Page images
PDF
EPUB

he exclaimed in a tone of suppressed agony.-"What does this mean?—Tell me, Mary, I conjure you !"

"This way,-Come this way," repeated Mary, trying to force him down a different path, but in vain; when, supported under the arms of two drunken soldiers, and more than half intoxicated herself, flushed with intemperance, dressed in the loose and gay attire of a courtezan, and singing with all the violence of wanton mirth, they beheld Fanny! After Lewellyn's departure she had fallen a victam to the flatteries and attentions of an officer, and had at length become a follower of the camp.

| to temptation was the cause of her guilt, I am bound in conscience to marry her."

"To marry her," exclaimed Mary, while she could not help rejoicing at that moment that Fanny was no more. "Yes, to marry her!" replied Lewellyn; "you know you yourself imputed all the mischief that has happened, to my going for a soldier."

"Not exactly so," replied Mary: "I imputed it to the war."

"That is much the same thing," retorted Lewellyn hastily; but Mary was of a different opinion. "Therefore," continued Lewellyn, "as I long very much to see her-do, my dear cousin, do go for her this afternoon."

At sight of Fanny in this situation, Mary uttered a loud wrram; but Lewellyn, stood motionless and lifeless as a statue, with his eyes fixed on the still lovely, though degiaded form before him. But the scream of Mary had attacted the attention of Fanny; and her eye, quick as lightning, saw and recognised Lewellyn. She also screamcl, but it was in the tone of desperation; and rushing for-pened ?" wards, she fell madly laughing on the ground. The soldiers, concluding she fell from excessive mirth, laughed louder than she did ; and, in spite of her struggles, conveyed er in their arms up the road that led to the camp. Lewellyn had sprung forward to catch her as she was falling, but Mary had forcibly withheld him-but that was the last effort of expiring energy; with tottering steps, and in lent agony, he accompanied Mary to her lodging, and ere two hours had elapsed, he was raving in the delirium of a fver; and Mary began to fear that the beloved friend whom war had spared to her would have returned only to de the victim of a worthless woman. Day was slowly begin-membering at that moment nothing but her merits; and he ning to dawn, and Lewellyn was fallen into a perturbed sumber, when Mary, as she stood mournfully gazing on Más altered features, heard a gentle tap at her window, and, softly approaching it, beheld, with no small emotion, the wretched Fanny herself.

The season of self-command was over. Mary got up; she sat down again; she turned pale, then red; and at last she burst into tears.

"What is the matter ?" cried Lewellyn, "what has hap"Fanny-Fanny is ill in bed," faltered out Mary, "But not dying, I hope ?" answered Lewellyn, tottering to a chair.

"Not not far from it," said Mary, resolved now to tell him the whole truth.

[blocks in formation]

"Impossible!" replied Mary, gently unlocking the door, and closing it after her as she stood at the door." He is li, perhaps dying-the sight of you"

"Has killed him, no doubt," interrupted Fanny, turning even paler than before, and full of the dreadful irritation consequent on intoxication after its effects have subsided. But do you think he will not curse me in his last mothents, as they say his parents did ?" "Oh, no, I'm sure he will not."

[ocr errors]

"Do you think he will pray for me?-Ask him, Mary; ask him to pray for me,” she continued with horrible eager

"I will, I will,” replied Mary; "but for mercy's sake, po away, lest he wake and know your voice!"

*Well, I will go—I will go. I know I am not worthy to speak either to him or you; but no one is waking but You and me, Mary; so no one sees how you are degraded.” I did not mean that; I did not indeed," cried Mary, barsting into tears of pity.

We shall not dwell upon the interview of the lost girl with her lover, and the generosity of Mary tried to the uttermost of woman's endurance. But fate removed her miserable rival; who, on leaving Mary's cottage, plunged despair into a neighbouring stream and was drowned. Nor durst Mary confess to Lewellyn that his worthless mistress had perished by her own deed. He next day inisted upon seeing Fanny, and every day he wondered that

the never came.

[ocr errors]

“I feared, and she feared," replied Mary, blushing," that ber presence might agitate you too much."

[ocr errors]

“Nousense," replied Lewellyn, rather pettishly: "it would me good rather; for in spite of all Mary,-in spite of all, I feel;-I feel that I love her still.”

* Indeed!" cried Mary, turning pale. "Yes," answered Lewellyn, with a deep sigh; " and I ain convinced that, as my going away leaving her exposed

"Let me see her-I will see her," he exclaimed, staggering towards the door.

