to the roof of my mouth, and my speech seemed gone: I made two desperate efforts; but it would not do I could not utter. When they left me, I never stirred from my place on the bed. I was benumbed with the cold, probably from the sleep and the unaccustomed exposure; and I sat crouched together, as it were, to keep myself warmer, with my arms folded across my breast, and my head hanging down, shivering: and my body felt as if it were such a weight to me that I was unable to move it, or stir. The day now was breaking, yellow-and heavily; and the light stole by degrees into my dungeon, showing me the damp stone walls and desolate dark-paved floor; and, strange as it was-with all that I could do, I could not keep myself from noticing these trifling things my head began to wander and grow unmanage- | I could not get the words out: my tongue stuck able again. I put my hands tightly to my throat, as though to try the sensation of strangling. Then I felt my arms at the places where the cords would be tied. I went through the fastening of the rope, the tying of the hands together the thing that I felt most averse to, was the having the white cap muffled over my eyes and face. If I could avoid that, the rest was not so very horrible! In the midst of these fancies a numbness seemed to creep over my senses. The giddiness that I had felt gave way to a dull stupor, which lessened the pain that my thoughts gave me, though I still went on thinking. The church-clock rang midnight I was sensible of the sound, but it reached me indistinctly-as though coming through many closed doors, or from a far distance. By and by I saw the objects before my mind less and less clearly-then only partially-then they were gone altogether. I fell asleep. I slept until the hour of execution. It was seven o'clock on the next morning, when a knocking at the door of my cell awoke me. I heard the sound, as though in my dreams, for some moments before I was fully awake; and my first sensation was only the dislike which a weary man feels at being roused: I was tired and wished to doze on. In a minute after, the bolts on the outside my dungeon were drawn ; a turnkey, carrying a small lamp, and followed by the master of the jail and the chaplain, entered: I looked up-a shudder like the shock of electricity-like a plunge into a bath of ice-ran through me-one glance was sufficient: sleep was gone as though I had never slept-even as I never was to sleep again I was conscious of my situation! 'R," said the master to me, in a subdued but steady tone, "it is time for you to rise." The chaplain asked me how I had passed the night? and proposed that we should join in prayer. I gathered myself up, and remained | seated on the side of the bed-place. My teeth chattered, and my knees knocked together in despite of myself. It was barely daylight yet; and, as the cell door stood open, I could see into the small paved court beyond: the morning was thick and gloomy; and a slow but settled rain was coming down. "It is half-past seven o'clock, R- !" said the master. I just mustered an entreaty to be left alone till the last moment. I had thirty minutes to live. I tried to make another observation when the master was leaving the cell; but, this time though perdition was coming upon me the very next moment. I noticed the lamp which the turnkey had left on the floor, and which was burning dimly, with a long wick, being clogged with the chill and bad air, and I thought to myself-even at that momentthat it had not been trimmed since the night before. And I looked at the bare naked iron bed-frame that I sat on; and at the heavy studs on the door of the dungeon; and at the scrawls and writing upon the wall that had been drawn by former prisoners; and I put my hand to try my own pulse, and it was so low that I could hardly count it:-I could not feelthough I tried to make myself feel it-that I was going to DIE. In the midst of this, I heard the chimes of the chapel-clock begin to strike: and I thought-Lord, take pity on me, a wretch! it could not be the three quarters after seven yet! The clock went over the three quarters-it chimed the fourth quarter, and struck eight. They were in my cell before I perceived them. They found me in the place, and in the posture, as they had left me. What I have farther to tell will lie in a very small compass: my recollections are very minute up to this point, but not at all so close as to what occurred afterwards. I scarcely recollect very clearly how I got from my cell to the press-room. I think two little withered men, dressed in black, supported me. I know I tried to rise when I saw the master and his people come into my dungeon; but I could not. In the press-room were the two miserable wretches that were to suffer with me; they were bound with their arms behind them, and their hands together; and were lying upon a bench hard by, until I was ready. A meagre-looking old man, with thin white hair, who was read ing to one of them, came up and said something "That we ought to embrace,”—I did not distinctly hear what it was. the smoke that beat heavily downwards from the chimneys-the waggons filled with women staring in the inn-yards opposite the hoarse low roar that ran through the gathered crowd as we appeared. I never saw so many objects at once, so plainly and distinctly, in all my life, as at that one glance; but it lasted only for an instant. The great difficulty that I had was to keep from falling. I had thought that these moments would have been all of fury and horror, but I felt nothing of this; but only a weakness, as though my heart-and the very floor on