Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

low chair, and, without so much as

[ocr errors]

by your leave,' begins to wring her hands, and cry Lord! Lord!'

'What do you want, good woman?' said I. But I might as well have addressed myself to the walls, for Lord! Lord!' was all her moan."

Peverell hastened into the room, and there he saw poor Madge-her face buried in her hands, rocking to and fro, weeping most piteously, and as Francis had described, ever and anon calling upon the Lord, but in a tone of such utter wretchedness that it pierced his very heart.

He spoke to her. She started up at the sound of his voice, looked at him, and then mournfully exclaimed, while she pointed to the ground"They have buried her!"

"Then be comforted," said Peverell, in a kind and soothing voice; hardest trial is past.' your

[ocr errors]

"What a churl he was !" continued Madge, not heeding the words of Peverell; "I only asked him to keep the grave open till to-morrow, and he denied me! Only till to-morrow-for then, said I, the cold earth can cover us both. But he denied me! So I fell upon my knees, beside my Marian's grave, and prayed that he might never lose a child, to know that bless edness of sorrow which lies in the thought of soon sleeping with those we have loved and lost! It was very wrong in me, I know, to wish to call down such affliction on him-but he denied me and I had to hear the rattling dust fall upon her coffin-ay, and to see that dark, deep grave filled up; as if a mother might not have her own child !"

"Poor afflicted creature!" exclaimed Peverell, in a half whisper to himself.

"Yes!" said Madge, drying her tears with her hands. "Yes! I have walked with grief, for my companion in this world, through many a sad and weary hour. But I shook hands with her, and we parted, at the grave of Marian. I buried all my troubles there. What is the hour?"

"Hard upon two," replied Peverell.

"Then I must be busy," replied Madge, in a wild, hurried manner, and smiling at Peverell, with a look of much importance, as if what she had to do were some profound secret. "You'll not betray me, if I tell you?” she continued, taking his hand"Feel!" and she placed it on her heart. "One, two; one, two; one, two-and so it goes on; it cannot beat beyond two! Oh, God! in what pain it is before it breaks !”

She now returned to the chair from which she had risen, at the sound of Peverell's voice. He approached nearer; and (with a view rather to draw her gently from her own thoughts, than from any desire that she should leave his house) he asked her if she would go home ?"

"Yes," she replied; "bear with me yet a little while, and I'll go. It is near the time I promised Marian, when last I kissed her wintry cheek, as she lay shrouded in her coffin; and I may not fail. Lord! Lord! what a troubled and worthless world this seems to me now! A week ago, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the green earth, and all that was upon it, were dear to mine eyes; and I should have wept to look my last at them! But now, I behold nothing it contains, save my Marian's grave! You will see me laid in it, for pity's sake-won't you?"

"Ay," said Peverell, but that will be when I am grey, and thinking of my own: so, cheer up. He that shall toll the bell for thee, now sleeps in his cradle, I'll warrant.”

She beckoned Peverell to her, and taking his hand, she again placed it on her heart. A sad, melancholy smile played for a moment across her pale wrinkled face, and her glazed eyes kindled into a fleeting expression of frightful gladness, as she feebly exclaimed, "Do you feel? One !one !-one-and hardly that.—I breathe only from here," she continued, pointing to her throat. "Feel! -feel!-one !-one !-another!—how I gasp-see!-see—”

She ceased to speak; the hand

which retained Peverell's relaxed its hold-her head dropped-one longdrawn sigh was heaved-and poor Madge resigned a being touched with sympathies and feelings not often found in natures of nobler quality, in the world's catalogue of nobility. If, among the thousand doors which death holds open for mortal man to pass through, ere he puts on immortality, there be one, the rarest of them all, for broken hearts, this hapless creature found it. A self-accusing spirit bowed her to the earth, with the sharpest of all griefs-a mother's anguish for an only child-lost to her, as gamesters lose fortunes-thrown away by her own hand.

FITZMAURICE THE MAGICIAN.

I have lived three hundred years! In that time-in all that time, I have never seen the glorious sun descend, but followed still its rolling course through the regions of illimitable space. I have shivered on the frozen mountains of the icy north, and fainted beneath the sultry skies of the blazing east the swift winds have been my viewless chariot, and on their careering wings I have been hurried from clime to clime. But, nor light, nor air, nor heat, nor cold, have been to me as to the rest of my species; for I was doomed to find in their extremes a perpetual torment. I howled, under the sharp, pinching pangs of the icy north; I panted with agony, in the scorching fervor of the blazing east: and when mine eyes have ached, with vain efforts to pierce the darkness of the earth's centre, they have been suddenly blasted with excessive and intolerable delight.

