Literary Port Folio

could almost persuade myself at times, such are their supernatural knowledge, swiftness, and invisibility, that we have to contend with evil spirits. I long for your advice, to refer to on this subject,

"And am, dear Philip, your loving brother, "AMBROSE MAWE.

"P. S. Since writing the above, you will be concerned to hear the body of poor Diggory has been found, horribly mangled by wild beasts. The fate of Chippendale, Gregory, and Mudge, is no longer doubtful. The old lion has brought the lioness, and, the sheep being all gone, they have made a joint attack upon the bullock-house. The Mudiboo has overflowed, and Squampash Flats are a swamp. I have just discovered that the monkeys are my own rascals, that I brought out from Eng. land. We are coming back as fast as we can." -Hood's Comic Annual.

MR. JEFFERSON'S VIEWS OF RELI

GION.

postulate which all may not be ready to grant.
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to
him by his biographers, I find many passages
of fine imagination, correct morality, and of
the most lovely benevolence; and others,
again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdi-
ty, so much untruth, charlatanism and impos-
ture, as to pronounce it impossible that such
contradictions should have proceeded from the
same being. I separate, therefore, the gold
from the dross, restore to him the former, and
leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and
roguery of others of his disciples. Of this
band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the
great Coryphæus and first corruptor of the
doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpola-
tions and falsifications of his doctrines, led me
to try to sift them apart. I found the work
obvious and easy, and that his part composed
the most beautiful morsel of morality which
has been given to us by man. The syllabus is,
therefore, of his doctrines, not all of mine: I
read them as I do those of other ancient and
modern moralists, with a mixture of approba-
tion and dissent."-Vol. iv. p. 321.

"The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like
another Cerberus, with one body and three
heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of
thousands and thousands of martyrs."-p. 360.

In a letter, written a few months after the above, to John Adams, we find the following prediction:

It is with a mixture of regret and satisfaction, that we venture to put upon our pages the following extract from the letters of this eminent politician and patriot, which we find in the columns of the Richmond Visiter and Telegraph. Our regret arises from the unfavourable effect, as regards the individual, which the letters themselves cannot fail to "And the day will come, when the mystical produce on the minds of many who had long generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as regarded Mr. Jefferson as a distinguished his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be statesman, and one of the fathers of the repub-classed with the fable of the generation of Milic; and who, therefore, must grieve to find nerva in the brain of Jupiter."-p. 365. him assailing the religion of Christ and its Now let us apply to the purity of Mr. Jeffer professors, not in the terms of a dignified un- son's political motives, the test by which we belief, or in a strain of serious and respectful have been accustomed to decide upon the chaobjection, but descending from the elevation of racter of that St. Paul, who is here called philosophy to a style of expression, on a level the great Coryphæus of a band of dupes and with the presumption and ribaldry of Paine, impostors. Mr. Jefferson was a leader in a and his reckless associates. Our satisfaction great political revolution, in which he exposed results from the fact, that the character of his fortune to loss, and his person to danger. Mr. Jefferson's remarks, is such as, in our humIt is from the fact of his having, at such a hable opinion, will destroy in great measure, the zard, breasted the waves of prejudice, hostility, influence, which the weight of his name would and tyranny, that we infer the purity of that otherwise attach to his views. The fact of his love of freedom, which was the avowed ground being an unbeliever has long been credited; of his opposition to the mother country. But and was perhaps, to be inferred from the pecu- when we see this same individual, so far from liar structure of a mind at once visionary, ec- losing his liberty, his life, or his fortune, accentric, and self-confident, averse from the re- tually securing, by the course he took, distincstraints of patient and sober induction, and as tion, wealth, and fame; when we see him raisquick to adopt, as it was impatient of objec-ed to the highest honours of the country which tions to, its sentiments. It is well, therefore, he had been thus instrumental in severing we think, that the public have been allowed from former ties; when we see him fed by the access to the private thoughts and views of adulation of multitudes passing the period of a such an infidel, and that the Christian, turning lengthened life in domestic quiet, social enjoy. to his unsupported, unargued allegations, can ments, and intellectual ease; and finally, breathpoint to him as a signal illustration of the prin- ing out his last breath amidst the tears and reciple to which Dr. Paley ascribes the infidelitygrets of a nation, which had long caressed and of the intelligent portion of the pagan world, honoured him; is it not a natural, a possible, viz. contempt prior to examination; and which nay, (we say it as argument) a probable suppohe so justly represents as the besetting vice of sition, that ambition of distinction, love of pointellectual men. We do not mean to enter litical eminence, the hope of attaining political into any arguments to defend the gospel against power, may have mingled with that asserted Mr. Jefferson's attacks; but having allowed our love of liberty, which is declared to have been readers to peruse the extract, we will barely the stern and uncompromising principle that append to it a few observations. There are controlled this revolutionary patriot? Might several passages in the same, and even a worse not the political unbeliever, he who laughs at strain, but we cite the following only. Mr. the idea that the love of freedom was the preJefferson makes a syllabus of the gospel, and dominant motive of his sacrifices, argue with no fecble force from the results of the event that Mr. Jefferson was urged on by considerations wholly mercenary and selfish and that the polar star of all his labours was personal aggrandizement?

