windows, rendering the heavy hours more fearful to the waking listener. Agnes sat trembling by her father's bed, watching the heavy breathings of his perturbed slumber; the suppressed groan, the agonised cry, the start of horror, and the cold damp dropping from his pallid brows, all spoke the inward workings of a troubled spirit. Agnes had not left him a moment, she continued to moisten his parched lips, till after some hours he opened his heavy eyes and in indistinct accents muttered "It is her, she comes, she comes, with retributive vengeance!" 66 Father, dear father! you have had a fearful dream;" said Agnes, soothingly. "A dream!" he repeated; "no! no! no! no dream, she comes to visit my crimes, which cry to heaven for vengeance, they will hurl me to perdition !" My child, my child!" he interrupted, " you do not know your wretched father; for your brother, your poor dead brother, I wronged the widow and the fatherless, and their bitter heavy curse now falls on me and mine, it pursues me, steps between me and my prayer for mercy; I am doomed, condemned, lost, lost!" "Cease, cease, my dear father!" cried Agnes, weeping in agony, live, live, only live, we will restore-" "Innocent Angel, even to you the dire malediction extends, the bolt has sped, death is now near me; but, who in this cold, merciless world will defend your fair fame from the shame, and the sorrow, and the sin, of a father's guilt, a father's black disgrace! Yet, Agnes, in that world to which I am hurried in all the fulness of crime and horror, a pure bright sphere will be your's. Agnes, I dare not, cannot, bless you; blessings from me would not bless, for the heaviness of a mother's heart, and an orphan's death are on my soul; it burns me up in quenchless flames. I left him to perish, and his widow-" "Is here!" cried a voice, loud, awful, and tremendous;" your brother's widow stands here!" The father and daughter started aghast, they shrieked, a female figure drew near the dying man's bed; her face was pale as marble, yet the fire of fierce undying passions glared in her dark eyes; she raised a long white arm, her majestic form appeared to dilate, as she cast a look upon the dying man; it was such a look as Satan might be supposed to cast upon a victim that he had secured for his own. A moment she gazed and again she spoke. "Man of sin," she said, "man with a heart that never knew the touch of mercy or of justice, your crimes have now the visitation of the All Righteous One; retribution descends, yes it comes from the High and Mighty One, and far exceeds my puny vengeance; for hear, hear to your eternal horror, that your son fell by the hand of my son, your dead brother's son! your daughter was courted, was scorned, was betrayed, by that same brother's wronged and long concealed son: all has been my work, all my designed, my burning vengeance. I, his injured widow, come to thunder in your guilty ears the dire, the awful tidings; to listen to the yellings of your last despair; and see you sink among your kindred fiends." The dying man endeavoured to raise his hands in prayer, but they fell powerless, his eyes, his starting eyes grew dim, the darkness of approaching death overshadowed his brows, and his breathing might have ceased, but the widow, unrelenting in her revenge, in a voice that for a moment held the parting spirit from its rest, bending over the bed, shrieked "Sinner, sinking in your sins, the widow's heaviest malediction, the malediction of your brother's orphan, sink with you to the habitations of never ending despair." "Oh woman! whoever you are," cried poor Agnes, interrupting her furious denunciations, with melancholy calmness, and clasping her hands with supplicating fervour; "in pity leave him, leave him to depart in peace." A deep sigh, it deepened to a groan, was heard, and Agnes had no father. She fell upon his breathless bosom, and for a time lost all remembrance of her sorrows in insensibility. The widow of Mr. Trevor's elder brother, when she found herself left destitute and deserted, and during the delirium of a fever had been bereft of her son, on her recovery had determined to enter on a convential life, but a very large property having devolved on her before her noviciate expired, changed every intention. With care and caution, she not only concealed her residence, but even that she survived, and having an unbounded command of money, she soon discovered the obscure abode of her poor wronged boy, and bribing the woman with whom he had been placed, (should inquiry ever be made about him) to declare him dead, she hastened to England, and with revenge burning in her heart, she reared and educated her son under the assumed name of Spencer; by her contrivance, he went to school and college with Henry Trevor, and there his intimacy commenced between him and his unconscious usurping cousin, what she had secretly devised as vengeance for her wrongs, must be left to conjecture, for a coincidence of circumstances not simply