which I stood-was sinking under me. I From that look, and from that instant, all could just make a motion, that the old white- that followed is a blank. Of the prayers of haired man should leave me, and some one the chaplain; of the fastening the fatal noose; interfered and sent him away. The pinioning of the putting on of the cap which I had so of my hands and arms was then finished, much disliked; of my actual execution and and I heard an officer whisper to the chaplain death,-I have not the slightest atom of recollecthat "all was ready." As we passed out one tion. But that I know such occurrences must of the men in black held a glass of water have taken place, I should not have the smallto my lips; but I could not swallow: and Mr. est consciousness that they ever did so. I read W- the master of the jail, who had bid in the daily newspapers an account of my befarewell to my companions, offered me his haviour at the scaffold-that I conducted myhand. The blood rushed into my face once self decently but with firmness; of my death more for one moment! It was too much-the-that I seemed to die almost without a man who was sending me to execution to struggle. Of any of these events I have not offer to shake me by the hand! This was the last moment-but one-of full perception that I had in life. I remember our beginning to move forward through the longarched passages which led from the press-room to the scaffold. I saw the lamps that were still burning, for the day-light never entered here: I heard the quick tolling of the bell, and the deep voice of the chaplain reading as he walked before us: "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, shall live. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God!" It was the funeral service-the order for the grave-the office for those that were senseless and dead-over us, the quick and the living. been able by any exertion to recall the most distant remembrance. With the first view of the scaffold, all my recollection ceases. The next circumstance which, to my perception, seems to follow, is the having awoke, as if from sleep, and found myself in a bed, in a handsome chamber; with a gentleman-as I first opened my eyes-looking attentively at me. I had my senses perfectly, though I did not speak at once. I thought directly that I had been reprieved at the scaffold, and had fainted. After I knew the truth, I thought that I had an imperfect recollection of having found or fancied myself-as in a dream-in some strange place lying naked, and with a mass of figures floating about before me; but this idea certainly never presented itself to me until I was informed of the fact that it had I felt once more-and saw-I felt the transition from these dim, close, hot, lamp-occurred. lighted subterranean passages, to the open The accident to which I owe my existence platform, and steps, at the foot of the scaffold, will have been divined! My condition is a and to day. I saw the immense crowd black- strange one! I am a living man; and I possess ening the whole area of the street below me. certificates both of my death and burial. I The windows of the shops and houses opposite, know that a coffin filled with stones, and with to the fourth story, choked with gazers. I saw my name upon the plate, lies buried in the St. Sepulchre's Church through the yellow fog Churchyard of St. Andrews, Holborn: I saw in the distance, and heard the pealing of its from a window, the undressed hearse arrive bell. I recollect the cloudy, misty morning; that carried it: I was a witness to my own the wet that lay upon the scaffold-the huge funeral: these are strange things to see. My dark mass of building, the prison itself, that dangers, however, and I trust, my crimes, are rose beside, and seemed to cast a shadow over over for ever. Thanks to the bounty of the us-the cold, fresh breeze, that, as I emerged excellent individual whose benevolence has from it, broke upon my face. I see it all now recognized the service which he did me for -the whole horrible landscape is before me. a claim upon him, I am married to the woman The scaffold-the rain-the faces of the multi- whose happiness and safety proved my last tude-the people clinging to the house-tops-thought-so long as reason remained with me -in dying. And I am about to sail upon a far voyage, which is only a sorrowful one that it parts me for ever from my benefactor. The fancy that this poor narrative, from the singu larity of the facts it relates, may be interesting to some people, has induced me to write it; perhaps at too much length, but it is not easy for those who write without skill to write briefly. Should it meet the eye of the few relatives I have, it will tell one of them that to his jealousy of being known in connection with me, even after death, I owe my life. Should my old master read it, perhaps by this time he may have thought I suffered severely for yielding to a first temptation; at least while I bear him no ill will-I will not believe that he will learn my deliverance with regret. For the words are soon spoken, and the act is soon done, which dooms a wretched creature to an untimely death; but bitter are the pangs-and the sufferings of the body are among the least of them that he must go through before he arrives at it!