remarks

"But while this syllabus (he says) is meant to place the character of Jesus in its true and high light, as no impostor himself, but a great reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with him in all But how was it with the apostle, who is thus his doctrines. I am a materialist; he takes traduced as an impostor and a rogue? He, too, the side of spiritualism: he preaches the effi- was a leader in a mighty revolution. He, too, cacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; breasted the fiercest enmity and prejudice. He, I require a counterpoise of good works to re- too, laid his fortune and life on the altar of the deem it, &c. &c. It is the innocence of his cause he had espoused. He, too, cast the workcharacter, the purity and sublimity of his moralings of a mighty mind into the scale. But precepts, the eloquence of his inculcations, the beauty of the apologues in which he conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes, indeed, needing indulgence to eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies too, may be founded on a

here the parallel between Mr. Jefferson and the
apostle terminates. The former actually suf
fered nothing; the latter was persecuted,
stoned, and beaten. The former rose to wealth
and honour; the latter lost his political friends,

was bereft of fortune and credit, and was degraded and despised by his countrymen. Tho former may hardly be said to have encountered personal danger at all: the latter passed his life in one continued scene of peril, and finally expired a martyr to his cause. If the purity of Mr. Jefferson's political character can be argued with any force from his revolutionary labours, exposures, and sacrifices, the argument is endued with a hundred fold more weight when applied to St. Paul. If the latter, when he sacrificed the desire of distinction, the love of case, his fortune, his personal comforts, and his life in the cause he had undertaken, is to be branded with such a title as Mr. Jefferson has applied to him; if what St. Paul underwent does not justly screen him from the charge of being a leader of impostors and rogues; then we have no hesitation in saying, that there is not the shadow of reason for believing that Mr. Jefferson was not actuated, in his efforts during the revolution, by motives as purely base and selfish, as wholly devoid of any single-eyed regard to liberty, as swayed the bosom of man. The argument which establishes the claims of Mr. Jefferson to our veneration and regard as a patriot, forces us with a power infinitely more overwhelming, to assign to the defamed apostle a station among the purest and holiest of the benefactors of mankind.—Church Register.

ever

SONG OF THE SUMMER WINDS.
BY G. DARNLEY.

Up the dale and down the bourne,
O'er the meadow swift we fly;
Now we sing, and now we mourn,
Now we whistle, now we sigh.
By the grassy-fringed river,

Through the murmuring reeds wo sweep; 'Mid the lily-leaves we quiver,

To their very hearts we creep.
Now the maiden rose is blushing

At the frolick things we say,
While aside her cheek we're rushing,
Like some truant bees at play.

Through the blooming groves we rustle,
Kissing every bud we pass,
As we did it in the bustle,

Scarcely knowing how it was.
Down the glen, across the mountain,
Whirling round about the fountain
O'er the yellow heath we roam,

Till its little breakers foain.
Bending down the weeping willows,
While our vesper hymn we sigh;
Then unto our rosy pillows

On our weary wings we hie.
There of idlenesses dreaming,
Scarce from waking we refrain,
Moments long as ages deening
Till we're at our play again.

LEARNING TO DIVE.-TURTLE
FISHING.

If it be difficult to learn to swim, it is infinitely more so to dive. In my first attempts 1 could only descend about six feet, and was immediately obliged to rise again to the surface, but by degrees I got down to three or four fathoms; at which depth the pressure of the water upon the ears is so great, that I can only compare it to a sharp-pointed iron instrument being violently forced into that organ. My stay under water, therefore, at this depth was extremely short; but as I had been assured, that so soon as the ears should burst, as it is technically called by the divers, there would be no difficulty in descending to any depth; and wishing to become an accomplished diver," I determined to brave the excessive pain, till the bursting should, as it were, liberate me from a kind of cord which limited my range

downwards, in the same way that the ropes of a balloon confine the progress of that machine upwards.