assisted, but accelerated, and enabled her to pursue her direful purposes. Her son's inclinations, and having unlimited indulgence, and his violent passions being under no controul, he had no concealment from his mother; she knew his dishonourable preference and designs against poor Madeline; to secure the innocent affections of youth and beauty, and then leave the confiding one to sorrow and disappointment, was at once his delight and unmanly triumph. In this procedure his mother encouraged him, it suited, it aided her vengeful passion; to effect her ruin, was one part of her vengeance, and the inexplicable affection of Mr. Trevor for him, expedited the work of misery. After his fatal duel with his cousin he fled to the continent, where his mother after the death of him she had pursued with such unrelenting vengeance, joined him, and, for the first time revealed to him the secret of his birth and hereditary claims on Castle Trevor and its valuable appendages; but, with all his love of pleasure, desire of conquest, and indulged passions, one spark of the great origina' lay dormant in his breast, and his nature re coiled from the description of her own relentless desire of revenge. Reason and better feelings took their turn to reign, and the milk of human kindness melted every harsher thought; and when he recollected the chaste fondness, the innocent kindness, the serene confidence of the beautiful deceived Madeline; when he recollected the affection, the partiality of his dead uncle, without one suggestion of their consanguinity; when he recollected the friend who had so loved, so distinguished, so trusted, and honoured him; when he recollected his hand had shed his life-blood, had precipitated his darling sister to an early grave, and the father to madness and a death-bed, the accumulated horrors overwhelmed him, the three graves seemed to yawn and give up their dead to reproach him; he felt lost to society, lost to himself, lost to every thing noble in the moral character, and every thought hardened towards his mother, and he formed the resolution of surrendering the whole of the possessions so long withheld from him to his poor desolated cousin Agnes, the only survivor of his uncle's family; his ruthless mother he resolved to avoid, to leave for ever, and as the best refuge from corroding reflections he entered the army, when war was raging: his mother, maddened at his desertion, and torn with self-condemning torturing conscience, soon died a maniac. Poor undone one! in thine arrogated power to do evil it was forgotten that there was an awful and just God who in words tremendous hath said "VENGEANCE IS MINE!" Her son attained an elevated rank, and distinguished himself for courage and bravery, yet he lived a gloomy and dissatisfied man; nothing could "ERASE THE WRITTEN TROUBLES OF THE BRAIN NOR PLUCK FROM MEMORY A ROOTED SORROW." If it could be said that he ever experienced any alleviation to the calamitous circumstances of his early youth, it was in the society of his cousin Agnes. She rather tolerated than encouraged the intercourse, and his visits consequently were few and far between." Agnes had possessed an innocent gaiety of heart, which the misfortunes of her family had entirely subdued; but her piety and well-regulated mind, her gentle nature and singleness of heart, all influenced her conduct, and she "forgave trespasses as she desired to be forgiven." She lived in retirement, beloved, and respected, and she died lamented by the great and good, and mourned by the poor and humble. Let the heart bursting with undeserved wrongs be still; let the revengeful spirit desist; the judge of the widow, the father of the orphan liveth for ever, and hark to the sounds tremendous! "VENGEANCE IS MINE, AND I WILL REPAY, SAITH THE LORD." RIDDLE (FROM THE FRENCH.) Not like you, reader, on the earth One parent only gave me birth, I never knew another. And he from whom I sprang to life, Did on my natal day, Take me to be his happy wife, What is my name-I pray? IMPROMPTU, WRITTEN ON DESTROYING A PACKET OF OLD LETTERS. BY MRS. CORNWELL-BARON WILSON. I will not look upon them now! Let me consign them, thus uncared; For their apostacy be spar'd! For who would pause to gaze upon The wreck that's left in after-years Of idols that our youth has known, And wake the bosom's bitt'rest tears? Thus perish all! unmark'd-unmourn'd, That would revive the bosom's pain; LOVE unrequited-FRIENDSHIP spurn'dGo sleep!-and never wake again! And oh! could Memory but erase With the same ease as these consume, From the Mind's page, each painful trace, The Heart would long retain its bloom! No! I'll not gaze upon ye now, Ye mute remembrancers! that prove How false is FRIENDSHIP'S firmest vow— How weak is faith-how frail is Love! LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. And strew'd thy path with flowers, I will not tell thee that thy sky Now bright those eyes are beaming, Oft breathes a falt'ring tone; One prayer is for thee sped For joys which once it knew, The flowers of faded hue; K. W. M. To whatever place a good man may be banished, he will find Nature, the common mother of all men, and his own virtue. C W our BLUNDERS OF TRANSLATORS. pugilistic combats "Le Boxk." Every body, he says, knows the passion of all classes and conditions of the English for the Boxk. and he adds, "the Boxk is an indispensable part of a gentleman's education.