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Spectacles-who took the Glasses out and when the old Gentleman put them on-finding that he could not see, exclaimed, Marcy me, I've lost my Sight-but thinking the impediment to Vision might be the dirtiness of the Glasses-took them off to wipe themwhen not feeling them, he, still more frightened, cried out, Why what's

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come now, why I've lost my Feeling too!" "

To conclude; he must be shortsighted indeed who does not perceive the many merits of this little production; and of all the Economies ever practised, it will be one of the least profitable not to become possessed of The Economy of the Eyes.

MARY CHIDDELL,

"THE MAID OF THE INN."
(Extracted from Blackwood's Magazine.)

-A Good cold collation, backed by
a foaming jug of ale, stood before
us. We invited the old gunner to join in
this part, (and that not the worst part,)
of the day's journey. A girl of the
public-house waited on us, and as she
did not froth the veteran's glass of
stingo with the dexterity of a true tap-
ster, it drew forth from him a rueful
reproach as soon as she was out of
hearing,couched in these terms:-"Ah!
now, that girl can't even give one a
draught of ale as she should. How it
makes one miss poor Mary!" Poor
Mary I had known; she was the daugh-
ter of the master of the house, and had
been dead, by a lamentable accident,
about a year or more. As a book,
originally belonging to one of my bro-
thers, had, in some sort, contributed to
the catastrophe, I drew nearer the old
man's knee, and heard with more heed
what his kind old heart had to say in
praise of her. I think her name was
Mary Chiddell. What made my young
feelings more especially alive when her
fate was deplored, was this :-A high-
ly respectable officer, who was intimate
with my father's family, was called in-
to garrison at Hurst Castle, and as
there were no comfortable apartments
for him in the fortress, he lodged at the
little inn. Naturally enough he bor-
rowed some books of us to amuse him-
self with in this dreary state of half-
exile. This "Mary the Maid of the
Inn," of course, waited on him to keep
his room in order---she was at this time
engaged to a young carpenter living at
Keyhaven, who, no wonder, spent all
his spare time and holidays down at

Hurst, and their marriage was soon looked forward to.

One Sunday afternoon, it was proposed that herself, her lover, and her brother, should take a sail in a boat up to Yarmouth; and (without leave) she took one of the officer's borrowed books, in order to while away the long afternoon of their voyage-a petty liberty, which she perhaps considered herself half entitled to use, being so great a favourite with their guest for her neatness, readiness, industry, and eternal good humour; but it was destined to be her destruction-she never came back. It was fine summer weather, with a very fresh breeze. The lover was to manage the sail; and as I am no proficient in nautical terms, I can only blunderingly relate the disaster according to my conceptions of it. The lover sat with one arm round Mary's waist, and read on the same page of the book with her; he held in the other hand the sheet or rope which regulated the sail, and did not fasten it to its proper place. In assisting to turn over a leaf, he let the rope fly loose-a squall came on at that very instant-the boat upset, and out of the three, the brother only, (from whom these particulars were heard) was saved by regaining the overturned boat, as it floated bottom upwards; and the corse of the hapless young woman was discovered some days after, a great Can it be way off, upon the mud. wondered at, that, as a boy, I erept closer to the old mourner, and heard, with a full heart, the dismal story, which I knew so well before? But, as

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I have said, it made more than an ordinary appeal to my sympathy; for I thought myself somewhat involved in it by the circumstance of the book. Indeed the volume, young as I was, was a thing not above my comprehension, for it was one of a miscellany, called the Pocket Magazine. I had read in the identical one so lost; and the gap in the set at home did then bring, and has often since brought, that fatal turning of the leaf full upon my imagination. Upon what a brittle thread does our existence hang! The warm pulses of youth, and love, and beauty, of high and undoubting hope, and of passionate but innocent transport, were all stopt without a warning! Here sat two young creatures, this moment in fond belief that their course of life was as fair before them as the sunny path upon the waves, over which their boat was dancing-the next moment, "the rush of water was upon their

THOU lonely relic of a name Emblazon'd on the roll of fame

In an immortal line:

Wert thou the consecrated place

souls!" Little bosoms heaved with sighs at the recital, and little eyes swam with tears in that inn-parlour-but the tears of childhood are proverbial for their rapid evaporation; and, with reference to the present circumstance, I might allegorize this pretty stanza which fixes the time of year, in a little poem of my acquaintance

"It was the pleasant season yet,
When stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers."