"It is too late!" cried Mary, forcing him into a chair; "but remember, dearest Lewellyn, that before she died, you had kindly forgiven all her offences towards you." "She had none to forgive," fiercely replied Lewellyn, re

insisted on seeing her corpse, if she was really dead.
"She is buried, also," replied Mary, almost piqued at this
obstinate attachment to an unworthy girl, while her
faithful love and modest worth were unregarded; but she
soon lost all resentment, in terror and pity at the anguish
which now overwhelmed Lewellyn.

At first it showed itself in vehement exclamations and declarations-that she should not die-that she should still be his wife; but at length he sunk into a state of hopeless despondency, and, throwing himself across his bed, for two days all the efforts of Mary were vain to rouse him from his mournful stupor. On the third day he became composed; and taking Mary's hand, he said,

My dear, good cousin, lead me, pray lead me to her grave."

This request was what Mary had dreaded. "I-I do not know which it is," replied Mary. "Then we can inquire," coldly answered Lewellyn. "No, no,-if you are determined-I think I can find it," said Mary, recollecting that she could show him some other grave for hers.

"I am determined," answered Lewellyn; and with slow steps they set off for the burying-ground.

When there, Mary led him to a grave newly made, but the flowers with which it had been strewed were withered.

Lewellyn threw himself across the turf, and darting an angry glance at Mary, said:

"These flowers might have been renewed, I think; however, this spot shall be planted now, as well as strewed:" and Mary did not contradict him.

But, unluckily, at this moment, a woman, whose mother was buried in the grave which Lewellyn mistook for Fanny's, came up to them with fresh flowers to throw on it; and before Mary could prevent her, she demanded what Lewellyn meant by lying on her mother's grave.

Lewellyn, starting up, replied that he thought Fanny Hastings lay buried there.

"She," answered the woman: "no, poor thing! she drowned herself, and is buried in the cross-ways!"

Lewellyn gave a deep groan, and sunk senseless on the ground; nor did he recover till he had been conveyed home

and was laid on his bed, his head resting on the arm of Mary.

When he opened his eyes and saw her, he gave her such a look of wo!—and refused for some days all nourishment

and all consolation, as he had done before; while Mary, rendered desperate by his obstinate resolution to die, lost all

power of exertion; and after one day of great anxiety, when she left him for the night, she felt as if she should never be able to leave her room again.

The next morning, when Lewellyn awoke from his disturbed slumbers, he was surprised not to see Mary watching by his bedside; and though resolved not to eat, he still felt disappointed that his kind nurse was not there to invite him to do so. But hour after hour elapsed, and still no Mary appeared; and Lewellyn's heart died within him, as the probability struck him, that she had at length sunk under the accumulated fatigue and sorrow which he had occasioned her.

The idea was insupportable; he forgot his languid des pondence; he forgot regret for the dead Fanny, in fear for the living Mary; and hastily dressing himself, resolved to go in search of her.

Still, respect forbade him to enter her chamber; and having with some difficulty reached the stair-case, he stopped there, irresolute how to proceed. Had he entered her room, he would have seen with some emotion, I trust, what a wretched garret and miserable bed Mary was contented to use, in order to accommodate the ungrateful object of her affection-but, as I said before, a feeling of delicacy and respect forbade Lewellyn to go further, and he contented himself with calling Mary by her name. Still no Mary answered again he called, but in vain; for, though Mary did hear him the second time, she was not in a humour to reply.

She had lain awake, revolving in her own mind the whole of her past existence; and she found that her life had been uniformly a life of wearisome exertion, uncheered but by the consciousness of having done her duty; to be sure, that consciousness was a sure blessing, and Mary had found it so; but at this moment, worn down as she was both in body and mind, existence seemed to have lost every charm; and she resolved, like Lewellyn, to lie down and die. Indifferent, therefore, even to Lewellyn himself, she was lying still in her sleepless bed when she heard wellyn's voice calling her in an accent of anxiety.

"Tell him what ?" cried Lewellyn, seeing that Marg hesitated.

"Tell him, it was our wish, that he should forget the worthless girl who has forsaken him, (remember, Lewe lyn, it was they who called her such nanies, and not [.) and make you his wife. It is not pretty to praise one's self, I know, Lewelly," continued Mary, blushing, but I may repeat what they said, surely."

