LULLABY.

IMITATED FROM AN OLD ENGLISH POEM.

As some fond mother sadly tries
To still her darling infant's cries,
And with her Lullaby's soft strain
Buries in sleep its tears and pain ;
Thus I, by bitter feelings torn,
Of youthful pride and passion born,
Must, like the anxious parent, try
To hush them with my LULLABY.
Sleep first ye angry passions, sleep,
For ever rest in slumber deep,-
Thirst of revenge for causeless wrong,
And burning rage and hatred strong,
Consuming wrath that secret glows,
And memory of my treacherous foes,
Sink all to rest; while o'er you I
Pour forth my peaceful LULLABY.
Hush'd be that love, the first, the last,
That through my throbbing bosom past;
Let not a single whisper tell

How strong, but oh! how false the spell
Which bound me in that iron chain,
Whose deep worn traces still remain ;
Although their influence cannot die,
Yet sleep thou for my LULLABY.
Ye fairy dreams by youth inspir'd,
That oft my panting bosom fir'd,
Illusive visions, once how bright,
For ever vanish'd from my sight,
And all ye hopes so soon that fled-
Sleep, sleep the slumbers of the dead:
Awake no more at memory's cry,
Despair may sing your LULLABY.

Pleasures of youth, ye too must sleep,
While I a wakeful mourner weep;
Sleep all ye joys, delusive, vain,
Whose powers I must not know again;
Sleep cheering mirth, sleep pleasing wiles,
Sleep ye long train of sports and smiles;
I bid you sleep with tearful eye,
And sadly sing your LULLABY.

Sleep all but friendship, last and best,
Consoler of this anguished breast,
Continue still to cheer the heart,
To heal its agonizing smart,
To calm my sadness, sooth my grief,
And bring to every woe relief;
And when in death's cold sleep I lie,
Oh friendship! sing my LULLABY.

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259

THE FELON.

It was on a cold rainy morning, in the spring of 1821, that I took my seat in the basket of a stage coach for the town of Newton. The assizes were held that week at Exeter, the county town, so that the coaches were more than usually crowded: an inside place was perfectly un-come-at-able. My companions consisted of an elderly gentleman, with a mild prepossessing countenance; his friend, much younger, apparently of a gentle retireing character; a very important looking personage, (neither old nor young,) who discomposed us all by the bustle he made in mounting. From his confident address, and a certain cunning twinkle in his small dark eyes, I fancied I read Lawyer, in every line of his physiognomy: not that a man is at all the worse for being a lawyer, or that the face was not a decent face enough; it was, in all probability, contemplated by its owner with a vast deal of complacency; to me it was any thing but agreeable. The rest of the party, (for, reader, six of us were closely wedged in together,) comprehended, a young man heavily fettered, and a constable, whose office it was to see the prisoner lodged in the county goal. From the fury of the populace, who surrounded the coach, and their execrations, I concluded that the wretched being was a murderer, and an involuntary shuddering seized me as I beheld him. At length, we left the town, and the bitter taunts of the rabble died gradually on the ear. Cold and cheerless it was: the wind blew with violence, and the sleet beat sharply in our faces. We were long silent, but the lawyer-like man at last broke forth into an invective against the lenity of our penal code. He remarked, that, were he possessed of the legislative power, all crimes should be punished with death. The old gentleman mildly observed, that it was no doubt owing to the scarcity of work, that the lower classes were become so desperate. "No Sir," replied the other, "you are wrong; there is employment enough for all who are willing to work: it is the natural idleness of the poor, and their native depravity of heart, that leads them into guilt.' The miserable culprit to whom these unfeeling remarks were evidently directed, had, for some time, engaged my attention, and never surely was seen a more pitiable object. His age could not have exceeded twenty, it might have been less: his tall slender form seemed ill fitted to sustain the weight of the galling fetters; yet he felt not their cruel pressure," the iron had entered into his soul," and corporeal suffering was comparatively unregarded. He was clad in the garb of extreme poverty, clean, but so thin, that the rain, which beat upon him, must have penetrated to the skin: his countenance exhibited a restless expression, even approaching to wildness, and, as he listened to the conversation I have related, the various workings of his fevered mind were alternately pourtrayed in his face. At first, scorn seemed to predominate, then deep sorrow was struggling for utterance, and, at length, with a burst of uncontrolable indignation, he broke upon the discourse "Hold Sir," he exclaimed, "you know not what you say, you never can know the misery of a man who tries in vain to procure a scanty subsistance; who endures, day after day, the extremes of hunger and suffering, without the most distant hope of amending his situation. You know not the force of temptation in those moments of distraction, when the whole world seems combined against a man, and dis

