whole day. I felt, of course, weak and exhausted. I therefore asked my comrade, on entering his tent, to give me a glass of water. "Water?" he said, with a peculiar emphasis-" we keep no such expensive liquor here." He, however, went to a small box, and produced a bottle and a large wooden drinking vessel. This he filled from the bottle, and drank off in a moment. He replenished the goblet, and gave it to me-( -(at this time it was about ten minutes past two o'clock, on the first day of June, 1816; the heaven was clear, the air serene and calm; and just at that instant,--for every thing connected with the great event made an ineffaceable impression on my recollection,-one of the quadrupeds employed in conveying the tents began to bray in a very lively and jocose manner)—and I put the vessel to my lips, and at one draft I emptied it I saw the bottom of the cup, and a new heaven and a new earth seemed in a moment opened to my view; my strength appeared to return, and not only to return, but to be increased, magnified, enlarged in an infinite degree. I thought I could lift the universe; that I could tear up forest trees by their roots: then I thought I was taller than the sons of Anak; that I gradually rose higher and higher in corporeal altitude; that I towered above houses, churches, cathedrals, mountains; that my head at last reached nearly to the moon. Then my fancy took a different turn; I swelled, widened, till the tent in which I sat seemed to distend over half the globe; lights glanced before my eyes, green, grey, blue, of all colours and shapes; rockets went off at my ear, the earth quaked under my feet, and at length I threw myself on the ground and slept ; and this was my introduction to the fiend who made me miserable for many a weary year. The accursed liquid which I had drunk was Gin!

:

Tent, trunk, bottle, and companion, all are gone; and in addition to their own baggage, the horde has kindly taken my little bundle. I am lying on the damp ground, for it is now night; the moon is shining in serenity above me, and my mouth and throat are parched with the most intolerable thirst. I bathe my head and face in a pool of the mountain stream, and pursue my way with as much cheerfulness as I can assume. But, though my courage remained unbroken, my strength was entirely gone. Hunger, also, came upon me, and I toiled on in hopes of coming to some cottage where my appetite might be appeased. But in that mountainous district the population is scanty and thinly scattered. My struggles against my miseries of body and mind were long and vigorous; hope came, but it was only at intervals; and the previous excitement of the stimulating beverage I had partaken, incapacitated me from exerting myself so much as I might otherwise have done. At length, after all my philosophy; after all my pride of letters; after all the triumphs of a subtle and penetrating understanding; I fell-sank-was annihilated! I threw myself on my face, and howled in the agony of my tortured spirit! I hated life; I loathed every thing; and I remember I looked up with the dimmed eyes of an exhausted and dying man, at the pure brightness of the moon; and with a demoniacal feeling of rage and indignation, I cursed her as she shone! I cursed her for sailing so placidly through that azure sea, and I was unwilling that even the eyes of heaven's starry host should

be witnesses of my agonies and abasement! But a change came over my feelings; the cruel sufferings of my head and stomach were mitigated-were entirely removed. Langour,-a dreamy consciousness of the ebbing away of life,-now succeeded. Forms, forgotten for many years, walked palpably before my eyes; I again saw the thrilling gaze of my expiring nurse; and again, with a pleasure such as I had experienced in reality, I heard the soft, clear notes of Camilla in one of her legendary ballads. Thus I felt happy in the approach of death; but whilst I gave myself up to these phantasies, my bodily ear was also sharpened in a preternatural degree, and I heard distinctly the pulsations of my heart as I lay with my breast upon the ground. I also detected the breathings of some animal approaching me with speed, and I raised up my head, and peered through the haze of moonlight, and saw coming towards me a dog of tremendous size. Something he bore in his mouth; and Nature told me, while a thrill of hope again passed through my bosom, that the burthen he carried was a loaf of bread-Bread! How my energies were restored by the chance afforded me of preserving the existence which a moment before I had contemned! The dog seemed exhausted with much running, and came and laid himself down within a yard or two of me, and began, great heavens! to swallow the bread, for one mouthful of which I would have given the world. With a spring (for despair and famine had made me fearless of the consequences) I dashed upon the dog in the midst of his feast. He glared upon me with fiery eyes, and open-mouthed he jumped at my throat. But my hand was on the shaggy neck of the monster, and my grasp grew tighter and tighter with the unnatural strength of frenzy! The dog writhed and struggled, and his howlings were terrific and appalling; but his writhings, his struggles, and even his howlings were responded to by mine! My eye, meanwhile, was fixed intensely on the loaf, and I hated the animal which strove so fiercely to debar me from my prey. His strength was unavailing, and I retained my grasp upon his throat.-At length his breath was gone, his eyes lost their red brilliancy, and his legs refused to bear him. As I found his powers decay, my rage against him grew ungovernable, in proportion as the moment of my gratification drew near. I held him with the death-grasp as he lay upon the ground; closer, closer than ever, I clutched him with wilder energy; and even when I saw that death had indeed taken possession of his prodigious limbs, I dashed him from me with a hatred still unquenched, and threw myself on the loaf in a delirium of thankfulness and joy. I ate it with the voracity of a wild hyæna, and kept looking with savage exultation on my murdered adversary. In truth, he was a noble animal. A Newfoundland of the largest size and surpassing beauty; but his beauty made him loathsome to me even as he lay still and rigid in that calm moonlight on that desolate heath. I soon finished my repast, and still cherishing my animosity against my victim, I sank into a fevered sleep, with my head resting on his still warm body.