All the currents of human affection-all that makes the past delightful, the present lovely, and the future coveted, were dried up within me. My heart was like the sands of the desart, parched and barren. No living stream of hope, of gladness, or of desire, quickened it with human sympathies. It was a bleak and withered region, the fit abode of ever-during sorrow and comfortless despair. I

was as a blighted tree, that perishes not at the root, but is withered in all its branches. Tears, I had none. One gracious drop, falling from my seared orbs, would have been the blessed channel of pent-up griefs that seemed to crush my almost frenzied brain. Sighs, I breathed not. They would have heaved from my bursting heart some of that misery, which loaded it to anguish. Sleep never came. I was denied the common luxury of the common wretched, to lose, in its sweet oblivion, its brief forgetfulness, the sense of what I was. Death, natural death, closed his many doors against me. All that lived, except myself the persecuted, the weary, and the heavily laden of man's racecould find a grave! I, alone, looked upon the earth, and felt that it had no resting place for me! God! God! what a forlorn and miserable creature is man, when, in his affliction, he cannot say to the worm, I shall be yours! I might have cast away, indeed, the YENARKON-the Giver of Life-the elixir of the Sibyl-but that would have been to subject myself to a power of darkness, in whose fell wrath I should have suffered the casting away of mine eternal soul !

Thus the stream of time rolled on, burying beneath its dark waves, our little span of present, in the huge ocean of a perpetual past, and devouring, as the food of both, our swift decaying future. But I floated on its surface, and beheld whole generations flourish and fade away, while age and silver hairs, growing infirmities, and the closing sigh that ends them all, mocked me with a horrible exemption. I remained, and might have remained, for ages yet to come, the fixed and unaltered image of what I was, when in Mauritania I encountered the potent Amaimon, the damned magician of the den, but for that-woman's faith, and man's fidelity-which have made me what I AM!

This was my destiny. Now mark, how I became enthralled to it; and how it befell, that at last I shook it off, and found redemption.

In my middle manhood, when sacred, city of Jerusalem-that chosen

scarcely forty summers had glowed within my veins, I left my native Italy, and journeyed to the Holy Land, upon the strict vow of a self-imposed penance. It was for no sin committed in my days of youth, but for the satisfaction of an ardent piety, and the growing spirit of a long enkindled devotion. I had patrimonial wealth in Apulia ; I had kindred; I had friends. I renounced them all, to dedicate myself, thenceforth, to the service of THE CROSS. My purpose was blessed, by a virtuous mother's prayers, that I might approve myself a worthy soldier of Christ; and it was sanctified by a holy priest at the altar.

Even now, the recollection is strong within me, of the feelings with which, as the rising sun illumined the tops of the surrounding hills, I approached the once glorious, and still

seat of the Godhead-that Queen among the nations. Eclipsed, though it was, and its majestic head trodden into the dust, by the foot of the infidel, my gladdened eyes dwelt upon what was imperishable, and my wrapt imagination pictured what was destroyed. The valleys of Jehosaphat and Gehinnon, Mount Calvary, Mount Zion, and Mount Acre, stretched before me. The palace of King Herod, with its sumptuous halls of marble and of gold-the gorgeous Temple of Solomon-the lofty towers of Phaseolus and Mariamne-the palace of the Maccabees-the Hippodrome — the houses of many of the prophets-grew into existence again, beneath the creative force of fancy. I stood and wept. I knelt, and kissed the consecrated earth which once a Saviour trod.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN FRANCE.

[blocks in formation]

1815 hf.yr. 317

1816 1817

641

70

[blocks in formation]

26,995 75c.

1818

[blocks in formation]

18,079 75

1819

[blocks in formation]

1821
1822

[blocks in formation]

1823 1824 1825

[blocks in formation]

1826

394

[blocks in formation]

18,157 30 21,056 75 43,974 70

1828

THE system of elementary education Years.
was not introduced into France until
after the general peace, when a few
friends to the country, aware of the
advantages to be derived from its
adoption, occupied themselves in en- 1820
deavoring to establish it. A society
for the purpose was formed, in 1815,
and at the beginning met with all the
encouragement from the public which
could have been expected. The fa-
vor, however, in which it was held,
did not proceed increasing in a de-
gree adequate to the merit of the sys-
tem; and, during the greater part of
the time which has elapsed since the
foundation of the institution, the sup-
port afforded it has remained station-
ary, or even declined, as will be per-
ceived from the following statement
recently published by order of the so-
ciety, whose excellent objects, howe-
ver, it is satisfactory to perceive, seem
at length to be more justly appreciat-
ed, as within the last two years it has
received a vast increase in its num-
ber of subscribers and funds :

ཙ®[8343[*།

w

The falling off in 1819 is attributed to causes connected with politics, and to the retirement from the administration of public affairs of General Dessolles, a great promoter of the objects of the society, and who afterwards became its president. He died in the course of that year. The funds, it will be remarked, have not diminished in proportion to the defalcation of subscribers; owing to the zeal of a certain number of the members who have remained constantly faithful to the cause. In 1823, the funds of the society received an augmentation of

10,000 crowns by the donation of a single individual. The juries at the assizes, convinced of the advantages derived to the country from the society, are in the habit of making a subscription in its aid. The Bank of France gives annually 2000fr., and the minister of the interior 1000. The year 1829 promises, with certainty, a still further and considerable increase of subscribers and funds. Twentyeight societies, of a similar description, in different parts of France, correspond with that of Paris. Among other places, Lyons has a society established, with subscriptions to the amount of 150,000frs., to be paid within five years. This association offers to the masters desirous of establishing primary schools, to allow them the necessary funds for setting up schools for mutual instruction, on condition of their receiving five pupils gratuitously for every 100frs. advanced.

