LONDON JOURNAL. TO ASSIST THE ENQUIRING, ANIMATE THE STRUGGLING, AND SYMPATHIZE WITH ALL. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3, 1834. OBJECTS OF THE LONDON JOURNAL, MONTAIGNE says, that he delights to ring the word "pleasure" in the ears of philosophers who affect to despise it, and who are as fond of it as any men, after their fashion. Since the setting up of this cheerful and most Christian journal, we have known but two instances of objection to it; and to these we answer, that the very grounds of their objection are those which have procured us two hundred approbations. One of these objections was in a criticism, begging us not to "affect" so much sentiment (as if, because the writer would have "affected" so much, had he shown it, that therefore we did);-the other implied that we were invariably too pleased, and with not enough reason,-that we fetched our satisfaction out of too many common things, and did not succeed after all. For the success, we can luckily refer to other readers and as to the rest, it was our plan and system, and forms the very essence, utility, and prosperity of our journal. Our object was to put more sunshine into the feelings of our countrymen, more good will and good humour, a greater habit of being pleased with one another and with everything, and therefore a greater power of dispensing with uneasy sources of satisfaction. We wished to create one corner and field of periodical literature, in which men might be sure of hope and cheerfulness, and of the cultivation of peaceful and flowery thoughts, without the accompaniment of anything inconsistent with them; we knew that there was a desire at the bottom of every human heart to retain a faith in such thoughts, and to see others believe in the religion and recommend it; and heartily have anxious as well as happy readers in this green and beautiful England responded to our belief. We condemn no other publication, conducted honestly, on different principles. There is a noble as well as ignoble warfare, and the time for either, for aught we know, may not have gone by. We condemn none of the mysterious struggles of humanity, even the most passionate, some of them perhaps nobler and more necessary than our ceasing to struggle in that sort; on the contrary, in "sympathizing with all," how can we leave them out? But, as far as our own system of action goes, we may be allowed to cultivate a variety of endeavour, if it be only as a variety, and to confine ourselves to the hope of winning and persuading. There are green fields in the world, as well as fields of battle; and in making a grove, or a park, or other domestic elysium, people do not contemplate the introduction in it of fight and contest and sour speeches. A man may say if he pleases, "I cannot live in your peaceful grounds, with their trees and sunshine, where all which is alive is happy or comforted, and the tragedies are nothing but old stories: I must go and get up a sensation at the police office, or the hospital, or the butcher's, or read a lampoon, or some writing worse than my own, or get up a superiority to somebody somehow, in order to keep myself in heart with myself." Let him go. Nay, we will go with him, provided he will let us find things to be a little better than he takes them for, even himself; for the reader will bear us witness that we avoid no places for their homeliness, and can vindicate the supposed "weed" as well as the accepted flower. But it does not follow that our ground is not a good ground, for all this; or that people have not reason to like it; especially as they are apt to have troubles enough elsewhere, and all but the very restless or "From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney street. No. 23. thoughtless like to have some sequestered spot to repose in,-personally, if they can get it,-mentally, if they have not wealth or leisure enough, or a green neighbourhood. The London Journal is a sort of park for rich and poor, for the reflecting and wellintentioned of all sorts; where every one can be alone, or in company, as he thinks fit, and see, with his mind's eye, a succession of Elysian sights, ancient and modern, and as many familiar objects to boot, or hear nothing but birds and waterfalls, or the comforted beatings of his own heart,-all effected for him by no greater magician than Good Faith and a little reading. Good Faith is his host, and Reading the page that brings books to his host; and Love has ordained, that Good Faith, and a little reading, shall be able to do such wonders for us, as reading's biggest brothers with no faith at all, shall have no notion of. Children and men co-exist in the world; and the child and the man must co-exist in the little world of man's individuality, in order that he may see at once manfully and with delight. Except ye become as little children," &c. We would not lightly apply so great a text; but the greatness of the text includes every degree of loving applicability; and as there is nothing in the world which is not supernatural in one sense,-as the very world of fashion itself rolls round with the stars, and is a part of the mystery and the variety of the shews of the universe, so nothing, in a contemptuous sense, is small, or unworthy of a grave and calm hope, which tends to popularize Christian refinement, and to mix it up with every species of social intercourse, as a good realized, and not merely as an abstraction preached. What! Have not philosophy and christianity long since met, in the embrace of such loving discoveries? And do not the least and most trivial things, provided they have an earnest and cheerful good will, partake of some right of greatness, and the privilege to be honoured? if not with admiration of their wisdom, yet with acknowledgment of the joy which is the end