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The hive of mortals never kill a drone!

There goes the sutor to his little stall, That scarce could hold a hen and twelve young chickens ;

And yet he looks how happy-like withal! The world may scorn him, but his heart ne'er sickens ;

He holds his blacken'd thumb a brighter laurel

Than that for which contending tyrants quarrel.

There hies the weaver to his web and loom,

And whistles cheerily as on he hies; And though he tenant but a garret-room, His busy hand each family want sup. plies:

'Tis not the case with many a luckless

fellow

Who weaves his verse in place of thin prunello.

There goes the mason, blessed be his art! Without him, what were even Dunedin now?

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Who, while poor wretches bear the heat and cold,

And weariness and hunger, fare most snugly :

How sweet-save 'mong the bees who fall upon

Such idle creatures-'tis to be a drone!

Why speak I thus? for almost every drone

Has left this busy and tumultuous hive, And in their castles wild of mountainstone,

Dream of the day when they shall nobly strive

Who shall the grouse most numerous destroy ;

Lord! who can say that drones have no employ ?

But hunger, as Miss Edgeworth often says, Obtrudes upon our transport and our

woe;

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BARCLAY DRUMMOND; OR, FEW men, not even excepting exiles, are so destitute of self-love as to believe that no one takes an interest in their fate, or would not be moved by the story of their wrongs and misfortunes. I am not superior to the influence of a feeling so general, nor am I willing that my bones should moulder in a foreign land, unhallowed by a single tear of regret; or that, when my shattered, war-worn frame is consigned to the earth, my name should altogether perish in the memory of those among whom I spent the innocent and happy days of my youth. I have, therefore, resolved to commit to writing a few particulars of my strange eventful history," in the hope that, when I am no more, they will fall into some friendly hand, by whom they will be conveyed to her (if she yet lives) whose name will appear at the close of this narrative, and who, if time and chance, which happen to all, have not cooled a heart that once glowed with every pure and generous affection, will hardly refuse a tear to the memory of him she once loved with all the fervent and uncalculating sincerity of youthful enthusiasm. Had the day shone as the morning dawned, and had the early promise of my life not been belied by the subsequent stern reality, my Lousia would not, self-devoted and self-sacrificed, have

66

And scavengers, and ashes-carts, and dreams,

And maids, and advocates, and scribes, and boors,

Must leave my flight, on this delightful morn,

And, like a horse, regale myself with cornR.

And now, my reader, though thou ne'er may'st see

My countenance, nor shake my hand, nor hear

An accent from my lips, yet I to thee
Shall sing again, if that my strains be
dear;

And so, to quote from John Home's tra-
gic song,
"Farewell a while, I will not leave you
long!"

MEMOIRS OF AN EXILE. "wasted her sweetness on the desart air;" nor would the grey hairs of my virtuous and venerable parents have descended in sorrow to the grave. But there is a tide in the affairs of men. Taken at the summit, it leads on to fortune; but woe be to him who is caught in the strength of its ebbing current! In vain he struggles with the destiny that hurries him on. An accident, next to a miracle, may save him from utter and final destruction; he may not be engulphed at the moment when he gives up all for lost, and resigns himself to the unutterable agonies of despair; in his death-grasp he may catch some reed of momentary safety, and hope, which had fled, may return; but the illusion is fleeting and unreal; his doom is written, his destiny is sealed, his cup is mingled -and he must drain it to the dregs.

Call it by what name you will, there is a presiding influence which all men, in all their actions, and even in all their thoughts, obey. Unconscious of its existence in individual actions or volitions, we discover it plainly and undeniably in the general result; just as we determine the progress of the index of the chronometer, or of the shadow on the dialplate. Every thing tends to confirm this view of human actions, and, by consequence, of human affairs. Things apparently the most anoma

Denovan's Roasted Corn.

lous, observe a general law; the proportion between the numbers of the sexes, for example. Is the mind of man an exception to a rule to which no other exception has yet been discovered? If it be material, as some would have us believe, then it must acknowledge the laws to which matter is subjected; if it be immaterial, which is negative, or spiritual, which, by the received usage of language, gives us an idea of something different from matter, then it must be under the influence of the laws peculiar to that something to which it belongs. But whatever acts according to a general rule or law, acts necessarily; in other words, its actions are so many effects of causes, which, whether known or unknown, must have an existence. Admit that we cannot determine the nature of those causes: what then? We cannot define in what gravitation consists, but who doubts its existence? We are in utter ignorance of the power which affects the magnet, as we are of the affinity which subsists between that power, and electricity, galvanism, and light; but the affinity itself is matter of observation. It is just so with human actions and human affairs. There is only one course which they can take, and that course they pursue. Look to the career of Napoleon examine the circumstances which contributed to his rise, and those which brought about and accelerated his fall. Being what he was, could he have acted otherwise than he did, or experienced a different fate? I hold that he could not. Like Hannibal, he reached the highest pinnacle of military glory; like him, he tasted the bitterness of disaster and defeat; like him, also, he fell a victim to the inextinguishable hatred of an enemy, who, though victorious, trembled at the terrors of his name. That master-spirit, which so long held the world in awe, is now quenched; but he obeyed his destiny, and future ages will find that he has not lived in vain. It may perhaps be forgiven to one, who has seen him in the court, and in the camp, in battle, in victory, in retreat,-at the head of his invincible legions (invincible, I say, because they were overthrown by the hand, not of man, but God) bearing down with irresistible

impetuosity the forces of his enemies, "and the last single captive to millions in war," to pronounce an unavailing requiescat in pace to his far-distant ashes, and to atone for the irreverence of dragging his name into an idle page, by this passing tribute to a name that can never die.

