VOL. I.

"With youthful fancy, or with matron taste,
"We cull the meadow, or explore the waste,"-PAINE.
The brightest flowers, the purest gems, to save
From the dark bosom of oblivion's wave.

THE FLOAT.

THAT little dwelling, said my friend, I listened to the sweet concert of voiis the cottage in which Mary Aller-ces, as the young girls sang their ton once lived. Poor Mary! many Christmas carol; and many a time a time have I seen her on a sum- have I also heard arise the sounds mer morning sitting under the hon- of thanksgiving and prayer from ey-suckle, which then hung its ver- that humble dwelling. dant drapery over the rustic porch; and very sweet did Mary look as she sat there in her neat attire. She had been left an orphan while yet a little child, and, excepting myself, she had not a friend on the wide earth; but she was an industrious girl, and when she used to come on a Sabbath morning to my church, bending with her meek looks over her tattered bible, many a kind blessing was breathed by the aged matrons upon her head. The young maidens of the village, too, loved Mary Allerton; and often did they assemble round her evening hearth, when the season of Christmas came in its happy idleness. Many a time have I stopped at Mary's door, and VOL. 1.

Mary was often about my house, for she was the most industrious girl in the village: besides, I felt much kindliness for her; and I had great pleasure in listening to her wild and artless singing. Well, time wore on, and Mary grew up to be a woman-a fair, graceful woman. Yes; though but a simple villager, Mary would have graced a court. Yet there was ever a look of sadness in her face, and her voice was like some thrilling melancholy music. It was in autumn that William Stuart came to settle in the village. A fine manly looking lad he was, and his cottage soon rivalled even Mary's in neatness. William could, as Mary used to say,

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moved a little away from her—but no: there was a strange glow upon her cheek, and an unsettled brightness in her eye. She sangand never did the lark sing with a gayer note than on this evening did Mary Allerton ; yet was there something so wild and startling in her mirth, that I would fain have checked it, but I could not; for was it not natural that she should be happy on the eve of her bridal?

put his hand to every thing; and when I saw how anxious he was to get employment, and how useful he could be, I had him often to work | in my garden, and to do little jobs about the manse. I soon perceived that he contrived to find out something to do on the days when Mary Allerton was working for me; and at those times he always made his appearance with a nosegay of Mary's favourite flowers, which before he left the manse, was usually transferred to the bosom of the maiden. About this time did I also observe a change in the bearing of the fair girl formerly, her eyes met mine with looks of innocent confidingnow, they shrank abashed before my glance. Yet did they at times flash with a gladdened and brightened beauty, from beneath her long lashes; while blushes, as if from a heart newly awakened to some strong emotion, would dart vividly across her cheek. And soon the cause of all this was told to me by William Stuart: Mary had promi-cross the river, even in the dark. sed to become his wife.

As I walked homeward, the snow was drifted across the path in dark whirlwinds, and the trees tossed their branches wildly in the air. I looked around upon the tempest, and thought of those who were now exposed to its terrors. There was a market that day in a neighboring village, and I knew that many of my parishioners were there. As I remembered this, I looked anxiously at the dark and foaming waters of the Spey; for I much feared that in their hardy and intoxicated daring, the men might attempt to

ness and in the storm. William Stuart had also gone to the fair, but about him I felt no fear, for he had promised Mary not to return home that night, and I was convin

On the evening previous to the day on which they were to be married, I happened to be passing Mary's door; and as I wished to speak to her, I went into the cottage.ced that he would not disobey his There was a cheerful blaze upon bride. I was seated in my parlour, the hearth, and a fir candle was listening to the still increasing burning bright upon the ingle. The storm, when I heard a loud knockchange from the night air was very ing at the gate, and the sound of grateful to my feelings; for there many voices. Something they said was a cold north wind blowing and about William Stuart-I knew not driving the snow in heavy showers what; but I rushed to the door, and from off the hills. The moon came followed them, as they ran wildly out from behind the clouds in fitful towards the river. On the bank gleamings, and threw her stormy there was assembled a crowd of brightness on the troubled Spey; people: some stood in silent groups, and as I listened to the hoarse mur-yet in the moonlight I could see murs of the blast, I drew my chair that their hands were clasped, and closer to the hearth. Mary was that their hearts were filled with a sitting opposite to me on a low stool, strong emotion. Others were walkthe red blaze of the fire shone full ing to and fro, while they uttered upon her face. Perhaps it was this frantic and broken wailings; and that gave to her cheek that unnatu- in the midst of a denser and more ral colouring, and as I thought so, I collected crowd, I beheld the dead

body of William Stuart, and by his
side, upon her knees, was Mary
Allerton, wiping with her long hair
the frozen blood from his brow.
When I approached, she looked up
and smiled. May I never again
look on such a smile! Then she
covered the face of the corpse with
her handkerchief, and said, 'That's
a sound, sound sleep; but he'll sleep
aye the sounder that I am singing;'
and she sang-