In fact, it was a new sensation which I cannot describe. I did not suffer it, however, to be of long duration,-once more I assayed with a more fixed determination. Again I felt myself gliding through the slippery water, which, from its density, gave one the idea of swimming through a thick jelly; again I experienced the same change of temperature in the water as I descended; and again the agonizing sensation in my ears and eyes made me waver. But now reason and resolution urged me on, although every instant the pain increased as I descended; and at the depth of six or seven fathoms, I felt a sensation in my ears like that produced by the explosion of a gun; at the same moment I lost all sense of pain, and afterwards reached the bottom, which I explored with a facility which I had thought unattainable. Unfortunately, I met with no oysters to repay me for my perseverance; and as I found myself exhausted for want of air, I seized hold of a stone to prove that I had reached the bottom at eight fathoms water, and rose to the top with a triumph as great as if I had obtained a treasure.

I no sooner found myself on the surface than I became sensible of what had happened to my ears, eyes, and mouth; I was literally bleeding from each of these, though wholly unconscious of it. But now was the greatest danger in diving, as the sharks, mantas, and tintereros, have an astonishingly quick scent for blood. However, I was too much pleased with my success to attend to the advice of the diver, and I continued the practice till I had collected a considerable nuinber of shells, out of which I hoped to reap a rich harvest. But although constancy has a great deal to do with success, it will not command it! Six very small pearls were all that the large number of shells produced, although many of the oysters were large, and evidently of considerable age; but, like myself, they were "quite old enough to be better."

The oyster secures itself so firmly to the rocks by its beard, that it requires no little force to tear it away; and as its external surface is full of sharp points, the hands are soon severely cut by them. The effect of the buoyancy of the water is also curious. At the depth of seven or eight fathoms, it requires exertion

bit of wood, in shape like an acorn, having square bit of iron four inches long fastened to it: the other end of the iron being pointed.

Both the ball and cup are first moistened, and then tightly inserted one within the other. Fastened to the iron is a cord of very consipole, and both are held in the left hand of the Indian. So securely is the nail thus fixed in the pole, that although the latter is used as a paddle, it does not fall out.

to keep down; and if you then attempt to lay hold on a rock with the hands, you find yourself as it were suspended, so that if you let go your hold you will immediately tumble upwards! I remember the first oyster I ever met with was at the depth of four fathoms only; my head was almost touching it; and forget-derable length, which is brought up along the ting, in my pleasure, to strike out with my legs, as I stretched forward my hand to catch hold of the prize, to my astonishment the oyster slipped from my grasp, and I found myself nearly at the surface of the water the next instant, so that I had all my labour for nothing.

So firmly does the oyster fix himself to the rock, that, in order to tear him away, it is necessary to get "a purchase" upon him, by placing the feet on the bottom. The excessive difficulty of doing this is incredible: it requires the muscular strength of the whole body to overcome the resistance of the water's buoyancy. I have no doubt that, by means of its long beard, the oyster has the power of locomotion, and that it changes its situation according to its pleasure or convenience.

One principal object of inquiry, however, was obtained; namely, the true situation of the shells under water. I found that I had been in a complete error in supposing them formed in beds; that is, in heaps, as the word bed would seem to indicate. With this impression I left England, and continued in it till I had now convinced myself, by actual investigation, of the error into which I had been led by every body with whom I had conversed on the subject. Indeed, a moment's reflection would have pointed out the impossibility of the oysters being piled in heaps together in this gulf. This fish always seeks for tranquillity, which it could never find in situations exposed to currents, and motion occasioned by the undulations of the water. I always found them in sheltered bays, the bottoms of which were covered with large rocks.-Pp. 250-255. The practice, it seems, is not free from

ger:

A turtle is a very lethargic animal, and may frequently be surprised in its watery slumbers. The balsa is placed nearly perpendicularly over one of these unsuspecting sleepers, when the fisherman softly sliding the pole through the water in the direction of the animal, till within a foot or two of it, he suddenly plunges the iron into its back. No sooner does the creature feel itself transfixed than it swims hastily forward, and endeavours to liberate itself. The slightest motion of the turtle displaces the iron point from the long pole, which would otherwise be inevitably broken, and the turtle would as certainly be lost: but in the manner here described, it is held by the cord fastened on to the iron which has penetrated its back, till after it has sufficiently exhausted its strength it is hoisted on board the canoe by the fisherman, who proceeds to the shore in order to dispose of his prize.

It is difficult to distinguish between the turtle and the tortoise while yet under water. The only difference is, that the latter is a little blacker; but they are not very abundant.-From Hardy's Travels in Mexico.

LONG ENGAGEMENTS.
(Concluded from page 15.)

This letter entirely settled Laura's mind as to her future prospects, if it did not wholly remove her regret at the thoughts that her rich dan-beauty must in great part run to waste, unseen even by him for whose sake she had refused to permit the elements themselves to view her face unveiled. It gave, also, a higher direction to her cares. Without neglecting either her personal appearance or her health, she so altered her plan as to make it the most favourable which she could devise, for the acquisition of that elegance which her cousin attributed to, or anticipated for, her.