This measure is represented to have been attended with beneficial consequences. At Marseilles, an old society for the promotion of Christian morality has been converted into an education society. At Nancy, a Jewish school on the same plan is in existence, and corresponds with the society at Paris. At Rouen, the ancient school is continued, and a new one has been opened; a school for the instruction of adults has also been instituted. The three schools at Paris, under the direction, and maintained at the expense of the society, continue flourishing. That to which the appellation of Gaulthier has been given after the Abbé of that name, who has so powerfully contributed to the pro

gress of this system of education, is frequented by 237 children. Of the two schools for girls, that at the Halle aux Draps counts 410 children; that of the Clos de St. Jean de Lateran, 277. To the former of these, the name of Larochefoucauld -Liancourt, so dear to France, is attached to the other, that of Basset, after an estimable member of the society, lately deceased. The schools of Paris, including the three just mentioned, amount to thirty. According to the last year's statement, twenty-five of these furnished education to a total of 3,760 children. On the 1st of May, the whole number of pupils, children, and adults, in the thirty schools, was 4,177 of these, the adults amounted to 491, admitted to eight evening schools. By the exertions of the Count de Chabrol towards the formation of new schools, or the enlargement of old ones, an increase is about to take place of 2,200 pupils. The Normal elementary school, founded by the Prefect of the Seine, is attended by 95 tutors, youths designed for masterships, of the age of sixteen and seventeen years. An establishment, under the title Maison Complète, was opened in 1828, in the 12th Arrondissement, by M. Cochin. It consists of a hall for infants, and schools for boys, for girls, and for adults of the respective sexes. A Monthly Bulletin has been substituted for the "Journal d'Education," formerly published by the society. The society expresses its acknowledgment to the British and Foreign Bible Society, for placing at its disposal New Testaments for the purpose of being read in the schools.

SONNET.

OCEAN! I love to gaze on thee, for thou, From earliest time the same, art ever new; Such as Creation saw, we see thee now, Yet daily change thine aspect and thy hue: When storms of Winter bid thy waters roar, As moving mountains fraught with Fate they seem;

In Summer's calm they gently lave the shore,

And heaven shines brightly in thy limpid

stream.

Thy billows represent the race of man,
A moment sparkling ere they pass away;
Thus he, frail creature of a short-liv'd span,
Flutters his hour, then sinks into decay;
Thyself eternal seems to our brief thought,
Like the great God who framed thee out of
nought!

VARIETIES.

"Come, let us stray Where Chance or Fancy leads our roving walk."

[merged small][ocr errors]

One night during the season in which he performed Joseph, (in which he completely failed,) John Kemble got excessively tipsy, a circumstance perhaps not of very frequent occurrence, but replete with serious consequences on this occasion; for returning homeward to Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, or Caroline Street (it matters little which) where he then resided, he fell into a quarrel with a butcher who was shutting up his shop. The conversation, carried on with less dignity by the knight of the chopper than by him of the bowl and dagger, ended in Kemble's breaking the butcher's head, a feat no sooner performed than proclaimed by the butcher's wife, who soon collected round her an overflowing audience of watchmen, by whom the great tragedian was conveyed to durance vile for the night, in that receptacle which is established for the maintenance of the peace, and the confinement of those who choose to break it.

In the morning, when reason returned, and the gentlemanly feelings of Kemble began to operate, his shame for what had happened, and his disgust at having put an enemy in his mouth to steal away his senses, being in full operation, he was produced at Bow Street public office to answer for the sins and tumult of the preceding night; on which occasion he was accompanied by a host of aristocratic friends, the importance of whose appearance, added to his own

subdued and conciliating manner, however, had no effect in the way of appeasing the angry feelings of the broken-headed butcher.

When Kemble's noble friends spoke of pecuniary recompense for the damage, the butcher spoke of his outraged honor and the inviolable rights of the British subject. At length by dint persuasion the slayer of beasts began to soften, and something like a smile played upon his much injured countenance. That smile was hailed by the noble lords in waiting as the dawn of a reconciliation, and any sum in moderation that he chose to name was tended to the offended plaintiff rather than subject the plaintive defendant to the ordeal of the Clerkenwell sessions.

“I vonts none of your money, Mr. Campbell," said the butcher-" I vonts justice."

"My dear sir," said Kemble,"umph--I do assure you I regret the incidental collision between us, as deeply as you possibly can-I-am very sorry for what has happened."

"Vell," said the butcher, "that's all right and fair, and as much as von gemman can properly expectorate from another-and so I am ready to make up the matter on one condition, and d—”

"Name it, sir," said Kemble. "Spare your oaths, I'll trust to your conditions! as Shakspeare has it."

“Well then, Mr. Campbell," said the butcher.

"Kemble, by your leave, sir," said the tragedian.

"Well, Kemble then," continued the butcher, "it is not so much for myself as for the people what goes to the playhouse oftener than I does, that I am going to speak-I forgive you for all you did to me last night perwided you will give me your word and honor that you never will attempt to act Joseph Surface again."

« НазадПродовжити »