-Fathers and mothers make their children fight in their presence; the Professors do the same in all schools and colleges, and the Boxkeurs begin by "butting with their heads like rams." The extravagant amateurs (les amateurs outres,) of horse racing, we are informed, are called "Black-legs," from the colour of their boots, which they never take off. (Query, did Monsieur wear white boots?) "The Bondstreet loungers" are said to derive the name from a light repast in the middle of the day, which they take in the eating houses, and which is called a lounge. (Query, lunch.) The patriots of England, according to another accomplished French tourist, are called Wigghes, from the Isle of Wighh, where all run-away matches are made. But this is less amusing than the felicitous accuracy of a Parisian Journalist, who translates the title of our newspaper "the Independent Whig," by "La Perruque Independante." Monsieur H. Bouchitte, in writing the life of the German theosophist and mystic visionary, Jacob Boehm, gives a list of his numerous works, among which he sets down as one, (6 · Reflections on Isaiah's boots." Now, these said reflections were applied by Boehm to a theological and controversial treatise, written by a learned divine, called Isaiah Stiefel; but Stiefel as well as being a family name, is the German word for the English boot, French botte, and hence, with the help of a little blundering, came M. Bouchitte's "Reflections sur les bottes d'Isaie." The English translator of Beckman's History of Inventions, calls Barnabò Viconti one of the signors or lords of Milan, the Viscount Barnabbo ; but this is nothing, compared with Hoole, the translator of Tasso and Ariosto, who renders "Icolubri Viscontei," or viscontian snakes, (meaning the arms or crest of that family,) by the "Calabrian Viscounts." The French Translator of one of Walter Scott's novels, knowing nothing of that familiar name for toasted cheese, "a Welsh rabbit," renders it literally by "un lapin du pays de galles," or a rabbit of Wales, and then told his readers in a note, that the lapins, or rabbits of Wales, have a very superior flavour, which makes them be in great request in England. The writer of the Neopolitan government paper, "Il Giomale delle due Sicile," was more ingenious. He was translating from some English newspaper, the account of a man who had killed his wife by striking her with a poker, and at the end of his story the honest journalist, with a modesty unusual in his craft, said, "We are not quite certain whether this English poker, (pokero) be a domestic or surgical instrument. I'VE LATELY HAD SOME MONEY. BY JAMES BRUTON. Obscurely I have pass'd my life, Till I, like Byron, woke and found The "Poison-tree of Java!" 'Tis not so now, for all, I vow, Flock near, like flies round honey; I used to say some funny things, Though young and handsome, once I thought Not her with hump, and one eye; From London Bridge to Chertsey, But each sad face turns sunny; If an idea started, I ne'er was listen'd to, and none Cared how in scorn I smarted! My slightest whisper now is heard, No more their ears are dunny; They cannot act without my viewsI've lately had some money! SONNET. How oft I've felt, amid some joyous scene, Cov'ring hope's vision, as a fun'ral pall. Because sad thoughts press heavy on the brain, And lov'd forms seem to flit, and gaze around, Who never more on earth will smile again: Thus joy's spirit sinks, and, 'mid scenes so glad, You wander slowly, silently, and sad. J. M. C. LETTER TO THE EDITRESS OF THE Grove House, Brompton, MADAM, The libertinism of the press seems to keep pace with the depravity of the age. sanctuary of domestic life is pillaged to pamper the vitiated tastes of gaping, illiterate multitudes. Wretched and worthless scribblers swarm now in every direction. They are locusts in the land contemptible grovelling creatures, whose sole aim is to crush nature's sweetest affections, and to sever the nearest and dearest ties. The "ignavum pecus!" Oh, that they were crushed-that they were annihilated! on the table, I saw thse wicked letters, and the enigma was solved. Whilst meditating upon this dilemma, I heard a tremendous crash, as of crockery or glass. "Then," said I to myself," Mrs. W. is breaking all the I hastened down stairs, glasses in mere revenge The had burnt the whole of your magazines, and in and what a sight presented itself to my view! She doing so, the chimney had caught fire; the flames burst forth into the room, and threatened destruction to the whole place. Mrs. W. was busied smashing the china