I am convinced that there is no stimulant so great as hope. Under its influence, the diver is insensible to danger, although he sees himself surrounded by sharks of prodigious magnitude. Arined with his short stick, he considers the invasion of so formidable an enemy's domains as unworthy of a moment's hesitation. Anxious to grasp the prize, he pays little regard to the price of its attainment, which he no sooner possesses, than he is ready to fight the stoutest of the finny race. I have myself descended, when the horizon was filled with the projecting fins of sharks rising above the surface of the water; and although armed only in the way I have described, I thought myself perfectly secure from molestation; not. withstanding they were swimming round me in all directions, at not a greater distance than a few fathoms, I continued my pursuits with the greatest sang froid. I should no more be capable, in my cool moments of reflection, of braving this inconceivably horrible danger, where I might have been mangled and torn to pieces by one of these implacable monsters, than of entering the tiger's den before his breakfast, at Exeter 'Change.-Pp. 256, 257,

We extract Lieut. Hardy's description of turtle fishing:

Bruja's Bay is of considerable extent, and there are from five to three fathoms water close to Arnold's Island, in the neighbourhood of which the Indians catch abundance of turtle in a singular manner. I have already described their canoes, which in Spanish are called "balsas." An Indian paddles himself from the shore on one of these by means of a long elastic pole of about twelve or fourteen feet in length, the wood of which is the root of a thorn called Mesquite, growing near the coast; and although the branches of this tree are extremely brittle, the underground roots are es pliable as whalebone, and nearly as dark in cofour. At one end of this pole there is a hole an inch deep, into which is inserted another

With this view she dismissed some part of her reserve, recourted the company of her neighbours; and made society a school for the study, for the acquisition, and for the rehearsal or practice of the graces of polished life; though not a theatre in which she might exhibit them, with a view to excite present favour or applause.

In the midst of those who were actively vying for each other's admiration, Laura was still engrossed with the thoughts of the absent and the distant. This preoccupation gave to her attentions and courtesies an air which prevented their so sensibly flattering any one's self-love, as to make her success sufficiently eminent to endanger the stability of her devotion to her cousin. She was allowed to be an elegant woman, but reprobated as a cold one; too little alive to pleasure to be pleasing, too rarely amused, to be herself amusing.

Meanwhile her correspondence with her cousin did not slacken. His letters showed no diminution in his estimation of her worth, no shade of a desire to retract his engagement; but by degrees they grew graver. He wroto to her as to one inseparably mixed up in his concerns, to whom nothing which befell him was indifferent; but they were more the letters of a trusted and trustworthy friend than of a passionate lover. Subjects of importance were sometimes discussed in them, in a way in which they might have been with a friendly relation of his own sex. To answer him adequately was a serious task; and in the same graduated manner in which the tone of his correspondence was changed, Laura grew con

scious that, in order to keep pace with what the lapse of time caused her betrothed to expect from her, it would no longer be enough that she should substitute the well bred lady for the blooming girl, she must also attend to the cultivation of her mind, and add information to her polished manners. Earnestly she endeavoured to meet this new demand; unsupported for a time by any other proof that she had laboured with success, except the increasing solidity of her cousin's letters. As he did not seem to think it requisite to apologize for addressing her on any topic which might interest him, she was at liberty to infer, if she pleased, that he looked on her as capable of entering, without effort, into all he said. Laura was thus led to cultivate a pretty extensive portion of the field of knowledge; and the habits of mind which this induced made it easy and pleasant to pursue the work, when no such stimulus led to it. She began to relish mental occupation for the mere sake of the wide views which it opened to her; and thus, while she was engrossed with the thought of making herself worthy of the continued attachment of her lover, laid the foundation of a character of great value to herself, let its effects be what they might on him.

Again Lawrence's letters underwent a change. They had latterly betrayed no small ambition, and some wish for wealth, so expressed, however, as to show that the idea of his cousin was intimately blended with the whole of his desires; but now their whole tone was languid. He had succeeded moderately well in attaining riches and station. It was well; for his health no longer allowed him to continue their pursuit with ardour enough to promise him success: and he announced that he had resolved so to wind up his affairs as to allow him to return to his country and his friends as quickly as he was able; but he grieved, he said, to perceive that considerable time must yet elapse before he could behold them. Laura received from him two or three packets after that in which he declared this intention. They were none of them wanting in kindness to herself; but she was shocked to perceive in every line of each that manner which proves that the writer is too sick to rejoice at any thing truly: and alarm for his health superseded in her mind all other considerations. No care to ascertain the nature or degree of the love which he retained for her; no anxiety to prepare him for the state of her own beauty appeared in her answers. They were like those of an affectionate and faithful wife, who looked for the return of a sick husband; and Lawrence himself seemed principally to regard his return as a restoration to a home where he might rest among kind friends, and be recruited.

