blest.

D. T.

The following touching Verses are taken from a Newcastle Newspaper, the "Tyne

Mercury."

A WINTER MORNING.

It was upon a wint'ry morn,-
When snow flakes on the wind were borne,
The keen black frost had scarcely failed,
And sleet and rain by turns assailed-
I marked, as where in warmth I stood,
And the sight did almost freeze my blood,
A little infant, on a stone,
Chilled and shivering, sat alone.
The snow fell thick and fast, yet he
Did never speak, but piteously
Upon each passer, with a sigh,
Bent his little, tearful eye-
Yet of him notice none was taken,
He seemed to be by all forsaken,
As cold and shivering on the stone,
The little sufferer sat alone.

He asked not aid-he looked for one
Who came not-who, alas! was gone
For ever from him-ne'er was he
Again that guilty one to see,
Nor e'er again was that sweet boy
To warm his mother's heart with joy-
For she, that morn, upon that stone,
Had left him there to sit alone.
At length his fears his silence broke,
And thus the little lost one spoke :
Alas! methinks she lingers long-
I cannot see her in the throng,
I strain my eyes to look in vain,
Alas! she will not come again-
And yet she promised, when alone
She left me sitting on this stone.
"Oh, mother! come to me, for I
Am cold-and sick-and verily
Methinks the night begins to fall,
For darkness shuts me out from all
I saw before I feel not now
The damp snow falling on my brow,
And sure the cold has left this stone,
Where I have sat so long alone.

"Come, mother, come! nor tarry longer,
For oh! this weakness grows still stronger;
Come, mother! take me to my home-
How faint I am-come-mother-come."
He said no more-his little breast
Heaved but once, then sunk to rest.
Now calm, and colder than the stone
Where first he sat, he lies alone.

But soon that wretched mother came,
With her eyes in tears and her heart in flame;
And-God!-how she stood in mute surprise
When first the vision met her eyes,
When first his little face she knew-
So chang'd from the last and lovely hue
It wore that morn, when she left him alone,
In tempest and storm, on a damp cold stone.
But who shall tell the pangs she felt,
As madly in the snow she knelt
And clasp'd him round, in her deep distress,
In all his chilling iciness?—
The tear at once forsook her eye,
And she rais'd a harsh and horrid cry,
That seem'd on its rushing wing to bear
The last of her knowledge of grief and care.
Oh! ne'er will she taste sweet rest again—
For madness reigns in her troubled brain,
For her boy she calls through day and night;
In coldness-in darkness-in pale moon-
light-

66

My boy!-my boy!—have you seen my boy ?"

Not another thought does her mind employ Not a gleam of hope from the past can she borrow,

As she wanders along in the grasp of her sorrow!

Newcastle, Dec. 2.

THE SNOW STORM.

""Tis only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a Supreme Being, that our calamities can be borne in that manner which becomes a man."-HENRY MACKENZIE.

Is Summer there is beauty in the wildest moors of Scotland, and the wayfaring man who sits down for an hour's rest beside some little spring that flows unheard through the brightened moss and water-cresses, feels his weary heart revived by the silent, serene, and solitary prospect. On every side sweet sunny spots of verdure smile towards him from among the melancholy heather-unexpectedly in the solitude a stray sheep, it may be with its lambs, starts halfalarmed at his motionless figure-in sects large, bright, and beautiful come careering by him through the desert air-nor does the Wild want its own songsters, the grey linnet, fond of the blooming furze, and now and then the lark mounting up to heaven above the summits of the green pastoral hills. During such a sunshiny hour, the lonely cottage on the waste seems to stand in a paradise; and as he rises to pursue his journey, the traveller looks back and blesses it with a mingled emotion of delight and envy. There, thinks he, abide the children of Innocence and Contentment, the two most benign spirits that watch over human life.

But other thoughts arise in the mind of him who may chance to journey through the same scene in the desolation of Winter. The cold bleak sky girdles the moor as with a belt of ice-life is frozen in air and on earth. The silence is not of repose but extinction and should a solitary human dwelling catch his eye half-buried in the snow, he is sad for the sake of them whose destiny it is to abide far from the cheerful haunts of men, shrouded up in melancholy, by poverty held in thrall, or pining away in unvisited and untended disease.

But, in good truth, the heart of human life is but imperfectly discovered from its countenance; and before we can know what the summer, or what the winter yields for enjoyment or trial to our country's peasantry, we must have conversed with them in their fields and by their firesides; and made ourselves acquainted with the powerful ministry of the Seasons, not over those objects alone that feed the eye and the imagination, but over all the incidents, occupations, and events

that modify or constitute the existence of the poor.

