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low. This, with the mad levity of sixteen, I treated as a just visitation, and emblematical of the forlorn state falsely denominated "single blessedness."

But to return to old Hannah.-The winter had closed in with severe frosts and snow. Everything wore a cheerless aspect but Hannah's red face, which exhibited unusual signs of hilarity. Her work went briskly off her hands, and you might hear her voice all over the house singing her favorite old catches. No one could divine the reason why Hannah appeared as airy and as gay as a lark, when the inhabitants of the mansion, and even nature herself, had assumed a graver aspect.-Hannah was in love! The bailiff who superintended the farm attached to the mansion, was a hale, middle aged man, and a widower withal. Proctor had whispered soft things in Hannah's ear, and she once more resolved to have recourse to one of her most potent charms to learn the sincerity of his intentions. She made me her confidante, and vain were all my efforts to dissuade her from the silly scheme. Hannah was no sceptic she would have doubted her own existence, as soon as the power of her spells. She slept in a lonely garret, some way apart from the rest of the family, and the charm she had chosen was a very simple one. It consisted only in putting on clean linen on the first Friday in the month, and stepping backwards into bed; repeating, as she did so, the following invocation three times over :"Friday night, Friday night, As I lie dressed all in white, I pray to heaven that I may see The man that my husband is to be; In his apparel and his array, That he doth appear in every day; With the children by his side, Which I am to have when I am his bride !"

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My brothers, two roguish boys, just escaped from the gloomy precincts of a free school to spend their Christmas holidays at the old mansion house, learned from Mary, the housemaid, Hannah's intention. This knowledge afforded them infinite diversion, and called forth all their mischievous pro

pensities. They sought the enamored damsel, and, assuming a forced gravity of deportment, they assured her the charm would have no effect unless she took nine black pepper-corns, and shook them nine times in Proctor's boot, screwed them up in a little piece of paper, and tied them with a bit of green thread round her great toe. Hannah received the information with avidity, and never questioned the source whence her young masters derived their pretended knowledge. She went to bed perfectly satisfied, having smuggled one of Proctor's boots out of his room, to give the nine ominous shakes to the nine black pepper-corns. The process of tying them round her toe would have afforded a subject for Wilkie's pencil; but to these mysteries we were not admitted. The family retired to rest at the usual hour, and before eleven the house was in a state of perfect tranquillity. About midnight, our slumbers were broken by a piercing scream, or rather yell of terror. The sound came from Hannah's garret ; and, as it echoed through the long passages of the mansion, all the inhabitants sprang with one consent from the arms of sleep. Before I could reach my wrapping cloak, the door of my apartment was suddenly burst open, and Hannah stood before meher eyes fixed and staring, and her red face, for the first time, as white as her night dress. Her limbs were convulsed, as if under the influence of an ague fit, and her quivering lips appeared incapable of uttering a single word. There she stood, trembling and shaking before me, the tears rolling down her cheeks, and her hands uplifted in silent horror. Before I could find words to demand the reason of her nocturnal visit, the room was filled with eager and inquiring faces, and the two mischievous imps who had partly been the cause of her terrors were the foremost in the motley group. Anxious to learn the result of their invented charm, they exclaimed in a breath

"Well, Hannah! what did you see?"

She answered this abrupt question in a pitiful whine, of such unusual length and emphasis, that I was constrained to turn my back on the afflicted damsel, to hide the painful risibility with which I was irresistibly assailed.

"Oh! Master Thomas, and John, it was all your doings. Instead of Nehemiah Proctor-Death came to my bed-side!"

"Death!” repeated the two brothers, exchanging a sly glance with each other "That was rather a strange visitor. I suppose it was old Harry, who, loving hot things, had come to untie the pepper-corns from off your toe."