Let the shining stones be the smooth cheeks of the child, and the roads the channelled features of the aged-and here were some of us youngsters in the pleasant seasons yet, in which the silver showers of sympathy dry quickly, while the transition refused to take place so easily beneath the wrinkled eyelids of our old guide, which still were wet, and for a time he was not so light-hearted as before.

TO NEWTON'S STUDY.*

(Some ten feet square thy cabin'd space) Of one almost divine?

Was it within thy narrow room

Where Newton's wisdom pierced the gloom
That Science had conceal'd?
Was it within thy narrow cell
He sat and broke the secret spell
That gravitation veil'd ?—
Where, while corporeally at rest,
The labouring genius in his breast
Begat prophetic thought;

Or, leaving its cribb'd mansion here,
Sprang upward to some nobler sphere,
With inspiration fraught-

Or round the eternal heavens career'd,
Nor the sun's burning influence fear'd,
Nor bearded comets pale :
But o'er the orbits where they fly
On lightning pennons through the sky,
Steer'd his triumphant sail !
What stately halls can rival thee
In thy unobtrusive dignity,
Temple of thought sublime!
Thy inmate scann'd within thy wall
A thousand worlds, and there his call
Subdued both space and time.

The palace owns more glittering things,
Lords, courtiers, parasites, and kings,
The visible alone,

And not the best that earth can boast-
While thou hast held th' invisible host

Round a great spirit's throne.

Not Pharaoh's massy pyramids,
Not Angelo's dome in radiance hid
Of heaven's refulgence wide,
Can outshine thee in worth and note,
Where Newton reason'd, thought, and wrote,

Of vision, time, and tide.

Whate'er his name might consecrate,

Is safer from the rage of fate

Than pyramid or dome,

Though one may shrine a monarch's clay,
In t'other popes and prelates sway,

The plagues of ruin'd Rome.

The humblest spot where science grew,
Whence knowledge, born of genius, threw

Its glory on the mind,
Like thine is e'er a sacred site,
Circled around with holy light,
A Pharos to mankind.

Yet still, what passengers gone by
Cast not on thee the uplifted eye,
Nor noted if they saw :

Of London's million souls but few
Mark thee as I for ever do,

With reverence and awe.

In Italy thou would'st be known-
As Petrarch's house at Arqua shown,

Or as Voltaire's in France :

Here the 'Change walls move more than thine Where knavery, traffic, gold combine

To lead the sordid dance.

Yet do these sober walls to me
For ever speak thy dignity,
Philosophy refined !

And tell me of what mighty worth

In intellect on this low earth

Was Newton's wondrous mind.-N.Monthly.

* Still to be seen on the roof of his house in St. Martin's-street, nearly in the same state as he left it.

I

(Lon. Mag.)

OLD LETTERS.

KNOW of nothing more calculated to bring back the nearly-faded dreams of youth-the almost obliterated scenes and passions of our boyhood -and to recall the brightest and best associations of those days—

When the young blood ran riot in the veins,
And boyhood made us sanguine-

-

and pale and ghastly images of death are hovering round me. I see him, whom I loved, and prized, and honoured, shrunk into poor and wasting ashes. I mark a stranger closing his powerless lids a stranger following him to the grave and I cannot trust myself again to open his last letter. It was written to the yellow fever in the West Indies, but a short time before he fell a victim and told me, in the affecting language of Moore, that

Far beyond the western sea

Was one whose heart remember'd me.

themselves, but as a token of esteem for him to whom they were addressed, and as a true transcript of my feelings at the time they were composed. I make no apology for inserting them here. Those who have never loved, nor lost a friend, will be backward in perusing them-those who have, will recur to their own feelings and not withhold their sympathy.

