the poor wretches appeared on the verge of a most miserable, death, pale, sunken, and exhausted. On the morning of the seventh day, one who had officiated as their commander, presented himself at the usual place of communication with a fresh demand. His name was Anastasio Ieramachos, well known not only as the first who had broken the allegiance to his superior officers, but as the subtle and resolute supporter of all the rebellious deeds which followed; a crafty, clever Greek, with boldness enough to execute a dangerous act, and skill enough to keep away as much danger as was by human means avoidable. He appeared on one side a small aperture, made for this especial purpose, and demanded an interview with some agent of the Governor. It was conceded to him. He said "that his followers were in the greatest imaginable state of want: that a new enemy had attacked them in the shape of unconquerable thirst: that they had long ago drained their bags and scanty reservoirs, and that they must soon perish or be driven to madHe and his party threw themselves upon the humanity of the Governor; a little water was all they asked. Such was their distress, that they had resolved to endure it no longer, and had come to a determination of blowing themselves up that very evening, unless a previous supply were granted to them. He stated, as usual, that all they wished was to avoid the extreme cruelties of military law; that any death to them was far more to be desired; and that they had deliberately decided, that by exploding the fort, they should perish with less pain and infamy. At nine o'clock that night, unless some concession were previously made to them,--at the first tolling of the bell of St. John's Cathedral, they would set fire to the maga zine;-a few drops of water would prevent that catastrophe.'

ness.

Whether the other party discredited the declarations of Ieramachos, and conceived the threat held out only for the sake of gaining what they needed, or that General V, having read certain maxims in the legislative works of the army, fancied no deviations in any case allowable, cannot at this time be decided. A negative was returned to the request of the Greek, and the day passed in a calm of horrible suspense. Again and again some one appeared on the same errand, re-stating their need, and deepening the picture of their misery, but always concluding with the one constant announcement, that a refusal would be heard more of at the hour of nine that night. And at the hour of nine it was heard of! A tremendous burst, as of a thousand riven rocks, startled every one from his security. A shock felt for miles around, and the blaze of a huge conflagration, told to the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns, and the villages scattered even to the farthest corners of the Island, that these despairing men had kept their word. Windows of houses at the other side of the city of Valletta were shattered into atoms; and when the first dreadful crash had subsided, the shrieks of men in agony reached far and wide through the quiet evening sky, and declared that the authors of this catastrophe had not died unrevenged. When a survey could be made of the extent of the disaster, it was terrible indeed to find what havoc it had caused. The fort ruined and torn into fragments; its walls strewn with corpses, and its fosse streaming with human blood not yet cold.

The feeling throughout the Island was very generally one of commiseration for the poor wretches who had been urged to this conduct by what was considered an almost unnecessary display of austerity on the part of our officers. It was thought that men not inured to military discipline, born, too, under another sky, and accustomed to different habits, should have been handled in the first instance with greater softness and indulgence. It seemed that many of their measures were but the natural and excusable projects of men scarcely yet reclaimed from barbarism, certainly not modelled into the prim pieces of mechanism which older soldiers become. A little clemency then shown might have soothed the ill-temper they manifested at the swordand-stick system of the German adjutant, and prevented the completion of this disaster. But their fate was provoked by measures neither humane nor politic, and the sympathy of the public was greatly on their side.

The sensation caused by these occurrences was beginning to wear away, and a week had now passed since the event without changing the popular sentiments on the subject. An old priest was at this period riding home to his casal in some secluded district of the interior, and the panniers upon which he balanced his legs were furnished in priestly wise with sundry dainties, fish, flesh, and vegetables, accommodated to his peculiar palate. The old donkey he bestrode marched leisurely along the unfrequented byway, and flapped his long ears to disturb the pestilent flies which hived thereon, much, however, to the inconvenience of his master, whose nose received the migratory swarm, and was discomposed much beyond the degree permitted by the usual serenity of the man. But this occasional affliction did not much interfere with the low, solemn piece of psalmody, or what not, that continually issued from his lips with the words of their national song, like a country-dance played upon the organ of Haarlem. Still proceeded he with the memorable