At length he arrived; eight years having elapsed since the time of his former visit. The season of this second arrival was also midsummer, and the hour was afternoon. Laura was watching for him at the window, for at this time his speed was not such as to out-run the post, and she had had warning of his coming. She flew down the house steps the moment the carriage stopped to meet him,-not as she would or could have met a lover. She hastened to receive a sick relation and tried friend, full of anxiety to ascertain his state, and of pity for his sufferings. Laura had made no toilette for the occasion; she was but dressed as usual at that time of day. Since she had been more intent on cultivating her manners and her mind than on preserving her charms, she permitted her attire without much thought on her part to follow with temperance such variations of the mode as suited her age and her station. At this moment her fine hair was very well arranged, the contour of her arms was displayed through thin white sleeves, and her beautiful throat was uncovered. Contrary to her custom, she rushed out of the hall without either shawl or bonnet; and with looks in which pitying tenderness combined with, and were stronger still than joy, while self was entirely forgotten, presented herself

again before the eyes of her faint, wearied cousin; holding out, with the most frank and unembarrassed affection, one of her arms for his support, while the father on the other side offered his assistance. She was not at leisure to feel bashful. Lawrence's sickly face was suffused with a pale red the moment he beheld her; and his first words were an ejaculation of surprise. This feeling was evidently mixed with other and stronger emotions, which, in the weakened condition of his frame, all his manhood was required to enable him to bear without signs of agitation. He did muster strength, however to go through the first meeting with his betrothed and her friends with a decent external composure. It was not till the next day that he spoke of what he felt; and then it was Laura's turn to be surprised, and delighted, for Lawrence then told her that the astonishment and admiration with which at his arrival he beheld the angel of elegance and beauty, who, after such a lapse of years, came to the carriage side to welcome him, was painfully mixed with regret, almost amounting to shame, at the thoughts of his own altered and shattered condition. He owned that for some years past he had left off thinking of his cousin's person. People in the east are so accus tomed to look on those past girlhood as old women, that he had been infected by the notion. He still thought himself happy in having attached to himself for life a person of her solid excellence; happier, perhaps, than he had deserved to be, since he had selected her chiefly in the first place for her beauty; but he no longer reckoned on her charms: and he found her still wonderfully lovely. "Forgive me, dear cousin," he continued, "if I add that I could almost wish that I had found you only half as handsome as you are." Laura at this smiled sweetly, and blushed more than she had done since his arrival; but when he went on in a tone which showed that he was really under the influence of a depressing fear as to the effects of his own appearance upon her, to say, "I should feel less unworthy of you," she sympathised with his pain, and applied herself to remove it, by becoming more lavish of her tender cares, more intent on proving her entire devotion to him.

Lawrence soon grew better, and with his health his ambition was restored, but no part of his value for his cousin was abated. He might, perhaps have been ambitious under any circumstances; but he was himself persuaded of the truth of what he said to his fair cousin, when he declared that it was chiefly for her sake that he was desirous now of attaining to a higher station.

This is very differently" he added, "to the way in which I should have been affected if I had succeeded in gaining you at the time when you were to me only the bright nymph of the fountain. To have placed you in some garden more lovely than your own would then have contented my fondness. I loved you at that time extraordinarily well; but then I only loved you, and now I also glory in you, Laura. I have lived too long in the gorgeous east' myself, not to have had my fancy weaned from the visions of imperial splendour, which were formerly united with its name: but if I still entertained the most luxuriant ideas which have ever been conceived of its magnificence by romancers, I should say that it could never be more worthily bestowed, than upon you. Proud shall I be to produce you there. Are you willing to venture with me? Your fine constitution would endure the climate; and a few years now would advance me rapidly. My health is quite restored, and I am thoroughly seasoned too. Shall we try it?"

Laura yielded to what she saw was his desire, and sailed with him for India a few weeks after their marriage, and still resides there, one of the most honoured, as well as best loved, of wives." F. G.

THE MISSES. Addressed to a careless Girl. By the late Mrs. Barbauld.

We were talking last night, my dear Anne, of a family of Misses, whose acquaintance is generally avoided by people of sense. They are most of them old maids, which is not very surprising, considering that the qualities they possess are not the most desirable for a helpmate. They are a pretty numerous clan, and I shall endeavour to give you such a description of them as may enable you to decline their visits; especially, as though many of them are extremely unlike in temper and feature, and, indeed, very distantly related, yet they have a wonderful knack at introducing each other-so that, if you open your doors to one of them, you are very likely, in process of time, to be troubled with the whole tribe.