"And what did they say " asked Lewellyn,
"Why, they said I was a very good girl; and they w
sure I should make you happy!"

fully; "but you are a good girl-a very good girl, Mary
"Happy!-make me happy!" cried Lewellyn more.
he added, putting his arm round her waist, and pressing ber
to him as he spoke.

This circumstance, trival as it was, invigorated the hop of Mary, and gave her courage to proceed." Now heat my resolution, Lewellyn !—From my childbood to the present hour, I have lived but for you and your dear unfor and my strength have been cheerfully devoted; but griet tunate parents; to them and you my health, my time, has now nearly exhausted me, and I feel that my power of exertion is nearly over; for I see, that-though I have loved you through all your sickness and your sorrow, and love you as fondly now as if you were still in the pride and bloom of health and youth-I see, wretch that I am! that it is with difficulty you speak kindly to me; and that Far so odious to you at times, that"

"Odious!-you odions to me !" exclaimed Lewellyn, starting up with unusual animation; "you Mary! my friend! my nurse! my preserver! my all! now"row, Lewellyn." "Then promise me not to give way to this deadly sor

"I will promise you any thing," cried Lewellyn, tenderly.

witness your death-I am ill-1 am very ill; and unless "For, mark my words, Lewellyn-I will not live to Le-assured that you will consent to live, I will take no fo suming me." no remedies, but give myself up to the languor which is con

The heart so lately quiet began to beat violently; her imagined indifference immediately vanished; and raising herself up in her bed, she listened eagerly to hear the welcome sound again. "So! he misses me he wishes for me -he is alarmed for me!" thought Mary; and in another moment she distinctly heard Lewellyn at her door, saying, through the key-hole, "Mary! why, Mary! dear, dear Mary! for mercy's sake speak to me!"

fondly to his bosom, "you shall live for my sake, as I will "Mary!-dearest Mary!" cried Lewellyn, catching her live for yours! from this moment I will shake off this unworthy sorrow." We will either live or die together; and than sorrow, fainted in his arms, and for some time the He said no more: for Mary, more unable to bear jer It was the first moment of pleasure that Mary had she revived at last, and in a few weeks, to the satisfaction terrified Lewellyn feared that she was gone for ever; but known for many weeks; and telling him she would be of the whole town, to whom Mary was an object both of down presently, she hastly dressed herself, and, full of affection and respect, the lovers were united at the parish something like renewed hope, joined Lewellyn. But with church. his fears for Mary's health had subsided his inclination to Not long after, a gentleman, to whom their story exertion. She found him as she had left him the night be- table farm on his estate, and Mary shines as much as a was known, put them in possession of a small but comfor fore-stretched on his bed, the picture of wo, and again re-wife and mother, as she had before done as a relation and solved to refuse all the nourishment which she offered him. friend. This was more than she could bear with patience. The cheek, so lately flushed with hope, became pale with disap-lour of Mary's cheek; and whenever a recruiting party But the sound of the drum and fife always fades the copointment; and sinking on the foot of the bed, she exclaim-passes her gate, Mary hastens into a back room till it is ed: "It is over, and the struggle is past; why should I past, and Lewellyn runs to the extremity of his firs endeavour to keep alive in you, or in myself, an existence avoid it; while Mary, shutting the door after her with o painful to us both? Yet, I own it does grieve me, Lewel-lence, exclaims, "I always did, and I always shall hate lyn, to see you so very indifferent to me, so very unkind?" war, and all that belongs to it; and let who will desire it. Lewellyn, at these words, raised himself on his elbow, my boys, except in case of an invasion, shall never, never and looked at her with surprise and interest.

"Cruel, cruel Lewellyn !" she continued, rendered regardless of all restraint by despair, "it is not enough, that from my earliest days I have loved, hopelessly loved you,

and seen another obtain the love which I would have died

to gain? but must I see this happy though guilty rival triumph over me still even in her grave? Must I see you

resolve to die with her, rather than live with me ?"

Here Mary paused: but Lewellyn's heart being too full to allow him to answer her, she soon continued thus :

"Dear Mary!" said your parents to me in their last moments, "should our deluded son be still living and ever return to his native town, tell him"

be soldiers."

preached a most edifying discourse on "Come, and dra
A clergyman, not quite a hundred miles from this place.
without price."
water out of the wells of salvation, without money and
shioners took the liberty of drawing water from a very fine
On the following week some of his part-
divine was not a little nettled. Being reminded by the in-
spring well in the parson's garden, at which the learned
plied, "You may draw as much water as ye like from the
trader of his text and sermon, the reverend gentleman re-
wells of salvation; but if you come here again, and take
my water, I'se send a bullet through you."—Edin. Paper

COLUMN FOR THE LADIES.