STANZAS.

nothing that more easily conjures up the alternate joys and sorrows of maturer years the fluctuating visions that have floated before the restless imagination in times gone by, and the breathing forms and inanimate objects that wound themselves around our On hearing of his death, I wrote hearts, and became almost necessary to some stanzas which I have preserved our existence, than the perusal of old-not out of any pride in the verses letters. They are the memorials of attachment-the records of affection the speaking-trumpets through which those whom we esteem hail us from afar. They seem hallowed by the brother's grasp, the sister's kiss, the father's blessing, and the mother's love. When we look on them, the friends whom dreary seas and distant leagues divide from us are again in our presence. We see their cordial looks, and hear their gladdening voices once more. The paper has a tongue in every character it contains-a language in its very silentness. They speak to the souls of men like a voice from the grave, and are the links of that chain which connects with the hearts and sympathies of the living an evergreen remembrance of the dead. I have one at this moment before me, which, although time has in a degree softened the regret that I felt at the loss of him who penned it, I dare scarcely look upon it. It calls back too forcibly to my remembrance its noble-minded autbor-the treasured friend of my earliest and happiest days, the sharer of my puerile but innocent joys. I think of him as he then was the free-the spirited-the gay-the welcome guest in every circle where kind feeling had its weight, or frankness and honesty

n fluence; and, in an instant, comes the thought of what he now is ;

1.

Farewell! Farewell! for thee arise,

The bitter thoughts that pass not o'er;
And friendship's tears and friendship's sighs
Can never reach thee more.
For thou art fled, and all are vain
To call thee to this earth again.

2.

And thou hast died where strangers' feet
Alone towards thy grave could bend;
And that last duty, sad but sweet,

Has not been destined for thy friend :
He was not near to calm thy smart,
And press thee to his bleeding heart.

3.

He was not near, in that dark bour

When reason fled her ruin'd shrine,
To soothe with pity's gentle power,

And mingle his faint sighs with thine:
And pour the parting tear to thee,
As pledge of his fidelity.

4.

He was not near, when thou wert borne
By others to thy parent earth,
To think of former days, and mourn
In silence o'er departed worth :

And seek thy cold and cheerless bed, And breathe a blessing for the dead. 5.

Destroying death! thou hast one link

That bound me in this world's frail chain ; And now I stand on life's rough brink,

Like one whose heart is cleft in twain ; Save that at times a thought will steal To tell me that it still can feel.

6.

Oh! what delights,-what pleasant hours,
In which all joys were wont to blend,
Have faded now, and all hope's flowers
Have wither'd with my friend.
Thou feel'st no pain within the tomb,
But they alone who weep thy doom.

7.

Long wilt thou be the cherish'd theme
Of all their fondness-all their praise-
In daily thought and nightly dream-

In crowded halls and lonely ways;
And they will hallow every scene
Where thou in joyous youth hast been.

8.

Theirs is the grief that cannot die,
And in their hearts will be the strife
That must remain with memory-

Uncancell'd from the book of life.
Their breasts will be the mournful urns
Where sorrow's incense ever burns.

But there are other letters whose perusal makes us feel as if receding from the winter of the present to the spring-time of the past. These are from friends whom we have long known, and whose society we still enjoy. There is a charm in contrasting the sentiments of their youth with those of a riper age or rather, in tracing the course of their ideas and following them up to their full developement; for it is seldom that the feelings we entertain in the early part of our lives entirely change-they merely expand, as the grown tree proceeds from the shoot, or the flower from the bud. We love to turn from the formalities and cold politeness of the world to the "Dear Tom," or "Dear Dick," at the head of such letters. There is something touching about it ;-something that awakens a friendly warmth in the heart. It is shaking the hand by proxy-a vicarious" good morrow."I have a whole packet of such letters from my friend Ġand there

is scarcely a dash or a comma in them that is not characteristic of the man. Every word bears the impress of freedom-the true currente calamo stamp.

He is the most convivial of letter-writers-the heartiest of epistlers. Then there is N who always seems to bear in mind that it is "better to be brief than tedious," for it must indeed be an important subject that would elicit from him more than three lines, nor has his rib a wit more of the cacoethes scribendi about her.*

But there are letters differing in character from all that I have yet mentioned-fragments saved from the wreck of early love-reliques of spirit-buoying hopes-remembrancers of joy.They perchance remind us that that love has set in tears-that those hopes were cruelly blighted-that our joy is fled forever. When we look on them we seem to feel that

-No time

Can ransom us from sorrow.

