THE TRANSPORT. A POETICAL SKETCH. THE azure sky was clear and bright, One lonely ship, from Scotia's land, A firm, united, suffering band Of uncomplaining exiles bore For ever from their native shore : Their thoughts, their hearts, were still at home! The sun shone brightly, and the breeze The canvas scarcely stirred ;-at ease All nature seemed: the air was balm,' The exiles shared the general calm, And, in the scene around them spread, Their simple kirk in wood-land dell, Whilst youthful voices lifted high Sudden a cry of anguish dire Was heard Fire-fire,-the ship's on fire!' And many a shuddering mother clasped And still masts, shrouds, and sails, and deck, With disappearing hands:-raised high, Was heard the desperate love of life One look he cast upon his child, Had risen superior to the fire! Once more he knelt: (his silver hair Still brightly shone the deep blue sky, 'What is frail man, O Lord, that thou He breathes, and make his wants thy care? Man flourishes his little hour, Goes hence, and is beheld no more. The tide of human feeling flows [This poem is founded upon a prose sketch in the Janus; or Edinburgh Literary Almanack, entitled 'The Transport.'] ON SUPERNATURAL APPEARANCES. A more hackneyed subject than this the most unfortunate candidate for originality can hardly attempt to discuss. Thousands of scribblers have, I believe, vented upon the world their credulities and incredulities concerning it some professing to believe firmly in the existence and appearance of ghosts, and others making such a belief the ally of folly and of ignorance. But to ask two plain questions-why are any of us, full grown in understanding and stature, afraid of such things? and why have even wise men unhesitatingly asserted their faith in them? ''Tis conscience that makes cowards of us all,' presents by no means a satisfactory solution to hundreds of cases of this description; though, where such a cause exists, we need not philosophise upon its effects. But there is, I think, scarcely an individual to be found who has not felt, at some period of life beyond the age of youth, an actual dread of supernatural appearances, the very idea of which he has, perhaps, at other times ridiculed as mere idle superstition. We can, of course, account, up to a certain stage of the mind's progress, for the terrors of those whose understandings have been early imbued with tales of horror, narrated with all the sincerity of conviction by their ignorant and ill-chosen protectors or companions. But, independently of the influence of early prepossessions, there seems to be in most men a natural fear, or some other kindred sensation, of something unseen, undefined, but yet believed in, because apprehended. My acquaintance is limited; but I have, as yet, conversed with no moral man of cultivated intellect who has not owned a sensation of fear or awe arising from this cause, on some occasion or other, which no argument, founded on unbelief or improbability, could subdue. Some have considered this fact as affording strong probability; because it is independent of reasonings which might, in various ways, be impugned and overthrown, to shew that there is implanted in us by nature, (as we say in popular terms) a belief in the existence of a future state, and in the proximity to us of its inhabitants. For, it appears, that any thing conducing to present eternity to us, as it were, in a real form, necessarily excites in us feelings correspondent with the condition of our mental attainments. Thus, the boy is terrified at the bare idea of seeing a ghost; the mature, and enlightened mind of the moral man, on certain impressive occasions, contemplates the eternal world and its spiritual occupants with profound awe, not unmixed with painful dread. There are, I should think, but few who would venture to deny the possibility of apparitions; and, perhaps, as few who could be persuaded to receive, without qualifying their assent, the best authenticated account of such an occurrence. And certainly, the singularly absurd relations of ghosts, by weak or designing men, are almost sufficient to lead us to include all that has been said or proved in support of them in one sweeping charge of falsehood and delusion. My earliest and most distressing fears were on the subject of ghosts. The living were comparatively unheeded by me, whilst the bare thought, in the midst of my youthful pastimes, of the dead, a source of nocturnal disquietude, was sufficient to render them all insipid and even hateful. I was eager, therefore, to avail myself of every argument and opinion denying their earthly visits, and at length, in fact, gained enough of scepticism to allay my terrors, and to render me a tolerably comfortable infidel. But this unbelief was afterwards much shaken by the following argument, with which |