After much desultory colloquy, the detail of the night's adventure was drawn from old Hannah. She had gone up stairs backwards, and a tiresome job she had had of it; first up one steep flight of stairs, and then another-across Miss Sarah's room, and down the long passage, at the end of which, as ill-luck would have it, the wind blew her candle out, and she dared not go back to light it, for fear of breaking the charm. On she went in the dark, stumbling at every step, till she reached her own door. There she heard such dismal howlings of the wind in the old garrets, and such strange noises, like the rattling of bones, that she stood quaking and shaking with fear. Then the difficulties she encountered, in securing the nine pepper-corns round her toe; and then, jumping backwards into bed, the first spring she gave broke the thread that held the pepper-corns, and she heard them go rolling to every corner of the room! ""Tis no use," says I, "seeking for them, I might as well look for a needle in a truss of hay. I contrived at last to get into bed," continued the old woman, in a very sulky tone; "but I was in such a desperate fluster, I made three mistakes in the charm, and that helped to do the mischief. However, after I had made a finish of the conjuration, I lay quite still in the bed, neither looking to the right nor to the left, but with my

eyes fixed on the door which was before me, and thinking of Nehemiah Proctor, when I heard a soft low voice say-Mother! mother!-I sprang up in the bed, and the room was no longer dark, but as light as the noon day. And there stood at the foot of the bed the prettiest pick-a-ninny of a child I ever saw in my life, and I knew the dear babe again-it was my sweet Caleb.

"I was so struck with the beauty of the child's smiling face, that I tried to take him in my arms; but before I could touch the vision, it turned suddenly into a hideous grinning skeleton, that sprang on to the bed, and, seizing my throat between his long bony fingers, cried, in a hollow voice, I am Death! the only husband you will ever have!' It was no dream—it was a struggle for life and death.—I felt his cold bones rattle against me—I saw the blue flames flashing out of the eyeless holes in his skull—his grinning teeth chattered in his fleshless gums, as he tightened the strong gripe on my swelling throat-Oh! oh! I feel him! I see him still!"

Her face, which had resumed, during her relation, its crimson hue, was again colorless; her lips firmly coupressed, and her eyes wild and staring. "How this world is given to fibbing!" cried Tom, with a deliberate laugh; "what a mountain this mole-hill has become!"

I really pitied her distress. "Compose yourself, Hannah," I said; "you have been under the influence of a frightful dream."

"Indeed, Miss, I shall never forget it to my dying day—I was wide awake

I heard it with my own ears—I saw it with my own eyes-I felt its gripe on my flesh. You cannot persuade me out of my senses."

"It was very hard to raise such an outcry against your husband," cried Tom, "I will go and see what has become of him." Before he could leave the room, the door opened, and Master John, who had quietly retired, conducted into our presence a pasteboard skeleton of gigantic dimensions.

At the sight of the apparition Hannah gave another frightful scream, and made a hasty retreat behind the bedcurtain, while the manufacturers of the scarecrow exclaimed, in a tone of triumph, "Here, Hannah! here's your husband !”

All my eloquence was vainly spent, when I endeavored to convince Hannah that she had been deceived;-that my brothers had invented this scheme to cure her of resorting to charms for the future. She turned sullenly away, persisting in the truth of her own story. Tom, the inventor of the scheme, had introduced the pasteboard figure (which was skilfully constructed) into the room after Hannah was asleep, and placed it opposite the bed.

Her

dream was of the pretty child; but, awakening with the noise which "Death" made on his entrance, her vision was assailed by the frightful apparition, which seemed to grin horribly upon her in the moonlight. Imagination had done all the rest; and the mischievous boys had not a little enjoyed the wonderful and exaggerated account that the love-lorn damsel had given of the spectre. The experiment was not successful. Hannah still continued to practise charms, and still remained a spinster; and the old garret acquired the reputation of being haunted ever after; a calumny which will never be effaced as long as one stone shall remain upon another.

