nicated to M'Naghtan the information he had received. The carriage was instantly surrounded by him and three other men. M'Naghtan and one of his accomplices fired at the smith, whom they did not kill, but totally disabled. The blinds of the carriage were now close drawn, that the persons inside might not be recognised. M'Naghtan rode up to it, and either by accident or design discharged a heavily-loaded blunderbuss into it at random. A shriek was heard inside. The blind was let down, and Mr. Knox discharged his pistol at the assassin. At the same moment another was fired from behind a stack of turf, by the servant who had concealed himself there. Both shots took effect in the body of M'Naghtan.

He was,

however, held on his horse by his associates, who rode off with him. The carriage was then examined. Miss Knox was found dead, weltering in her blood. Five balls of the blunderbuss had entered her body, leaving the other three persons in the carriage with her unhurt, and untouched by this random shot.

The country was soon alarmed, and a reward of five hundred pounds offered for the apprehension of the murderers. A company of light horse scoured the district, and amongst other places were led to search the house of a farmer named Wenslow. The family denied all knowledge of M'Naghtan, and the party were leaving the house when the corporal said to one of his companions, in the hearing of a countryman who was digging potatoes, that the discoverer would be entitled to a reward of three hundred pounds. The countryman immediately pointed to a hay-loft, and the corporal running up a ladder, burst open the door, and discovered M'Naghtan lying in the hay. Notwithstanding his miserably wounded state, he made a desperate resistance, but was ultimately taken and lodged in Lifford gaol. Some of his accomplices were arrested soon after. They were tried before a special commission at Lifford, and one of them was received as king's evidence. M'Naghtan was brought into court wrapped in a blanket, and laid on a table in the dock, not being able to support himself in any other position. Notwithstanding acute pain and exceeding

debility, he defended himself with astonishing energy and acuteness. A singular trait of Irish feeling occurred in the course of the trial. One of his followers implicated in the outrage, named Dunlap, was a faithful and attached fellow, and his master evinced more anxiety to save his life than his own. As a means of doing so he disclaimed all knowledge of his person: "Oh, master, dear," said the poor fellow beside him in the dock, "is this the way you are going to disown me after all?"

On the day of execution M'Naghtan was so weak as to be supported in the arms of attendants. He evinced the last testimony of his regard to the unfortunate young lady he had murdered, of whom he was passionately fond, and whom he mourned as his wife. The cap which covered his face was bound with black; his jacket was trimmed with black, having black jet buttons, with large black buckles in his shoes. When lifted up the ladder he exerted all his remaining strength to throw himself off, and with such force that the rope broke, and he fell gasping to the ground. As he was a man of daring enterprise and profuse bounty, he was highly popular, and the crowd made a lane for him to escape, and attempted to assist him. He declined their aid, and declared he would not live; he called to his follower, Dunlap, for the rope which was round his neck, the knot of which was slipped and placed round his own. Again he was assisted up the ladder, and collecting all his energies, he flung himself off and died without a struggle. His unfortunate but faithful follower stood by wringing his hands as he witnessed the sufferings of his dear master, and earnestly desired that his own execution might be hastened, that he might soon follow him and die by the same rope.

This murder and execution took place on the road between Strabane and Derry; and as the memory of them still lives among the peasantry, the spot is pointed out to the passengers, and recalls traits of what Ireland was eighty years ago, even in the most civilized county. Abduction was then a common mode of courtship in the north, as well as south, the and no man was deemed of spirit unless he so effected his mar

riage. Any fatal accident resulting to resisting friends was considered a venial offence, and the natural effect of their unreasonable obstinacy.

The circumstances and character of the parties in this affair rendered it one of the deepest interest. The young lady was but fifteen, gentle, accomplished, and beautiful, greatly attached to the unhappy man, devotedly fond of her father, and with the strongest sense of rectitude and propriety entangled in an unfortunate engagement from simplicity and inexperience. The gentleman was thirty

eight, a man of the most engaging person, and a model of manly beauty. His manners were soft, gentle, and insinuating, and his disposition naturally generous and humane; but when roused by strong excitement, his passions were most fierce and uncontrollable. His efforts on his

trial were not to preserve his life, which became a burthen to him after the loss of her he loved, but to save from a like fate a faithful follower, and to exculpate his own memory from a charge of intended cruelty and deliberate murder.

