VELOCIPEDES.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

'IE readiness with which you insert in

Turadents this Many Yery useful invention, greatly interests and instructs its readers. I was much amused with a description of the Velocipede; and soon after was induced to purchase one, on which I rode a distance of twenty-one mles, a very hilly road, and returned to Lolon, the same distance, on the succeeding day; and have since paid a visit to Watford, fifteen miles, and returned the next day, with increased satisfaction.

I cannot however consider this machine as likely to be brought to any beneficial travelling use, but there as many situations in which it might be used with advantage; and in such situations, it is a very superior mode of exercise, which may be regulated entirely at the will and capacity of the rider. It has this great advantage, that it enables the rider to take any degree of exercise without distressing his breath; indeed, so subtle is it, that those in good health and strength, who are inclined to get on, are surprised to find, that using it a short time, and w.thout feeling the sensation of excited lungs, are in a volent perspiration, without appearing to themselves to have done enough to occasion it. I have found invariably, from all who have u sed it, that this is the case, and cannot get a satisfactory reason for it." I find it a most sensible machine: it will indicate or point out the least rise or fall of ground; and on, that account, I should always recommend the rider to get off and walk up hills, if they are even very small. Its natural tendency is to run down hill; it will of course require exertion to force it in riding up hill, and it

is labour badly applied, as it may be wheeled up all moderate hills with as little labour as using a walking-stick, and is really an assistance. I found it so; and could go up quicker than others without it; and it was only in very long and very steep and bad hills, that I found it any weght at all. This, in hilly countries, reduces the rate of going, as you may suppose, to walking nearly halfway. I think we have, in a great degree, got rid of jolting, by means of a spring of lance-wood lying along the whole length of the perca, which promises to answer well, I do with very little increase of weight. not think any metal-springs are at all applicable. I do not think it liable to bring on rupture, as is supposed by some, unless a man is foolish enough to force up hill, or over very rough ground; the moving a machine not nore than from forty to fifty pounds, can never do it.

I do not profess to be a very swift traveller; I could not run a mile without much exertion, as I have but little wind; but I went the first seven miles in an hour: and, on the average, made six miles an hour, occasioned by the hills and bad road; though, on level and good roads, I expect I could have exceeded that rate of travelling conBut I do siderably, without great exertion. not believe the accounts of ten and twelve miles an hour being performed, except down hill, which is counteracted by the up-hill exertion. I do not believe those of two wheels behind will answer, as they would require very great exertion, and occasion greater fatigue; and the difficulty of balancing, is overcome in a very short time. price I gave for mine is eight guineas; and I think they cannot be made under, as they require true and good work.

THE EVERLASTING ROSE.*

AIL to thy hues! thou lovely flower,

HAI

In Autumn's chaplet thou art wreathed, And round December's forehead bare.

With thee the graceful lily vied,

As summer breezes waved her head,
And now the snow-drop at thy side

Meekly contrasts thy cheerful red.
'Tis thine to hear each varying voice,
That marks the seasons sad or gay;
The Summer thrush bids thee rejoice,
And wint'ry robin's dearer lay.

Sweet flower! how happy dost thou seem
'Mid parching heat, 'mid nipping frost ;
While, gathering beauty from each beam,
No hue, no grace of thine is lost!
Thus hope, mid life's severest days,

Still smiles, still triumphs o'er despair;
Alike she lives in Pleasure's rays,
And cold Affliction's winter air.

Charmer, alike in lordly bower,

And in the hermit's cell she glows;

The Poet's and the Lover's flower,

The bosom's EVERLASTING ROSE!

The

E. B.

VOL. 6.]

THE

BALLAD.*

summer sun was sinking

With a mild light, calm and mellow, It shone on my little boy's bonny cheeks, And his loose locks of yellow;

The robin was singing sweetly,

And his song was sad and tender;

And my little boy's eyes, while he heard the song,
Smiled with a sweet soft splendour.
My little boy lay on my bosom

While his soul the song was quaffing,
The joy of his soul had tinged his cheek,
And his heart and his eye were laughing:

I sat alone in my cottage,

The midnight needle plying;

I feared for my child, for the rush's light
In the socket now was dying!

There came a hand to my lonely latch,
Like the wind at midnight moaning;
I knelt to pray, but rose again,

For I heard my little boy groaning:

I crossed my brow and I crossed my breast,
But that night my child departed-
They left a weakling in his stead,
And I am broken-hearted!

Oh! it cannot be my own sweet boy,
For his eyes are dim and hollow,

My little boy is gone to God,

And his mother soon will follow!

The dirge for the dead will be sung for me,
And the mass be chanted meetly,
And I will sleep with my little boy
In the moonlight churchyard sweetly.

