that it was now no longer needed, when a new and more terrible evil arose to call him once again from the simple pleasures and delighted retirement of his cottage home. rather than dispelled by the faint flickerings of the one small candle, and the monotonous day, unbroken save by the clucking of the fevered lip, and the moan of the sufferer alternated by the insane rhapsodies of his fever fit, were alike insufficient to exhaust the physical activity or mental patience of the wives, mothers, and daughters, who watched above the stricken and unconscious ones. Political disturbances are, without doubt, more than sufficiently terrible and evil. To see the homestead of our neighbour throwing a ruddy light upon the murky hours of the night-to hear that he, from whom we lately parted at the convivial board, and who was then high in spirits, joyous in health, and anticipating a long life of usefulness and peace, has been fiercely slain by evil or misguided mento see familiar faces distorted by the violence of passion, or scowling and lowering in the sullen brooding over a dastard, but irresistible revenge; all these things are-alas! how terrible it is! terrible even to imagine, and indescribably terrible when they become matters of actual personal experience. Illness, no doubt, makes the sufferer insensible of the value of the comforts which wealth strews in profusion about his couch: they are comforts, nevertheless, and if they cannot banish torture, or give strength to the enfeebled frame, they at least take the worst sting from the mind's portion of the inevitable evil. But the illness of the poor How bitter is their chalice, who to bodily illness add the gaunt and noisome ills of real, absolute, helpless, and resourceless poverty! But even these and the other accompa- The peasant is not poor-whatever his niments of civil strife, whether local or own wilfulness, or the deliberate or misgeneral, seem to me to fall far short of the taken falsehood of others may teach him horrors of a time of general sickness. A to the contrary-while his labour supplies stout heart, a strong arm, and a clear head, him the necessaries of life, though it is not not merely give to man a certain confi- valued by society—and that is the true test dence in his ability to make good his own of a man's claim upon aught beyond nedoors against all wrongful comers, but cessaries-at the price of any of life's mere also inspire him with a fierce and not un-luxuries. hallowed self-gratulation, as he reflects that God has entrusted him with these precious gifts not for himself alone; and that he may be, if the evil spirit spread widely and wax fierce, a leader and a deliverer to the intended victims, and an efficient opponent to the man of blood and to the man of rapine. But when the pestilence walketh abroad, and Death shooteth his arrows in the dark, none of this consoling self-reliance and hope of individual usefulness lend their aid to diminish the heart-heaviness of him who looks at once with a sympathising and an awed spirit upon the general calamity, It is to woman, usually so shrinking and so timid, that a fortitude is given at such times to which the more daring, but less enduring, spirit of man is wholly unequal. Truly as beautifully was it said of her dear sex by him, who knew humanity "with a learned spirit," second only to that of the mighty one of Avon, The very beggar is not poor; for in losing shame he has secured a daily supply of all that he thinks worth having, a little food and much drink; and the curse of the impatient, who selfishly gives to trou blesome importunity what he would refuse to the sorest extremity of silent want; and the pitying frown of the industrious and feeling, who give in weak pity, not unmingled with contempt; these, which to a high and delicate spirit seem to be evils more terrible than want itself, have no sting for the mendicant, who trades upon the misdirected feelings of others, and his own simulated miseries. Unconsciously he imitates the philosophic greed of Vespasian; and thinks if he does not say, as he gazes upon the glittering coin, "does it smell of the source it comes from?" But when the industrious man, who has only his industry to depend upon, is stricken down by illness, real and most lamentable poverty soon finds its way into his humble home; and is rendered trebly painful by that honourable and honest pride, which is nowhere more strongly or more purely felt than by the English peasant, when he is undebased by vice and and debauchery, and not misled by artful falsehood. And in the district around the residence of Charles Smith, the contagious disease, of which we have spoken, speedily produced even this most lamentable degree of poverty. Men who, during a season of inclemency and distress, had chiefly owed their power to earn a subsistence to the good feeling and liberality which had caused work to be undertaken, less from any real want of having it done, than from | mansion of the peer. Of the prevalence a humane wish to afford them support, of this fault Charles was far too intelligent coupled with a wise desire to avoid doing and observant a person to be unaware; that injury to their feelings of indepen- and he devoted himself to the task of predence, which is always done by mere alms, venting its evil effects in the case before given to any but those whom age and in- him, with