fate, which puts an end to the various distresses and anxieties attendant on a life of criminality. The dread of death (says Phillips,) has no greater effect on thieves than the fatal consequences of vicious gratification, or than the usual consequences of an indulgence of vicious habits, have on mankind in general. Those who are addicted to indiscriminate concubinage, are not deterred from the dangerous haunt of the Syren, by any dread of the Lues which contaminates the bed of corruption. The fellow who is accustomed to take a drop too much, never thinks of the dropsy which is the inevitable consequence of this degrading habit. It is thus that the malefactor rushes upon his fate with desperate insensibility and obstinacy, although "the black gibbet gloom beside the way." Perhaps the ghastly appearance of the "tree of death," rearing its spectral form before the imagination of those who (as Gall says) "have the organ of murder developed," may pamper their infernal thoughts, and "put toys of desperation" in their way. The man of violent temperament, or who possesses an itching for wickedness, likes to "dram with horror," in the same way that the hypo takes delight in medical books, and the depraved imagination in the glowing pages of Meursius or the Rideau Leve.

The example of our enlightened country, furnishes important lessons for the British legislators; but a stupid and indiscriminate horror of change, prevents these wiseacres from

adopting humane projects, and rouses them against feelings of justice and compassion. Dr. Rush's "Inquiry into the effects of Public Punishments," has produced the most beneficial effects on our community. The view which he takes of the subject is remarkably clear and judicious, and displays a wonderful insight into the intricate machinery of the human mind.

The police of London is not so energetic and well regulated as that of Paris. Irish vagrants and other worthless fellows are employed as constables-although they are generally as great rogues as any they arrest! They are acquainted with the most infamous brothels, the receptacles of thieves as well as the retreat of Cyprian indulgence; they levy contributions on the peripatetic nymphs, and receive bribes to silence complaints. The inhabitants of a city guarded by a well-organized police, enjoy the order and security which it preserves, without imagining the trouble and skill required to manage the political orrery-in the same way that men enjoy the regularity of the heavenly spheres, without reflecting on the Omnipotence that preserves them in such wonderful harmony. Fontenelle, in his beautiful Eulogium of d'Argenson, says that that magistrate would have detected an individual who had slipped into Paris at midnight; that he had his eyes continually on the unknown, whatever precautions he might take to avoid notice; and that if any one escaped from his grasp, at least (which produced an effect equally certain,) no

one dared to think himself secure, or screened from d'Argenson's penetrating glance.

I have visited several of the English prisons, and have endeavoured to collect information on the treatment of the malefactors. The exertions of several benevolent individuals, such as Howard, Gurney, Bennet and Mrs. Fry, have no doubt produced considerable amelio ration in the prison discipline; but there is still much to be done, before the gaols and houses of correction in this country, can be compared to those in the United States. Prisoners in England are generally confined together, the most abandoned with petty delinquents, the healthy with the diseased: thus disorders, both moral and physical, act on all like a pestilential vapour, tainting their minds and bodies with infallible infection, which communicates from one person to another like the circulation of a general panic! In the prison of the Borough Compter, were found heaped together the accused and the convicted, murderers and bruisers. Forty debtors were crammed into two small apartments, which were their bed-rooms, kitchen, necessary and work-shop! When they got up in the morning, the stink and heat arising from such a number of rotten carcases, was so great, that they all pulled off their shirts, and rushed out into the open air, as soon as the door was opened: and the turnkey himself coarsely observed, " that the smell, on the first opening of the door, was enough to turn the stomach of a horse!"

VOL. II.

Those prisoners (and even the most criminal of them) who have money in their pockets, can purchase every convenience and luxury, while the poor rogue has to starve on the prison diet. They procure themselves comfortable rooms, and all the delicacies of the market,* if they are dexterous enough to keep the money they have stolen; and thus the prison has much greater charms for them than a battered wigwam, an obstreperous spouse and starving children: is it a matter of surprise, then, that a gaol ceases to become a place terrible to the imagination, from which the lower classes recoil with horror? and that it holds out an invitation to men of "lawless and uncertain thoughts," to wade through a gulf of iniquity, to more convenient board and lodgings than they can find at home?

The fact is, that a thief is a very dainty gentleman! He does not rob to lead a life of mortification and self-denial. The difficulty of controlling his passions, in all probability, first led him to expenses which made him a thief to support them. Having lost character, and become desperate, he orders crab and lobster and veal cutlets at a public house, while a poor labourer is refreshing himself with bread and cheese. The most vulnerable part of a thief is his belly; and there is nothing he feels more bitterly in confinement, than a long course of water-gruel and flour-puddings. It is a mere mockery of punishment to say, that such a man shall spend his money in luxurious viands, and sit down to dinner with fetters on his feet, and fried pork in his sto mach! EDIN. REV. 1821.

LETTER L.

Ah! who can boast he never felt the fires,
The trembling throbbings of the young desires,
When he beheld the breathing roses glow,

And the soft heavings of the living snow? MICKLE.

Sure there is something more than witchcraft in them,
That masters ev'n the wisest of us all. Jane Shore.

THERE is something exquisitely fascinating in the conversation of a fine woman; even though her tongue be silent, her eyes speak more than volumes. The mind of the beholder appears to sympathize with the regularity of the lovely object, and whilst admiring the graces that sit on her arching eyes or dimpling cheek, vibrates into respondent harmony. Breathes there a soul so dead, as not to be kindled into enthusiasm at the witchery of her look, attitude and voice, when she leans on her harp, and warbles in a plaintive strain, or pours forth vivacious airs, which remind us of the free and melodious chirpings of the woodland birds? For myself, I would wish to pass my life, like Richardson, "in a flower-garden of ladies," to feast on the play of swift encircling and vanishing smiles, the wavy and glittering luxury of the ever-changing beauty, and to catch, ere she falls, the Cynthia of the minute."

The influence of the fair sex pervades every department of life. Science has received from the hands of Beauty some of her sweetest