But warm in virtue's cause he oft would feel,

And some approved his lays, and all admired his zeal.

With thoughts like these, and woodland scenes around, Love was a welcome guest, and early found.

When from the hills the lengthened shadows fell,
And twilight hovered o'er the leafy dell,
'Twas sweet to wander, but how sweeter far
When light and lovely as the evening star
Came one whose voice was gentle, and her eye
Mild as the softness of that twilight sky.
She was his own, his all; the rosy beam
That sheds its rays o'er rapture's early dream,
Then fades for ever; nor beloved the less

For darkened hours when kindness soothed distress.
Through years of youthful happiness she smiled
A thoughtless father's dear and only child ;
But, ere those sunny years of youth had pass'd,
A ruined man her father breathed his last.

I dwell not on the story of her woes,
The midnight tear, the feverish short repose,
Her widowed mother's cry of wild despair,
The deep-drawn sigh of hopelessness and care;
Or how maturer years, long time, were spent
In the calm sadness that appears content.

Scant were their means: for this she little cared;
Nor thought of what was lost, but what was spared.
And, tho' beyond her power to have the aid
Of teachings, oft but had to be displayed,
Her simplest words were eloquent, her voice
Had tones to make the listener's heart rejoice;
And, with the gifts by Nature given combined,
Were all which thought and feeling give the mind.
Hers, too, a form which Art might fondly view,
And see its visions of perfection true;

And Love might worship with the ardent gaze
That o'er the object of its homage strays,
At every glance can fresh attractions find,
And trace a virtue in each charm enshrined.

For her did Bertram live. The crowd may prove
A transient feeling, and misname it love;
His was a deeper impulse, 'twas a part
Of the warm life that circled at his heart,
And she a heavenly ray that seemed to shower
Its influence o'er the feelings of each hour-
Hours ever blessed, when life has joys that shed
Remembrance sweet 'till hope itself has fled.

But manhood comes, and graver cares arise,
And interest claims its wonted sacrifice,
And years, that wealth would purchase back in vain,
Are lost in struggling for some distant gain.
A guardian's will he ne'er had disobeyed
Commanded him to busy scenes of trade;
And the first sorrow that the lovers knew
Was meeting but to part, and weeping bid adieu.
In the proud city that, still growing, spreads
Midst grandeur, meanness, palaces, and sheds,
Midst wealth and poverty its vast extent,—
A vastness, in itself magnificent-

Was Bertram now to dwell; but he ne'er found
In splendour's glare, or pleasure's glittering round,
A moment's joy; his was alone to dwell
Upon the thought of her he loved so well;
Or, by the midnight taper's wasting light,
The glowing language of the heart to write;
To speed the faithful missive, and to chide
The lingering hours 'till words as kind replied.

So months had fled; when on the wonted day
No letter came; another passed away,
And still no tidings; then dark thoughts ensue,
She must be sick, or absent-or untrue;
O! not untrue! for, purity's sweet shrine,
Guilt never dwelt in such a form as thine!
Yet still no tidings; now a week has pass'd,
And every hour more dreadful than the last,
When came a stranger's hand; with failing breath
He reads and 'tis the messenger of death!

His heart was desolate; his spirit fled,
A deadly paleness o'er his features spread,
Anguished he hastes to follow to the grave
The stricken form he would have died to save.

He did not see her; who would wish to see
The one he loved in death's deformity?
Who would not rather part while yet the bloom
Of youthful beauty yields its fresh perfume,
Than mark the cheek's pale hollowness, the hands
With bony whiteness grasp life's ebbing sands,
The thin parched lip grow dark, and the dim eye
Start with the glare of feverish agony-
Who would not rather part while yet are given
The lovely looks we hope to meet in Heaven?
Now was the bitter tear in secret shed;
And grief, that seeks not to be comforted,
Dwelt on its own sad loneliness. No more
The cherished hope was his to linger o'er
With her his treasured pages, and to trace
The thoughts embodied with a poet's grace.
All had the shade of death; 'till ev'n the room
He loved to read in chilled him with a gloom
Which his own sorrows gave it; and he flew
To find elsewhere the calm that once he knew.