The first I shall mention, and indeed, she deserves to be mentioned first-for she was always fond of being a ringleader of her country-is Miss Chief. This young lady was brought up, until she was fourteen, in a large rambling mansion in the country, where she was allowed to romp all day with the servants and idle boys of the neighbourhood. There she employed herself in the summer, in milking into her bonnet, tying the grass together across the path to throw people down; and in winter making slides before the door for the same purpose, and the accidents these gave rise to always procured her the enjoyment of a hearty laugh. She was a great lover of fun; and at Christmas time distinguished herself by various tricks, such as putting furze balls into the beds, drawing off the clothes in the middle of the night, and pulling people's seats from under them. At length, as a lady, who was coming to visit the family, mounted on rather a startish horse, rode up to the door, Miss Chief ran up and unfurled an umbrella full in the horse's face, which occasioned him to throw his rider, who broke her arm. After this exploit Miss was sent off to a boarding school; here she was no small favourite with the girls, whom she led into all manner of scrapes; and no small plague to the poor governess, whose tables were cut, and beds hacked, and curtains set on fire continually. It is true Miss soon laid aside her romping airs and assumed a very demure appearance; but she was always playing one sly trick or another, and had learned to tell lies, in order to throw it upon the innocent.

At length she was discovered writing anonymous letters, by which whole families in the town had been set at variance: and she was then dismissed the school with ignominy. She has since lived a very busy life in the world; seldom is there a great crowd of which she does not make one, and she has even frequently been taken up for riots, and other disorderly proceedings, very unbecoming in her sex.

The next I shall introduce to your acquaintance is a city lady, Miss Management, a very stirring, notable woman, and always behindhand. In the parlour, she saves candle ends: in the kitchen, every thing is waste and extravagance: she hires her servants at half wages, and changes them at every quarter; she is a great buyer of cheap bargains, but as she cannot always use them, they grow worm and moth eaten on her hands; when she pays a long score to her butcher, she wrangles for the odd pence, and forgets to add up the pounds. Though it is her great study to save, she is continually outrunning her income, which is partly owing to her trusting a cousin of hers, Miss Calculation, with the settling of her accounts, who, it is very well known, could never be persuaded to learn her multiplication table, or state rightly a sum in the Rule of Three.

Miss Lay and Miss Place are sisters, great slatterns; when Miss Place gets up in the morning she cannot find her combs, because she has put them in her writing box. Miss Lay would willingly go to work, but her housewife

downwards, in the same way that the ropes of a balloon confine the progress of that machine upwards.

to keep down; and if you then attempt to lay
hold on a rock with the hands, you find your-
self as it were suspended, so that if you let
go your hold you will immediately tumble up-
wards! I remember the first oyster I ever
met with was at the depth of four fathoms only;
my head was almost touching it; and forget-
ting, in my pleasure, to strike out with my
legs, as I stretched forward my hand to catch
hold of the prize, to my astonishment the oyster
slipped from my grasp, and I found myself
nearly at the surface of the water the next
instant, so that I had all my labour for no-
thing.

So firmly does the oyster fix himself to the
rock, that, in order to tear him away, it is ne-
cessary to get "a purchase" upon him, by
placing the feet on the bottom. The excessive
difficulty of doing this is incredible: it requires
the muscular strength of the whole body to
overcome the resistance of the water's buoy-
ancy. I have no doubt that, by means of its
long beard, the oyster has the power of loco-
motion, and that it changes its situation ac-
cording to its pleasure or convenience.

Accordingly, taking a leap from the bows of the boat, full of hope and resolution, with my fingers knit together over my head, the elbows straight, and keeping myself steadily in the inverse order of nature, namely, with my feet perpendicularly upwards, the impetus carried me down about four fathoms, when it became necessary to assist the descent by means of the hands and legs; but alas! who can count upon the firmness of his resolution? The change of temperature from warm to cold is most sensibly felt. Every fathom fills the imagination with some new idea of the dangerous folly of penetrating farther into the silent dominions of reckless monsters, where the skulls of the dead make perpetual grimaces, and the yawning jaws of sharks and tintoreros, or the deathembrace of the manta, lie in wait for us. These impressions were augmented by the impossibility of the vision penetrating the twilight by which I was surrounded, together with the excruciating pain that I felt in my ears and eyes; in short, my mind being assailed by a thousand One principal object of inquiry, however, incomprehensible images, I ceased striking was obtained; namely, the true situation of with my hands and legs; I felt myself receding the shells under water. I found that I had from the bottom; the delightful thought of been in a complete error in supposing them once more beholding the blue heavens above formed in beds; that is, in heaps, as the word me got the better of every other reflection; I bed would seem to indicate. With this iminvoluntarily changed the position of my body, pression I left England, and continued in it and, in the next instant, found myself once till I had now convinced myself, by actual inmore on the surface. How did my bosom investigation, of the error into which I had been flate with the rapid inspirations of my natural led by every body with whom I had conversed atmosphere, and a sensation of indescribable on the subject. Indeed, a moment's reflection pleasure spread over every part of the body, as would have pointed out the impossibility of the though the spirit was rejoicing at its liberation oysters being piled in heaps together in this from its watery peril. gulf. This fish always seeks for tranquillity, which it could never find in situations exposed to currents, and motion occasioned by the undulations of the water. I always found them in sheltered bays, the bottoms of which were covered with large rocks.-Pp. 250-255.

