A SUMMER'S EVE.

[Henry Kirke White, born in Nottingham, 21st March, 1785; died at Cambridge, 19th October, 1806. He was the son of a butcher, and assisted his father in that trade for a short time. He was then sent to learn stocking-loom weaving, and from that he was removed to an attorney's office. His devotion to study having attracted the attention of several gentlemen, he obtained a sizarship in St. John's College, Cambridge. He intended to enter the ministry, but excessive study injured his health, and he died in his twenty second year. His circumstances and early death won extensive favour for his poems. Clifton Grove, a sketch in verse, is his longest production; the shorter pieces are characterized by much devotional spirit and an almost morbid anticipation of death.]

Down the sultry arc of day

The burning wheels have urged their way;
And Eve along the western skies
Spreads her intermingling dyes.
Down the deep, the miry lane,
Creaking comes the empty wain,
And driver on the shaft-horse sits,
Whistling now and then by fits:
And oft, with his accustomed call,
Urging on the sluggish Ball.

The barn is still, the master's gone,
And thresher puts his jacket on,
While Dick, upon the ladder tall,
Nails the dead kite to the wall.
Here comes shepherd Jack at last;
He has penned the sheepcote fast,
For 'twas but two nights before,
A lamb was eaten on the moor:
His empty wallet Rover carries,
Nor for Jack, when near home, tarries.
With lolling tongue he runs to try
If the horse-trough be not dry.
The milk is settled in the pans,
And supper messes in the cans;
In the hovel carts are wheeled,
And both the colts are drove a-field;
The horses are all bedded up,
And the ewe is with the tup.
The snare for Mister Fox is set,
The leaven laid, the thatching wet,
And Bess has slinked away to talk
With Roger in the holly walk.

Now, on the settle all, but Bess,
Are set to eat their supper mess;
And little Tom and roguish Kate
Are swinging on the meadow gate.
Now they chat of various things,
Of taxes, ministers, and kings,
Or else tell all the village news,
How madam did the squire refuse;
How parson on his tithes was bent,
And landlord oft distrained for rent.
Thus do they talk, till in the sky
The pale-eyed moon is mounted high,

And from the ale-house drunken Ned
Had reeled-then hastened all to bed.
The mistress sees that lazy Kate
The happing coal on kitchen grate
Has laid-while master goes throughout,
Sees shutters fast, the mastiff out,
The candles safe, the hearths all clear,
And nought from thieves or fire to fear;
Then both to bed together creep,
And join the general troop of sleep.

LE REVENANT.

There are but two classes of persons in the worldthose who are hanged, and those who are not hanged; and it has been my lot to belong to the former."

There are few men, perhaps, who have not a hundred times in the course of life, felt a curiosity to know what their sensations would be if they were compelled to lay life down. The very impossibility, in all ordinary cases, of obtaining any approach to this knowledge, is an incessant spur pressing on the fancy in its endeavours to arrive at it. Thus poets and painters have ever made the estate of a man condemned to die one of their favourite themes of comment or description. Footboys and 'prentices hang themselves almost every other day, conclusively-missing their arrangement for slipping the knot half way-out of a seeming instinct to try the secrets of that fate, which-less in jest than earnest-they feel an inward monition may become their own. And thousands of men, in early life, are uneasy until they have mounted a breach, or fought a duel, merely because they wish to know, experimentally, that their nerves are capable of carrying them through that peculiar ordeal. Now I am in a situation to speak from experience upon that very interesting question-the sensations attendant upon a passage from life to death. I have been HANGED, and am ALIVE -perhaps there are not three other men, at this moment, in Europe, who can make the same declaration. Before this statement meets the public eye I shall have quitted England for ever; therefore I have no advantage to gain from its publication. And, for the vanity of knowing, when I shall be a sojourner in a far country, that my name-for good or ill-is talked about in this,-such fame would scarcely do even my pride much good, when I dare not lay claim to its identity. But the cause which excites me to write is this-My greatest pleasure through life has been the perusal of any extraordinary narratives of fact. An account