Hope came back with the morning hour. I raised myself from my strange pillow, and gazed on the carcase of the beautiful animal, but,

strange to say, with no remorse for the deed I had done. The spirit of bitterness was yet in my heart; and besides I considered that, as the loaf was probably, in the first instance, stolen, I had been appointed by Providence to inflict no more than the punishment due to crime; and I felt elevated at the magnificence of my fate, the avenging minister of theft, the foreordained Jack Ketch of all canine delinquencies. I pursued my way, and a long and weary way it was. The gypsies who had so charitably possessed themselves of my luggage, had had the benevolence to leave me my money; and I felt assured, ere the pangs of hunger again overtook me, that I should reach some village where my eight pence halfpenny might procure me at least a meal. About mid-day I arrived at a small hamlet, situated on the skirts of a large forest, and went into the kitchen of the little thatched inn. Here several men were drinking; and ere I had well got seated, one of them extended to me his can of beer, and invited me to partake. To this I was not unwilling, for indeed I have remarked, throughout my intercourse with the world, that the lips which are at any instant free from the thirst of beer, are seldom endowed with any share of intellectual conversation; but though beer certainly has a purifying and exalting effect upon the oratorical powers of even the most slenderly gifted of mankind, its powers in this respect are as nothing compared with those of gin. What an uprising of memories and of imaginations does each succeeding glass of that intoxicating fluid produce! what warmth about the region of the stomach! (which, in spite of the physician, or the phrenologist, I am satisfied is the residence of the soul;) and if, in addition to the liquor, you inhale the aromatic odours of a pipe of genuine tobacco, your fate is to be envied by monarchs - you are above the stars! Then, how the "lips of song burst open, and the words of fire rush out," as through the haze you have raised around your hearers and yourself, you catch glimpses of the true sublime; and having spoken in the inspiration of that moment, withdraw again like the goddesses in Pope's Homer, within the shelter of your cloud. All this is true, up to a certain point; but when you have indulged in these contemplative and philosophical delectations too long; when the system begins to fail, the hands and knees to tremble with the least exertion, and the stomach to crave, crave, crave, for its accustomed stimulus,and yet to burn with the fires of Erebus when that stimulus is applied,— then, indeed, the whole character of the liquid is changed, and it acts as your master, your tyrant, your avenging fury, with a flagellum in its hands, more hellish and more accurst than the lash of the barbarian overseer, dropping with the blood of the terror-stricken slave!

However, I must proceed with my story, and beseech thee, most intelligent of readers, to excuse my rambling and irrelevancy. I put the can, which had been so kindly offered me, to my lips, and drank it to the dregs. I was impelled to it by some irresistible propensity; there was no avoiding the inevitable necessity of emptying it to the bottom; it was my fate, and I obeyed it. The man, however, seemed to view it in a different light; he started up in a rage, which was further exasperated by the laughter of his companions, and informed me that he