tress obliges him to take from his fellow creatures those means of support, which they refuse to his industry." "And pray young man," asked the rigid moralist,* "what crime have you committed?" In the agony of his soul the poor youth seemed ready to avow his guilt; but the quiet young man interposed, by saying, "That, Sir, is a question you have no right to put; no man is expected to criminate himself: and, with regard to our unhappy companion, until the law pronounces him guilty, he has a right to be considered innocent. Tell me, my poor friend," continued he, addressing the felon, "of what you are accused?" Deep shame crimsoned the face of the wretched youth, and he was silent: the constable answered for him, that he was suspected of stealing some baskets of oranges from a shop, and, as it was his first offence, he hoped a short imprisonment would be the whole of his punishment. "No, no," interrupted he, "I have no such hope they will not, perhaps, take my life, but transportation must be my fate for myself I care not, but, there are others,"—and here his trembling frame bespoke the intensity of his feelings," there are others, to whom it will be death!" "Poor fellow," said the constable, "he has a wife younger than himself, and an infant child. Oh! gentlemen, had you seen their parting, you would never have forgotten it.' We endeavoured to console the unhappy one, by suggesting, that his wife, might, probably, meet with friends, who would alleviate her miseries. "No," he replied, "if I am punished, she and my child will suffer for my guilt. I know the unfeeling world; it has no pity: they must be deserted outcasts. Oh!" continued he, with a frantic vehemence, and clenching his fettered hand, "let me but return, and meet again the villain who informed against me, and no earthly power shall save him from my fury. I will kill him in the face of day, and then, I care not how soon I close my existence on the scaffold." We were struck with horror, but his commiserating friend again addressed him : he implored him to cherish better thoughts, and endeavoured to awaken him to a hope, that the succeeding part of his life, would be fairer than the past. He spoke with earnestness and feeling, and the poor man, who had listened at first with the sullen apathy of despair, could not resist the voice of sympathy-he wept, and said, "Kind stranger, whatever may become of me, I shall always be grateful for your goodness: you are the only person who has not regarded me with abhorrence, and considered these chains as a sure mark of my unworthiness." The conversation soon became general, and the prisoner joined in occasionally: he spoke with strong natural sense on many subjects. In the course of the day, I found, that the blustering gentleman, was not a lawyer, as I had previously supposed; but a publisher, antiquary, &c., that he was then busily engaged in compiling a work on the antiquities ofThe book has since been published: I have not read it, but, judging from the character of the writer, it must, I think, be a collection of absurdities: his credulity was so excessive, that, even the criminal, albeit little inclined to merriment, could not refrain from joining in the frequent laugh, at his expense. Thus the day wore on, and night, dark, wet, and uncomfortable, approached: we sunk gradually into silence, which continued unbroken till we arrived at Newton, the place where I intended to sleep. Here, as by a general impulse, we gave each a trifle to

This gentleman has since become famous by the publication of a certain lady's memoirs,

our unhappy companion. It was too dark to distinguish objects; but the light of the ostler's lantern cast a momentary gleam upon his features, and showed him so far gone in misery, so sunk in utter hopelessness, that, instinctively, I caught his ironed hand, and breathed a fervent prayer for his acquittal. He returned my grasp with convulsive "God bless you," agony. was all he could articulate. The carriage rolled heavily onwards, its dull sound grew fainter and fainter, and soon I heard it no more. The papers afterwards informed me, that, as he had anticipated, the miserable youth was sentenced to seven years transportation. Years have passed since this event, yet is that look of anguish still present to me, and often, often does the parting benediction of the poor unfortunate strike upon my heart, sad, and piteous, as when, on that night of gloom and silence, it rung mournfully on my ear.

MY FIRST BOOK.

BEING A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF A SCRIBBLER.

"Tis something, sure, to see one's name in print.
A book's a book, altho' there's nothing in't.-Byron.