of a shipwreck in which hundreds have perished; of a plague which has depopulated towns or cities; anecdotes and inquiries connected with the regulation of prisons, hospitals, or lunatic receptacles! nay, the very police reports of a common newspaper-as relative to matters of reality-have always excited a degree of interest in my mind which cannot be produced by the best invented tale of fiction. Because I believe, therefore, that to persons of a temper like my own, the reading that which I have to relate will afford very high gratification; and because I know also, that what I describe can do mischief to no one, while it may prevent the symptoms and details of a very rare consummation from being lost;-for these reasons I am desirous, as far as a very limited education will permit me, to write a plain history of the strange fortunes and miseries to which, during the last twelve months, I have been subjected.

I have stated already that I have been hanged and am alive. I can gain nothing now by misrepresentation-I was GUILTY of the act for which I suffered. There are individuals of respectability whom my conduct already has disgraced, and I will not revive their shame and grief by publishing my name. But it stands in the list of capital convictions in the Old Bailey calendar for the winter sessions 1826; and this reference, coupled with a few of the facts which follow, will be sufficient to guide any persons who are doubtful to the proof that my statement is a true one. In the year 1824 I was a clerk in a Russia broker's house, and fagged between Broad Street Buildings and Batson's Coffee-house and the London Docks, from nine in the morning to six in the evening, for a salary of fifty pounds a year. I did this not contentedly-but I endured it; living sparingly in a little lodging at Islington for two years, till I fell in love with a poor, but very beautiful girl, who was honest where it was very hard to be honest; and worked twelve hours a day at sewing and millinery, in a mercer's shop in Cheapside, for half a guinea a week. To make short of a long tale-this girl did not know how poor I was; and in about six months I committed seven or eight forgeries, to the amount of near two hundred pounds. I was seized one morning-I expected it for weeks as regularly as I awoke every morning and carried after a few questions for examination before the lord-mayor. At the Mansion House I had nothing to plead. Fortunately my motions had not been watched; and so no one but myself was implicated in the charge, as no one else was really guilty.

A

sort of instinct to try the last hope, made me listen to the magistrate's caution, and remain silent; or else, for any chance of escape I had, I might as well have confessed the whole truth The examination lasted about half an hour; when I was fully committed for trial, and sent away to Newgate.

at once.

The shock of my first arrest was very slight indeed; indeed I almost question if it was not a relief, rather than a shock to me. For months I had known perfectly that my eventual discovery was certain. I tried to shake the thought of this off; but it was of no use I dreamed of it even in my sleep; and I never entered our counting-house of a morning, or saw my master take up the cash-book in the course of the day, that my heart was not up in my mouth, and my hand shook so that I could not hold the pen-for twenty minutes afterwards I was sure to do nothing but blunder. Until at last, when I saw our chief clerk walk into the room on New Year's morning with a police officer, I was as ready for what followed as if I had had six hours conversation about it. I do not believe I showed-for I am sure I did not feel it either surprise or alarm. My "fortune," however, as the officer called it, was soon told. I was apprehended on the 1st of January; and the sessions being then just begun, my time came rapidly round. On the 4th of the same month, the London grandjury found three bills against me for forgery; and on the evening of the 5th, the judge exhorted me to "prepare for death;" for "there was no hope that, in this world, merey could be extended to me."

The whole business of my trial and sentence passed over as coolly and formally as I would have calculated a question of interest, or summed up an underwriting account. I had never, though I lived in London, witnessed the proceedings of a criminal court before; and I could hardly believe the composure and indifference, and yet civility-for there was no show of anger or ill-temper-with which I was treated; together with the apparent perfect insensibility of all the parties round me, while I was rolling on-with a speed which nothing could check, and which increased every moment-to my ruin! I was called suddenly up from the dock when my turn for trial came, and placed at the bar: and the judge asked in a tone which had neither severity about it nor compassion, nor carelessness, nor anxiety, nor any character or expression whatever that could be distinguished-"If there was any counsel appeared for the prosecution?" A barrister then, who seemed to have some consideration