of wisdom, and which it is the privilege of a loving sincerity to reach by a short road. Hence we have had two objections, and two hundred encouragements; and excellent writers of all sorts, and of all other shades of belief, have hastened to say to us, "Preach that, and prosper." Have not the Times, and the Examiner, and the Atlas, and the Albion, and the True Sun, and twenty other newspapers, hailed us for the very sunniness of our religion? Does not that old and judicious Whig, the Scotsman, waive his deliberate manner in our favour, and "cordially" wish us success for it? Does not the radical Glasgow Argus, in an eloquent article, "fresh and glowing" as his good will, expressly recommend us for its pervading all we write upon, tears included? And the rich-writing Tory, Christopher North, instead of objecting to the entireness of our sunshine, and requiring a cloud in it, does he not welcome it, aye, every week, as it strikes on his breakfast-cloth, and speak of it in a burst of bright-heartedness, as "dazzling the snow?" Of a truth, it would not be difficult for us, old battle-grip, and lay a young gentleman or so double PRICE THREE HALFPEnce. earth. But cui bono? Where would be the good of it, even to himself? And why hurt the better use of his faculties, which we hope he will turn to handsomer account? Has not every man and every cause, in this imperfect state of things, a side on which he or it may be assailed, so far as to make him ridiculous (if there is the wit to do it) or uncomfortable, or to vex or injure him in some way or other? And shall we violate our principles, even out of resentment, and join in keeping up so old a story, and (as it appears to us) so useless a ground of re-action,helping to sow new hostilities by very reason of our objecting to old? Not we. We are willing to be differed with to whatever honest extreme, and to answer, as well as we can, all objections, which we have no reason to believe disingenuous; but nothing but a matter of life and death to our Journal shall induce us to be hostile with anybody; and after these announcements, coupled with the hazards of all sorts which we have encountered in old times, we think it will be held something a little worse than superfluous to assail us after a hostile fashion. We are at peace with all; and as we seek the common good, and sail under white banners, we gladly receive the encouragement, and feel ourselves under the protection, of all who honestly pursue it, even by rougher It is not of endeavourers such as we are, without arms, insulting nobody, and offending no public manners, that generous warriors will make an exception to their letters of license. means. Still blow then, ye fair winds, and keep open upon us, ye blue heavens,--or rather, still shine in the whiteness of thy intention, thou fair flag, even against the blackest cloud, and still hail us as ye go, all gallant brother voyagers, and encourage us to pursue the kindly task which Love and Adversity have taught us, touching at all curious shores of reality and romance, endeavouring to make them know and love one another, to learn what is good against the roughest elements, or how the suffering that cannot be remedied may be best endured, to bring news of hope and joy and exaltation from the wings of the morning and the uttermost parts of the sca, making familiar companions, but not the less revered on that account, of the least things on earth and the greatest things apart from it,-of the dust and the globe, and the divided moon, of sun and stars, and the loneliest meetings of man's thought with immensity, which is not too large for his heart, though it be for his knowledge, because knowledge is but man's knowledge, but the heart has a portion of God's wisdom, which is love. Have we none but bright subjects to talk of? No: no more than the sun-beam strikes upon none but bright objects, though it helps to make them bright. But may we not shine, if we can, upon the dullest, and show there is more in it than the dull suspect? May we not shine upon coldness, and warm it? Upon sorrow, and comfort it? May we not also endeavour to add confidence to joy, and show it how rich it is in the commonest coin of the visible? And is not this, instead of confining ourselves to one view of anything, not rather throwing the universal light of day (hitherto insufficiently valued) upon objects of all sorts, not excepting the darkest as well as the commonest? Does the human heart, in its struggles, require such comfort, or does it not? And is not its comfort extended (at least with all minds wise enough to be generous, and to know a good when they see it) by the very sight of so much belief in good, especially when unconquered by suffering? We trust, that as this is the first, so it will be the last time we shall think it adviseable to touch upon a point that forces us upon one of those appearances of egotism, which the egotistical are so ready to denounce; but as we have really no misgivings about the matter, we shall conclude this article, while we are about it, with some beautiful and affecting verses which have been addressed to us, and which have seasonably arrived to contribute to that very confidence, which, on any other occasion perhaps they might have dashed: for the praise from a friend, which is triumphantly seized upon as a shield against objection, might well beget a blushing doubt if only worn as an ornament, But see how little this gentleman, who is one of the most accomplished persons of our acquaintance, a wit, a scholar, and a musician, doubts the desirableness of our mode of conveying comfort; and with what instinctive beauty, like the flowers of which he writes, his thoughts issue out of their dark ground, and climb upon the stalk of their natural ascendancy, and stand in consummate