MRS. INCHBALD.

WE have been so much pleased with the good sense and high spirit of the subjoined letter, which has accidentally fallen into our way in a pleasing book of theatrical gossip and scraps, published by the survivors of the gentleman to whom the letter is addressed, that we hasten to give it all the publicity in our power. It contains an admirable lesson. Because Mrs. Inchbald did not choose to sacrifice her time and tastes, and expend her money in the way her friends thought fit, and chose rather to live to herself and her duties than to their frivolities, they were pleased to call her penurious, and suspect her of being a little mad. Mr. Taylor, one of her friends, ventured to remonstrate, and his epistle called forth her reply.

"My dear sir,-I read your letter with gratitude, because I have had so many proofs of your friendship for me, that I do not once doubt of your kind intentions.

"You have taken the best method possible on such an occasion, not to hurt my spirits; for had you suspected me to be insane, or even nervous, you would have mentioned the subject with more caution, and by so doing, might have given me alarm.

"That the world should say I have lost my senses, I can readily forgive, when I recollect that a few years ago it

said the same of Mrs. Siddons.

tion depends entirely upon fancy, and women all over the world talk better than men. Have they a character to pourtray, or a figure to describe, they give but three traits of one or the other, and the character is known, or the figure placed before our eyes. Why? From the monument of susceptibility, their imaginations, their fancies receive lively impressions from those principal traits, and they paint those impressions with the same vivacity with which they receive them. Get a woman of fancy warm in conversation, she shall produce a hundred charming images, among which there shall not be one indelicate or coarse. Warm a man on the same subject, he will probably find stronger allusious, but neither be so brilliant nor so chaste. Sherlock.

TO A LADY WITH A VIOLET.

In aspect meek, in dwelling low, I hide me in the grassy lea; But twine me round thy modest brow Lady! the proudest flower I'll be. PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. WHERE a priest and a poor curate were left to themselves in a remote and poor parish of Ireland, they were often the best friends possible. They were, in fact, forced together by the love of congenial society, and the social propensities o Irishmen. The following is an illustrative instance, and a good story to boot. We find it recorded in a new publication called "Wild Sports of the West," which few would guess to mean Rabbit-chasing and Otter-hunting in the sister island.

"Och, hon !" exclaimed the otter-killer, "isn't it a murder to see the clargy making such fools of themselves now! When I was young, pricsts and ministers were hand and glove. It seems to me but yesterday, when Father Patt Joyce, the Lord be good to him! lent Mr. Carson a congregation."

"Eh! what, Antony !" said the colonel; "a congregation appears rather an extraordinary article to borrow." The otter-killer explains the mystery thus:

[ocr errors]

"We were just as comfortable as we could be, when a currier stops at the door with a letter, which he said was for Mr. Carson. Well, when the minister opens it, he got as white as a sheet, and I thought he would have fainted. Father Patt crossed himself. Arrah, Dick,' says he, the Lord stand between you and evil! is there any thing wrong ?'—' I'm ruined,' says he, for some bad member has wrote to the bishop, and told him that I have no congregation, because you and I are so intimate; and he's coming down to-morrow with the dane to see the state of things. Och, hone!' says he, I'm fairly ruined.'—And is that all that's fretten ye?' says the priest.—' Arrah, dear Dick,'— for they called each other by their Cristen names,—' is this all? If it's a congregation you want, ye shall have a dacent one to-morrow, and lave that to me and now, we'll take our drink, and not matter the bishop a fig.'