BARTON'S NEW YEAR'S EVE.*

WE are now to speak of a poet whose taste, feeling, and education, incline him to the frequent adoption of what are called sacred subjectsone who, not from a calculation of his understanding, but from the bent of his character, is induced to recur constantly in his poetry to those revealed truths in which religion has always embodied itself most definitely to his heart-one who has not set himself down with intent to be religious, as a man might set out with intent to travel into some new country well reported of for its flocks, and its herds, and its vineyards, and then set down to learn Christianity, as the trade language of that country, without which no dealings are carried on there successfully, but who, being deeply pervaded with religion, and allowing it to overflow in a thousand different utterances, nevertheless, by habit and by preference, resorts to Christianity, as that language which is its richest, and fullest, and most harmonious dialect, -as that which refines and elevates the feelings in the very act of supplying them with an expression

as that which he learnt to speak in infancy, and which is the proper tongue of his own father-land.

Bernard Barton is a Christian, and a poet, without guile. He says just what he has to say naturally and unaffectedly. He never talks religion from calculation, or abstains from talking it lest he should shock worldly men. His Bible is a favorite companion with him; but he does not take it out on all occasions; for he can read the same truths, and, in certain states of mind, more profitably, written on the trees, and skies, and lakes.

In short, he may value one mode of expression above another, just as he may esteem one coat above another; but the all-important requisite is, that the coat should fit-that the expression should really reveal the thought; and to this primary consideration he, being an honest man, is willing to sacrifice every other.

Bernard Barton was once pertinaciously called, through a whole article in "The Edinburgh Review," the Quaker Poet; and, if that word were used in its primitive sense, to express

* A New-Year's Eve, and other Poems. By Bernard Barton. Svo. pp. 244. Hatchard and Son. London, 1828.

a person who believes in an inward life, which is superior to all the mere forms which are devised for its manifestation, there is no word with which that of poet could be more happily and congenially associated. But, if it were meant as the symbol of a man who holds his neighbors cheap because they have not the same amplitude of brim and the same dislike of angles in the construction of coats with himself, Mr. Jeffrey was not at all more happy in saddling him with such an epithet,

than he would have been if he had called James Montgomery the Moravian ; or La Martine the Catholic Poet.

There are many very delightful poems in this new volume; but we cannot afford our readers many specimens. The ensuing will well illustrate the spirit of their companions.

"The Nightingale Flower.

Fair flower of silent night!

Unto thy bard an emblem thou shouldst be: His fount of song, in hours of garish light, Is closed like thee.

But, with the vesper hour,

Silence and solitude its depths unseal :

Its hidden springs, like thy unfolding flower,

Their life reveal.

Were it not sweeter still

"To give imagination holier scope,

And deem that thus the future may fulfil A loftier hope?

That, as thy lovely bloom

Sheds round its perfume at the close of day, With beauty sweeter from surrounding gloom, A star-like ray ;

So in life's dark decline,

When the grave's shadows are around me cast, My spirit's hopes may like thy blossoms

shine

Bright at the last :

And as the grateful scent

Of thy meek flower, the memory of my name! Oh! who could wish for prouder monument, Or purer fame?

The darkness of the grave

Would wear no gloom appalling to the sight, Might Hope's fair blossom, like thy flowret, brave

Death's wintry night.

Knowing the dawn drew nigh Of an eternal, though a sunless day, Whose glorious flowers must bloom immortally, Nor fear decay!"

"A Winter Thought.

Dear friend! long tried and faithful proved
In hours of grief and gloom;
In such more justly prized and loved

Than in joy's brightest bloom ;—
Well may that cheerless winter sky,
That one bright star above,
Recall thy worth and constancy

To gratitude and love.
The steersman, in a summer night,
When cloudless are the skies,
May gaze upon their orbs of light,
Till slumber seal his eyes;
But when the winds are loud and stern,

And heaven is drear and dark,
To one alone his glance will turn,
By that he guides his bark!

So clouds have veiled each star and sun,
Once wont my sky to cheer;

And thou art now the polar one,

By which my course I steer.

The blossoms of life's spring-tide gay,
My path have long since fled,
My summer foliage passed away,
My autumn fruit been shed.

But thou in winter's storms art yet
Unchanged in faith to me;

And dear though hopeless seems the debt
I long have owed to thee."