elegance, giving out the fragrance of their hearts, and looking with pensive superiority upon the earth from whence they rose. Great, unquestionably, are his troubles, greater, in some respects, from the very prime of his life, and from the natural and acquired advantages he possesses; but assuredly the greater will be his triumph over them; for is he not able to bring beauty out of sorrow, to seize the smallest occasions for the greatest comfort, and to gather to him the hearts of his friends in sympathy and in zeal? It has been observed of the af, that they are not apt to be so cheerful as the bid and it is true, and for an obvio Cus reason. Being able to help themselves on many occasions, they are too much left to shin for themselves on all, and are thus too often deprived of the sweetest advantage of society, conversation; whereas, the blind man, helpless in all other respects, is helped not only to a double portion of that one, but to a ten-fold measure of love and service at all times. Let him keep it in God's name, and repay us twentyfold with the delight of his blind eyes. But as deaf men, for these most pardonable reasons, are apt to be caustic and resentful, so we know not a more amiable sight on earth, than one, who in requiring a good measure of this help to consolation, cultivates the graces of patience and the willingness to be pleased, and without affecting to be insensible to his evils, turns them into attractions of love and reverence, and takes out of the endeavour to entertain him all pain, but that of not being able to convince him that he does not give any. It is true, in the instance before us, as much entertainment is brought as can be received, and the merit is thus lessened as far as a consciousness to that effect cannot but prevail over an undue modesty. Nor, considering his good faith in all other respects, do we despair of convincing our You the mild morning sun with temperate ray Each day will new fill up With the pure element ye love to quaff. And, if I promise well, you shall not say Emblem of fate too like! your fate I share. Oh! gone for ever gone; and in their room And solitary gloom! If that my life be short, the need is more For whether 'twere the same that Plato drew THE WEEK, WOODS AND NUTTING. E. W. of half-a-mile, through a green lane, a forest (the Cling to each leaf, and swarm on every bough. At the foot of one of these squats me (il pensieroso), and there I grow to the trunk for a whole morning. The timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol around me like Adam in Paradise, before he had an Eve; but I think he did not use to read Virgil as I commonly do there. In this situation I often converse with my Horace, aloud too, that is, talk to you; but I do not remember that I ever heard you answer me. I beg pardon for taking all the conversation to myself, but it is entirely your own fault. We have old Mr Southern at a gentleman's house a little way off; he is now seventy-seven years old, and has almost wholly lost his memory; but is as agreeable as an old man can be; at least I persuade myself so, when I look at him, and think of Isabella and Oroonoko. I shall be in town in about three weeks. Adieu. NUTTING DAY. (For the London Journal.) We never look upon an apple-stall in one of the hot, dusty streets of the metropolis, in Autumn, nor see on it the finely clustered heap of filberts, retailing at " a penny a pint" to the lucky urchin who possesses so much of this world's wealth, but we think upon our joyous nutting days at school. We bring straightway before our "mind's eye" the portly figure of our reverend pedagogue, as on a fine September evening he would announce to our greedy ears that he had given us the morrow for "nutting day." What hasty packing up of bags! Virgil without the boards, Ovid ditto title-page and preface, and our huge dietionary, of which we were so proud, are gladly and unceremoniously thrust away from "human ken" for a day; and then our search at home for our nutting-bag, laid away since last season, and our journey to the pheasant copse to cut a hooked stick, so that we may have nothing left to do in the morning. Then, when the morning arrived, what cager peeping out to see if the day were fine; verily our toilet then was soon made, and our nice brown bread and milk neglected when compared with our usual repast thereof on a school day; how carelessly did we thrust the packet of bread and cheese, made up for us by our prudent landlady, into our aforesaid nutting-bag; for, in truth, we were too much filled with pleasurable anticipations to be able to contain such an earthly commodity as food. We well remember the select companions who composed our the merits of the copse to which we were bending friend that he has no reason to doubt any one's glad- From Wednesday the 3rd, to Tuesday the 9th September. party; methinks we hear them even now extolling ness to reciprocate entertainment with him. But we are keeping our readers from better things than prose. We make no apology of any general sort for publishing the verses, because, setting aside even their merit as such, we take them to be high evidences of the good which the design of this journal is doing with all ingenuous readers, and because the extension of a common sympathy, on any just grounds whatsoever, is one of its main objects. TO A LITTLE BUNCH OF FLOWERS, Sweet little family of happy birth, As this is a season when woods are in the perfection GRAY TO HORACE WALPOLE. September, 1737. on the rich mellow-tinted bushes, drooping with the weight of the ripe fruit; the elder boys suppress the hurrah of the younger ones, for fear of attracting other parties to rob us of the spoil. Now do we separate, but a peculiar whistle will bring us soon together again. The pliant boughs bend under the