"I am now fifty-two years old, and yet if I were to dress, paint, and visit, no one would call my understanding in question; or if I were to beg from all my acquaintance a guinea or two, as subscription for a foolish book, no one would accuse me of avarice. But because I choose that retirement suitable to my years, and think it my duty to support two sisters, instead of one servant, I am accused of madness. I might plunge in debt, be confined in prison, a pensioner on The Literary Fund,' or be gay as a girl of eighteen, and yet be considered as perfectly in my senses; but because I choose to live in independence, affluence to me, with a mind serene and prospects unclouded, I am supposed to be mad. In making use of the word affluence, I do not mean to exclude some inconveniencies annexed, but this is the case in every state. I wish for more suitable lodgings, but I am unfortunately averse to 3 street, after living so long in a square; but with all my labour to find one, I cannot fix on a spot such as I wish to make my residence for life, and till I do, and am confined to London, the beautifal view from my present apartment of the Surrey hills and the Thames, invites me to remain here, for I believe that there is neither such fine air nor so fine a prospect in all the town. I am, besides, near my sisters here; and the time when they are not with me is so wholly engrossed in writing, that I want leisure for the convenience of walking out. Retirement in the country would, perhaps, have been more advisable than in London, but my sisters did not like to accompany me, and I did not like to leave them behind. There is, besides, something animating in the reflection, that I am in London though partaking none of its gaieties." "Well, next day, sure enough, down comes the bishop, WOMAN.--Woman is a very nice and a very complicated and a great retinue along with him; and there was Mr. machine. Her springs are infinitely delicate, and differ Carson ready to receive him. 'I hear,' says the bishop, from those of a man as the work of a repeating watch does mighty stately, that you have no congregation. In faith, from that of a town clock. Look at her body-how deli- your holiness,' says he, you'll be soon able to tell that,' cately formed! Examine her senses how exquisite and—and in he walks him to the church, and there were sitnice Observe her understanding, how subtle and acute! ting threescore well-dressed men and women, and all of But look into her heart-there is the watch work, com- them as devout as if they were going to be anointed; for posed of parts so minute in themselves, and so wonderfully that blessed morning, Father Patt whipped mass over becombined, that they must be seen by a microscopic eye to fore you had time to bless yourself, and the clanest of the be clearly comprehended. The perception of woman is as flock was before the bishop in the church, and ready for quick as lightning. Her penetration is intuition-I had al- his holiness. To see that all behaved properly, Father Patt most said instinct. By a glance of her eye she shall draw || had hardly put off the vestment till he slipped on a cota a deep and just conclusion. Ask her how she formed it, more, and there he sat in a back seat like any other of the the cannot answer the question. As the perception of wo- congregation. I was near the bishop's reverence; he was man is surprisingly quick, so their soul's imaginations are seated in an arm-chair belonging to the priest-Come here, uncommonly susceptible. Few of them have culture enough Mr Carson,' says he some enemy of yours,' says the sweet to write; but when they do, how lively are their pictures! old gentleman, wanted to injure you with me. C But I am how animated their descriptions! But if few women write, now fully satisfied.' And turning to, the dane, 'By this they all talk! and every man may judge of them in this book! says he, "I didn't see a claner congregation this polnt, from every circle he goes into. Spirit in conversa- month of Sundays!'"

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

SCRAPS.

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.

CONVERSATION OF AUTHORS AND ARTISTS.-Walpole, who had a good deal of experience of them, says, "I have always rather escaped the society of authors. An author talking of his own works, or censuring those of others, is to me a dose of ipecacuanha. I like only a few, who can in company forget their authorship, and remember plain sense. The conversation of artists is still worse. Vanity and envy are the main ingredients. One detests vanity, because it shocks one's own vanity." The same writer gives some good counsel to young authors. "Youth is prone to censure. A young man of genius expects to make a world for himself; as he gets older, he finds he must take it as it is. It is impudent in a young author to make any enemies whatever. He should not attack any living person. Pope was, perhaps, too refined, a jesuit, a professor of authorship; and his arts to establish his reputation were infinite, and sometimes, perhaps, exceeded the bounds of severe integrity. But in this he was an example of prudence, that he wrote no satire till his fortune was made." The advice is good-we cannot so much admire the motive of the course prescribed.

FEMALE QUARRELS.-A gentleman, hearing that two of his female relations had quarrelled, inquired, "Did they call each other ugly ?”—“ No.”—“ Or old ?"-"No." ---" Well, well, I shall soon make them friends."

BISHOP BURNET was a very absent man. It is related, that dining one day with the Duchess of Marlborough, after her husband's disgrace, he compared the great general to Belisarius." But then" said the Duchess," how comes it that such a man was so miserable, and so universally deserted."-"Oh, madam, he has such a brimstone of a

wife!"

CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENTS.-Burnet speaks of " one Prior," and Whitelocke, of "one Milton, a blind man."Heath, an obscure chronicler of the civil wars, says, "One Milton, since stricken with blindness, wrote against Salmasius, and composed an impudent and blasphemous book, called Iconoclastes!"

