NIGHT is the time for rest; The curtain of repose; Stretch the tired limbs and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed! Night is the time for dreams; The gay romance of life, When truth that is and truth that seems Than waking dreams by daylight are! Night is the time for toil To plough the Classic field, Its wealthy furrows yield; Night is the time to weep; (Gent. Mag.) BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, ESQ. To wet with unseen tears Night is the time to watch; [VOL. I. N.S. That brings into the home-sick mind Brooding on hours mis-spent, Come to our lonely tent; Like Brutus midst his slumbering host Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost. Night is the time to muse; Then from the eye the soul Takes flight, and with expanding views Descries athwart the abyss of night Night is the time to pray; Our Saviour oft withdrew So will his followers do; Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, And hold communion there with God. Night is the time for death; When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath, From sin and suffering cease; Think of Heaven's bliss and give the sign To parting friends ;-such death be mine! Jan. 1, 1824. A crystal brook should babble by, And to its bordering flowers Impart fresh loveliness of dye, And yet more fragrant powers. Behind me, half conceal'd from sight A few low glossy mounds should tell A guileless infant too should stray While o'er her head a butterfly, Should lightly flutter round. My task is done :—who scorns my taste A scene with gentler beauties grac'd Jan. 1824. DEAR SIR, (Lond. Mag. Feb.) A PEN AND INK SKETCH OF A LATE TRIAL FOR MURDER, IN A LETTER FROM HERTFORD. BY EDWARD HERBERT, ESQ. -As I stand bere,-I saw them -Macbeth. To the Editor of the London Magazine. Hertford, Jan. 1824. you were compelled to undergo Mr. Hunt's confession, first poured from his own polY this time I fear you will have become luted lips, and then filtered through Mr. Thurtell, Probert, and Hunt, upon which the London newspapers have rung the changes so abominably; I fear this,-because, having consented to give you a narrative of the Trial of these wretched and hardened men, with the eye of a witness, and not the hand of a reporter; and having in consequence of such consent borne up an unfed body with an untired spirit for two days, against iron rails and fat men, I tremble lest all my treasured observations should be thrown away, and my long fatigue prove profitless to my friend. On consideration, however, I have withstood my fears, and have determined not to abandon my narrative;-in the first place, because the newspapers have given so dry a detail of the evidence as to convey no picture of the interesting scene, and secondly, because in a periodical work like the LONDON MAGAZINE, which ought to record remarkable events as they pass by, a clear account, not made tedious, as far as possibly can be avoided, by repetitions and legal formalities, may be interesting not only to the reader of this year, but to the reader of twenty years hence!-if at that extremely distant period readers should exist-and the Roxburghe Boys should then, as now, save old books from the cheesemonger and the worm! It is my intention, good my master, to give you the statements only of those persons from whose mouths you will best get the particulars of the murder, and of the circumstances preceding and following it; for, judging by myself, I am sure you and your readers would be fairly tired out, if Beeston, In host of those worthy Dogberrys of Hertfordshire, who had an opportunity of "wasting all their tediousness upon his Lordship." It is well for the prisoner that Inquiry goes about her business so tiresomely and thoroughly,-but to the hearer and the reader her love of "a twice-told tale" is enough to make a man forswear a court of justice for the rest of his life! I do believe that no man of any occupation would become a thief, if he were fully aware of the punishment of listening to the "damnable iteration" of his own trial. the present case, we had generally three or four witnesses to the same fact. It is strange that, solitary as the place was, and desperate as was the murder,-the actors, the witnesses,-all,-but the poor helpless devoted thing that perished, were in clusters! The murderers were a cluster! The farmer that heard the pistol had his wife and child, aud nurse with him; there were two labourers at work in the lane on the morning after the dreadful butcher-work: there was a merry party at the cottage on the very night, singing and supping, while Weare's mangled carcass was lying darkening in its gore, in the neighbouring field; there were hosts of publicans and ostlers, witnesses of the gang's progress on their blood-journey; and the gigs, the pistols, even the very knives ran in pairs! This is curious at least; and it seems as though it were fated that William Weare should be the only solitary object on that desperate night, when he clung to life in agony and blood, and was, at last, struck out of existence as a thing single, valueless, and vile! |