influence of our stick, and start back relieved of the weight which before oppressed them; nimbly our fingers go to work, and our bag, widening like an alderman's stomach, and our aching shoulders, tell us that we shall soon have as much as our limbs can Hark! our companions bring away with ease. whistle; they, too, have been busy, and call on us to rejoin them. Whither shall we go to eat our repast? -why under the shade of the fine elm which grows at yonder curve of the river, and where we can get our eups filled from the clear spring which runs hard by. Our bread and cheese, rather crushed by the concus- J. S. We think we cannot do better than conclude this sylvan week with descriptions of another lover of nutting, and some foreign kindred of his, from the pens of Mr and Mrs Howitt. The authors designed them for young readers; but we hardly need repeat, that good young reading is good reading for any age. THE SQUIRREL. From "Sketches of Natural History," by Mary Howitt. And from tree to tree, with a vaulting spring; So he finds a hole in an old tree's core, In his warm little nest, with his nuts on his shelf. THE MIGRATION OF THE GREY SQUIRRELS. By William Howitt. When in my youth I travelled, And many a strange thing see. I sate with the small men in their huts, No fire had we but the seal oil lamp, There were hundreds then in the hollow holes But soon the hungry wild Swine came, Then did they chatter in angry mood, Over hill and dale, over hill and dale, But the Hawk and Eagle, and peering Owl, When lo! to cut off their pilgrimage, But then did each wond'rous creature shew With a piece of the pine bark in his mouth And boldly his little bark he launched, His bushy tail was his upright sail, Never was there a lovelier sight Than that grey Squirrels' fleet; Soon had they reached the rough mid-stream, I grieved to behold some small bark wrecked, But the main fleet stoutly held across, OUR READERS WHISKED TO THE CONTINENT, FOR So we may say they will find themselves, while The Rhine.-[We never saw the Rhine so well We have now a garden country, thickly planted with fruit-trees, to Rahens, an old Swissish kind of town or rather village. Painted houses of all shapes, looking as if an enormous weight had fallen down on their roofs, and pressed them out of their fair proportions. * Still moving on through a continued garden. Hills of all shapes and various beauty, and, now and then a castle, or rather its ruins in a bold position at the opening of a green or wooded gorge, with a village or church at its base, stand out shouldering the heavens. A soft, half-sunny day, lights and shadows, but no glare; perhaps the most favourable sky for scenery. It The valley soon narrows; sometimes the mountains descend abruptly to the river, leaving just space enough for the road, and again retreat, as if to make way for a stripe of vines, or an orchard meadow. At this moment something very large and flat sweeps slowly round a wooded projection: it is a raft floating down from Switzerland to some port of Holland. passes heavily along, though favoured by the current, and aided by many hands; I counted 130 persons, all, or nearly all, employed in its navigation. A wooden construction in the centre serves as a place of shelter for both men and merchandize. Forests of timber are thus floated down the Rhine from the valleys of the Murg, the Neckar, &c. This was but a small affair; the large rafts are sometimes a thousand feet The long, and peopled as thickly as Noah's ark. At Boppart, a town (every cluster of cottages in this beautiful Rhingen calls itself a town) of the narrowest lanes I ever passed through in a fourwheeled carriage, we found ourselves again in the midst of gardens and vines, trained prettily into trellised walks and southern-looking alcoves. To the left, ruins rise upon dark rocks, and stretch their fragments from point to point out of the shattered crags. Towns and villages lie basking on the river's brink, mingled with foliage and the mouldering remains of the turreted walls, within which even the most insignificant appears to have been enclosed in the by-gone day of its strength. At Saltzig the river makes another noble bend, and the mountains, folding each other, take the bold character of wild lake scenery. We would willingly linger for some days at the clean and comfortable inn at St Goar, looking at the river rolling its broad tide proudly, as if conscious of all the charming things on its banks, and clambering up to the mouldering castles that make pictures of all the hills; but it is not feasible, so much the better for the shy lizards who are sunning themselves on the old walls this bright day, and for the swifts and lapwings, hereditary possessors of the loopholes and buttresses, to whose unaccustomed ears the fall of footsteps would sound like battering rams. However, it is a bright and beautiful scene, even from the windows, and I sat in one with the shade on my side, and the sun on the landscape, indulging my dreaming propensities, and peopling the mountain solitudes with the friends of early days. ་ : * This is quite a beautiful place, such a gathering of castles. Above, the fortress of Rheinfels, bearing itself fiercely through in ruins; on the opposite mountain-ridge, Katz, a true painter's castle, in the right stage of picturesque decay, clustering its towers with the thousand hues of time upon them round the summit of a rocky height and beneath, a green lap of land advancing gently into the river, with a bright looking village upon it, and a mixing up of boats moored in the sun, and cows reposing in the shade,-an harmonious blending of past and present, and their associations, which fills the eye and mind delightfully. Another castle (Mause) with the village of Wilnich below it, close up the valley. That