and his errors are forgiven." She held out her hand to him as she spoke, but he shrunk back." I dare not-I dare not take it! It is too late! Florence! I am married!"There was not a sound escaped her lips, but her cheeks grew deadly pale; her eyes became as fixed as stone; and she fell on the ground like a marble statue. Her grave is in the church-yard of Woodburn; she lies beside her father. There is no urn nor monumental tablet to mark the spot, but I should know it among a thousand. Edmund's fame has travelled into other countries, and men have looked up to him as to a demi-god. Florence Willesden was never heard of beyond the limits of Woodburn till now. Literary Magnet. SPIRIT OF THE Public Journals. CONVERSATIONS OF PALEY. WHEN I went to live at Lincoln, in 1797, I knew that Archdeacon Paley had been some few years before appointed subdean ; and as his place obliged him to three months' residence every year, I anticipated much delight and instruction in the conversation of the author of " Moral and Political Philosophy," of "The Evidences of Christianity," and, above all, of that sagacious and original work, "Horæ Paulinæ." On his arrival to perform his duty of residence, in the year above mentioned, I made him a visit without finding him "at home." It was known afterwards that he was at this time occupied in the composition of his "Natural Theology." He returned my visit: unfortunately I was "from home." My curiosity was not, however, long to wait for its gratification. I was soon invited to meet him at a dinner-party-at one of those dinners which I have elsewhere spoken of as regularly interchanged between the residentiary and the society of the place. I entered the drawing-room with some degree of awe; the greater part of the company was assembled, and Dr. Paley was amongst them. Imagine to yourself, reader, if you never saw Dr. Paley, and many of my readers may not have seen him, since I write about twenty years after his death, -imagine to yourself a thick, short, square-built man, with a face which, though animated and cheerful, could not but, at first sight, appear ugly; with bushy brows, snub nose, and projecting teeth; with an awkward gait and movement of the arms; a decent and dignified, but by no means excessive, protuberance of belly; wearing a white wig, such as suited his place, and a court coat; but without what would also have suited his place, a short cassock. To this part of the dress of the dignified ecclesiastic he had a particular dislike, and ridiculed it by calling it "a black apron, such as the master-tailors wear in Durham." The whole of his dress was of course black. He wore silver buckles at his knees and in his shoes. He was talking as I entered; and I perceived, with much surprise, that he spoke a very broad northern dialect. He had passed, indeed, great part of his life in the north of England; but he had been educated and lived long at Cambridge, and had seen a good deal of the world. Perhaps he was vain of this singularity; perhaps he would not seem to wish to correct what he found he could not cure without difficulty, and so gave up the attempt. I heard him repeat three or four times the word "noodge," pushing his elbows at the same time towards the sides of those who stood nearest to him: this motion explains the meaning of a word not very generally in use among scholars, nor in good company. But Paley's merits, though they might have been recommended by polished manners, were superior to them, and wanted them nct; and his learning was the more agreeable by being entirely tree from formality, pedantry, or assumption of literary importance. I could not learn to what all this "noodging" referred, as the story was finished; and, soon after, dinner was announced. When we were seated at table, the mis tress of the house said, "Mr. Subdean, what will you be pleased to eat?" "Eat, madam ? eat every thing, from the top of the table to the bottomfrom the beginning of the first course to the end of the second." Then, putting on an air of grave doubt and deliberation "There are those pork staakes; I had intended to proceed, regularly and sys. tematically, through the ham and fowls to the beef; but those pork staakes stagger my system." I sat next to him; he turned suddenly upon me:" Mr. what would you do in such a case?" As I had to answer the first question proposed to me by the great Dr. Paley, I endeavoured to do so in choice and correct phraseology. I said, that when the end was the same, and the means equally innocent and indifferent. Paley had a quick and nice tact on all occasions; whe ther he understood the preciseness of my sentence as in jest or in earnest I know not; but, not allowing me to finish it, he cried out—“Ay, I see you are for the pork staakes. Give me some of that dish"-naming neither pork steaks.nor ham and fowl. Every one who has heard Paley talk must be aware how much his talk loses by being written down: no speech of the greatest orator, not even that to which was applied "quid si ipsum videsses?" could lose by transcription more of its force and effect. Paley's eloquence, however, did not, like that orator's, consist in his action; that was by no means graceful. His ut terance was at times indistinct; and when the persons to whom he talked were near him, he talked between his teeth; but there was a variety and propriety of inflexion in the tones of his voice an emphasis so pronounced, and so clearly conveying his meaning and feeling, assisted too by an intelligent smile or an arch leer, that not only what was really witty appeared doubly clever, but his ordinary remarks seemed ingenious. 