an energy and zeal which renfirmity absolutely unfit for labour, were dered the calamity, that speedily befel him, not likely to have been in a position to lay infinitely greater than it would have been by money for this season of new and terri- in the case of almost any other individual ble visitation. The natural consequence in his entire neighbourhood. ensued. Wherever the producing members of the family were the victims of the sickness, there all the other members were more or less immediately exposed to all the horrors of actual want. The parish dole at such a time as this, it will easily be believed, was not withheld; but those who needed it not were the exceptions, not the majority, and therefore that dole was but small in proportion to the necessities which it was intended to relieve. "The sick man's sickly-appetite Turns from the dry bread and potatoe meal," says one of the noblest of our poets;* and one who is equally noble when scourging the pretended friends of the poor, and when commiserating their wants and advocating their real interests; and the parish dole barely sufficed to to support those who tended the sick, without being trenched upon to supply comforts for the latter. Again, then, Charles felt himself called upon to be up and doing; to provide support for those who watched above the sick, and to supply the numerous small comforts to the sick themselves, which have so soothing and so powerful an influence in raising the drooped head and cooling the fevered blood. In this matter exertion was requisite, but that was all; for never yet was a real case of need submitted to the notice of the wealthy of this country-whether the wealthy in the comparative or in the superlative degree-without procuring that aid. Nevertheless all the activity and zeal of Charles were needed. For it somehow happens that where there are very many who will give money for a useful purpose, it not unfrequently happens that there are but few who will bestow trouble or labour upon either the collection or the distribution of it. And let not the generation of grumblers impute this, either, to the rich as a fault exclusively theirs; for if they know anything of the peasantry and mechanical population, for which they so loudly-and of course quite disinterestedly-complain, they know, too, that the fault of indolence and dislike to the sacrifice of ease is quite as common among the poor as among the rich; in the hut of the peasant as in the gorgeously-appointed * Southey. At a village which had been especially ravaged and desolated by the contagion, and in which, though the sickness was fast abating, there were numerous cases of extreme and terrible distress, Charles was one evening detained until a very late hour. For after having given the welcome aid of which he was the bearer, he had sat in consultation with some of the principal inhabitants upon the best means of still further aiding those who were unable to labour, and for providing labour for those who had, by this time, happily become able to do so. The hour when Charles left this village to return to his own was, as we have said, a late one. But Charles, by this time, knew the country well, and, therefore, though portions of the road were bad, and even dangerous, he had no doubt of reaching his residence without accident. The distance, indeed, was considerable, and lay, for the most part, across the heath, at one extremity of which stood his cottage. But the night was not very dark. his horse was fleet, and he, as has been remarked, well knew where the dangerous portions of the heath were situated. Promising to make another call at an early day, he departed from the house, at which he had been so usefully and benevolently engaged, and had already proceeded some miles on his journey, when the low mutterings of rising thunder, and large drops of rain, afforded proof enough for even a less experienced traveller than himself, that a heavy storm was approaching. "So ho! Lightfoot, my bonny man, you must e'en gallop for it," said Charles; "and I must keep a bright look out a-head, too; for if I lose my way just now, I may be pretty sure to find no one else on the heath to set me right again. So ho! my man; so ho!" And Charles galloped gaily forward. But he had not the heath quite so exclusively to himself as his talk with his good horse shows us that he imagined. We have said that the heath across which lay Charles' road to his home was in some parts dangerous. To a horseman travelling by night it was so; for in many parts there were ravines which descended so sheer and sudden from the general level, that a single false step of the horse could scarcely fail to procure broken bones for both himself and his rider, even if actual loss of life did not ensue; which, however, had more than once unfortunately been the case. In the daylight these ravines were of small consequence, for though the heath was not very much traversed, the safe path, in whichever direction the traveller was bound, was quite sufficiently beaten to render it impossible to quit it unless wilfully, or with his eyes shut. But by night, even by the uncertain starlight, it was by no means improbable that the horseman might diverge from his path, and be plunged down a precipitous descent, and that to a depth which would ensure both himself and his horse remaining there for the night, whether