holy man, St Goar, had the true hermit. instinct for the beautiful and romantic. It seems to have been left by the early fathers of the desert as a legacy to those who came after them to preach the faith. In Catholic countries, a stranger's attention is rarely attracted by a site of peculiar majesty or loveliness, that a monastery or its vestiges may not be seen or traced upon it. A little beyond the village of St Goar, we tried the effect of an echo, prodigiously vaunted by our conductor. The reverberating rocks returned the blast of a trumpet with electrifying fulness. It had all the essentials, I believe, of a fine echo, the dying fall, and countless reverberations. All here is dark and powerful; the black rocks, scanty vegetation, and narrowing river, continue the character of wild lake scenery, for which the garden gaieties of the Rhine, between Coblentz and St Goar, are now exchanged. But now again another charming picture stands out brightly in the evening sunbeams-the castle of Schonberg exquisitely perched above the town of Oberwessel, of whose tower and ramparts enough still remain to vouch for its former consequence. The tender green of the walnut falls in well here, and does all, or nearly all, the honours of the wooded scenery. Another raft has just passed down, followed by a boat laden with vegetables, and a gay freight of bareheaded girls; some steering, others rowing, and all as merry as light hearts and sunny skies can make them. This alternation of bright touches with the sombre colouring of dark rocks and stern defiles, of the prismatic hues and mysterious gloom of nature, is fine and original. Cities and peopled fortresses sending out the fulness of life, and blending its agitation with the solitude of the mountain recesses, with the inaccessible rock and the crumbling ruin, are not the common elements of every day scenery; nor is the effect produced on the mind by their combination of an ordinary nature. An island, with a tower upon it, has just brought out its legend from the loquacious D. A pithy tale of some wicked priest or baron-I have forgotten which seized upon by his harassed and exasperated vassals, and thrown into a cave to be devoured by rats, a death imitating Don Roderick's in horror. But there is no end here to traditionary lore, to tales of marauding lords, fierce priests, and faithful but illfated lovers. The village girls on the Rhine are often very handsome. I think it was at Coblentz, that we first observed their fine eyes and fine shapes, and their pretty mode of dividing the hair into long smooth tresses, platted and turned up round the back of the head, as the young women in the Venetian states are fond of wearing it; but they add a single full-blown rose, and look like Poussin's Arcadians, or the shepherdesses of the valley of Tempe. This beautiful hair is here the young female's chief embellishment; it is usually light coloured, and always glossy and luxuriant. At Bacharach, a sort of town, with carved doors, painted houses, vines and ramparts, we remarked some very pretty girls; one of tall stature, and barefooted, stood by the road-side with a pitcher on her head, holding a child by the hand, and talking to an old man who sat on a stone beside her; it was an antique bas-relief coloured into life. This Bach. arach was the Rhenish Falernus; whether its wines still retain their ancient reputation, or have yielded to the superior strength or more exquisite perfume of the Hocheim or Johannisberg, I know not. But the altar of Bacchus (a stone in the river, so called from tradition) still remains; the waters of the Rhine still ripple round it; and the vine dressers have not yet ceased to believe that an abundant vintage may be reckoned upon, whenever the face of the prophetic stone is visible above the wave. Castles and villages thicken so upon us that we are as weary of asking their names, as the faithful D——is of answering us. It is now the supper hour, and every mountain is marked by thin wreaths of blue smoke, ascending slowly from its base. Troops of boys and girls are driving the cows down from the hills, and turning them into the cottages, which they appear to share with their master. The kine belong to Pharoah's lean stock, but the children are Correggio's very best. I never saw so many bright happy little faces. They kiss their hands to us, as we pass, and when they find themselves noticed, drop quaint curtsies and try to throw a demure look into their beautiful and peculiarly shaped blue eyes. Swiss, French, and Italian Females.—It was on the same evening, as we wandered about in the churchyard of Lungern, looking at the tombs decorated with buds and flowers, and medallions wrought in iron, painted and gilt, according to the wealth, vanity, or affectionate feeling of the survivors, that we met two handsome young women, inhabitants of Meyringhen, going onwards to their village, just as the day declined. I remember expressing my surprise at their venturing through the forests of the Brunig at so late an hour, for they could not have expected to reach Meyringhen till long after midnight. But our guides assured us that the most lonely path might be traversed at any hour in safety; midnight, they said, was the same as mid-day. I thought of Moore's exquisite rich and rare.' Those girls, too, had their jewels of silver and jewels of gold superadded to their beauty, which provoketh thieves sooner than either, as we are told by higher authority, but went their way fearlessly, in darkness and in solitude, sure to arrive unharmed. This is a cheering view of human nature, a setting off against the zebras of Grindelwald. It was charming to think of it, and to know that there is even now a spot, and a lonely one, where innocency is still held sacred, and honesty a part of natural