I have a short and simple story to tell of the winter-life of the moorland cottager-a story but of one evening

with few events and no signal catastrophe-but which may haply please those hearts whose delight it is to think on the humble under-plots that are carrying on in the great Drama of Life.

Two cottagers, husband and wife, were sitting by their cheerful peatfire one winter evening, in a small lonely hut on the edge of a wide moor, at some miles distance from any other habitation. There had been, at one time, several huts of the same kind erected close together, and inhabited by families of the poorest class of daylabourers who found work among the distant farms, and at night returned to dwellings which were rent-free, with their little gardens won from the waste. But one family after another had dwindled away, and the turf-built huts had all fallen into ruins, except one that had always stood in the centre of this little solitary village, with its summer-walls covered with the richest honeysuckles, and in the midst of the brightest of all the gardens. It alone now sent up its smoke into the clear winter sky-and its little endwindow, now lighted up, was the only ground star that shone towards the belated traveller, if any such ventured to cross, on a winter night, a scene so dreary and desolate. The affairs of the small household were all arranged for the night. The little rough poney that had drawn in a sledge, from the heart of the Black-Moss, the fuel by whose blaze the cotters were now sitting cheerily, and the little Highland cow, whose milk enabled them to live, were standing amicably together, under cover of a rude shed, of which one side was formed by the peat-stack, and which was at once byre, and stable, and hen-roost. Within, the clock ticked cheerfully as the fire-light reached its old oak-wood case across the yellow-sanded floor-and a small round table stood between, covered with a snow-white cloth, on which were milk and oat-cakes, the morning, mid-day, and evening meal of these frugal and contented cotters.

The

spades and the mattocks of the labourer were collected into one corner, and showed that the succeeding day was the blessed Sabbath-while on the wooden chimney-piece was seen lying an open Bible ready for family worship.

The father and the mother were sitting together without opening their lips, but with their hearts overflowing with happiness, for on this Saturday-night they were, every minute, expecting to hear at the latch the hand of their only daughter, a maiden of about fifteen years, who was at service with a farmer over the hills. This dutiful child was, as they knew, to bring home to them "her sair worn penny fee," a pittance which, in the beauty of her girl-hood, she earned singing at her work, and which, in the benignity of that sinless time, she would pour with tears into the bosoms she so dearly loved. Forty shillings a-year were all the wages of sweet Hannah Lee-but though she wore at her labour a tortoise-shell comb in her auburn hair, and though in the kirk none were more becomingly arrayed than she, one half, at least, of her earnings were to be reserved for the holiest of all purposes, and her kind innocent heart was gladdened when she looked on the little purse that was, on the long-expected Saturday-night, to be taken from her bosom, and put, with a blessing, into the hand of her father, now growing old at his daily toils.

Of such a child the happy cotters were thinking in their silence. And well indeed might they be called happy. It is at that sweet season that filial piety is most beautiful. Their own Hannah had just outgrown the mere unthinking gladness of childhood, but had not yet reached that time, when inevitable selfishness mixes with the pure current of love. She had begun to think on what her affectionate heart had felt so long; and when she looked on the pale face and bending frame of her mother, on the deepening wrinkles and whitening hairs of her father, often would she lie weeping for their sakes on her midnight bed-and wish that she were beside them as they slept, that she might kneel down and kiss them, and mention their names over and over again in her prayer. The parents whom before she had only foyed, her expanding heart now also

venerated. With gushing tenderness was now mingled a holy fear and an awful reverence. She had discerned the relation in which she an only child stood to her poor parents now that they were getting old, and there was not a passage in Scripture that spake of parents or of children, from Joseph sold into slavery, to Mary weeping below the Cross, that was not written, never to be obliterated, on her uncorrupted heart.

The father rose from his seat, and went to the door to look out into the night. The stars were in thousands

and the full moon was risen. It was almost light as day, and the snow, that seemed encrusted with diamonds, was so hardened by the frost, that his daughter's homeward feet would leave no mark on its surface. He had been toiling all day among the distant Castle-woods, and, stiff and wearied as he now was, he was almost tempted to go to meet his child-but his wife's kind voice dissuaded him, and returning to the fireside, they began to talk of her whose image had been so long passing before them in their silence.