I have the honour to be descended from a collateral branch of an ancient and honourable family, distinguished alike for the part it acted in public affairs while Scotland was an independent kingdom, and for having sacrificed its all to re-conquer what the Union had destroyed. The cruel proscription, which drove so many brave men into exile, and reduced their families to want and beggary, deprived me also of the little patrimony to which I should otherwise have succeeded. It therefore became necessary that I should be brought up to some profession; and, for reasons which I have never been altogether able to comprehend, the church was fixed upon. With a view to this, I was, at the age of sixteen, sent to study at St. Andrew's. Being naturally of a contemplative and studious, though, at the same time, ardent and enthusiastic disposition, my progress here was such as to give entire satisfaction to my masters, and to fill my father, who literally doted on me, with the utmost exultation. Every letter he received contained some eulogy on his son, and added to the joy of the old man's heart; while his kindness to me, always somewhat excessive, increased in a ten-fold degree, in conscquence of the diligence and success with which I prosecuted my studies. My wants were liberally supplied, my wishes anticipated; and had I been apt to give way to extravagance, I was not without the temptation to do so. No kind or form of dissipation, however, had any charms for me. I have, all my life, had a thorough contempt for persons who find any gratification in riot and intemperance; and I was yet happily a stranger to those vices, in the indulgence of which fortunes may be squandered, without impairing the health or ruining the constitution. Besides, what money I received from my father I considered a sacred trust, set apart for a particular purpose; 1

knew the good man had stinted himself of many of the little comforts to which, from his youth up, he had been accustomed, in order to meet the expenditure of my education; while the unsuspecting and unlimited confidence he reposed in me, the care with which he constantly avoided the least allusion to pecuniary matters, even when I sought for opportunities to render him an account of my disbursements, and the general delicacy of his conduct in concealing from me the difficulties he had to contend with in raising, at the commencement of every session, the necessary supplies, formed altogether so powerful an appeal to every honourable and manly principle in my nature, that I should have regarded myself as the veriest wretch that ever lived, had I suffered myself to sin against so much goodness.

Having completed my course of philosophy, I entered, as a matter of course, on the study of theology; and seeing my father bent on transforming me into a parson, I gave as much attention to the subject as I possibly could command, and, by tasking myself to a regular course and quantum of reading, endeavoured to acquire a competent knowledge of the endless controversies in which every part of scholastic divinity is unhappily involved. By a rigid prosecution of this scheme, I hoped at once to remove some ugly doubts which had long ere this taken possession of my mind in regard to certain parts of the Christian system, and to conquer the repugnance I felt, both to the study itself, and to the profession for which it was to qualify. My efforts were, however, vain; I found myself entangled in the mazes of a labyrinth through which I could find no thread to guide my steps. The darkness of scepticism thickened fast around my head. In such a state of painful bewilderment, the mind, oppressed and sinking under the exhaustion of uncertainty, has only two resources-infidelity, or an infallible church. I chose the former; and, from that moment, resolved, that I would avail myself of the very earliest opportunity to communicate to my father the change which had taken place in my sentiments, and to adjure him to suffer me to abandon a

profession which I could no longer pursue without infamy and dishonour. I am told, that every church contains many secret infidels in her bosom; but this I am inclined to regard as a base and malicious calumny. The man who, with sentiments and opinions akin to those which, at the period in question, unhappily took such firm hold of my mind, continues in a profession which obliges him every moment to give the lie to his own heart, and obtrudes the conviction of systematic perjury and hypocrisy, is as great a monster in the moral world, as centaurs, hippogriffs, and hybrids, are in the natural; and I am disposed to reject, with equal conviction, the existence of both. Now, however, that I have returned "to the better way," and that the dark cloud which once settled over my mind has been, in a great measure, dispelled, I can declare, with perfect sincerity, that the doubt which made shipwreck of my faith was involuntary; that it bore in upon my mind in consequence of an intellectual infirmity, of which I am intensely conscious, though I cannot at this moment give it a name; and that, had the secret of my heart been known, even to the most stern and orthodox believer, he would have considered me as an object of pity rather than of blame, and as the victim of a morbid affection of mind, incompatible with moral responsibility.

My resolution was, as I have already said, taken to communicate the altered state of my opinions to my father. The discovery, I well knew, would come upon him like a clap of thunder, and I trembled for the consequences which might ensue from the shock he would receive. Though a staunch Jacobite, he was also warmly attached to the Presbyterian religion; two things which may seem incompatible to some modern Tories. The fact was, however, his Jacobitism was of a mild and modified kind. No man was more alive than he to the probable dangers which might have resulted to religion, had the family of Stuart re-ascended the throne; but, then, he was willing to run all hazards, and trust to the force of circumstances and the spirit of the age for ensuring the necessary guarantees, in or

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