66 We, that is the society of the place, dined at the subdeanery. The weather was excessively cold; the fire in the room in which we dined had been lighted but just before dinner; we were all chilled. Paley felt it to be useless to make apologies for what might have been so easily prevented; he talked of a dinner-party, an improvement upon this room, for they dined out of doors." To one of the company who was helping to the trifle, as it is here called "Captain -, you seem to be up to to the elbows in suds ; send me some of that; dig deep." I observed, that immediately after dinner he sent for his tooth-pick case, and was impatient till it was brought; that he drank very sparingly, of white wine chiefly ; and that some gingerbread was served, not as part of the dessert, but to him alone. After dinner, one of the party said, "Mr. Subdean, if you will give me leave, I'll stir the fire." Paley rushed from his end of the table: "I understand your trick! you want to have an opportunity of warming yourself. These are reflections of a mind at ease: I have been farther from the fire than any of you give me the poker." When we were seated round the fire, he gave me a letter: "It relates to the hare we had at dinner. It is written by a farmer, a tenant to the dean and chapter. Nay, read it aloud." I read :-"Reverend Sir: I request your honour's acceptance of a hare, as I mean to ask a favour in a short time. I am, &c. &c." Paley said, "As the dean remarked, so many thousand presents have been made with the same intention, yet the motive was never so honestly avowed before," I said, "I hope the farmer will obtain the favour.""Very likely he will." "When I lived at Carlisle, I used to send half-a-guinea to market on the mar ket-day, and that supplied my family with provisions for the week." A proof, notwithstanding the cheapness of that country, of the straitness of Paley's circumstances. His family was numerous, and he had, he said, three servants. He talked without reserve of passages in his former life, which a man of ordinary character, in the situation he then filled, would have been careful to keep out of view. There was latent pride in this perhaps. "When I set up a carriage, it was thought right that my armorial bearings should appear on the panels. Now, we had none of us ever heard of the Paley arms; none of us had ever dreamed that such things existed, or had ever been. All the old folks of the family were con sulted; they knew nothing about it. Great search was made, however, and at last we found a silver tankard, on which was en graved a coat of arms. It was carried by common consent that these must be the Paley arms; they were painted on the carriage, and looked very handsome. The carriage went on very well with them; and it was not till six months' afterwards that we found out that the tankard had been bought at a sale!" His looks and manner were an admirable running com mentary on this story, and rendered it superfluous for him to make, and he did not make, any remark upon it. Mr. Subdean, we saw you this morning in a situation that must have been very distressing to you in the midst of the crowd that was accompanying the poor man who was going to be hanged. "Why," said he," I got into the crowd without intending it; but, being there, I waited to see the poor fellow pass by. I looked in his face to see the expression of it; he was amazed and stupified, and that was all I observed that the nails of his fingers were perfectly white." Soon after he said, "How strange it is that we should be so much under the influence of our ha bits! the poor man who was executed this morning was a miller; had been brought up a miller; after the commission of the felony, when he knew that they were in search of him, he hid himself in a mill, and in a mill he was apprehended." He told me, "When I wanted to write any thing particularly well,-to do better than ordinary, I used to order a postchaise and go to Longtown; it is the first stage from Carlisle towards the north; there is a comfortable quiet inn there. I asked for a room to myself; there then I was, safe from the bustle and trouble of a family, and there I remained as long as I liked, or till I had finished what I was about." I said, "That is a very curious anecdote;" and I said it in a tone which, from a certain change in his countenance, I believe to have set him on musing how this anecdote would appear in the history of his life. Paley took his rides on horseback occasionally, but always alone, without the attendance even of a servant. "I am so bad a horseman, that if any man on horseback was to come near me when I am