to the sheriffs, to the aldermen, she had made her way even to the Secretary of State! My heart did misgive me at the thought of death; but, in despite of myself, I forgot fear when I missed her usual time of coming, and gathered from the people about me how she was employed. I had no thought about the success or failure of her attempt. All my thoughts were, that she was a young girl, and beautiful -hardly in her senses, and quite unprotected; without money to help, or a friend to advise her; pleading to strangers, humbling herself perhaps to menials who would think her very despair and helpless condition a challenge to infamy and insult. Well, it mattered little! The thing was no worse, because I was alive to see and suffer from it. Two days more, and all would be over; the demons that fed on human wretchedness would have their prey. She would be homeless, pennyless, friendless; she should have been the companion of a forger and a felon; it needed no witchcraft to guess the termination.

We hear curiously, and read every day of the visits of friends and relatives to wretched criminals condemned to die. Those who read and hear of these things the most curiously, have little impression of the sadness of the reality. It was six days after my first apprehension, when Elizabeth Clare came, for the last time, to visit me in prison! In only these short six days her beauty, health, strength-all were gone; years upon years of toil and sickness could not have left a more worn-out wreck. Death, as plainly as ever death spoke, sat in her countenance-she was broken-hearted. When she came, I had not seen her for two days. I could not speak, and there was an officer of the prison with us too; I was the property of the law now; and my mother, if she had lived, could not have blest or wept for me without a third person, and that a stranger, being present.

I sat down by her on my bed-stead, which was the only place to sit on in my cell, and wrapped her shawl close round her, for it was very cold weather, and I was allowed no fire; and we sat so for almost an hour without exchanging a word. She had no good news to bring me; I knew that; all I wanted to hear was about herself-I did hear! She had not a help, nor a hope, nor a prop left upon the earth! The only creature that sheltered her, the only relative she had, was a married sister, whose husband I knew to be a villain. would she do, what could she attempt? She "did not know that;" and "it was not long that she should be a trouble to anybody."

What

But "she should go to Lord Sagain that evening about me. He had treated her kindly; and she felt certain she should still succeed. It was her fault, she had told everybody this, all that had happened; if it had not been for meeting her, I should never have gone into debt, and into extravagance."

I listened, and I could only listen! I would have died-coward as I was-upon the rack, or in the fire, so I could but have left her safe. I did not ask so much as to leave her happy! Oh then I did think, in bitterness of spirit, if I had but shunned temptation, and staid poor and honest! If I could only have placed her once more in the hard laborious poverty where I had first found her! It was my work, and she never could be there again! How long this vain remorse might have lasted I cannot tell. My head was light and giddy. I understood the glance of the turnkey who was watching me, "that Elizabeth must be got away;" but I had not strength even to attempt it. The thing had been arranged for me. The master of the jail entered. She went: it was then the afternoon; and she was got away on the pretence that she might make one more effort to save me, with a promise that she should return again at night. The master was an elderly man, who had daughters of his own; and he promised--for he saw, I knew, how the matter was-to see Elizabeth safe through the crowd of wretches among whom she must pass to quit the prison. She went, and I knew that she was going for ever. As she turned back to speak as the door was closing, I knew that I had seen her for the last time. The door of my cell closed. We were to meet no more on earth. I fell upon my knees, I clasped my hands; my tears burst out afresh, and I called on God to bless her.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when Elizabeth left me; and when she departed it seemed as if my business in this world was at an end. I could have wished, then and there, to have died upon the spot; I had done my last act and drunk my last draught in life. But as the twilight drew in, my cell was cold and damp; and the evening was dark and gloomy; and I had no fire, nor any candle, although it was in the month of January, nor much covering to warm me; and by degrees my spirits weakened, and my heart sunk at the desolate wretchedness of everything about me; and gradually-for what I write now shall be the truth-the thoughts of Elizabeth, and what would be her fate, began to give way before a sense of my own situation. This was the first time, I cannot tell the reason why, that my

mind had ever fixed itself fully upon the trial that I had within a few hours to go through; and as I reflected on it a terror spread over me almost in an instant, as though it were that my sentence was just pronounced, and that I had not known really, and seriously, that I was to die before. I had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. There was food which a religious gentleman who visited me had sent from his own table, but I could not taste it; and when I looked at it strange fancies came over me. It was dainty food; not such as was served to the prisoners in the jail. It was sent to me because I was to die to-morrow! and I thought of the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air that were pampered for slaughter. I felt that my own sensations were not as they ought to be at this time; and I believe that for a while I was insane.