We should also mention that there are many poems which must please the most careless reader; and a frontispiece of calm moonlight shining upon the miracle of Peter's walking on the sea. Mr. Barton's poems hardly need any adventitious recommendation; and this new production will be very acceptable to all the admirers of his earlier works.

THE LATEST FEMALE FASHIONS.

LONDON WALKING DRESS.

Gros de Naples pelisse of Byron brown, wadded and lined with white sarsnet, and fastened in front. The body is made extremely full, with long shoulder-straps, and nearly two inches

in width; they are corded on each side. The collar is stiffened, and falls back, admitting an embroidered cambric ruff. The sleeves are large to the gauntlet cuffs, which are very broad, and button close to the wrists;

they are corded, and the upper part pointed. The skirt is very full, and terminated with a plain deep biais trimming of the same material as the pelisse, and turned under so as not to give any indication of a hem: it is headed by three rouleaux.

Hat of Byron brown terry velvet, lined with rose-color satin, and a deep curtain veil of black blond. The crown is rounded at the top, and ornamented in front with large spreading bows of rose-color satin riband, edged with black, and several large velvet leaves. The strings are long, and of rose-color satin. Primrose-color gloves, and black shoes.

PARISIAN DINNER DRESS.

A gown of the new fancy material, toile de Smyrne, of the darkest shade of bottle green. Corsage à l'enfant, cut low and square, finished round the bust by a narrow embroidery in scarlet and bright green silk. Short full sleeve, over which is a long and very large one of gaze lisse: it is confined at the wrist by a bracelet à la Grecque of wrought gold, with a ruby clasp. Ceinture à point, fastened behind in bows without ends, and embroidered in front in a bouquet of damask roses. The trimming of the skirt consists of an exceedingly broad biais, finished at the upper edge by two rouleaus, one of scarlet, the other of yellow satin. The biais is embroidered in bouquets of yellow and damask roses, with foliage of various shades of green. The hair is arranged in bands on the forehead, over which falls on each side a full cluster of curls. Head-dress, a béret of black velvet, the brim à l'Espagnole; of very large size, the crown low, and crossed with velvet bands arranged in drapery. A profusion of ostrich feathers, green, scarlet, and pale yellow, adorn the crown; a bandeau of scarlet and green satin crosses the inside of the brim, and the ostrich feathers are placed, one to fall in the neck, the other to droop to the right side. Ear-rings, &c. gold and rubies. White kid gloves, and dark green satin shoes.

Explanation of the Print of the Fashions.

LONDON EVENING DRESS.

DRESS of white satin, the bodice made rather low, and the front formed into longitudinal drapery, and confined in the centre by a gold-color satin corded band; the remainder of the bodice is quite plain, and close to the shape. The sleeves are short and full, and set in a gold-color satin corded band; the extreme fulness is regulated by a band passing through the centre round the arm. A circular cape emanates from the front of the shoulder, and is ornamented with a wreath of leaves formed of gold-color gauze riband. The skirt is plaited in full round the waist, and has a border of white tulle of double-reversed plaitings, nearly half a yard deep, headed by a wreath of gold riband leaves, similar to those on the cape. Sash to correspond.

Toque of cherry-color blond tulle; the frame open, and of gold-color satin, pointed all round the head, with bands crossing the crown, and admitting the hair, which is dressed in bows, between, and in large curls in front. The blond tulle is in several plaits on one side of the centre point, and plain on the other; it spreads very wide, and is supported by broad gold riband loops, commencing with gold acorns, and is terminated on the left side by two bows and an end; on the right, the gold loop extends over the tulle to the crown, and is inserted by a gold acorn, with which every point is ornamented; long strings of gold gauze riband. Necklace, an entwined chain of gold and ornamented locket. Long gold ear-rings terminating in the form of a coronet. White kid gloves; cherry-color satin shoes and sandals.

PARISIAN BALL DRESS.

A gown of gaze marabout, over a white satin slip; the bottom of the slip is finished by a trimming composed of intermingled satin and tulle, arranged in a new style of bouillonné, on a rouleau of satin. The gown is made sufficiently short to display this trimming.

The skirt of the dress is fin

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