We fancy ourselves the adopted of misery--Care's long inheritors. The bloom has gone off from our lives. For my own part, I have but one written token of her whom I loved in my youth. It is one of consolation, and yet of sorrow, for I received it on the evening after we had parted forever.— If the reader will listen to the "story of my love," he will not feel surprised that the sight of this letter should even now fill me with emotions which I cannot and would not control.

It was on a beautiful July evening that I wandered from the small but romantic village of R in the south of France. I turned from the high road, and struck into a retired and sheltered path. As I strolled onwards, the

*I have more than once suspected them to be the hero and the heroine of an anecdote, which I remember somewhere to have read, of a gentleman who by mere chance strolled into a coffee-house, where he met with a captain of his acquaintance, on the point of sailing for New York, and from whom he received an invitation to accompany him. This he accepted-taking care however to inform his wife of it, which he did in these terms:

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last faint streak of twilight disappear ed, and the shadows from the trees threw an air of gloom over the face of the scene, which gave it double interest in my eyes. After roaming for some time, I at length reached the extremity of the path, and beheld-not a bower, nor temple, with shrine of flowers, to which the winds pay homage-not the cot of humble industry, with its woodbined front, and cheerful hearth, and smiling faces, which my busy imagination had pictured, but a solitary mound of earth, strewed with a few sweet flowers. At one end, was the fragment of a simple cross, and at the other a wild rose-tree, bearing neither flower, nor blossom, nor bud, nor leaf. It was, as I afterwards heard, the grave of a young soldier, who had borne bravely and honourably the dangers and the toils of many battles-but the faithlessness of the maiden he loved subdued the spirit that never bowed before. He died broken-hearted, and left none to weep for him, save an aged mother, whose palsied hands had gathered the scattered flowers that I saw on his grave. They were the first-the last -she ever placed there, for she died whilst strewing them. The rose-tree was supposed by the peasantry of the place to have been secretly planted by the maiden who deserted him, as it never bloomed, although many flowers near it were in all the pride of freshness and beauty. How could the roses bloom upon his grave, when planted by her hand who had blighted the rose of hope in his heart-that heart which proved how well it loved by dying when she smote it? On a sudden the moon, that fair and noiseless spirit who baunts the sky at night, rose in her beauty. The winds gave a last sigh to the flowers, and died upon them. The birds had gone to their rests-the grasshopper

Chirped one good-night carol more. and all was silent-silent as the grave near which I stood. I seated myself beside the broken cross, and gazed with mingled sensations on the scene around me and the moon which silvered it, when the voice of the nightingale and another still sweeter, roused me 43 ATHENEUM VOL. 1. 2d series.

from my reverie. Henriette stood before me, without my having heard—

The music of her footsteps on my spirit.

Henriette had the kindest heart and Her voice stole o'er the mind like the finest eyes of any girl I ever knew. a spirit of Hope. The most simple word became music when she uttered it ;

'Twas whisper'd balm-'twas sunshine spoken.

and a smile ever lingered round her lip, as if enamoured of its ruby haunt. She was, indeed, a joyous-hearted creature, and seldom sighed-or if she did, it was for my sorrows, and not her own. We wandered homeward; I scarcely felt her arm within my own, except at times when the shadow from some lofty tree or passing cloud alarmed her, and then she drew nearer to my side.Once, indeed, her lips came so close to mine that I could not choose but press them. A kiss was not thought so great an offence in France as in England-thus she was not very angry: but I remarked that she did not shrink from the shadows as before.

We reached her father's residence, which was situated at the extremity of the village of R—, and I could not help noticing that Henriette appeared paler than usual, and that her hand trembled as she took the glass of Burgundy, which I presented to her. We had hitherto lived as brother and sister, guilelessly and happily together; but the kiss of that night had betrayed the state of my heart. She grew not less kind, but less familiar towards me: and I cannot say that it grieved me, for in my situation it was a sin to love her. I was a poor boy, and had neither father nor mother, nor a single relative to whom I could confide my puny cares. I had been left almost alone in the world, and the world seemed unkind to me but, no! no! there were some few hearts that loved me the better for my misfortunes; and strove to soothe my wounded spirit with sweet words, and smiles, and hopes of happier days. I inherited a small but sufficient patrimony from my father, who appointed Mr. C, a merchant, then residing in London, my guardian. He was a

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