IKE the oak of the vale was thy strength and thy L' height,

Thy foot, like the ernet of the mountain in flight;
Thy arm was the tempest of Loda's fierce breath,
Thy blade, like the blue mist of Lego, was death!--

Alas! how soon the thin cold cloud
The hero's bloody limbs must shroud!
And who shall tell his sire the tale!
And who shall soothe his widow's wail!
-I see thy father full of days;
For thy return behold him gaze;
The hand that rests upon the spear
Trembles in feebleness and fear-
He shudders, and his bald grey brow
Is shaking like the aspen-bough,

47

He gazes till bis dim eyes fail
With gazing on the fancied sail :-
Anxious he looks-what sudden streak
Flits like a sunbeam o'er his cheek!
-"Joy, joy, my child, it is the bark
That bounds on yonder billow dark!"-
His child looks forth with straining eye,
And sees-the light cloud sailing by-
-His grey head shakes !-how sad, how weak
That sigh!-how sorrowful that cheek !—
Thy Bride-thy beloved, is smiling in sleep,
She thinks on her love in the visions of night,
She welcomes her wanderer home from the deep,
And her Dargo she folds in the arms of delight;
A las! is the dream of Cremina untrue?
The lord of her bosom no more shall she view;
The beam of his valour hath darkened and died,
And Erin beheld how he perished in pride!

His Bride from her slumbers will waken and weep,
But when shall the hero arouse him from sleep?
The yell of the stag-hound-the clash of the spear,
May ring o'er his tomb,-but the dead will not hear;
Once he wielded the sword, once he cheered to the
hound,

But his pleasures are past, and his slumber is sound;
Await not his coming, ye sons of the chace.
Day dawns !-but it nerves not the dead for the race;
-Await not his coming, ye sons of the spear,
The war-song ye sing-but the dead will not hear!
Oh, blessing be with him who sleeps in the grave,
The leader of Lochlin! the young and the brave ;-
On earth didst thou scatter the strength of our foes,
-Then blessing be thine in thy cloud of repose!

And down to the ocean I sped;

The moon on the billows was trembling and bright,
As it rose o'er the Pyramid's head.

Its beams lent a magic far dearer than sleep,
As I trod my lone course on the sand;
And dear was the blast as it blew o'er the deep,
For it came from my own native land.
The battle had ceased with the sweet setting sun,
But I heard its dread tumults again;

I paused-it was nought but the answering gun
Of the watchman afar on the plain.

I thought of the woe and the carnage again--
I looked o'er the wave's distant foam;
And the tear that had started at sight of the slain,
I shed for the friends of my home.

Oh! pleasant it is, on a far foreign shore,
To think on the days that are past—

It wakes the dull spirit that slumbered before,
Like the rain 'mid the burning waste.

Was it hope or illusion my bosom that warmed,
When I thought on the birch of the grove;
Like a wretch half-bewildered with magic that
charmed,

I heard the sweet voice of my love.

To the spot O for ever be fettered my sight--
With the sound ever charmed let me be;
Even this corse-covered strand is a couch of delight,
When such visions my fancy can see.

TO THE SWISS.

Ho! Swiss arise,

BY THE SAME.

The Gaul is on his way,

His banner to the blast is flying-

The peasants on thy hills are sighing,
As they look at the long array.
o! Swiss arise,

The Gaul has doomed thee to death;
Hark, hark to the groans and sighs,

As they rise from the vales beneath. Thy arm once was strong when the Austrian fell, And his buckler was pierced by the arrow of Tell; Though his horses were many as leaves of the spring, And the eagle o'ershadow'd the land with his wing, Yet he fell from his heights, while destruction and fear

Hung black as the shadow of night on his rear.

Ho! watchman of the night,

Dost hear the hoof on the plain?
Dost hear, in the spirits of affright,
The voices of the slain?

I heard the horses hoof on the plain,
As he paces the distant bound;

And the dying man, from the field of the slain,
Slow breathes a mournful sound.

Bind, bind the shield on the arm-

Let loose the sword from its sheath;

And the bells that welcome the victor home,
Shall toll for the brave in death.