'I'll make to my bridegroom
A grassy green pillow,

And our bed will the red heather be ;
And the wild birds will sing,
And wild flow'rs will spring

Round my braw bonnie bridegroom and me.'

rents.

The man redoubled his efforts to guide the float in its course of peril. For a moment did the boy see it heaving and tossing in the blackness of that boiling flood: then the moon was veiled behind a cloud-the wind rose with a sudden gust-and there was a sound as of trees bursting asunder;—this was succeeded by a low wailing cry, and then all was again still. When next the moon shone out from the cloud, the raft was floating in separate planks upon the water-but the man was gone!

*

I took Mary Allerton home with me, and she lived there for many

It was terrible to hear her sing-months, but her senses returned to ever when she stopped in her wild melody, looking up with her calm idiot smile.

her no more; yet was she ever gentle in her weakness, and her only pleasure consisted in gathering On the morning after that dread- flowers to hang upon William's ful night, I learned that when at grave. One morning she was misthe market, William Stuart was ob- sing; we searched for her in all served to place his hand upon his her accustomed haunts, but she was brow, as though his mind laboured not to be found. Then some one with some painful feeling; and said that she had been walking toonce he was heard to say there was wards the river. I went thither, a strange thought within his heart, and on the bank, where a year bethat he must die that night. Soon fore she had been found kneeling afterwards his friends missed him by her lover's body, I saw her lyfrom the fair, and it was conjectur- ing. I approached and spoke to ed that, influenced by the gloomy her she answered not. I lifted fancy with which he was haunted, her from the ground, and found in he had resolved to return home, my arms a stiffened corpse ! that he might once more look upon the sweet face of Mary Allerton. A shepherd-boy happened that evening to be seeking a stray sheep, and said that, from the opposite bank, he had seen a man push a DURING the dark ages, or rather at float into the stream. It was wild- their expiration, religion and letters ness, the boy thought, on such a revived together. They had been night; but the man seemed to have buried in the same grave, and they a powerful arm, and for a time the were resuscitated by the more than raft passed steadily, though slowly magic touch of the same finger. Presently, however, it ap- The name of Martin Luther will be proached that part of the river venerated while learning and reliwhere most danger was to be appre-gion shall maintain their existence hended. The waters, which on the and authority among men. other side were calm and turbid, eminently qualified for the work here rushed along in eddying cur- which Providence had assigned

on.

Saturday Evening.

CONVERSION

OF MARTIN LUTHER.

He was

there is enough of happiness left to make us feel what Eden was.

Wearied with business and its dull unvarying round, where do we seek for refreshment to our languid spirits? Worn out by pain and sickness, where do we hope to find returning strength? Satiated by

him. The story of this man will never lose its interest. He was educated for the profession of the law, but an act of God unsettled all his former purposes, and gave a new direction to the whole tenour of his future life. As he was walking with a fellow student in the fields, he was stricken by a flash of light-pleasure, where do we fancy we ning to the ground, and his com shall regain the healthy tone of our panion instantly expired at his side. mind? Stung by disappointment, This providence affected his spirits, and oppressed by sorrow, where do and under the influence of the pre- we fly but to the retirement of the vailing fashion of the age, he reti- country? There we find rest for red to a convent to spend his re- the weary-health for the sick-exmaining days. Here he met with a hileration for the languid-and a Latin Bible, the first that had ever holy calm for the sorrowful soul. greeted his eye. This Bible gave liberty to Luther, and Luther, with this Bible in his hand, gave liberty to the world. The republic of let-red by the smoke of the town: they ters, and the science of politics, not less than the Christian church, are indebted to the genius, the learning, and the exertions of this great reformer. His direct and appropriate object was religion, but the departments of literature and legislation have experienced their full share of practical effect. The same shower which watered the garden of God, caused the surrounding fields to assume a livelier green, and the distant wilderness to diffuse its fragrance as the rose.