growth, an innate feeling, not only theoretically reputable, but actually practised. I had a notion that this same honesty was a grafted virtue, like truth and temper, two qualities in which children, in an unsophisticated state, are usually deficient; but I was thinking, I suppose, of the pilfering Indians, or those tricking children of nature and coveters of glass beads and pen-knives, the Sandwich islanders, and willingly give up my hypothesis, as painful and perhaps unjust; for I know of few feelings more delightful than the kindly one which a favourable view of human nature diffuses over the mind, nor any to which the heart clings more fondly. Yet why should I conclude that the people of this valley are uninstructed? Have they not their pastors and their elders? And so, after all my golden reveries, and returns to primitive innocence, and innate principle, the same admirable property may be still the virtue of education. The Swiss, planted as they are between Italy and France, which have each a foot in their territory, have nothing in common with either nation, as far as concerns the exterior. Nothing can be less French than a fair Swiss, unless it be a brown one. The light complexioned are more like the Scotch; they have a fresh, cold, clear look; the brown have not the rich eyes or mobility of countenance of the French; they are heavier, and produce less effect, even when they happen to have better features. It is astonishing with what poor tools a French girl contrives to make herself pretty, or at least to seem so; a Swiss peasant has no idea of this, she is as nature made her; if a thought of display crosses her mind, it is expressed coarsely, it is the "cow dancing the courant," -but in her simplicity she is often dignified. The women who work in the fields are in both countries black and baked, but when a French girl can afford to be smart, she asks but a pair of eyes, and the rest (usually coarse stuff) is somehow or other passed off by their eloquence. Both have frequently an expression of broad good humour, but in the one it is more personal, in the other more expressive. Nor do the Swiss differ less from their other neighbours the Italians. There is sometimes a serious earnestness, an undressed fixedness of thought in the expression of an Italian countenance that is fine and natural, and a character of simple goodness. One occasionally meets with a childish sparkle, in some of the young faces, charming in its way; many are vacant and beavy, some hideous, from features, expression, and nastiness; but in the villages and vineyards, one not unfrequently sees single figures, and even groups, that look as if they had sate in Egypt under the tents of the patriarchs, and had come along with the stream of time, without a breath on their freshness, in all the natural grandeur and decent boldness of antique simplicity, with a purity of outline, and a breadth and richness of drapery and colouring worthy of the old masters who painted with the book of Genesis open before them. I have never met with this style of figure in Switzerland; beauty is here rosy, quaint, round; or, if of a higher cast, which is rare, apt to verge on the masculine or stern. ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE. THREE TRAGEDIES OF CIVIL WAR. punishment, and, as the spectacle was to be attended with all the horrid barbarities inflicted by the British law of treason, a vast mob from London and the surrounding country assembled to witness it. The pri soners beheld the gallows, the block, and the fire, into which their hearts were to be thrown, without any dismay, and seemed to brave their fate on the scaffold with the same courage that had prompted them formerly to risk their lives in the field of battle. They also justified their principles to the last, for, with the ropes about their necks, they delivered written declarations to the sheriff, that they died in a just cause, they did not repent of what they had done, and that they doubted not but their deaths would be afterwards avenged. After being suspended for three minutes from the gallows, their bodies were stripped naked and cut down, in order to undergo the operation of beheading and embowelling. Colonel Townly was the first that was laid upon the block, but the executioner observing the body to retain some signs of life, he struck it violently on the breast, for the humane purpose of rendering it quite insensible to the remaining part of the punishment. This not having the desired effect, he cut the unfortunate gentleman's throat. The shocking ceremony of taking out the heart and throwing the bowels into the fire, was then gone through, after which the head was separated from the body with a cleaver, and both were put into a coffin. The rest of the bodies were thus treated in succession; and, on throwing the last heart into the fire, which was that of young Dawson, the executioner cried, "God save King George!" and the spectators responded with a shout. Although the rabble had hooted the unhappy gentlemen on their passage to and from their trials, it was remarked that at the execution their fate excited considerable pity, mingled with admiration of their courage. Two circumstances contributed to increase the public sym generally expressed. The first was, the appearance at the place of execution of a youthful brother of one of the culprits of the name of Deacon, himself a culprit and under sentence of death for the same crime; but who had been permitted to attend this last scene of his brother's life, in a coach along with a guard. The other, was the fact of a young and beautiful female, to whom Mr Dawson had been betrothed, actually attending to witness his execution, as commemorated in the ballad. This singular fact is narrated, as follows, in most of the journals of that