did not understand such jokes. I replied to him, with the equanimity of a superior intelligence, that I was equally unable in the present instance, to perceive any thing jocular in what had occurred, that I had merely availed myself of his kindness, and that thirst being one of the accidents of our common nature, even I, though skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, was occasionally liable to it like other men. He, however, was not by any means satisfied with my elucidation, and proceeded to the most abusive language, and even to threaten me with corporeal punishment. Menaces of that nature I have uniformly had the magnanimity to despise, as I have persuaded myself that this body which I inhabit, has little influence on the mind of a thinking man, to whatever degradations it may be exposed. I therefore replied to his menaces with contempt. He challenged me to the combat; I endeavoured to explain to him that my weapons were drawn from the dialectic armoury of the schools, that I could wrestle with an error in the middle term, and overcome the difficulties of a sorites, but with brute man I was not in the habit of coming into personal collision. I may remark, that during the agitation of this quarrel, I was busily employed in the mastication of considerable quantities of bread and cheese, and the gratification of my appetite, contributed perhaps to the equanimity of my temper. The man, however, on hearing my remarks, seemed rather to increase in his malevolence; he, with his brutal companions, unawed by the voice of learning, unquailing before the disciple of the starminded reasoner of Stagyra, gathered around me, and with hustling and pushing, finally ejected me into the open air, and locked and barred the inhospitable door behind me. I pursued my way, disdaining to waste a thought on such grovelling intellects and in a deep reverie, in which I could hear the sound of words, without at the moment being able to attach a meaning to them, I heard the landlord, who was confined by gout, or some other infirmity, to his chair, in the open arbour at his door, exclaiming that I had neglected to pay for my refreshment. Need I state to thee, dear reader, that at that instant the words fell blank upon my ear? I heard indeed the sounds, but not for many hours after, when with weary feet I was travelling at the distance of many miles, did the meaning of the expression find a resting place in my understanding. I went on in a fit of musing, from which I was not awakened till it was too late to repair my involuntary inadvertence. And of what were my musings? They were of all things bright and fair, and beautiful; of the prospects that were beginning to dawn upon my, hitherto, dark and benighted youth; and I gloried in contemplating the difference between my present situation, and the proud one I had no doubt of holding within a few weeks.

The adventures I have related may appear minute and trifling, but they are recorded here on account of the deep influence they exerted on my destinies at an after time. At present every thing is in my favour-youth, health, and an undeniable spirit; soon I arrive at the period of my life when my bliss reached its acme, when I had it in my power to say to Care, go! and he was sure to obey me; to Gladness, come! and instantly she came. Yes! when seated in the quiet

chair, which I loved to call my own, with the kettle of hot water on the hob, the long-necked bottle of Geneva on the table, with what dreams of delight was not my fancy filled! Come, then, and pass in swift review before us, ye Years, in which my heart was happy as a bird that, in some long sunny evening in the Poet's month of May, sings to itself its own gladsome tune, and flutters from tree to tree. Come, and as ye evolve your glittering array, teach us in what a philosopher's pleasures consist, and then, having listened to your story, let me turn to the gloomy pages of my book of existence, and bid farewell to my peace of mind, to my happy nights, to my listening auditors, to my chair of state in that crowded and yet untumultuary Tap; and, last of all, bright essence of nectar and of juniper! a long farewell to my blessedness derived from thee!

[END OF THE FIRST PART.]

ARCHERY MEETINGS.

Ir is seldom in this stern and strifeful world that an instrument of destruction becomes altogether converted into an instrument of harmless gratification, and yet such is the case with the arrow, if we except its use by a few hordes of savages that are still without the pale of civilization. From the earliest period to which the pages of history lead us, to the time when a restless monk, instead of counting his beads, amused himself in compounding saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, it has been the principal missile weapon in war, and through it hath many a momentous day been lost and won. Had some benevolent philosopher of old been told, that such a change would happen in the employment of the mortal shaft, he might have supposed that it would come when Bellona had been driven from the earth. But, alas! he would have given too much credit to future ages; the arrow and the javelin have been abandoned by the soldier, merely that deadlier weapons might supply their place.

This is especially an interesting subject to us, as never was the arrow in more able hands than when in the grasp of the English archer. They, who have attentively perused the accounts of our earlier battles, must be well aware of this historical fact. Talking about English archery, also brings to our recollection the well-known tale, so fascinating to our boyhood, of the unequalled outlaw, Robin Hood, and his merry men; but those days are gone, and live only in ancient lays and legends. Sherwood's goodly trees have disappeared—and the stout Earls of the North no longer "to drive the deer with hound and horn," lead their "bowmen bold" to the debateable coverts of Chevy Chace.

The Archery Meetings, or Bow Meetings, as they are variously called, at present established in this country, are, so far as our knowledge extends, a national peculiarity. We have seen our horse-racing imitated, however imperfectly, in Germany, France, America, and even India, but they have, as yet, been imitated no where. In these days of refinement, when the recreations of the wealthier orders are too often luxurious and enervating, and when their semi-foreign habits of life have too much estranged them from the interchange of domestic hospitalities, we hail with pleasure a rural and elegant amusement, having a strong