as fast as she could, which I greatly prized, as some of it had been in our family for centuries. All was demolished with the exception of an old tea-pot, which had been handed down through fifteen generations of the Wedderwhen, as I turned round, Mrs. W. levelled this burnes. I was about to retreat to go for assistance, said tea-pot at me with great force. It struck the back part of my head; I fell on my face, and was soon deluged in blood. Some of my neighbours now came to my assistance, and by their exertions the fire was soon got under-I have been confined to my bed ever since, whilst the expenses of the engines with the damage done by the fire, will cost me very little less than one hundred pounds, and as to the china which I would not have parted with for any money, no human power can replace. These remarks, Madam, are called forth, from the matrimonial letters which appeared in your Magazine of the 1st September last, ushered in by one Pertinax Wedderburne, Esq. Is it not too bad that not only are circumstances in a man's life to be thrust before the public, but that the unprincipled vagabond who does this, has not even the decency to shroud them under another name. My name is really and truly Pertinax Wedderburne. My peace of mind has been destroyed--my domestic quiet disturbed—an irreparable injury has been done me by the publication of those letters. Of this you can judge from the circumstances de tailed below. See, Madam, what trouble you have got me into. You were the cause of it, but the innocent cause therefore I cannot blame you. But it is in In early life I was very unsuccessful in my matrimonial speculations. True is it that I was refused by nine different ladies, which your cor-your power to make me reparation. I ask of you respondent has magnified into fifteen. True is it to give up the name of the recreant author of those also that I advertised for a wife, when I obtaine letters, that I may wreak upon him that vengeance the present accursed, and not "dear partner of my which his perfidy deserves. life." Would to Heaven I had had the mortification of being refused nine times nine instead of only nine, ere I had been pestered with this vixen. But to the cause of my complaint. Mrs. Wedderburne and I were the other morn ing seated quietly at breakfast. She was reading your Magazine (which she takes regularly)—I, The Times. I had just swallowed one cup of coffee, when Mrs. W. thus broke out at me : "You are a pretty blackguard, Wedderburne, you have been at your old tricks again!" about three years since published a memoir, as of I rather suspect it to be the same person who offence to Mrs. W., and in consequence of it we my life, and in my name. This gave mortal did not speak to each other for six months. I could never convince her that I was not the author of that memoir, which she fancied I had written on purpose to turn her into ridicule. She laid the same charge to me about the letters, whence the scenes I have described. I hold scribblers in such thorough detestation that if I come across a stranger, and he attempt to This exclamation made every limb of me trem-thrust his conversation upon me, before I exchange ble, for I knew it portended a coming storm. "Now be calm, my dear," said I, thinking to pacify her, "don't put yourself in a passion there's a love, for Here interrupting me she shrieked out, "It is thus you always jeer me, you wretch, you do. You know that that quiet way of your's alway's exasperates me," when, taking up a cup of coffee, she dashed it at me, cup and all, with very great violence. The coffee was scalding hot, and nearly blinded me. The concussion broke the cup, a piece of it stuck in my forehead, and the blood streamed down my face. Regardless of the mischief she had done, she rushed to a book-case, and taking out a pile of your magazines, she quitted the room, exclaiming, "I'll make you pay for this, you brute, that I will." Left to myself, I began to think of the cause of this ebullition of anger. I wiped my face, and taking up the publication, which my wife had left a single word with him, I ask him point blank, "whether he has ever figured in print, or is in any way connected, directly or indirectly, with the Press. And no man is ever admitted to my acquaintance until these questions be answered to my satisfaction. sustained, I hope you will not refuse the favour I In consideration, Madam, of the injury I have I am, Madam, solicit. Your obedient but CUT IT SHORT.