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"She is growing up to be a bonny lassie," said the mother, "her long and weary attendance on me during my fever last spring kept her down awhile-but now she is sprouting fast and fair as a lily, and may the blessing of God be as dew and as sunshine to our sweet flower all the days she bloometh upon this earth." Aye, Agnes," replied the father, we are not very old yet-though we are getting older-and a few years will bring her to woman's estate, and what thing on this earth, think ye, human or brute, would ever think of injuring her? Why, I was speaking about her yesterday to the minister as he was riding by, and he told me that none answered at the Examination in the Kirk so well as Hannah. Poor thingI well think she has all the bible by heart-indeed, she has read but little else only some stories, too true ones, of the blessed martyrs, and some o the auld sangs o' Scotland, in which there is nothing but what is good, and which, to be sure, she sings, God bless her, sweeter than any laverock." "Aye -were we both to die this very night she would be happy. Not that she would forget us, all the days of her life. But have you not seen, husband, that God always makes the orphan

happy? None so little lonesome as they! They come to make friends o' all the bonny and sweet things in the world around them, and all the kind hearts in the world make friends o' them. They come to know that God is more especially the father o' them on earth whose parents he has taken up to heaven-and therefore it is that they for whom so many have fears, fear not at all for themselves, but go dancing and singing along like children whose parents are both alive! Would it not be so with our dear Hannah? So douce and thoughtful a child--but never sad nor miserable -ready it is true to shed tears for little, but as ready to dry them up and break out into smiles! I know not why it is, husband, but this night my heart warms toward her beyond usual. The moon and stars are at this moment looking down upon her, and she looking up to them, as she is glinting homewards over the snow. I wish she were but here, and taking the comb out o' her bonny hair and letting it all fall down in clusters before the fire, to melt away the cranreuch!"

While the parents were thus speaking of their daughter, a loud sugh of wind came suddenly over the cottage, and the leafless ash-tree under whose shelter it stood, creaked and groaned dismally as it passed by. The father started up, and going again to the door, saw that a sudden change had come over the face of the night. The moon had nearly disappeared, and was just visible in a dim, yellow, glimmering den in the sky. All the remote stars were obscured, and only one or two faintly seemed in a sky that half-anhour before was perfectly cloudless, but that was now driving with rack, and mist, and sleet, the whole atmosphere being in commotion. He stood for a single moment to observe the direction of this unforeseen storm, and then hastily asked for his staff. "I thought I had been more weatherwise A storm is coming down from the Cairnbrae-hawse, and we shall have nothing but a wild night." He then whistled on his dog-an old sheepdog, too old for its former laboursand set off to meet his daughter, who might then, for ought he knew, be crossing the Black-moss. The mother accompanied her husband to the door, and took a long frightened look at the

angry sky. As she kept gazing, it be came still more terrible. The last shred of blue was extinguished-the wind went whirling in roaring eddies, and great flakes of snow circled about in the middle air, whether drifted up from the ground, or driven down from the clouds, the fear-stricken mother knew not, but she at least knew, that it seemed a night of danger, despair, and death. "Lord have mercy on us, James, what will become of our poor bairn!" But her husband heard not her words, for he was already out of sight in the snow-storm, and she was left to the terror of her own soul in that lonesome cottage.

Little Hannah Lee had left her master's house, soon as the rim of the great moon was seen by her eyes, that had been long anxiously watching it from the window, rising, like a joyful dream, over the gloomy mountain-tops; and all by herself she tripped along beneath the beauty of the silent heaven. Still as she kept ascending and descending the knolls that lay in the bosom of the glen, she sung to herself a song, a hymn, or a psalm, without the accompaniment of the streams, now all silent in the frost; and ever and anon she stopped to try to count the stars that lay in some more beautiful part of the sky, or gazed on the constellations that she knew, and called them, in her joy, by the names they bore among the shepherds. There were none to hear her voice, or see her smiles, but the ear and eye of providence. As on she glided, and took her looks from heaven, she saw her own little fireside-her parents waiting for her arrival-the bible opened for worship-her own little room kept so neatly for her, with its mirror hanging by the window, in which to braid her hair by the morning light-her bed prepared for her by her mother's hand-the primroses in her garden peeping through the snow-old Tray, who ever welcomed her home with his dim white eyesthe poney and the cow ;-friends all, and inmates of that happy household. So stepped she along, while the snowdiamonds glittered around her feet, and the frost wove a wreath of lucid pearls around her forehead.

She had now reached the edge of the Black-moss, which lay half way between her master's and her father's dwelling, when she heard a loud noise coming down Glen-Scrae, and in a few

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