“Tën en hobbok jaua calbi,"

words perhaps too amorous for his cloth, but, nevertheless, the theme of all, young or old, phlegmatic or unctuous, in that country, where the tempers appear as unanimous as the sky is uniform. "Jaua calbi," repeated the old man, a little put out by a sudden jerk of his donkey, and sidelong movement to the right. "Jaua calbi," once more he murmured, but in a subdued tone, as he began to fancy that some cause must exist for this eccentricity of his beast; and, looking cautiously about him, what saw he but a musket directed towards him upon the level of a stone wall, and the head and shoulders of a soldier planted behind it? The incognito called upon him to stop; but his order was futile. The old man rolled from his donkey, collected his youthful speed, and never ceased running and hallooing "Aima! Aima!" till he reached the village of his home, and was safely ensconced in a fortifying circle of his fraternity. To them he related his adventure with some depth of colour: he said that a ghost had appeared to him dressed like a chasseur, and for all the world like one of Froberg's men, but ghastly and lean as a ghost should be. He narrated all the circumstances; and the tale reaching the ears of the police, a strict search was made over the face of the country, to ascertain the bodily condition of this spectre. The zeal and number of the persons so employed, soon led to the discovery they desired. In a rude, retired hovel, far from any inhabited quarter, they came upon some men whose looks were not so inhuman but they could recognize under them the six desperate Greeks of Froberg's regiment! Almost skeletons, their hair hanging about them unshorn and lank, their countenances distorted by disease, the offspring of protracted want and bad food, they stood like shadows, or scarecrows, an easy capture to the police officers. After the first astonishment had passed away, and it was too sure that no farther escape was possible or conceivable, they were questioned as to the mode by which they had preserved life, both during the explosion, which had been fatal to so many, and afterwards when subjected to detection at every hour of the day. Without reluctance or concealment, leramachos gave answer to these inquiries, and told the singular tale which shall conclude this narrative.

He said that from the first moment of occupying the magazine, he had projected a plan of escape which was agreed to, and nobly sustained by his staunch associates. No part of their actions afterwards was the result of

The commencing words of a stanza of the only indigenous song Malta can boast. They may be thus rendered

And proceed with,

"I love you in my heart,"

"But I hate you before the people :
There is no reason to ask me why;
You, darling, know the reason.'

accident, but arose from the deliberate contrivance of one great plot. It was this. Being thoroughly acquainted with the dimensions and position of the fort, they believed from the first that it might be so undermined as to afford an egress to seaward, and they lost no time in attempting this plan of escape. While the besiegers lay quietly above them, they were employed in excavating, little by little, a passage to the sea-wall of the fortification, which they might make use of as they had the means. The softness of the rock facilitated their labour, and the progress they made was unexpectedly rapid. Having assured themselves of the practicability of an opening, the next difficulty was how to procure an opportunity of using it. This object was attended with many obstacles. The shell of the outer wall could not be burst through without some noise. By day there would be no chance of getting out unseen; and by night the sound of their operations would be distinctly heard. After long deliberations, the scheme was decided upon which was executed as we have seen. Though actually in great distress, they determined to heighten the appearance of it, and so by degrees bring things to such an extremity that it might appear their pitiable condition drove them to their ultimate act of desperation. For this reason they made such repeated demonstrations of their misery, and finally put the consummation of their rebellious acts upon the pretext of extreme thirst. At the appointed hour they placed themselves at the farther end of their subterranean passage; and having laid a communicating train of gunpowder to the heart of the magazine, they awaited only the first bell of St. John's Church as the signal for the hazardous experiment. At a moment quitting the train, and themselves bursting through the stone partition which bounded their excavation, they were instantly beyond the reach of death, and of suspicion into the bargain. They relied on the effect of their own display of wretchedness to confirm the opinion that this act was the result of despair; and they knew that the blackened tunnel through which they had crawled, would be attributed to the fury of the explosion, and considered as a channel forcibly, but spontaneously burst, by the volcano they had erected.-They were hitherto right in their surmises. But beyond this fortune deserted them. They wandered by stealth over the deserted parts of the sea-coast, in vain attempting to procure a boat in which they might pass over to Sicily. Discovered once in a scheme to purloin a speronara* privily, they were in imminent danger of being then delivered up to justice, and were compelled to wait almost hopelessly for a more favourable time. The necessity of lying quite concealed prevented their procuring any but the vilest and least nutritive food. A few vegetables were all they had subsisted upon, but leaves and grass, since the hour of their escape. They bore up, however, manfully, and despite the extreme indigence to which they were reduced, no one committed himself by any unseasonable exposure until the day when one of the least provident, goaded by insufferable pangs of hunger, made the unlucky attempt upon the Maltese priest, which led to their detection.

They were marched into the city, guarded by two lines of troops, and the forlorn aspect they presented will be remembered by many a spectator till his dying day. Even then they were not dejected. Their eyes were all brightness in the midst of their desolation, like a fire in the darkness of night; and the pitiful natives crouched beneath those glances, which told that they were not malefactors, or could not so esteem themselves. In a few hours they were sentenced to the death they had so long succeeded in parrying; and in the last instant of life they manifested the same heroic bearing, which has left in the minds of all who saw them a recollection glowing and full of admiration for the last of Froberg's Regiment.