ENCOURAGEMENT TO LITERARY MEN.-One day a Number Publisher of the Row discovered the lodgings of Gibbon the historian, waited on him, and said, "Sir, I am about publishing a History of England, done by several good hands. I understand you have a knack at them there things, I should be glad to give you every encouragement." The GREAT author was more offended than enough.

ECONOMY." A slight knowledge of human nature will show," says Mr Colquhoun, "that when a man gets on a little in the world he is desirous of getting on a little further." Such is the growth of provident habits, that it has been said, if a journeyman lays by the first five shillings, his fortune is made. Mr. William Hall, who has bestowed great attention on the state of the labouring poor, declares he never knew an instance of one who had saved money coming to the parish. And he adds, moreover, "those individuals who save money are better workmen; if they do not the work better, they behave better, and are more respectable; and I would sooner have in my trade a hundred men who save money, than two hundred men who would spend every shilling they get. In proportion as individuals save a little money, their morals are much better; they husband that little, and there is a superior tone given to their morals, and they behave better for knowing they have a little stake in society."

ILLUSTRATION OF THE TRUCK SYSTEM.-The cruelty which is inflicted on the workman by the payment of wages in goods, is often very severe. The little purchases necessary for the comfort of his wife and children, perhar the medicines he occasionally requires for them in illness, must all be made through the medium of barter, and he is obliged to waste his time in arranging an exchange, i which the goods which he has been compelled to accept for his labour are invariably taken at a lower price than tha at which his master charged them to him. The father of the family perhaps, writhing under the agonies of the tooth. ache, is obliged to make his hasty bargain with the village surgeon, ere he will remove the cause of his pain; or the disconsolate mother is compelled to sacrifice her depreciate goods in exchange for the last receptacle of her departed offspring. Babbage's Economy of Manufactures.

THE SPOONERY. By what process does a man bort. with a silver spoon in his mouth,-taught nonsense verses at Eton, wenching, driving, and the habits of the speadand lower classes of society, their wants, their feelings thrift at the university,-learn the condition of the middle opinions, and habits? But if chance gives him a glimpse of the circumstances of other ranks of life, made half intelligible to him by the reading of a newspaper or a novel, -by what singular gift of nature does he, whose personal of the knowledge of its minute operations? He may unhabits are in constant war with business, become possessed derstand the law of usury, from his dealings in youth with the Jews; he may not be altogether unacquainted with the law of debtor and creditor, and the doctrine of profits, from having figured in incipient actions, and paid twenty, fifty, may have learnt as a magistrate at the sessions, or a grandor a hundred per cent for long credit. Jurisprudence he juryman at the assizes: the laws of real property, and the question of the general registry from his attorney, with whom he is deeply mortgaged; the corn-laws from his criminal law from committing poachers: these have been steward; the poor-laws from his tenants at quarter-day; generally the incidental lessons the casual experiences of a legislator. He started in life flushed with the possession of wealth beyond the powers of his mind to spend usefully, frequented the turf, passed through the gambling house, escaped with a reduced fortune, or else became sordidly poor. In the one case he became sober and wise, and turned his knowledge of life to account by making laws, as if all men were fit for the galleys, irrecoverably vicious, or honest only when they have discovered from the effects of their vices that its seeming is the best policy. In the other case, he presented the beau idéal of the place-hunter.-West

minster Review.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Several communications are in types, but are necessarily delayed for want of room.

The Third Monthly Part of the SCHOOLMASTER will be published on Wednesday the 31st inst., containing the Four September Numbers, and JOHNSTONE'S MONTHLY POLITICAL REGISTER OF NEWS AND SCOT TISH LISTS: Price 8d.

The REGISTER will, in future, like the SCHOOLMASTER, consist of 16 pages, super-royal octavo, and will contain, in addition to the same sort of news given in the first and second numbers, the Spirit of the London Journals for the month, &c. &c.

+++ The principles of this Monthly Newspaper are decidedly liberal, and thoroughly independent of every party. The great demand fr single Numbers of this Register has induced the Editor to double its size and increase the price only one halfpenny.

CONTENTS OF NO. XIII. All Hallow Eve.-The Scotch Hallow E'en.... Curious Traits of Feudal Manners..

...193

..194

.196

196

An Old English Baronet's Opinion of Moderu Manners......195

Fashionables...

The Barn Owl...

The Sticket Minister...

One of Sir H. Davy's Experiments.... Notes on Germany...

.198

ELEMENTS OF THOUGHT-What have I to do with Politics? Nothing.........