A sort of dull humming noise, that I could not get rid of, like the buzzing of bees, sounded in my ears. And though it was dark, sparks of light seemed to dance before my eyes; and I could recollect nothing. I tried to say my prayers, but could only remember a word here and there; and then it seemed to me as if these were blasphemies that I was uttering; I don't know what they were-I cannot tell what it was I said; and then, on a sudden, I felt, or thought, all this terror was useless, and that I would not stay there to die; and I jumped up and wrenched at the bars of my cell window with a force that bent them, for I felt as if I had the strength of a lion. And I felt all over the lock of my door; and tried the door itself with my shoulder-though I knew it was plated with iron, and heavier than that of a church; and I groped about the very walls, and into the corners of my dungeon-though I knew very well, if I had had my senses, that it was all of solid stone three feet thick; and that if I could have passed through a crevice smaller than the eye of a needle, I had no chance of escaping. And, in the midst of all this exertion, a faintness came over me as though I had swallowed poison; and I had just power to reel to the bed-place, where I sank down, as I think, in a swoon; but this did not last, for my head swam round, and the cell seemed to turn with me; and I dreamed-between sleeping and waking-that it was midnight, and that Elizabeth had come back as she had promised, and that they refused to admit her.

And I thought that it snowed heavily, and that the streets were all covered with it, as if with a white sheet, and that I saw her dead-lying in the fallen snow-and in the darkness, at the prison gate!

When I came to myself, I was struggling and breathless. In a minute or two I heard St. Sepulchre's clock go ten; and I knew it was a dream that I had had; but I could not help fancying that Elizabeth really had come back. And I knocked loudly at the door of my cell; and when one of the turnkeys came I begged him, for mercy sake, to go down to the gate and see; and moreover to take a small bundle containing two shirts-which I pushed to him through the grate for I had no money; and if he would have my blessing, to bring me but one small cup of brandy to keep my heart alive; for I felt that I had not the strength of a man, and should never be able to go through my trial like one. The turnkey shook his head at my request, as he went away; and said that he had not the brandy, even if he dared run the risk to give it me. But in a few minutes he returned bringing me a glass of wine, which he said the master of the jail had sent me, and hoped it would do me good; however he would take nothing for it. And the chaplain of the prison, too, came without my sending; and-for which I shall ever have cause to thank him-went himself down to the outer gates of the jail, and pledged his honour as a man and a Christian clergyman that Elizabeth was not there nor had returned: and moreover he assured me that it was not likely she would come back, for her friends had been told privately that she could not be admitted; but nevertheless he should himself be up during the whole night; and if she should come, although she could not be allowed to see me, he would take care that she should have kind treatment and protection; and I had reason afterwards to know that he kept his word. He then exhorted me solemnly "to think no more of cares or troubles in this world, but to bend my thoughts upon that to come, and to try to reconcile my soul to Heaven; trusting that my sins, though they were heavy, under repentance, might have hope of mercy.'

When he was gone, I did find myself for a little while more collected; and I sat down again on the bed, and tried seriously to commune with myself, and prepare myself for my fate. I recalled to my mind that I had but a few hours more at all events to live, that there was no hope on earth of escaping-and that it was at least better that I should die decently and like a man. Then I tried to recollect all the tales that I had ever heard about death by hanging-that it was said to be the sensation of a moment to give no pain-to cause the extinction of life instantaneously-and so on, to twenty other strange ideas. By degrees