riding, I should certainly have a fall company would take off my attention, and I have need of all I can command to manage my horse and keep my seat; I have got a horse, the quietest creature that ever lived, one that at Carlisle used to be covered with children from the ears to the 661 tail." Understanding all this, and seeing him gambadoing on the race-course, I turned my horse's head another way. saw what you meant this morning; it was very considerate of you; I am much obliged to you." Paley was too careful of petty expenses, as is frequently the case with those who have had but narrow incomes in early life. He kept a sufficiently handsome establishment as subdean, but he was stingy. A plentiful fall of snow took place during an evening party at the precentor's; two of Mr. Subdean's daughters were there; he showed great anxiety on account of the necessity that seemed to have arisen of sending them home in a sedan-chair. Taking the advice of several of the company, whether such necessity really and inevitably existed, he said to me, "It is only next door."" The houses touch," said I, but it is a long round to your door; the length of both houses, and then through the garden in front of your house." He consulted the precentor, who, to put the matter in the right point of view, cried out, "Let the girls have a chair; it is only three-pence a-piece." We all admired Paley's talents; we were all proud of having him for subdean; we all sought and delighted in his conversation: he was liked, yet it cannot be said in an unqualified sense that he was respected. The familiarity of his manners, his almost perpetual jests, his approximations to coarseness of language, weakened that splendour of his literary reputation by which we should otherwise have been dazzled. Yet he was, though rough and unpolished, perfectly well behaved. If ever he stepped aside from the conformity with the order and regulations of good society, it was in the spirit of fun, and understood to be so; he was, in all ordinary cases, gentle and good-natured; his tact enabled, and his seemingly-benevolent disposition prompted him to say what might he pleasing to those with whom he conversed, and to avoid what might be disagreeable. He certainly was not by nature of a selfish character; how far the example of the world, and the necessities of his own situation might have engendered this sentiment, which every man finds unamiable when exerted against himself, it is not for man to judge, who cannot know the heart, and can seldom impartially decide on the conduct of his fellow-man.New Monthly Magazine. WINTER.-IN SIX SONNETS. NO. 1.-DAYBREAK. Fade the last stars; the air is stern and still ; And lo! bright frost-work on the leafless thorn! Of the waste sea, the dim-seen gulls pass o'er, rain, And in the wind gusts, on the window pane Winter! since thou must govern us again, NO. II. SNOW-STORM. How gloom the clouds' quite stifled is the ray, Which from the conquer'd sun would vainly shoot Through the blank storm; and though the winds be mute, Lo! down the whitening deluge finds its way. Look up a thousand thousand fairy motes Come dancing downwards, onwards, sideways whirl'd, Like flecks of down, or apple-blossoms curl'd By nipping winds. See how in ether floats The light-wing'd mass,—then, mantling o'er the field, Changes at once the landscape, chokes the rill, Behold the mountain peaks how sharply lined NO V.VICISSITUDE. Oh! sweetly beautiful it is to mark The virgin, vernal snow-drop! lifting up- Bright sunshine, singing birds, and endless day! NO. VI CONCLUSIONS. All things round us preach of death; yet mirth Swells the vain heart, darts from the careless eye, As if we were created ne'er to die, And had our everlasting home on earth! All things around us preach of death; the leaves Drop from the forest-perish the bright flow'rs→→ Shortens the day's shorn sunlight, hours on hours And o'er bleak, sterile fields the wild wind grieves. Yes! all things preach of death,-we are born to die : We are but waves along life's ocean driven; To fit us for a dread eternity. Hear ye, that watch with faith's unslumbering eye, Earth is our pilgrimage, our home is heaven! Blackwood's Magazine. DELTA. To * I HATE to see thy vain pretence, Tho' perhaps, thou still may please the crowd, With gesture bad, and language loud, FANCIES ON A TEA-CUP. I LOVE to pore upon old china - and to speculate, from the images, on Cathay. I can fancy that the Chinese manners betray themselves, like the drunkard's, in their cups. How quaintly pranked and patterned is their vessel! exquisitely outlandish, yet not barbarian. How daintily transparent! It should be no vulgar earth, that produces that superlative ware, nor does it so seem in the enamelled landscape. 1 There, are beautiful birds; there rich flowers and gorgeous butterflies, and a delicate clime, if we may credit the porcelain. There be also horrible monsters, dragons, with us obsolete, and reckoned fabulous; the main breed, doubtless, having followed Fohi (our Noah) in his wanderings thither from the Mount Ararat.-But how does that impeach the loveliness of Cathay?