-A gentleman having his hair cut, and being annoyed with the operator's stories, in the middle of each he said, "cut it short." At last the barber in a rage exclaimed, "it cannot be cut shorter, for every hair of your head is cut off.” A TALE OF THE PASSIONS; "PILGRIM OF AVON," &c. "The fairest things Invite us often to our ruin; It was a cold and cheerless evening at the conclusion of Autumn, and the breeze sighed in melancholy sadness, as if wailing the departing glories of the year, now sinking gradually from the maturity of beauty into the decided period of declining age. At the door of a neat, but somewhat neglected cottage at the further extremity of a retired village in -shire, stood a pale wretched looking female, who was evidently waiting with intense anxiety the arrival of some person for whom she was watching. There was a degree of feverish excitement visibly expressed upon her haggard, though still beautiful features; a despondency which had cast a blight upon the faint blossoms of hope, and delineated with an indelible impression the truth that some deep and powerful sorrow held full possession of her bosom. and sinking on his shoulder as if no longer able to "makes a Desert's wilderness A verdant Eden bloom." Born She stood beside his couch almost before the echo of her name had ceased to reverberate on her ear; and as she bent over him, and imprinted a kiss upon his feverish cheek, he said, "You have been weeping, love: I too well know the cause, and that the last effort has been as ineffectual as It was one of those cottage-homes which poets the preceding ones. My father is still relentless in the wildness of their fancy, have depicted as the--will not see, forgive, nor even send a cold chosen retreat of contentment-the spot where blessing to his dying son!" peace and happiness alone are to be found; but "Oh! Edward, dearest, dearest Edward," rethose poetic dreams have proved to be but the in-plied the agitated girl, sinking on her knees by his terludes of fancy, and misery delights to hold her side, "it is I who have been the cause of all this revels in the cottage as well as in the palace. misery-and yet what a world of bliss have I Within this humble habitation, on a low couch known in the devotedness of your affection! How reclined a young man, whose sunken cheek de- wretchedly have I repaid your love for me since I noted him to be suffering severely from illness: a have been the cause of this fatal, eternal separafew embers flickered on the hearth, and an un- tion from your family. Forgive me, Edward, say trimmed lamp, which was placed on a table in a that you forgive me for all the sorrows and the distant part of the room, shed its pale and sickly sufferings you have undergone, for had you never rays on the wasted and sallow countenance of the seen me you would have been happy." invalid, who, although evidently enduring pain, reposed silently upon the lowly bed as if unwilling to excite the sympathy, or command the kind offices of the female who was standing at the threshold of the door, and who ever and anon turned a wistful glance into the interior of the cottage. ill, but methinks I feel as though the springings of a new existence were even now germinating within my bosom-it may be for life, or for death, but be it which it may I am calm-calm as the gentle eve when the breeze scarcely ruffles the leaflets of the rose-tree." "Not so, Catherine, my own love, not so," returned Edward, who appeared on a sudden to be gifted with unusual strength, as he placed one of his emaciated arms around the neck of his sorrowing helpmate, who had buried her face within the folds of the coverlid of the couch to conceal the The dense mist of evening hung like a veil over poignancy of her feelings, and to spare the best the distant landscape, and the mirth of the laugh- beloved of her bosom the pain of witnessing the ing youth of the village was hushed into profound tears she could no longer restrain, "cheer thee, silence as the lights in the windows of the neigh-love: for my sake be calm: I have been ill, very bouring cottages gradually disappeared, while she, a lone and solitary watcher, was apparently left the only wakeful guardian of the secluded hamlet. It was evident that moments were as hours to this poor sorrow-stricken girl, who had scarcely counted eighteen summers, and who started as the faintest echo of a distant sound broke upon the stillness that prevailed around. She was evidently wedded to misery, and ready to sink into the dread embrace of despair. The darkness of night, a starless, cheerless night, found the person we have introduced still in the same attitude of watchfulness. At length a quick step was heard in the distance, and as the sound gradually approached the anxiety of the female appeared to increase; a deep sigh escaped her, and she wrung her hands in agony when the individual for whom she had been so anxiously looking, reached the door of the cottage, Catherine looked up, and as her glance met his she dashed the intrusive tear-drop away which had obscured her vision, and with forced composure said, "I will be calm, so that thou wilt live to bless me.' "Hear me, Catherine, my earliest, my only love," continued Edward with a degree of energy which formed a striking contrast to his feeble appearance, " the first springings of my affections rested upon you; they have never faded--nor do I now regret that in the moment of youthful passion I devoted my heart at the shrine of your |