Speronara, a little picturesque boat, commonly seen on the channel between the two islands.

T

ISTO FAS LADY, ON THE DEATH OF THEROSONIC, INGDIO98
THE world, the heartless world, may deemvoiled yodt trot
aylineroa quid si
But lightly of a loss like thine,
And think it a romantic dream

For such an one in grief to pine: vd siianite21529
A gentler creed, my friend, is mine,
Knowing what human hearts can bear,
And how a Mother's must enshrine

The object of its love and care.
For was he not, though on him fell

A cloud that wrapt his soul in night,
The tenderest tie, the strongest spell,

That could thy heart to earth unite?
His was a child's endearing right,

By helplessness but made more dear;
Nor can he vanish from thy sight

Unwept by Nature's mournful tear.
But when the bitterness of grief

Hath been allow'd its sacred claim,
What soothing thoughts must yield relief,
And fan a purer, holier flame!
Whatever plans thy heart might frame,
Had he survived thee, for his sake,
Could others have fulfill'd each aim,

Or effort, love like thine would make?
A Mother's heart, and hand, and eye,

Alone could do as thine have done,
And unremittingly supply

The wants and claims of such a Son:
But now thy love its meed hath won,
Thy fond solicitude may cease;
His race of life is safely run,

His spirit fled where all is peace!

And who may tell how bright the ray

Of light and life from Heaven may fall
On minds which, in their mortal clay,

Seem'd bound in dark Affliction's thrall?
Think not that HE who governs all,

Whose power and love no bounds can know,
Would one into existence call

To suffer helpless, hopeless woe.

With humble hope to Him entrust

Thy mourn'd one; in strong faith that He
Can call forth from his slumbering dust

A Spirit from all frailties free;

And yet permit thy soul to see

One who on earth seem'd vainly given,
A form of light, to welcome thee
Hereafter to the joys of Heaven.

BERNARD BARTON.

1J

The unfortunate subject of these verses had lived, or existed, from childhood to manhood, in a state of most pitiable mental and bodily infirmity. To some the death of such a sufferer may seem to claim little sympathy. But the heart of a mother is naturally bound up in that of her child, especially an only one; and no common void must be cansed by the removal of such an object of years of anxious solicitude.

SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE. PART II. 19

D. You deny, I think, that personal identity, in the qualified way in which you think proper to admit it, is any ground for the doctrine of self-interest?

B. Yes, in an exclusive and absolute sense I do undoubtedly, that is, in the sense in which it is affirmed by metaphysicians, and ordinarily believed in.

D. Could you not go over the ground briefly, without entering into technicalities?

:

B. Not easily but stop me when I entangle myself in difficulties. A person fancies, or feels habitually, that he has a positive, substantial interest in his own welfare, (generally speaking) just as much as he has in any actual sensation that he feels, because he is always and necessarily the same self. What is his interest at one time is therefore equally his interest at all other times. This is taken for granted as a self-evident proposition. Say he does not feel a particular benefit or injury at this present moment, yet it is he who is to feel it, which comes to the same thing. Where there is this continued identity of person, there must also be a correspondent identity of interest. I have an abstract, unavoidable interest in whatever can befal myself, which I can have or feel in no other person living, because I am always under every possible circumstance the self-same individual, and not any other individual whatsoever. In short, this word self (so closely do a number of associations cling round it and cement it together) is supposed to represent as it were a given concrete substance, as much one thing as any thing in nature can possibly be, and the centre or substratum in which the different impressions and ramifications of my being meet and are indissolubly knit together.

A. And you propose then seriously to take "this one entire and perfect chrysolite," this self, this "precious jewel of the soul," this rock on which mankind have built their faith for ages, and at one blow shatter it to pieces with the sledge-hammer, or displace it from its hold in the imagination with the wrenching-irons of metaphysics?

B. I am willing to use my best endeavours for that purpose.

D. You really ought: for you have the prejudices of the whole world against you.

B. I grant the prejudices are formidable; and I should despair, did 1 not think the reasons even stronger. Besides, without altering the opinions of the whole world, I might be contented with the suffrages of one or two intelligent people.

D. Nay, you will prevail by flattery, if not by argument.

A. That is something newer than all the rest.

B. “Plain truth, dear A—, needs no flowers of speech."

1

D. Let me rightly understand you. Do you mean to say that I am not C. D. and that you are not W. B. or that we shall not both of us remain so to the end of the chapter, without a possibility of ever changing places with each other?

B. I am afraid, if you go to that, there is very little chance that "I shall be ever mistaken for you."

But with all this precise individuality and inviolable identity that you speak of, let me ask, Are you not a little changed (less so, it is true,