eyes, and, from the mist and the distance of departed Time, call forth into embodied form my earliest, my best preceptor. "Sit tibi terra levis;" and long may the memory of thy worth, and thy peculiarities, survive in the breasts of those who have benefited so essentially by thy instructions!

I was conveyed up the room, as it was termed, and placed under the tuition of one of three assistants, whose office it was to see me instructed in the Catechism, to hear me read the Bible, to ground me in spelling, and attend to my writing. I was placed at the very foot of the Bibleclass, and (most unfortunately for my sides, which she continued to elbow incessantly,) next to my female antagonist. In about fifteen minutes after my admission, we were all called up to say-in other words, to read our lesson. It was, I remember well, from the book of Kings, and we read each a verse in succession. When it came to my turn to begin, you might have heard a pin drop. "In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did according to that which was right in his own eyes!" Having read these words, in the most drawling antiquated (quasi legas auntiquated) manner, accompanied, at the same time, with an air of infallibility, as who would say, "I am Sir Oracle," the whole class laughed; all the school was in a titter; and even the master himself, whilst he reproved, and even chastised others, could not help smiling. What I wanted, however, in point of manner, I had in more substantial acquisition; and ere many months had elapsed, I had ascended within three of the head.

Winter being now arrived, we had the benefit of a fire in the upper school, to which all of us were in our turn admitted during the school hours, and close by which the master generally placed his own chair. We wore in general, during winter, clogs, or large wooden-soled shoes, shod and toe-pieced with iron; and whilst my arch-antagonist, the Amazon, was one day warming herself at the fire, in the immediate presence of the master's shins, I contrived, unseen, to thrust a small live-coal in to the heel of her clog, which having burnt its way through the stocking,

penetrated at last, even through the thick hide of the heel, to the quick. The pain was at once sudden and severe, and occasioned in the girl a most unguarded and unfortunatelydirected kick forwards, in endeavouring to disengage her foot from the clog. This brought the iron sconce into contact with the master's shins, and this again, in its turn, brought down upon the shoulders of the offending girl a large and immediate allowance of pedagogical chastisement.

66

On another occasion, and about the same period, whilst I was, according to use and wont, employed in eating my piece" during the interval, or what we termed "middle of the day," I was prevailed upon, by a big lump of a farmer lad, to occupy the extre mity of a short bench upon which he was seated; whereupon he rose up suddenly, and my occiput came into immediate contact with the pavement behind me. This affront being quite public, was absolutely intolerable; so I plucked up courage, and lent him, with all my strength, a firm chopper on the jaw-bone. This led at once to a regular set-to, in which, partly from address, and partly from the encouraging cheering of my school-fellows, who of course sided with the weaker party, I obtained a decided victory. This battle, thus conducted to a happy issue, was absolutely the making of me. It was fought in the presence of all my school-fellows, who had mounted upon benches and tables, and even upon each other's shoulders, to witness it; and I could hear my name, hitherto but partially known, associated with the most flattering epithets. My female antagonists sunk into mere insignificancy, and even my male associates admitted that I was "a devil of a fellow," when put in a passion. Cato became himself again. I was henceforth "the True and Authentic Ill Tam,” which, previous to my school education, I had ever been.

P. S.-As my Uncle is just upon the eve of proceeding with the account of his "classical education," and with some rather interesting traits of his character, during that important period of his life, it may be as well to pause here, and to subscribe myself at once,-yours truly,

X.

1

THE LIFE OF CALEB CORNHILL.

Chapter VI.

I KNOW not how it came into my head, But come it did, that I would be a poet;

And though I cherish'd pleasing hopes, amid

My heart's deep silence, I wish'd none to know it;

And, like my brethren, hence I did not write

For fame-that transient meteor of a night.

No I believe 'twas that mysterious passion,

Which men call Love, that tempted me to try it;

And this could scarce be call'd a great transgression;

It sooth'd the sorrows I was forced to sigh at

The adverse fate that kept me from possessing

All that on earth which I conceiv'd a blessing.