period. We need not disclaim any antipathy to parties among our ancestors, much less to the erring or non-erring in-pathy on this occasion, and caused it to be more dividuals of whom they were composed, when we draw upon the sympathies of our readers with the sufferings occasioned by mistakes on all sides. Even in the fiercest and most unrelenting exercise of the human will may sometimes be discerned the perversion of a thwarted desire for sympathy; and its worst evidences are not unaccompanied with something which finds an excuse for it in imperfections of education or parentage (we mean, of course, in the moral and physical sense, and not in the conventional). Let us be thankful when the moral storms of the world turn manifestly to good; and let us hope as much of the rest, and trust that its new lights will show us how they may be dispensed with by and by. There may be discoveries (we trust they are now making) which will render moral as well as physical electricity harmless, and enable what is called the "anger of heaven" to be known only in its beneficence of operation. The following passages are taken from a little volume full of the Tory pepper and mustard of lampoon, entitled the Jacobite Minstrelsy of Scotland. We have long wished to meet again with the history of the affecting incident which moved Shenstone to write his ballad of " Jemmy Dawson," and here we found it, and seized upon it for our readers. We shall put the prose first, and the poetry afterwards, like a dirge over its grave. By the way, nobody thinks the worse of Shenstone's hero for being called Jemmy;" though when Mr Wordsworth re-published his Lyrical Ballads, he absolutely thought himself obliged to leave out half the first line of one of them, because he had addressed his brother in it, as he was wont, by the title of "Dear brother Jem!" So reasonable is custom at one time, and so ridiculous at another, upon the same point! XXXII. EXECUTION OF CAPTAIN DAWSON. SHENSTONE'S ballad is commemorative of the melancholy and peculiarly hard fate of a youthful victim, who was sacrificed to the harsh and unrelenting policy of the government, at the period of its triumph in 1746. He was the son of a gentleman of Lancashire of the name of Dawson, and, while pursuing his studies at Cambridge, he heard the news of the insurrection in Scotland, and the progress of the insurgents. At that moment he had committed some youthful excesses which induced him to run away from his college, and either from caprice or enthusiasm, he proceeded to the north, and joined the Prince's army, which had just entered England. He was made an officer in Colonel Townly's Manchester regiment, and afterwards surrendered with it at Carlisle. Eighteen of that corps were the first victims selected for trial, and among these was young Dawson. They were all found guilty, and nine were ordered for immediate execution, as having been most actively and conspicuously guilty. Kennington Common was the place appointed for the last scene of their "A young lady of good family and handsome fortune, had for some time extremely loved, and been equally beloved by Mr James Dawson, one of those unfortunate gentlemen who suffered at Kennington Common for high treason; and had he been acquitted, or, after condemnation, found the royal mercy, the day of his enlargement was to have been that of their marriage. "Not all the persuasions of her kindred could prevent her from going to the place of execution; she was determined to see the last hour of a person so dear to her; and, accordingly, followed the sledges in a hackney coach, accompanied by a gentleman nearly related to her, and one female friend. She got near enough to see the fire kindled which was to consume that heart she knew was so much devoted to her, and all the other dreadful preparations for his fate, without being guilty of any of those extravagancies her friends had apprehended. But when all was over, and she found that he was no more, she drew her head back into the coach, and crying out, My dear, I follow thee-I follow thee. Sweet Jesus, receive both our souls together,' fell on the neck of her companion, and expired in the very moment she was speaking. "That excess of grief, which the force of her resolution had kept smothered within her breast, it is thought, put a stop to the vital motion, and suffocated, at once, all the animal spirits." Come listen to my mournful tale, Ye tender hearts and lovers dear; A brighter never trode the plain; Of gentle blood the damsel came; How pale was then his true-love's cheeks, So pale or yet so chill appear. The gracious prince that gave him life Should learn to lisp the giver's name. But though he should be dragg'd in scorn O, then her mourning coach was call'd; She had not lov'd her fav'rite more. With calm and stedfast eyes she saw. Which she had fondly lov'd so long; Which in her praise had sweetly sung; She bore this constant heart to see; But when 'twas moulder'd into dust, 'Yet, yet,' she cried, I follow thee.' My death, my death alone can shew The lover's mournful hearse retir'd; XXXIII.