MR. COLERIDGE, in his "Biographia Litteraria," which, by the way, is a most curious and amusing book, asserts, that authorship, as a trade, is a most sorry means of subsistence; and verily, I opine, that there are many poor devils, now living, who can, from their own unhappy experience, confirm that sage's assertion. I for one, will lift up my voice, like that of one crying in the wilderness, and avouch the fact, which has been proved to me again and again, by experience at once bitter and profitless. Reader! -art thou an author? Didst thou ever

Taking it for granted that thou hast never, at all events, committed so great a crime as that of writing a book, I will narrate to thee my first attempt at author-craft; and, if it so happeneth that thou art a young gentleman (or lady) burning with the lofty aspirations of concocting a duodecimo, thou shalt take warning by my sad example, and, notwithstanding Mr. Colburn's splendid offer of, eschew book writing for ever!

By a concatenation of events," which I have now neither the leisure nor the inclination to relate, I was thrown into the world, with no other dependence than that which my own resources could furnish; and, slender enough in all conscience, these resources were! Having been educated with a view to expectations, which were never realized, I had the misery of finding myself, at two-and-twenty years of age, an animal, useless alike to others and to myself, with a mind and endowments prepared and cultivated for no fixed or settled pursuit. I had the pleasant prospect of starving in the midst of plenty; or of going at once to the Mansion House,-laying my "interesting case" before the Lord Mayor, and obtaining a ticket for the Mendicity Society, or a pass to my parish! But, really, my pride would not permit me to do this: and in the midst of my

perplexity, I stumbled one morning upon a fellow collegian, who left Oxford a few weeks before myself. He was as poor as I was; and after taking a first class degree, he had luckily obtained the situation of usher in an "establishment for young gentlemen, from five to ten years of age; -where he endeavoured to make himself contented with a salary of thirty-five pounds per annum, a daily dinner of raw-meat and half-boiled vegetables (thus slenderly submitted to the influence of the culinary art, that they might go farther with the voracious young fry for whose consumption they were destined) and one glass of home-made wine on Sundays.

We were

Let me pause to record one anecdote of this young man. both of Brazennose, and H— was the hardest reading man there. The company which I kept was such as H- could not afford to keep; but, as he had, more than once, kindly assisted me in my studies, I now and then asked him to my wine-parties, and he sometimes came. H-never forgot this kindness, and when I met him on the morning to which I have alluded, he was really glad to see me. While my wealthier and more heartless acquaintances now turned their backs upon me-while they "cut" me in every conceivable and inconceivable manner; while they "looked blind" at me, as poor Wowski has it, he shook me cordially by the hand, (and he, too, had known of my downfall,) insisted upon my dining with him at Dolly's, and before we parted, forced upon me the loan of a couple of sovereigns, the last he had. In the course of the evening he advised me to go to the Chapter Coffee-House, and inquire there, if I could get a literary job or two: and accordingly, the next day, to the Chapter I went. I read the notices which were stuck up at the Bar, but found nothing likely to suit me. I paused for more than a minute, however, gazing upon a placard, which intimated, that a well-known clerical bookseller in the Row, was willing to give two guineas a-piece for good, sound, eloquent, orthodox sermons; and I sighed, when I reflected, that my talents were not sufficiently imbued with gravity-notwithstanding my sufferings,-to enable me to earn six shillings a-week in sermon-making!

I lounged into a box, and called loudly for some soup,- -for I was just then a rich man, having the greater portion of poor H-'s loan safe in my pocket, and your consciousness of wealth is a mighty elevator of consequence. The soup was brought with all the alacrity suited to my importance, and I commenced its demolition, determined, beforehand, that it should serve me for my dinner. The newspapers of the day lay on the table before me, and I took up the Times, which I commenced reading, as I fondly lingered over my Mock-Turtle. I began, as the Frenchman did, at the beginning; and after being fully informed of the names, tonnage, time of sailing, &c., of outward-bound Indiamen; after sympathizing with the losers of broaches, pocket-books, and pins, my eye rested upon an advertisement which filled my heart with hope, and my soul with gladness. It intimated, that the Editor of a "celebrated and highly popular periodical," was in immediate want of an amanuensis, who must be well versed in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and God knows what besides : he was willing to treat on liberal terms, with any person possessing the requisite qualifications; and a reference was given to X. Y., at Mr. Jones's, Stationer, Poultry.