Return...

THE STORY-TELLER.-The Soldier's
COLUMN FOR THE LADIES.-Mrs. Inehbald, &c.
Protestant and Catholic..

SCRAPS, Original and Selected...

[merged small][ocr errors]

.200

[ocr errors]

..207

207

.208

EDINBURGH: Printed by and for JOHN JOHNSTONE, 19, St. James's Square. Published by JOHN ANDERSON, Jun., Bookseller, 55, North Bridge Street, Edinburgh; by JOHN MACLEOD, and ATKINSON & Co., Booksellers, Glasgow; and sold hy all Booksellers and Venders of Cheap Periodicals.

THE

AND

EDINBURGH WEEKLY MAGAZINE.

CONDUCTED BY JOHN JOHNSTONE.

THE SCHOOL MASTER IS ABROAD.-LORD BROUGHAM.

No. 14.-VOL. I. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1832. PRICE THREE-HALFPENCE.

PLACES OF PUBLIC WORSHIP IN

EDINBURGH.

THIS article has appeared in the Chronicle. I also give it here, as the subject is one of interest, far beyond Edinburgh; many town readers see the Schoolmaster, when they do not see the

Chronicle.

J. J.

ings, are the decent poor, driven with their young families from the country parishes and small towns, by misfortune, in search of precarious employment, destitute and miserable, scarcely able to keep a roof over their heads, much less to pay seat-rent,-tossed about from place to place, daily falling back, and growing worse off,—

shall arise a few years hence. Without consider. able trouble, which they will not take, and expense, which they will not incur, the doors of every church are shut against them,-for no one will go to church here, that has not a seat ;—the door-keepers would soon may cure any one of that fancy.-Many hundreds of young women, also, come up every year to service.-They don't know much about taking seats in church; and they It may be deemed daring, if not absolutely pro- cannot, or think they cannot, afford the expense of fane, to say that, in this capital of a Presbyterian them; and genteel families now,—that is all facountry, and in all our great towns, the religious milies, would as soon be seen with their servants discipline of those who most require instruction in their box at the playhouse, as in their pew at is very little cared for, so far as regards facilita church. The consequences are soon seen.-A still ting the easy means of attendance on public wor-more interesting description of persons to our feelship. Two good, or at least fair, discourses are preached in all the stated churches every Sabbath, to all who are able to pay exorbitantly high for seats, and who have decent clothes to appear in them. Although the two new churches projected were built to-morrow, they would be but a drop in the bucket to the wants of this city,-to the most pressing and urgent wants,-those of the stranger, the very young, and the very poor: yet, this is not so much from mere lack of space,but, of open, free, inviting church accommodation to all who will accept of it. It may be thought too daring to affirm, that, in this city, while the hospitable door of the low tippling-house stands open night and day, those of the churches are rigidly shut against the poor, by pride, and by Mammon. Religion in its modes is become, in this Presbyterian country, as exclusive as are fashion In our finely decorated temples, there is clearly no place for the humbly-dressed Christian. On liberal Christian principles, this is lamentable enough, but it were less to be regretted, were more humble places of worship freely and widely opened to him. This, however, in all its bearings, is, perhaps, rather a question for states, and for synods, and assemblies, than for the local authorities. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to Edinburgh, to which there come up every season, for one purpose or other, some thousands of young men, or rather boys, remote from any thing like moral superintendence. They form a mere fraction of our floating population, but a most important part of the men of the world that I soon languished away.

and wealth.

"The world not their friend, nor the world's law." The doors of our comfortable churches, and snug meeting-houses, are strictly closed against their ragged penury, should they have sufficient fortitude to shew their wretchedness in our goodly Christian fellowships. Many such persons repair to large towns with good habits; but how are they to retain them, or impart them to their children? In their own villages, their children might have grown up well instructed and respectable ;-but what becomes of them among us, where the chief attention they receive is, to be taunted for their residence in the Cowgate or Grassmarket-regions somewhere far beyond the pale of humanity, as it subsists in the comfortable and affluent streets, and a thousand degrees beyond the line of the Christianity of our fine churches.

We have heard of a mission being established in some of the remote half discovered regions, known only to such daring navigators as the police Captain Stuart. It is impossible that any munici pality could completely remedy the evils of which we complain, but surely something might be done to prevent their worst consequences. Sometimes, indeed, we have seen a feeble attempt made, which

« PreviousContinue »