Yes! I was young, and I had no posses

Our parson was a man of taste, I thought; Of little fancy, but of sterling sense; And he to learn what sort of style I wrote, Thus spoke to me with all his eloquence,

Thus shew'd his lore-and he was proud to shew it

At the expence of many a mighty poet:

"Then wilt thou write romantic tales, like Scott,

With all of fancy's wild magnificence? Or strike, like Campbell, a deep organ note,

Although the music sometimes drown the sense?

Or fill, like Thomas Moore, the songs of passion

With far-fetch'd similies-a strange transgression?

"Or wilt thou sit, like an hysteric maid, Like Wordsworth, weeping o'er a faded daisy ?

Or wrap thyself, like Coleridge, in a

shade

Of unintelligible thoughts and crazy? Or wade, like Crabbe, through folly, vice, and dirt,

To talk with mortals that have scarce a shirt?

"Wilt thou, like Byron, with distorted mind,

Clothe home-ideas like the eastern

kings,

And send them back again to dupe the blind,

Who hail them all as new created

things?

Or try, like Percy Shelly-very odd !— To wound the pious, and insult thy God?

"Or wilt thou venture and succeed like Southey,

To pay addresses to the Epic muse? Or weave a web of recollections youthy, As Rogers doth-though not of bril

liant hues?

Or, like Montgomery, with a nameless art, Pour forth the holiest feelings of the

heart?"

I said, I never had a model sought for, But he might have a sample of my

rhyme, And from my manuscripts this song I brought, for

I could produce no better at the time, And whether he might blame it or approve,

It had a pretty name

66 A WOMAN'S LOVE."

"A woman's love, deep in the heart,
Is like the violet flower,
4 E

But, in thy bud of beauty, I could trace

The lovelier, riper bloom I now behold: I lov'd thee as a child-but now my heart Would part with all-before with thee it part.

"I lov'd thee as a child-the will of Heaven

Our ways divided-long we never met; Long-till a vision to my heart was given,

That, like a polar summer sun, shall set But only once, in the long wintry night Of death, that quenches every mortal light.

"A lovely vision! more substantial far Than any dream that warms the poet's

heart

"Twas thou, whose eye beams like a r diant star,

Whose lips like twin-buds that the breezes part,

Whose charms were then, as they will ever be,

All that endear'd this darksome world to

me.

Here Brougham's a paragon for every speaker,

And there he's only fustain, froth, and foaming;

Chapter VIII.

Although our cottage was a lonely home, A lonely home as well may be on earth,

And though our neighbours seldom wont to come

And join the circle on our evening hearth,

Yet we were not companionless-the flowers,

The hills, the dales, the streams, the woods, the rocks were ours!

We had the lark's song when the morn was risen,

We had the linnet's when the day declin'd,

And we had all the visitants of heaven,

The sun, the mcon, the stars, the piping wind,

The hurrying cloud-and who could feel a dearth

Of happiness on such a lovely earth!

Oh happy is the spirit that beloves

All lovely things in ocean, earth, and sky!

Pleasure shall meet him whereso'er he roves,

Like smiling angel with benignant eye; For his imagination throws a robe Of glittering light, like sunshine, o'er the globe.

And happy is the spirit that can fly

From dissipation and its noisy mirth, To feast upon the beauteous scenes that lie

In Nature's ample lap for such give birth

To fancies fair as e'er to heart were given, To feelings blameless as a saint's in hea

ven.

breaker,

dales,

The sky-lark's carolling, the linnet's

bill,?

What are the dropping dews, the breath

ing gales,

The roaring cataract, the tinkling rill? What is the heaven above, the earth below,

To those whose hearts are withering with their woe!

Fortune, whose smiles are, like mankind's, deceit,

Changed her fair aspect to a wintry gloom;

Oh how we shrunk the gathering storm

to meet,

That overhung us with a fearful doom!