ESSAY,

ON THE CHARMS OF RURAL LIFE.

Crowds pass along from street to street, and all they can see of nature is the sky above them, obscu

talk of their pleasures, they talk of their politics, till their blood boils, and they talk of their wealth till their hearts freeze.

In the country, with nature unbounded, above and around, their conversation is of the happy vallies, where all looks too peaceful for sin to enter, or of the far off mountain, whose inhabitants must live in tranquil innocence. The heart is so acted on by the balmy air, the music of the woods, and the beautiful scenery, that it expands, and warns to all who live beneath the same skies, and traverse the same globe.

Here the painter first taught his canvass to glow with seeming life. How beautiful is the country! We Here the music of the rill, the passare told that Paradise was a gardening of the wind through the woods, -the shelter of our first parents, a the sweet song of the birds, and bower, and the employment of Eve, the tuneful hum of of insects, to tend the fragrant flowers-and make melody to which the most this was happiness, and this is hap-skilful musician might pause to piness though the garden no long- hearken. The tabor, and the harp, er blooms with perpetual verdure, and the lute, may sound at their though the voice of weeping and feasts, and may enchant the ear; lamentation is sometimes heard a- but the notes of mirth enlivening mong the bowers, and though the some deep glen, the burst of the beautiful blossoms, by their decay, martial band as it descends from remind us of the perishable nature the hill, the solemn peal or touchof all that is fair and sweet, yet stilling cadence that floats upon the

wave, now melting into silence, led upon her cheek, and the joynow rising on the ear again, and in lit flame that sparkled in her dark sweet majestic swell borne along the tranquil lake at the still hour of night, is such music as, we think, angels might lean from heaven to hear!

Here science too can trace along the starry firmament, some of the wonders of creation; and, while the mind is filled with sublimity, the understanding is satisfied with certainty.

Here philosophy, far removed from each day's new commotion, can seek for truth, pure as the fountain, unclouded as the summer's skies.

eye, that the ghastlyking of terrors' was seeking whom he should destroy,' and that her loveliness might be the next trophy that the insatiate tyrant would demand as a proof of his victory over the young and beautiful! The festive hall, which erst was brightened by her smile-the hall where youth and beauty led the airy dance,' is now dark and desolate! The spirit that lighted, and the grace that adorned it, is fled forever! Nor less is her absence mourned in the sacred recess of friendship, or the sunny bowers of love. Not less is her loss Here the poet can invoke his experienced by those who have remuse, and she will answer. All ceived from her hand the charitabreathes inspiration, every sense is ble offerings of a benevolent heart, charmed; the dawn of morning, or those consoling comforts so gratethe glow of noon, the close of eve-ful to the couch of sickness. He, ning, and the shades of night, all the sharer in her joys, and in her awaken his mind to some new de- sorrows-he who was anticipating light; the world he sees, and those the happiness of uniting his destiworlds beyond his sight, lift his ny with hers-feels in this total fancy to lofty themes, and the en- wreck of all his hopes, that utter raptured poet cannot be silent. desolation which darkens the breast on being deprived of the heart's dearest idol. How often have I seen the fond enthusiastic George, gazing on her polished brow, and calmly beaming eye, as if she were a thing to worship! How often, too, wreathing 'mid her sable hair those fragrant flowers that sprang around them, I have seen him lead her with a look of pride to join the village dance. Or when "HARK!" said my companion, as the pale moon lent her lucid beam, the village bell pealed forth its deep meet light for hearts so pure, and and solemn note, 66 Alas, it tolls forms so fair, I've seen them straypoor Sarah's knell !" But a few ing through the dew-gemmed vale, days since, she was the pride of the discoursing on schemes of future village-revelling in the purity and bliss! as if their very souls were joyousness of her happy heart-dif- framed for earth, and all their dearfusing pleasure around her, and re-est hopes were centered here-vain, ciprocating in all the endearments false illusion! The bright charm of that society which her grace and is broken-fair Sarah sleeps, unintelligence adorned. Little thought conscious of the tear of sorrow, or she, as her mirror reflected the the sigh of love! Yet hers is the kindling blush of health, that glow-rest, that wakes to life and light!

FOR THE BOWER OF TASTE.

THE BURIAL.

"The hand is gone, that cropt the flowers:
Unheard the clock repeats its hours:
All lone and desolate her bowers:

And should we thither roam ?
The echo of our empty tread,
Would sound like voices of the dead."

MEMNON.