—There are such creatures even in Fairy-land. I long often to loiter in those romantic Paradises-studded with pretty temples - holiday pleasure-grounds the true tea-gardens. I like those meandering waters, and the abounding little islands. And here is a Chinese nurse-maid,Ho-Fi, chiding a fretful little Pekin child. The urchin hath just such another toy, at the end of a string, as might be purchased at our own Mr. Dunnett's. It argues an advanced state of civilization, where the children have many playthings; and the Chinese infants, witness their flying fishes and whirligigs, sold by the stray natives about our streets, are far gone in such juvenile luxuries. But here is a better token.-The Chinese are a polite people; for they do not make household, much less husbandry, drudges of their wives. You may read the women's' fortune in their tea-cups. In nine cases out of ten, the female is busy only in the lady-like toils of the toilette. Lo! here, how sedulously the blooming Hy-son is pencilling the mortal arches, and curving the cross-bows of her eye-brows. A musical instrument, her secondary engagement, is at her almost invisible feet. Are such little extremities likely to be tasked with laborious officesMarry, in kicking, they must be ludicrously impotent, but then she hath a formidable growth of nails. By her side, the obsequious Hum is pouring his soft flatteries into her ear. When she walketh abroad, (here it is on another sample) he shadeth her at two miles off with his umbrella. It is like an allegory of love triumphing over space. The lady is walking upon one of those frequent pretty islets, on a plain as if of porcelain, without any herbage, only a solitary flower springs up, seemingly by enchantment, at her fairy-like foot. The watery space between the lovers is aptly left as a blank, excepting her adorable shadow, which is tending towards her slave. How reverentially is yon urchin presenting his flowers to the grey-beard! So honourably is age considered in China! There would be some sense, there, in birth-day celebrations. Here, in another compartment, is a solitary scholar, apparently studying the elaborate didactics of Con-Fuse-Ye. The Chinese have, verily, the advantage of us upon earthenware! They trace themselves as lovers, contemplatists, philosophers: whereas, to judge from our jugs and mugs, we are nothing but sheepish piping shepherds and foxhunters.-Hood's Whims and Oddities. JACK BANNISTER AND GARRICK. My friend, John Bannister, gave me the following accurate detail of his own reception by Garrick; and even in the narrative veneration of the actor, the reader may indulge a smile at the vanity of the manager. "I was," says the admirable comedian, 66 a student of painting in the Royal Academy, when I was introduced to Mr. Garrick-under whose superior genius the British stage then flourished beyond all former example. "One morning I was shown into his dressing-room, when he was before the glass preparing to shave-a white night cap covered his forehead-his chin and cheeks were enveloped in soap-suds-a razor-cloth was placed upon his left shoulder, and he turned and smoothed the shining blade with so much dexterity, that I longed for a beard, to imitate his incomparable method of handling the your speech, the speech to the ghost--I can hear you. Come, let's have a roll and a tumble." (A phrase of his often used to express a probationary specimen.) "After a few hums and haws, and a disposing of my hair, so that it might stand on end, like quills on the fretful porcupine,' I supposed my father's ghost before me, armed cap à pie,' and off I started. "Angels and ministers of grace defend us! (He wiped the razor.) Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd! (He strapped it.)' Bring with thee airs from heav'n or blasts from. hell!' (He shaves on.) Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet! King, father, royal Dane !-O, answer me, Let me not burst in ignorance." (He lathered again.) I concluded with the usual"Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do ?" but still continued in my attitude, expecting the praise due to an exhibition, which I was booby enough to fancy was only to be equalled by himself. But, to my eternal mortification, he turned quick upon me, brandished the razor in his hand, and thrusting his half-shaved face close up to mine, he made such horrible mouths at me, that I thought he was seized with insanity, and I showed more natural symptoms of being frightened at him, than at my father's ghost." Angels and ministers! yaw! whaw! maw!" However, I soon perceived my vanity by his ridicule. He finished shaving, put on his wig, and, with a smile of good nature, he took me by the hand. "Come," said he, " young gentleman, eh! let us see now what we can do." He spoke the speech-how he spoke it, those who have heard him never can forget. "There," said he, " young gentleman; and when you try that speech again, give it more passion and less mouth."-Boaden's Life of Mrs. Siddons. The Gatherer. "I am but a Gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."- Wotton EPIGRAM. From "Le Ramelet Moundi," by Gode- |