voked, or their generosity stimulated, they awake in a moment from their apathy, and are capable of the most violent and most noble actions.

RURAL FELICITY.

"HAPPY the man who leaves off trade,"
(Thus to himself Paul Poplin said,)

No care his mind engages;
Fix'd on a gently rising hill,
At Somerstown or Pentonville,
He eyes the passing stages.

The city rout, the lord mayor's ball,
The bankrupt meeting at Guildhall,
He cautiously avoids;

Nor when bold privateers invade
Our homeward bound West India trade,
Pays cent. per cent. at Lloyd's.

His Poplars, Lombardy's delight,
He ranges graceful to the sight,
Than mighty Magog taller;
And if one overtops his peers,
The overgrown intruder shears,
Or substitutes a smaller.

Pleas'd from his summerhouse to spy
The lowing herd to Smithfield hie,
To feed each London glutton;

His blushing elder-vine he brews,
To treat his city-friends, who choose
To taste his Sunday's mutton.

When Autumn rears his sunburnt head,
And plums his garden-wall o'erspread,
What joy rewards his labours!
First choosing for himself the best,
He civilly bestows the rest

Upon his next door neighbours.

Where glides old Middleton's canal,
He sometimes joins the motley mall,

What more can mortal man desire,
An elbow chair, a blazing fire,
Two spermaceti tapers;

An appetite at five to dine,
A dish of fish, a pint of wine,
A leg of lamb and capers!

No turbot eighteen pence a pound
Should on my humble board be found,
No fricandeau or jelly;

No moor-game, dear and dainty breed,
Should fly from Berwick upon Tweed,
To roost within my belly.

I'd kill a pig-I'd drive a team---
I'd keep a cow to yield me cream,
More delicate than nectar;
pure and innocent delight

To snatch the pigeon from the kite,
And-in a pie protect her!

And when the Hampstead stage I spied,
With six fat citizens inside,

Their daily labour over;

The horned herd I'd thus provoke "Fag on, obedient to the yoke, Behold me safe in clover."

Paul Poplin, in a curious fuss,
A future Cincinnatus, thus

His honest pate was puzzling;
When lo! before his counter stands
A pursy widow, and demands
Six yards of ell-wide muslin!

He starts-displays the Indian ware,
His country box dissolves in air,
Like mists of morning vapour;
And, in the Poultry, Poplin still
Sticks to the shop, and eyes the till,
A smirking linendraper.

LINES

Upon seeing a beautiful infant sleeping on the bosom of its mother.

UPON its native pillow dear,

The little slumb’rer finds repose;

His fragrant breath eludes the ear,
A zephyr passing o'er a rose.

Yet soon from that pure spot of rest,
Love's little throne, shalt thou be torn;
Time hovers o'er thy downy rest

To crown thy baby brows with thorn.

Oh! thoughtless! couldst thou now but see
On what a world thou soon must move;

Or taste the cup prepar'd for thee

Of grief, lost hopes, or widow'd love;

Ne'er from that breast thou'dst raise thine head,

But thou would'st breathe to heav'n a prayer

To let thee in thy blossom fade,

And in a kiss to perish there.

FEMALE HEROISM.

ABOUT ten years ago, there lived at Vienna, a German Count, who had long entertained a secret amour with a young lady of considerable family. After a correspondence of gallantries, which lasted two or three years, the father of the young Count, whose family was reduced to a low condition, found out a very advantageous match for him, and made his son sensible that he ought in common prudence to close with it. The Count, upon the first opportunity, acquainted his mistress very fairly with what had passed, and laid the whole matter before her with such freedom and openness of heart, that she seemingly consented to it; she only desired of him, that they might have one meeting, before they parted forever.

The place appointed for this meeting was a grove, which stands at a little distance from the town. They conversed together in this place for some time, when on a sudden, the lady pulled out a pocket pistol, and shot her lover in the heart, so that he fell down dead at her feet. She then returned to her father's house, telling every one she met, what she had done. Her friends, upon hearing her story, would have found out means for her escape; but she told them, she had killed her dear Count, because she could not live without him, and that for the same reason, she was resolved to follow him by whatever way justice should determine. She was no sooner seized, but she avowed her guilt, rejected all excuses that were made in her favour, and begged that her execution might be speedy. She was sentenced to have her head cut off, and was apprehensive of nothing, but that the interest of her friends would obtain pardon for her. When the confessor approached her, she asked him where he thought the soul of her dear Count was? He replied, that his case was very dangerous, considering the circumstances in which he died. Upon this, so desperate was her phrensy, that she bid him leave her, for that she was resolved to go to the same place where the Count was. The priest was forced to give her better hopes of the deceased, (from a consideration that he was upon breaking off so criminal a commerce and leading a new life) before he could bring her mind to a temper fit for one, who was so near her end.

Upon the day of her execution, she dressed herself in all her ornaments, and walked towards the scaffold, more like an expect

ing bride, than a condemned criminal. She was placed in a chair, according to the custom of that place; where after having stretched out her neck with an air of joy, she called upon the name of the Count, which was the signal appointed for the executioner, who with a single blow of his sword, severed her head from her body.

THOUGHTS ON CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS.

M. DE VOLTAIRE does not think two witnesses sufficient to prove the crime of a delinquent; and he alleges several cases, besides the famous and well known case of the daughter of Sirven, which seem to justify his opinion. A cabal, says he, of the populace of Lyons, declared in 1772, that they saw a company of young people carrying, amidst singing and dancing, the dead body of a young woman, whom they had violated and assassinated. The depositions of the witnesses to this abominable fact, or pretended fact, were unanimous; and, nevertheless, the judges acknowledged solemnly, in their sentence, that there had been neither singing nor dancing, nor girl violated, nor dead body carried. This may have been, in part, the fault of the judges, who, as our author insinuates, and even affirms in this work,* are in France often more corrupt and perfidious, than the witnesses. The case, indeed, of M. de Pivardiere is most singular, as it is almost incredible, and is nevertheless (according to our author) a public fact. Madame Chauvelin, his second wife, was accused of having had him assassinated in his castle. Two servant maids were witnesses of the murder: his own daughter heard the cries and last words of her father: My God! have mercy upon me!' One of the maid servants, falling dangerously ill, took the sacrament; and while she was performing this solemn act of religion, declared before God, that her mistress intended to kill her master. Several other witnesses testified, that they had seen linen stained with his blood; others declared, that they had heard the report of the gun, by which the assassination commenced. His death was averred: nevertheless, at length it appeared, that there was no gun fired, no blood shed, nobody killed. What remains is still more extraordinary: M. de la Pivardiere returned home; he appears in person before the judges of the province, who were preparing every thing to

Prize of Justice and Humanity.