-CRUELTY TOWARDS A WHIG. One morning, in those evil days, a man of the name of John Brown, having performed the worship of God in his family, was going with a spade in his hand to make ready some peat-ground. The mist being very dark, he knew not where he was till the bloody Claverhouse compassed him with three troops of his horse, brought him to his house, and there examined him, who, though he was a man of stammering speech, yet answered both distinctly and solidly, which made Claverhouse examine those whom he had taken to be his guides through the muirs, if they had heard him preach? They answered, No, no, he was never a preacher.' To which he replied, If he has never preached, meikle has he prayed in his time.' He then said to John, Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die. When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times. One time that he interrupted him, he was praying that the Lord would spare a remuant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger. Claverhouse said, I gave you time to pray, and you are begun to preach.' IIe turned on his knees, and said, Sig, you know neither the nature of prayer nor preaching, that call this preaching;' then continued without confusion ! His wife standing by, with her children in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and another child of his first wife's, he came to her and said, Now, Marion, the day is come, that I told you would come, when I first spoke to you of marrying me.' She said,Indeed, John, I can willingly part with you.' Then he said, 'This is all I desire; I have no more to do but to die.' He kissed his wife and bairns, and wished purchased and promised blessings to be poured upon them, and gave them his blessing. Claverhouse ordered six soldiers to shoot him; the most part of the bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains upon the ground. Then said Claverhouse to the hapless widow, What thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?' Το which she answered, I thought ever much of him, and now as much as ever.' He said, 'It were justice to lay thee beside him.' She replied, If ye were XXXIV.-CRUELTY TOWARDS A JACOBite. In the rising of 1745, a party of Cumberland's dragoons was running through Nithsdale in search of rebels. Hungry and fatigued, they stopped at a lone widow's house, and demanded refreshment. Her son, a youth of sixteen, dressed up a dish of long kale and butter for them, and the good woman brought her new milk, that she told them was all her stock. One of the party enquired, with seeming kindness, how she lived. Indeed,' said she, the cow and the kale yard, wi' God's bles. sing, are a' my mailen.' Without another word being spoken, the heartless trooper then rose, and with his sabre killed the cow and destroyed all the kale. The poor woman and her son were thus in a moment thrown destitute upon the world. She herself soon died of a broken heart, and the disconsolate youth wandered away beyond the inquiry of friends or the search of compassion. In the continental war which followed some years after, when the British army had gained a great and signal victory, some of the soldiery were one day making merry with their wine, and recounting their exploits: a dragoon roared out I once starved a Scotch witch at Nithsdale; I killed her cow, and destroyed her greens; but,' added he, 'she could live for all that, on her God, slie said!' And don't you rue it?' cried a young soldier, starting up at the moment. Don't you rue it?' • Rue it! rue what?' said the other: why should I rue aught like that?' Then, by heaven you shall rue it, exclaimed the youth, unsheathing his sword, that woman was my mother. Draw, you brutal villain, draw! They fought on the instant. The youth passed his sword twice through the dragoon's body; and, while he turned him over in the throes of death, exclaimed, Wretched man! had you but rued it, you should only have been punished by your God!' We shall conclude these tragical stories, by way of "Here lies Prince Fed, There's no more to be said." THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY AND NOT A MATTER OF RANK. TASTE, if it mean anything but a paltry con- The its chief condition, not any given external rank or bearwards of the time? Are the fineness and truth of sense, manifested by the artist, found, in most instances, to be proportionate they found to have any perceptible relation either to his wealth and elevation of acquaintance? Are with the one or the other? We imagine not. Whose taste in painting, for instance, is truer and finer than Claude Lorraine's? and was not he a poor colourgrinder, outwardly the meanest of menials? Where what generous peer took him by the hand, and unagain, we might ask, lay Shakspeare's rent-roll; and folded to him the open secret' of the universe; teaching him that this was beautiful, and that not so? Was he not a peasant by birth, and by fortune something lower; and was it not thought much, even in him equal patronage with the zanies, jugglers, and the height of his reputation, that Southampton allowed Yet compare his taste, even as it respects the negative side of things; for, in regard to the positive, and far higher side, it admits no cominstance, with the taste of Beaumont and Fletcher, parison with any other mortal's,-compare it, for his cotemporaries, men of rank and education, and of. fine genius like himself. Tried even by the nice, cacy of modern times, how stands it with the two fastidious, and in great part false, and artificial deli-parties; with the gay triumphant men of fashior, and the poor vagrant link-boy? Does the latter sin against, we shall not say taste, but etiquette, as the former do? For one line, for one word, which some Chesterfield might wish blotted from the first, are there not in the others whole pages and scenes which, with palpitating heart, he would hurry into deepest night. This too, observe, respects not their genius, but their culture; not their appropriation of beauties, but their rejection of deformities,-by supposition, the grand and peculiar result of high breeding. Thomas Carlyle.-(From an admirable article upon German Literature in the Edinburgh Review of 1827.) A LADY'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. Charlotte Saumaise de Chasan, niece of the learned My person, says Madame de Bregy, perfectly well proportioned, is neither too large nor too small. I have a certain negligent air which convinces me I am one of the finest women of my size. My hair is brown |