-Blackwood's Mag. O POORTITH CAULD. BY ROBERT BURNS. O poortith cauld and restless love, O why should fate sic pleasure have, This warld's wealth when I think on, That he should be the slave o't! Her een sae bonnie blue betray How she repays my passion; But prudence is her o'erword aye, She talks of rank and fashion. O wha can prudence think upon, And sae in love as I am? How blest the humble cotter's fate! O why should fate sic pleasure have, ROBERT BURNS. BY JAMES MONTGOMERY. What bird in beauty, flight, or song, Who sang as sweet and soar'd as strong His plume, his note, his form, could Burus The blackbird, oracle of spring, The swallow, wheeling on the wing, The humming-bird, from bloom to bloom The raven, in the tempest's gloom; In "auld Kirk Alloway," the owl, At witching time of night; By "bonnie Doon," the earliest fowl That caroll'd to the light. He was the wren amidst the grove, When in his homely vein; At Bannockburn the bird of Jove, With thunder in his train; The woodlark, in his mournful hours; The swan, in majesty and grace, But roused, no falcon in the chase The linnet in simplicity, In tenderness the dove; But more than all besides was he, The nightingale in love. Oh! had he never stoop'd to shame, Nor lent a charm to vice, How had devotion loved to name That bird of paradise! Peace to the dead!-In Scotia's choir Of minstrels great and small, He sprang from his spontaneous fire, The phoenix of them all. THE RIBBONMAN. [William Carleton, born at Clogher, Tyrone, 1798; died 30th January, 1869. Novelist and poet. He began his career as a tutor. In 1830 he published in Dublin the first series of his Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, which was received with so much favour that a second series soon followed. His principal works are: Fardorougha the Miser: The Fawn of Spring Vale; The Clarionet, and other Tales; Valentine M'Clutchy; Willy Reilly; The Tithe Proctor; Rody the Rover, &c. Christopher North said in reply to the Shepherd's inquiry about Carleton's stories of the Irish peasantry: "Admirable, truly! Intensely Irish. Never were that wild imaginative people better described; and amongst all the fun, frolic, and folly, there is no want of poetry, pathos, and passion." Mr. Carleton obtained a pension of £200 a year from government. The following sketch is said to be "only too true."] I had read the anonymous summons, but, from its general import, I believed it to be one of those special meetings convened for some purpose affecting the general objects and proceedings of the body. At least the terms in which it was conveyed to me had nothing extraordinary or mysterious in them, beyond the simple fact that it was not to be a general, but a select meeting; this mark of confidence flattered me, and I determined to attend punctually. I was, it is true, desired to keep the circumstance entirely to myself, but there was nothing startling in this, for I had often received summonses of a similar import. I therefore resolved to attend, according to the letter of my instructions, "on the next night, at the solemn hour of midnight, to deliberate and act upon such matters as should, then and there, be submitted to my consideration." The morning after I received this message, I arose and resumed my usual occupations; but from whatever cause it may have proceeded, I felt a sense of approaching evil hang heavily upon me; the beats of my pulse were languid, and an undefinable feeling of anxiety pervaded my whole spirit; even my face was pale, and my eye so heavy that my father and brothers thought I was ill; an opinion which I fancied at the time to be correct, for I felt exactly that kind of depression which precedes a severe fever. I could not understand what I experienced, nor can I yet, except by supposing that there is in human nature some mysterious faculty by which, in coming calamities, the approach throws forward the shadow of some fearful evil, and that it is possible to catch a dark anticipation of the sensations which they subsequently produce. For my part I can neither analyze nor define it; but on that day VOL. IV. I knew it by painful experience, and so have a thousand others in similar circumstances. It was about the middle of winter. The day was gloomy and tempestuous almost beyond any other I remember; dark clouds rolled over the hills about me, and a close sleet-like rain fell in slanting drifts that chased each other rapidly to the earth on the course of the blast. The out-lying cattle sought the closest and calmest corners of the fields for shelter; the trees and young groves were tossed about, for the wind was so unusually high that it swept its hollow gusts through them, with that hoarse murmur which deepens so powerfully on the mind the sense of dreariness and desolation. As the shades of night fell, the storm if possible increased. The moon was half gone, and only a few stars were visible by glimpses, as a rush of wind left a temporary opening in the sky. I had determined, if the storm should not abate, to incur any penalty rather than attend the meeting, but the appointed hour was distant, and I resolved to be decided by the future state of the night. Ten o'clock came, but still there was no change; eleven passed, and on opening the door to observe if there were any likelihood of it clearing up, a blast of wind mingled with rain, nearly blew me off my feet; at length it was approaching to the hour of midnight, and on examining a third time, I found it had calmed a little, and no longer rained. I instantly got my oak stick, muffled myself in my great-coat, strapped my hat about my ears, and as the place of meeting was only a quarter of a mile distant, I presently set out. The appearance of the heavens was lowering and angry, particularly in that point where the light of the moon fell against the clouds from a seeming chasm in them, through which alone she was visible. The edges of this were faintly bronzed, but the dense