In fact, it was a new sensation which I cannot describe. I did not suffer it, however, to be of long duration,-once more I assayed with a more fixed determination. Again I felt myself gliding through the slippery water, which, from its density, gave one the idea of swimming through a thick jelly; again I experienced the same change of temperature in the water as I descendod; and again the agonizing sensation in my ears and eyes made me waver. But now reason and resolution urged me on, although every instant the pain increased as I descended; and at the depth of six or seven fathoms, I felt a sensation in my ears like that produced by the explosion of a gun; at the same moment I lost all sense of pain, and afterwards reached the bottom, which I explored with a facility which I had thought unattainable. Unfortunately, I met with no oysters to repay me for my perseverance; and as I found myself exhausted for want of air, I seized hold of a stone to prove that I had reached the bottom at eight fathoms water, and rose to the top with a triumph as great as if I had obtained a treasure.

I no sooner found myself on the surface than I became sensible of what had happened to my ears, eyes, and mouth; I was literally bleeding from each of these, though wholly unconscious of it. But now was the greatest danger in diving, as the sharks, mantas, and tintereros, have an astonishingly quick scent for blood. However, I was too much pleased with my success to attend to the advice of the diver, and I continued the practice till I had collected a considerable number of shells, out of which I hoped to reap a rich harvest. But although constancy has a great deal to do with success, it will not command it! Six very small pearls were all that the large number of shells produced, although many of the oysters were large, and evidently of considerable age; but, like myself, they were quite old enough to be better."

The practice, it seems, is not free from dan ger:

I am convinced that there is no stimulant so great as hope. Under its influence, the diver is insensible to danger, although he sees himself surrounded by sharks of prodigious magnitude. Armed with his short stick, he considers the invasion of so formidable an enemy's domains as unworthy of a moment's hesitation. Anxious to grasp the prize, he pays little regard to the price of its attainment, which he no sooner possesses, than he is ready to fight the stoutest of the finny race. I have myself descended, when the horizon was filled with the projecting fins of sharks rising above the surface of the water; and although armed only in the way I have described, I thought myself perfectly secure from molestation; notwithstanding they were swimming round me in all directions, at not a greater distance than a few fathoms, I continued my pursuits with the greatest sang-froid. I should no more be capable, in my cool moments of reflection, of braving this inconceivably horrible danger, where I might have been mangled and torn to pieces by one of these implacable monsters, than of entering the tiger's den before his breakfast, at Exeter 'Change.-Pp. 256, 257. We extract Lieut. Hardy's description of turtle fishing:

bit of wood, in shape like an acorn, having a square bit of iron four inches long fastened to it: the other end of the iron being pointed.

Both the ball and cup are first moistened, and then tightly inserted one within the other. Fastened to the iron is a cord of very considerable length, which is brought up along the pole, and both are held in the left hand of the Indian. So securely is the nail thus fixed in the pole, that although the latter is used as a paddle, it does not fall out.

A turtle is a very lethargic animal, and may frequently be surprised in its watery slumbers. The balsa is placed nearly perpendicularly over one of these unsuspecting sleepers, when the fisherman softly sliding the pole through the water in the direction of the animal, till within a foot or two of it, he suddenly plunges the iron into its back. No sooner does the crea ture feel itself transfixed than it swims hastily forward, and endeavours to liberate itself. The slightest motion of the turtle displaces the iron point from the long pole, which would otherwise be inevitably broken, and the turtle would as certainly be lost: but in the manner here described, it is held by the cord fastened on to the iron which has penetrated its back, till after it has sufficiently exhausted its strength it is hoisted on board the canoe by the fisherman, who proceeds to the shore in order to dispose of his prize.

LONG ENGAGEMENTS.
(Concluded from page 15.)

This letter entirely settled Laura's mind as to her future prospects, if it did not wholly remove her regret at the thoughts that her rich beauty must in great part run to waste, unseen even by him for whose sake she had refused to permit the elements themselves to view her face unveiled. It gave, also, a higher direction to her cares. Without neglecting either her personal appearance or her health, she so altered her plan as to make it the most favourable which she could devise, for the acquisition of that elegance which her cousin attributed to, or anticipated for, her.