SOME

HOME, SWEET HOME!

love to range the world's wide round, Some court the city's giddy charms, Some list the trumpet's clanging sound, Joy'd at the thoughts of war's alarms ;-Ambition's arts and Pleasure's smiles

With deep distrust I cautious flee,

And Glory's vain deceitful wiles,

For home, sweet home, is all to me! Fond hopes of wealth, vain dreams of ease, Offuture riches, future rest

And all that Fancy's self can please,

Fill the void chasm of many a breast. They seek the busy haunts of life, Explore the desert, brave the sea,

COSSACK, my mute companion, as thou sleep'st

On the warm rug, coil'd up in little room,
Enjoying much delight, why do thine ears
Erect with sudden tremors-why should sighs
Swell thy shagg'd sides--and inarticulate sounds
Escape in feverish murmurings from th bosom?-
And still, whene'er in these mysterious fits
Of visionary sadness I have pluckt
Thy shaggy ears--why, with an eye where grief
And love shed mingling glances, dost thou lie
The hand that broke thy slumbers, and advance
The supplicating paw, and seem to feel
More than thy wonted fondness for thy master?
Is it, that in the lonely sea-girt Isle

Where thy sweet days of puppyhood were past,
Thou hast imbib'd from the old seer who nurst thee
Ought of prophetic vision--as thou slept
On the dark hills capp'd with eternal clouds?
Has that mysterious power, which haunts the wild
And solitary glens, ta'en from thine eye

The film which hides the future? Dost thou see
The woes which fill the chequer'd rolls of Time?
And do the joys of sorrows which await
Thy quite unconscious Master--as they pass,
Cast their unreal shadows o'er thy dreams?

Is't this, which, when awaken'd, bids thy tail
Quiver with kindness,-this that taught thine eye
Its mute but eloquent language ?—Sweetest Cur,
Tho' Cur thou be, unseemly, bandy-legg'd,
Cloath'd in a matted wilderness of hair;
Yet hear me, Cossack, I would trust the heart
That beats within that canine breast of thine,
More for its faithfulness, than many a one
Dwelling in that proud shrine-a human bosom.

HANNAH MORE'S NEW WORK.

Isketches of Prevailing Opinions and

N a few days will be published, Moral

Manners, Foreign and Domestic, with Reflections on Prayer; by Hannah More.

Mr. Owen, of Lanark, stated, at the recent meeting in London, that 200,000 pair of hands, with machinery, spin as much cotton now, as, forty years ago, without machinery, would have employed 20,000,000, that is to say, 100 to 1; that the cotton spun in a year, at this time, in this country, would require, without machinery, at least 60,000,000 hands, with single wheels; and, that the quantity of manufactured work, of all sorts, done by the aid of machinery in this nation, is such as would require, without that aid, the labour

THIS is a very pretty title, and we think the book is likely to have a run. The" Grave" of Blair is a sweet poem, but the name is much too simple, "Thesaurus of Horror" puts the imagination at once on the alert, and nothing can be more pointed than the sinister horn of the dilemma, the "Charnel-House Explored." Nothing can be more delightful than the philosophical, poetical, and historical variety of the title-page. The only fears one has are, lest the bill of fare promise more than the landlord can furnish; but we can assure our gentle readers, that this is far from being the case, and that for the sum of three and sixpence per head, they may sup full of horrors at the Ordinary of Mr. Snart.

But to be serious-John Snart the

Thesaurus of Horror; or, the Charnel-House Explored!! being an Historical and Philanthropieal Inquisition made for the Quondam-Blood of its

Inhabitants! by a contemplative Descent into the Untimely Grave! shewing, by a number of Awful Facts that have transpired as well as from Philo sophical Inquiry, the Re-Animating Power of Fresh

Earth in cases of Syncope, &c. and the Extreme

Criminality of Hasty Funerals: with the Surest Methods of Escaping the Ineffable Horrors of Pre

mature Interment !! The Frightful Mysteries of the Dark Ages Laid Open, which not only Deluged the

Roman Empire, but Triumphed over all Christen

dom for a Thousand Years! Entombing the Sciences, and subsequently Reviving all the Ignorance

and Superstition of Gothic Barbarity! By John Snart, Φιλανθρωπος, Author of the Mathematical Principles of Mensuration, &c. 8vo. London.

philanthropist is very far from being happy. Most men have something or other in this troublesome world to distress them, but his case is one of the most hopeless. He is not afraid of a change of ministers, nor of the escape of Buonaparte from St. Helena, but, ever since he arrived at the age of maturity, he has been in constant terror of being BURIED ALIVE. On this subject, and this subject alone, has he meditated for twenty years past, and he has now given to the public the fruits of his meditations below the tombs with as much composure as the awfulness of his most desperate condition would admit.

This work is dedicated to the Duke of Sussex, and in the dedication the melancholy Snart informs his patron, that, next to the subjects of religion, "the horrors of the grave by premature interment are paramount to all others." Other writers, he informs us, have occasionally treated of this theme, but "petrified by the Gorgon's horrid front, have retired from the charge, and left it unfinished, rather than wound the feelings of themselves and the public by probing it to the bottom, until, like a long neglected disease, the evil (burying alive) has become desperate, and almost incurable, by inveterate custom."

We really had no notion that things had got to this length, but have not the presumption to contradict Mr. Snart on a subject which he has so deeply studi