WHAT a glorious day it is! Talk not to me of Italian skies

"Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,

Till love falls asleep in such sameness of splendour;"

But give me the broken clouds of a June day, sailing about in the blue depths of the sublime, yet lovely sky. How deliciously clear and fresh the air is, as one sits somewhat in the shade, looking forth upon those tall elms, whose tops are swayed backward and forward as the summer breeze rises and falls. What strange, wild, pleasing fancies come into the mind as one gazes upon these graceful undulations, not unaccompanied with a gentle murmur of the leaves!

But is not this shocking idleness? "Have you nothing better to do than loll like an idiot upon that garden chair in the portico, looking apparently at nothing, and sometimes closing your eyes as if you invited sleep? Is this a way in which a rational being should spend his time in this enlightened age -an age of unexampled activity-an age of steam-an age of railroads

Coleridge.

"My dear aunt, I do consider you very much, and I do think you have the most comfortable chairs, and such a charming view from your portico."

Ďid

"Come, come, my good friend, no playing upon words; really it is a shame to see how some young people do dream their time away; and yet you are not so young neither. you not tell me you had never had time to read Wilberforce's Call to the Unconverted. I can tell you where you will find the book."

"Thank you, my dear aunt; but may I ask did you ever read Wordsworth?"

"Wordsworth? no; but I have heard read something of his; he wrote poetry, did he not?"

Why, yes, my dear aunt, he certainly did. There are some 'poets' by name and common report, of whom I should be cautious of saying that they had written poetry; but you may draw upon Wordsworth with certainty. He is as good as the bank."

"Well, that may be; but what has that to do with the matter? I was

"This, my dear aunt, is excellent : it is not a mere diversion of the spirits with a picture of pleasing natural scenes; but it is instruction of the best kind, save one, that can be given to rational and reflective beings. For next to the study of divine things, whereby the mind is informed by direct beams of light from the great source of all intelligence and goodness, what so excellent as to be taught, and not only taught, but led on and assisted, as it were, by the pleasing images and soothing cadences of poetry, to gather a theory of moral sentiments from nature herself, and all her forms of loveliness and shows of beauty? I allow that you may gather a very agreeable and not altogether unphilosophical theory of moral sentiments from the book of Adam Smith on that very subject; butI own, that for myself I can read no book of his without some associations of disgust, arising from the use which has been made by the dull, the heartless, and the covetous, of his treatise on the wealth of nations.

Moreover, I do believe that, to confess the truth, the man was little less an infidel than his friend Hume, and therefore shut out from such knowledge and such sympathy as most assuredly are necessary fully to develope the theory of moral sentiments. But to return from this digression, and to apply our minds more directly to the instruction which the verses I have repeated are so well calculated to convey, only imagine, my dear aunt, how very many impressions of beauty and of truth (or both in one, for truth is beautiful, and beauty rejoices in the open sunshine and undisguisedness of truth)-only imagine how abundantly such impressions might be conveyed to the soul, if we only went forth properly prepared, that is to say, with awakened hearts, or, as in the words of the poet, with a heart that watches and receives. True it is that the great mass of mankind—and womankind, my dear aunt, must, I fear, be included-true it is, that they pass through the world, and all the things of utility, and beauty, and instructiveness which nature provides, as if they were deaf and blind. They may see and hear with their corporeal senses; but with respect to natural truth, as well as to divine, it may be affirmed of them, that seeeing they see not, and hearing they do not understand. They pass on without taking notice. Their eyes may be very good, but they are afflicted (though they do not know it) with blindness of the heart. They have not "a heart that watches and receives;" and without that, they walk in vain through the sunshine, and the shade the dews of the morning bring no refreshment to their souls, and the solemnities of night bring no elevation to their thoughts. This is the truth with regard to them, but as I have said, they know it not, neither do they conceive for a moment the depth of their loss. This is the common condition of ignorance; for, as Plato says (you have heard of Plato, my dear aunt, though you cannot imagine how beautifully he wrote, unless you learn Greek, which you may do, for Cato learned Greek after he was sixty, and Mrs. Carter, though an Englishwoman, was a very good Grecian)— for, as Plato says" Nor do the ignorant philosophize, for they desire not

to become wise; for this is the evil of ignorance, that he who has neither intelligence nor virtue, nor delicacy of sentiment, imagines that he possesses all those things sufficiently." Here I looked up to my respectable relative for some applause-applause which I trust I should not have thought of seeking for myself; but when Plato was in the case, it was, as you will admit, a very different matter. The good lady, however, applauded not, for by this time she was in a profound and tranquil slumber.