Chance, or the workings of that destiny
Which some believe foredooms whate'er shall be,
Led him, his suffering seeking to beguile,
To where had lately risen a costly pile,

The drama's home; alas! that e'er 'twas sold

To baser uses for the love of gold.

For him its charms were in the poet's art,

That woke his fancy or could soothe his heart;

Loved Shakspeare's scenes; or theirs whose shafts of wit
With brilliant flight some vice or folly hit.

Or, when the actor's weighed and varied tone
Gave lines oft read a power 'till then unknown:
Careless of all beside, on these he dwelt,
And what was there but feigned confiding felt.
A milder aspect o'er his sorrows came,
His grief was constant, but no more the same;

In all that now he nightly saw, around
That gilded dome, some interest he found;
And once he wandered where the mingled train
Of guilt and folly held their rites profane.

He would have turned away; the pleasure there
Was not a pleasure he desired to share.

But one was in the throng, that past him swept,
In features strangely like to her he wept;
Vice may be virtue's counterfeit, and twined

With thoughts unhallowed, hallowed thoughts we find.
-So came the fiend, enclosed in beauty's mould,
Tempting to sin some anchorite of old ;-
No earthly feelings first inflamed his breast,
He thought of one then numbered with the blest;
He saw her outward form, and grieved to see
That form midst degradation's revelry;
And tho' not his a heart to sacrifice
His better life an offering to vice.

Yet still the likeness-the bewildering trace,
The vision, of that perished angel's grace
Haunted each waking thought, each lonely hour,
Strengthening its impulse with mysterious power.
He hoped that, still perhaps, a friendly hand
Might from perdition snatch the burning brand;
And, once again that fatal threshold cross'd,
He saw, he spoke; was answered, and was lost.
How different now the feverish course he led!
In heartless joys the rapid moments sped;
Profuse beyond his wishes or his wealth,
Alike were lost time, innocence, and health.
Strange was the fascination. In her bowers
He saw no serpent lie beneath the flowers;
But gold his idol craved, she cared not whence
It came, to feed her folly and expense.

At length his means embarrassed, claims appear,
First gently pressed, then urged with tone severe;
To free his fettered soul he dare not try,

-Too proud to supplicate, too weak to fly;
In some few months he "promises to pay;"
And thus, awhile, averts the evil day.

But oh! a master-fiend's the power he lent
To that brief space and fatal instrument!
Another's name-an honoured name—he signed;
His own to guilt and infamy resigned.

The time has passed, exposure has gone forth,
Vain were his former virtue, talent, worth;
Th' inexorable law must be appeased,

And ruthless hands his trembling form have seized.
On all that followed 'twere too sad to dwell;

He died: that dreadful death I fear to tell.

THE PUNDIT'S PREDICTION.

A TRUE STORY.

Sit fas mihi audita loqui.

I HAVE often heard it said by military men of the present day, and those also who had seen much service, and who had shown themselves energetic and efficient soldiers, that it was a good and wholesome enactment which provided for the abolition of duelling. In fact, on any one's taking the matter into consideration, the wonder to his mind would be that a civilised community should, until about twenty years ago, number amongst its members so very many of the patrician order, who showed by their actions that they thought very differently. Sir Walter Scott, even, moral and exemplary as he was, and revered as he must be in memory as the first novelist who prepared works which were fit to be delivered into the hands of young people as books of amusement, or placed upon a drawing-room table for ladies' perusal—even he advocated the practice of duelling, saying in one of his romances, that "If an insult were offered to me that the twelve judges in the House of Lords could not obtain redress for, am I to blame in standing up in hostility against the person who offers it to me?" Then, if we transfer our consideration from the writings of popular authors to the actions of the leading men of the day, how many of the first politicians do we find who have been implicated in such transactions?-Canning, Castlereagh, Sir Philip Francis-even the great Duke himself. To enumerate their names would be useless, and to say that the practice was universal would be only to say what is evident to any person who recollects the current of events not much more than a quarter of a century ago. These things, I repeat, are still present to the minds of those who recollect the state of society in England at the period I speak of-until the rational and excellent measures of our present most gracious and best-beloved of sovereigns were brought to bear in opposing, and finally abolishing, their practice.

