[first! Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst! · Vainly thou heapest the dust upon thy head, Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman's bed, Thy daughter's dead! Hope of thine age, thy twilight's lonely beam, The Star hath set that shone on Helle's stream. What quench'd its ray ?-the blood that thou hast Hark to the hurried question of Despair: [shed! "Where is my child?" an Echo answers-"Where?" Within the place of thousand tombs That shine beneath, while dark above The sad but living cypress glooms And withers not, though branch and leaf Are stamped with an eternal grief HEC OD It looks as planted by Despair So white so faint the slightest gale Might whirl the leaves on high; And yet, though storms and blight assail, And hands more rude than wintry sky May wring it from the stem-in vain— To-morrow sees it bloom again! The stalk some spirit gently rears, And waters with celestial tears; For well may maids of Helle deem That this can be no earthly flower, Which mocks the tempest's withering hour, And buds unshelter'd by a bower; Nor droops though Spring refuse her shower, Nor woos the Summer beam. To it the live-long night there sings A bird unseen-but not remote: Invisible his airy wings, But soft as harp that Houri strings His long entrancing note! It were the Bulbul; but his throat, Though mournful, pours not such a strain : For they who listen cannot leave The spot, but linger there, and grieve As if they loved in vain! And yet so sweet the tears they shed, And longer yet would weep and wake, But when the day-blush bursts from high, And some have been who could believe, 'Tis from her cypress' summit heard, And there by night, reclined, 'tis said, "Tis named the "Pirate-phantom's pillow!" SPEECH ON THE NOTTINGHAM FRAME- "My Lords, "The subject now submitted to your Lordships, for the first time, though new to the House, is by no means new to the country. I believe it had occupied the serious thoughts of all descriptions of persons long before its introduction to the notice of that Legislature whose interference alone could be of real service. As a person in some degree connected with the suffering county, though a stranger, not only to this House in general, but to almost every individual whose attention I presume to solicit, I must claim some portion of your Lordships' indulgence, whilst I offer a few observations on a question in which I confess myself deeply interested. То enter into any detail of these riots would be superfluous; the House is already aware that every outrage short of actual bloodshed has been perpetrated, and that the proprietors of the frames obnoxious to the rioters, and all persons supposed to be connected with them, have been liable to insult and violence. During the short time I recently passed in Notts, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and, on the day I left the county, I was informed that forty frames had been broken the preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection. Such was then the state of that county, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress. The perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large and once honest and industrious body of the people into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community. At the time to which I allude, the town and county were burdened with large detachments of the military; the police was in motion, the magistrates assembled, yet all these movements, civil and military, had led tonothing. Not a single instance had occurred of the apprehension of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom there existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. But the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected; men liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been nefariously guilty of lawfully begetting several children, whom, thanks to the times! -they were unable to maintain. Considerable injury has been done to the proprietors of the improved frames. These machines were to them an advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the necessity of employing a number of workmen, who were left in consequence to starve. By the adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man performed the work of many, and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of employment. Yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was inferior in quality, not marketable at home, and merely hurried over with a view to exportation. It was called, in the cant of the trade, by the name of spider-work. The rejected workmen, in the blindness of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. In the foolishness of their hearts, they imagined that the maintenance and well doing of the industrious poor were objects of greater consequence than the enrichment of a few individuals, by any improvement in the implements of trade which threw the workmen out of employment, and rendered the labourer unworthy of his hire. And it must be confessed, that although the adoption of the enlarged |