body of the masses that hung piled on each side of her was black and impenetrable to sight. In no other point of the heavens was there any part of the sky visible, for a deep veil of clouds overhung the horizon; yet was the light sufficient to give occasional glimpses of the rapid shifting which took place in this dark canopy, and of the tempestuous agitation with which the midnight storm swept to and fro beneath. At length I arrived at a long slated house, situated in a solitary part of the neighbourhood; a little below it ran a small stream, which was now swollen above its banks, and rushing with mimic roar over the flat meadows 92 beside it. The appearance of the bare slated building in such a night was particularly sombre, and to those like me who knew the purpose to which it was then usually devoted, it was, or ought to have been, peculiarly so. There it stood, silent and gloomy, without any appearance of human life or enjoyment about or within it: as I approached, the moon once more had broken out of the clouds, and shone dimly upon the glittering of the wet slates and window, with a death-like lustre, that gradually faded away as I left the point of observation, | and entered the folding-door. It was the parish chapel. The scene which presented itself here was in keeping not only with the external appearance of the house, but with the darkness, the storm, and the hour, which was now a little after midnight. About eighty persons were sitting in dead silence upon the circular steps of the altar; they did not seem to move, and as I entered and advanced, the echo of my footsteps rang through the building with a lonely distinctness, which added to the solemnity and mystery of the circumstances about me. The windows were secured with shutters on the inside, and on the altar a candle which burned dimly amid the surrounding darkness, and lengthened the shadow of the altar itself, and, of six or seven persons who stood on its upper steps, until they mingled in the obscurity which shrouded the lower end of the chapel. The faces of those who sat on the altar-steps were not distinctly visible, yet the prominent and more characteristic features were in sufficient relief, and I observed that some of the most malignant and reckless spirits in the parish were assembled. In the eyes of those who stood at the altar, and whom I knew to be invested with authority over the others, I could perceive gleams of some latent and ferocious purpose, kindled, as I soon observed, into a fiercer expression of vengeance, by the additional excitement of ardent spirits, with which they had stimulated themselves to a point of determination that mocked at the apprehension of all future consequences, either in this world or the next. The welcome which I received on joining them was far different from the boisterous good humour which used to mark our greetings on other occasions; just a nod of the head from this or that person, on the part of those who sat, with a ghud dhemur tha thu, in a suppressed voice; but, from the standing group, who were evidently the projectors of the enterprise, I received a convulsive grasp of the hand, 1 How are you. accompanied by a fierce and desperate look, that seemed to search my eye and countenance, to try if I was a person not likely to shrink from whatever they had resolved to execute. It is surprising to think of the powerful expression which a moment of intense interest or great danger is capable of giving to the eye, the features, and slightest actions, especially in those whose station in society does not require them to constrain nature, by the force of social courtesies, to conceal its emotions. None of the standing group spoke, but as each of them wrung my hand in silence, his eye was fixed on mine with an expression of drunken confidence and secrecy, and an insolent determination not to be gainsayed without peril. If looks could be translated with certainty, they seemed to say "we are bound upon a project of vengeance, and if you do not join us, remember that we can revenge.' Along with this grasp, they did not forget to remind me of the common bond by which we were united, for each man gave me the secret grip of Ribbonism in a manner that made the joints of my fingers ache for some minutes after. There was one present, however the highest in authority-whose actions and demeanour were calm and unexcited; he seemed to labour under no unusual influence whatever, but evinced a serenity so placid and philosophical, that I attributed the silence of the sitting group, and the restraint which curbed the outbreaking passions of those who stood, entirely to his presence. He was a schoolmaster, who taught his daily school in that chapel, and acted also on Sunday in capacity of clerk to the priest-an excellent and amiable old man, who knew little of his illegal associations and atrocious conduct. When the ceremonies of brotherly recognition and friendship were past, the Captain, by which title I will designate the last-mentioned person, stooped, and raising a jar of whiskey on the corner of the altar, held a wine-glass to its neck, which he filled, and with a calm nod handed it to me to drink. I shrunk back, with an instinctive horror, at the profaneness of such an act, in the house and on the altar of God, and peremptorily refused to taste the proffered draught. He smiled mildly at what he considered my superstition, and added quietly, and in a low voice, "You'll be wantin' it, I'm thinkin', afther the wettin' you got. "Wet or dry," said I "Stop, man," he replied in the same tone"spake lower; but why wouldn't you take the |