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But if it was so in this highly favoured and happy country, what must it have been in the colonies? As Chalmers says, "What would revolt the feelings of a community in Scotland, would be looked on with indifference, or even with approval, in a colonial settlement." But more than any of the colonies, in India was the low state of morality and the common practice of duelling prevalent. I look over my notes which I took during the time that I was a resident in the Upper Provinces of India-a period of more than nine years-and I find that I have recorded what is really deserving of a second mention with regard to the details of duelling. Of these acts, revolting as they are, and horrible to every rational mind, I have known during my stay in the country as many as twentyone instances, three of which were fatal, two in which parties were wounded; and, with the exception of seven, all were brought about from quarrels arising immediately at the gambling-table and about gambling. Nor were there more than three of the twenty-one instances cases in which men could urge the just cause of injury or unpardonable insult as an extenuation for their contemplated act of violence. I have no doubt, also, but that there were many more than these, but, owing to their Feb.-VOL. CXXXIII. NO. DXXX.

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having happened at the gambling-table, the parties interested in them succeeded in keeping them secret. Of the three which were fatal I recollect all the particulars, and I frequently ask myself the question, What must be the horror-the remorse-the innate sense of anguish more intense than expression can give vent to-of him who is the survivor in a meeting of this nature? To reflect that in a hurried and unguarded manner he has sent a fellow-creature into eternity! To feel keenly to his inmost core

'Tis his the guilt and his the hell
The bosom's desolation dooming,
And that he earned the tortures well

Which, unconsumed, are still consuming.

I recollect one day when I was travelling, seated upon the top of a coach, in one of the counties in Ireland, I was pointed out a man who was engaged in walking across a field some distance from the road, with a gun over his shoulder. The person who pointed him out to me said, "That, sir, is the gentleman who shot a man" (whose name he mentioned) “in a duel. Since that time he has never known real peace; frequently at night-time he has been known to start up and heard to scream, and, though possessed of ample wealth and continual good health, he is never happy."

But with reference to one of the instances of fatal duels which occurred while I was resident in India. The facts are so peculiar, and the train of incidents so characteristic of the state of society which then prevailed there, that I have borne it in memory as one of the striking occurrences which meets one's notice in one's passage through life, and which, amongst many others, would seem as if the Almighty had been pleased to award it as a lesson and a warning to those who were spared. For passing away the hours in the very hot days which prevail in India from March to the end of October, no resource is so much in vogue as playing billiards. Billiards morning, noon, evening, and night. It is much too hot to walk, ride, or drive out. Sedentary occupation is not much favoured by the young and active. Visits to the houses of the gentry are very rare and unlooked for, and, indeed, during the very hottest months, from May to the end of August, are quite ignored, except with those who are on terms of intimate acquaintance, so the billiard-room is the great resort of the young officers. This amusement gives a certain degree of exercise in pursuing it, and the skill required is such as to render it amply worthy of the consideration of the dexterous and ingenious, who find a pleasure in training their eye to the habitude of striking that point of the ball which is necessary to direct its course in order to make the points of the game effectively. I have often heard that the man who was a good shot eventually finds it easy to play the game of billiards successfully; in fact, the correct precision of aim, for which the sight is most brought into play, is the qualification most requisite for a marksman, and is also needful for the man who wishes to strike at the proper point either his adversary's ball or the red ball, and make a cannon or a hazard. But to attain anything like perfection requires much practice.

I now speak of the merits of the game, if it has any, or if it be looked