66

'How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck nor stain,

Breaks the serene of heaven; In full-orb'd glory, yonder moon divine Rolls through the dark blue depths. Beneath her steady ray, The desert-circle spreads Like the round ocean girdled with the sky!

How beautiful is night!"

This is a majestic picture-" Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free!" How oft has one witnessed such upon the nights in June, vainly endeavouring however to give form of expression to the impressions of pure and lofty beauty which crowded upon one's heart, till even tears essayed to express what one's powers of language could not. This is the fate of those whɔ, having at least some glimpses of "the vision and the faculty divine," are yet wanting in "the accomplishment of verse.' But it was not of this I meant to speak; it was of Coleridge's exquisite allusion to the June night amid the silence of the woods and the murmurings of the brook. You have read the "Ancient Mariner," I suppose, from which the

lines are taken. If you have not, read it by all means at the first leisure opportunity. I do not mean any halfleisure snatch of time in the midst of disturbing avocations. You are not

to read the Ancient Mariner as you would a smart article in a newspaper. You are not to put it in your bag with the hope of reading it at the Four Courts, between the cause of A. versus B., and that of E. versus F., neither C. nor D. being your client. No; this is truly a wild and wondrous tale, enough to set your brains on end, if not your hair, for a good hour or so at the least, and the more you are alone in reading it the better. It is a thing to think upon I promise you. All the men of the ship die around the ancient mariner, but for his sin and his suffering he lives on. At last the dead that lie around begin to work the ship like living men, though animated by other souls than had before belonged to those bodies :

"The helmsman steered, the ship moved on

Yet never a breeze up blew ; The mariners all 'gan work the

ropes, Where they were wont to do; They raised their limbs like lifeless tools,

We were a ghastly crew.

"The body of my brother's son

Stood by me knee to knee;
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said naught to me.

"I fear thee ancient mariner,'
Be calm thou wedding guest,
'Twas not those souls that fled in
pain,

Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest.

"For when it dawn'd, they dropp'd their

arms,

And cluster'd round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,

And from their bodies pass'd.

"Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mix'd, now one by one.

"And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute,
And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

"It ceased; yet still the sails made on,
A pleasant noise till noon;
A noise like of a hidden brook,
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night,
Singeth a quiet tune."

The sleeping woods! I never heard them snore, but I'll be sworn I have seen them in their dusky slumbers, and felt as it were the heavy breathings of their sleep. And who that has ever lived beyond the region of gas lamps. and granite pavements, but must have paused now and then on a June night, in pensive admiration, to listen to the voice of the brook, down hidden among over-hanging trees, murmuring away for ever and ever its quiet tune as summer's quiet influence prevails? Maiden of the downcast eyes (for which thou art forgiven in consideration of the rich fringes of thy silken eye-lashes thus more fully revealed), blush not that I call to thy remembrance such a scene, or that thy heart was softened by it to the confession of a trembling emotion, that no pleading would have wrung from thee in the broad light of day. And dost thou remember how the low rich trembling tones of thy voice harmonized with the scene, the hour, the distant murmur of the brook, even more than that of the nightingale itself, whose notes at intervals rang through the woods with flute-like sound?

But who is that that calls, and our names too? Listen! By Diana's silver bow it is-Thomas, to tell us that the strawberries and cream are mixed, and that we are waited for. Delightful repast-yet have a care, O man, that eatest! Think you that you have possessed yourself of the stomachs of one calf and of five thousand snails? for how else do you expect to digest a quart of cream, and the first fruits of a whole wilderness of strawberries? Milk undoubtedly does agree, for the most part, with calves, even though taken in large quantities, and I have never heard of an army of snails having to send for the surgeon of the forces on account of a surfeit of strawberries. But nor calves nor snails could take the mixture you are now taking without great danger, nor can you. In vain will you seek to make all sure with a glass of the undiluted "native" in these parts. There is nothing stronger than sherry or ten year old ale in the