dead or alive. By the side of one of these ravines, hidden by the tall fern which overhung it, crouched three men, who by their conver sation evidently waited for some one of whose approach they were tolerably certain. "Devil take the fellow," said one of them, "he tarries long, and the storm rises fast and furious. But surely he must by this time be too near us to dream of preferring the backward to to the forward road!" "I wish he would come, and quickly, too, master, for I never quite liked your thunder and lightning since I saw six smart fellows struck down dead within a a yard of me." "Ah!" said Bischoff, for he it was who had first spoken, "I remember you have been aboard ship." "Yes, at Portsmouth. And bad luck to the berth I had there. But here he comes." And as he spoke, the fitful gleam of the lightning showed them a horseman galloping swiftly across the heath, and already within a hundred yards of them. "The instant he falls, then, off with his hand. I can slay," he muttered, "but I cannot butcher; dash the carcass down the ravine, and away with you." He had scarcely ceased speaking, when he rose suddenly up in the path of the rider, covered him with his pistol, and fired. "Damnation!" shouted the rider; but though the shot had evidently taken effect, he held on his course; the startled horse careering along at a rate which prevented Bischoff from presenting his second pistol till he at whom he had fired was far beyond his range. (To be continued.) TO THE SEA MEW. Go, listen to the wild sea mew, his home is the ocean wide, His scream is one of dread and fear, for the mariner knoweth well Go see his form, on dark waves borne, when the wind is fierce and loud, And O, it is a fearful thing when a ship is in a gale, To see him with his rapid wing flit by the straining sail, To hear his cry above the sigh of agony, and then His scream in scorn as the raging storm drowns the loud shrieks of men. Yet whee the ship has sunk beneath the green and glassy wave, RODERICK. THE METROPOLITAN. NO. LXXIV. FOR JUNE, 1837. LECTURE ON THE BRITISH POETS. DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITU- BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, ESQ. Now the inventors and employers of these wonderful creations-for creations of science they are, in the only sense in which man, himself a creature, can create, namely, by the discovery and combination of elementary powers for artificial purposes-the inventors and employers of I ADD one other splendid example of the these wonderful creations, and the multiromance of reality in our un-ideal age; tudes of those who are regularly engaged the mode of illuminating our streets and in preparing directing, and adjusting dwellings, our palaces and temples, down their operations, have, during the dayto our factories and workshops. "Ex time, their attention so devoted to interfumo dare lucem;" from smoke to bring ests which are all-absorbing, that while forth light, is the consummation of the they have intellectual enjoyments in propoetical art, in the figurative language of portion as they are under the happy neone of its greatest masters. This is liter- cessity of exercising intellectual energies ally fulfilled in the process of exhibiting in their respective occupations-being olefiant gas. From the dark coal, the dun themselves the souls of the brute machines vapour, passed through purifying vessels, which they superintend-the acting spirits and collected in huge receptacles, is thence which put every part in motion, and discharged through branching tubes, un- slacken, accelerate, or suspend it at pleadermining this great metropolis, and like sure-these cannot be expected in their the arteries and veins of a human body, hours of relaxation to turn to the epic distributing the subtle, invisible, and peri- pages of Milton, which require an effort lous fluid, (were it suddenly ignited,) by to understand, though the understanding thousands of minor pipes, in which it lies would ten times over compensate for the as innocent as the sleep of infancy, till on effort-nor to run riot with Gray in the the turning of a tap, and the appliance of luxuries of lyric song, of the highest ora taper, the beautiful flames leap up der-to sit at the feet of Pope, and listen through their pin-prick orifices, and con- to his didactic strains, or read themselves tinue to cast their steady, clear, and pow-into reverie in pondering upon the subtle erful light so long as required-then at a and sublime sentimentality of Akenside. touch they again disappear. To the mere sense, this is quite as marvellous as the exhilarating fiction in the Turkish tale of Abdallah and his chandelier, when the moment he lighted one branch after another, so many dervises or genii appeared, and danced about it in a ring, till at the touch of his wand each vanished as suddenly, throwing him a piece of silver. But literature itself, in its present multitudinous and diffusive shapes, is unfavourable to the growth and cultivation of poetry. "The march of intellect," if it have not trodden the Muses under foot, has left them far behind the tumult, the dust, and the array of millions whom it has attracted to its train. The majority of these, however, are more like the miscellaneous rout of men, women, and children, that accompany a pedestrian prize walker, on his measured piece of ground, backward |