Meanwhile her correspondence with her cousin did not slacken. His letters showed no diminution in his estimation of her worth, no shade of a desire to retract his engagement; but by degrees they grew graver. He wrote to her as to one inseparably mixed up in his concerns, to whom nothing which befell him was indifferent; but they were more the letters of a trusted and trustworthy friend than of a passionate lover. Subjects of importance were sometimes discussed in them, in a way in which they might have been with a friendly relation of his own sex. To answer him adequately was a serious task; and in the same graduated manner in which the tone of his correspondence was changed, Laura grew con

At length he arrived; eight years having elapsed since the time of his former visit. The season of this second arrival was also midsummer, and the hour was afternoon. Laura was watching for him at the window, for at this time his speed was not such as to out-run the post, and she had had warning of his coming. She flew down the house steps the moment the carriage stopped to meet him,-not as she would or could have met a lover. She hastened to receive a sick relation and tried friend, full of anxiety to ascertain his state, and of pity for his sufferings. Laura had made no toilette for the occasion; she was but dressed as usual at that time of day. Since she had been more intent on cultivating her manners and her mind than on preserving her charms, she permitted her attire without much thought on her part to follow with temperance such variations of the mode as suited her age and her station. At this moment her fine hair was very well arranged, the contour of her arms was displayed through thin white sleeves, and her beautiful throat was uncovered. trary to her custom, she rushed out of the hall without either shawl or bonnet; and with looks in which pitying tenderness combined with, and were stronger still than joy, while self was entirely forgotton, presented herself

Con

THE MISSES.

Barbauld.

WE were talking last night, my dear Anne, of a family of Misses, whose acquaintance is generally avoided by people of sense. They are most of them old maids, which is not very surprising, considering that the qualities they possess are not the most desirable for a help mate. They are a pretty numerous clan, and I shall endeavour to give you such a description of them as may enable you to decline their visits; especially, as though many of them are extremely unlike in temper and feature, and, indeed, very distantly related, yet they have a wonderful knack at introducing each other-so that, if you open your doors to one of them, you are very likely, in process of time, to be troubled with the whole tribe.

again before the eyes of her faint, wearied cousin; holding out, with the most frank and unembarrassed affection, one of her arms for his Addressed to a careless Girl. By the late Mrs. support, while the father on the other side of fered his assistance. She was not at leisure to feel bashful. Lawrence's sickly face was suffused with a pale red the moment he beheld her; and his first words were an ejaculation of surprise. This feeling was evidently mixed with other and stronger emotions, which, in the weakened condition of his frame, all his manhood was required to enable him to bear without signs of agitation. He did muster strength, however to go through the first meeting with his betrothed and her friends with a decent external composure. It was not till the next day that he spoke of what he felt; and then it was Laura's turn to be surprised, and delighted, for Lawrence then told her that the astonishment and admiration with which at his arrival he beheld the angel of elegance and beauty, who, after such a lapse of years, came to the carriage side to welcome him, was painfully mixed with regret, almost amounting to shame, at the thoughts of his own altered and shattered condition. He owned that for some years past he had left off thinking of his cousin's person. People in the east are so accus tomed to look on those past girlhood as old women, that he had been infected by the notion. He still thought himself happy in having attached to himself for life a person of her solid excellence; happier, perhaps, than he had deserved to be, since he had selected her chiefly in the first place for her beauty; but he no longer reckoned on her charms: and he found her still wonderfully lovely. "Forgive me, dear cousin," he continued, "if I add that I could almost wish that I had found you only half as handsome as you are." Laura at this smiled sweetly, and blushed more than she had done since his arrival; but when he went on in a tone which showed that he was really under the influence of a depressing fear as to the effects of his own appearance upon her, to say, "I should feel less unworthy of you," she sympathised with his pain, and applied herself to remove it, by becoming more lavish of her tender cares, more intent on proving her entire devotion to him.

"This is very differently" he added, " to the way in which I should have been affected if I had succeeded in gaining you at the time when you were to me only the bright nymph of the fountain. To have placed you in some garden more lovely than your own would then have contented my fondness. I loved you at that time extraordinarily well; but then I only loved you, and now I also glory in you, Laura. I have lived too long in the gorgeous east' myself, not to have had my fancy weaned from the visions of imperial splendour, which were formerly united with its name: but if I still entertained the most luxuriant ideas which have ever been conceived of its magnificence by romancers, I should say that it could never be more worthily bestowed, than upon you. Proud shall I be to produce you there. Are you willing to venture with me? Your fine constitution would endure the climate; and a few years now would advance me rapidly. My health is quite restored, and I am thoroughly seasoned too. Shall we try it?"

Laura yielded to what she saw was his desire, and sailed with him for India a few weeks after their marriage, and still resides there, one of the most honoured, as well as best loved, of wives. F. G.

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