an outline was given by us, January, 1840), is an experiment easy and practicable; and which could hardly fail of being productive of beneficial results. Political commotion is now what is most to be dreaded; but give to all the right to labour, a sufficient remuneration, and a reasonable degree of leisure, and all such ferment is allayed. Insurrection starves among a well-fed population. Emigration, we once more declare, is a remedy worse than the disease; eating into the very vitals of the nation; and depriving her of what she should most cherish-her energy, her skill-nay, her genius. These, when profusely bestowed on a nation, are the gift of a bounteous God; and should, in the natural course of things, conduce to her prosperity. But if, through an artificial obstruction, these blessings fail of their due effect, and, like all good things perverted, originate fatal mischiefs, shall we therefore cast them from us, and madly destroy the sinews of our strength? Abundance ought never to be a curse. Where there is plenty, none ought to want; where there are many to labour, none ought to be overtasked. If skill abounds, clumsy workmanship should disappear; if energy and genius are vouchsafed, noble enterprises and mighty achievements should be wrought. And if contrary results are witnessed, the fault lies, not with the inestimable treasures thus showered on an ungrateful land, but with man, who has neglected to apply them. Not long, however, will they remain working evil instead of good; they will right themselves, either by peaceful demonstration or violent convulsion. To use them properly, is glorious supremacy; but to disperse them, deadliest suicide; especially in a country like England, whose main prop is her commerce. The wealth and greatness of England has been created by the artisan. He has furnished out her armies and fleets, not perhaps with men, but with what is more valuable-money and credit. And shall we banish him from the shores he has defended? from the country he has raised to dominion? Forbid it, Heaven! If a general emigration should ever take place, our artisans will be the first to depart. The agricultural labourer is heavy and dull, and, having few wants, will stick to the soil to the last; but the artisan will at once seek a better market for his skill. Nor have we any certainty (if his emigration be voluntary) that he will proceed to any of our colonies, distant or proximate. Already have our artisans shown a disposition to remove to continental districts, where a prospect of better wages or cheaper living presents itself; and if they do so, the genius of Britain may indeed don sackcloth and mourn the folly of our legislature. Her commercial importance annihilated, England will scarcely rank as a third-rate power, and will probably fall the first victim whenever the Russian eagle shall be prepared to make its final fatal swoop over Europe. But we have little fear of beholding a general emigration, if not rendered compulsory. So strong is the attachment of the mass to their native soil, that they will undergo any hardships rather than leave it. This, experience has proved; for notwithstanding the continued advocacy of emigration among the people, few comparatively have embraced it-and of those few, many have been profligates, without character, or occupation, or hope. And how little has the expatriation of these self-exiles relieved the distresses of the community. Its influence has scarcely been felt beyond the family hearths which have been made desolate by the departure, for ever, of the cherished and beloved. If there were no other objection to emigration than the kindred ties which it rends, the domestic sanctities which it violates, we should pause ere we pronounced it just or benevolent. To tear a man from all the endearments of early associations-from the lips he has kissed and the hands he has pressed-from the love of parent, of brother, of friend-and to banish him perchance to a wilderness, or at best to a far land where all are strangers to his sight and heart, can surely smack but little of philanthropy. Such a proposal treats poverty as our law treats felons, and what is punishment to the one will scarcely be amelioration to the other. When we reflect on the blight that must come over the best affections of the heart before a man could submit to such a doom, we are not surprised at many of the emigrants, upon their arrival at their destination, abandoning themselves to the lowest sensualism, and becoming a disgrace to human nature; on the contrary, we wonder that such instances should be considered the exception, and not the rule. It has been calculated, from official returns, that in the colony of New South Wales alone, the quantity of spirituous liquors consumed is at least ten times greater than in any other part of the globe of similar extent and population. Does not this fact speak trumpet-tongued of debasement, desperation, and wretchedness? Let those who will emigrate; but preach it not to the people as a panacea for their ills. Rather let the government choose what is most convenient and practicable from the systems of Fourier, Owen, and other socialists, and establish a system of association and co-operation for those whom machinery or other causes may throw out of employment. This plan, in the long run, would cost the government little or nothing; for the funds advanced, being a loan, and not a gift, would be repaid as the communities advanced in prosperity. Of course, such institutions ought to be conducted on strictly religious and conservative principles, and be under the direct supervision of the executive. By this means, many who are now useless or dangerous members of society will be supplied with a livelihood, and Chartism and Revolution be perhaps nipped in the bud. THE DYING POET! BY MRS. CRAWFORD. SWEEP the strings to holy numbers,— Move not now as once they moved; S. C. Would ye, with a love mistaken, See my health again renewed? See my mind with passions shaken, Passions all-yes all subdued? Would ye see me, once more filling Pleasure's deep and deadly bowl, Every pulse to folly thrilling, Reckless of th' undying soul? Gentle friends! ah, why this anguish? Is the mortal then so dear, Ye would let the spirit languish Hour by hour in exile here? Health did never yield the lightness, Sickness to my soul doth give; All was false illusive brightness, Now alone I seem to live. Sad farewells are nature's reaping From man's dark estate of earth; All must pay their tithe of weeping, All to tribute sighs give birth. Oh! how softly bright and tender Shines that Star to dying eyes, Judah saw, in all its splendour, O'er her night of darkness rise! Saviour of my soul eternal, What have I to offer thee, But those gifts of grace supernal, Which thy blood first bought for me? Take, oh! take my all of treasure, All around my couch is beaming, THE VILLAGE CHURCHYARD. They sleep in secret,-but their sod Unknown to man, is marked by God!"-MRS. HEMANS. THERE appears to me nothing that so readily finds its way to the "heart of hearts," that sanctuary of the best feelings of one's nature, as the contemplation of a village churchyard-calm amid the turmoil of a restless world, and hallowed by the vicinity of the house of prayer, where all who bend the knee to the Triune God, enjoy His presence who has said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be in the midst of them." It gladdens the spirit of the anxious searcher after peace, as the lamp of night piercing the stormcloud cheers the eye of the traveller through the gloom, drawing the mind gently from the hectic and evanescent colouring of time to the unfading bloom of eternity. How pleasant is it to turn from the dismal, chilling burial ground of a city, where no ray of sunshine or unadulterated light beams o'er the forgotten dust, where even the sepulchral stone is encrusted with smoke and the general impurities of the atmosphere; where the dead are brought, like vegetables to the fair, to be disposed of by the half dozen at a time, the hired mourners feeling as little compunction as the salesman at parting with his charge, which ere long will be trodden under foot, in levity or thoughtlessness, by the scornful and the proud ;-where all seems strange and new, from the infant, admitted into the pale of the church, to the lifeless form interred within its shadow; for in the ever changing inhabitants of a town the same roof will cover those, whose very persons are unknown to each other, literally" birds of passage," since one cometh, and another goeth, and their place is nowhere to be found, save in the city burial-ground, that takes no cognizance of its tenants, but by putting forth the announcement of the fact, on its sign of stone, of all things there the only one grown old in its place, while over that the mould of premature age has been unsparingly strewn :pleasant, truly, is it to turn from this revolting scene to the tranquil seclusion of a village churchyard-that, far from the jarring elements of discord, stretches forth its verdant bosom fresh and inviting, and seems to say, "Come to me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!"-rest to the troubled spirit from the vain longings of ambition; repose to the suffering and the hopeful, sweet as on the bosom of their Lord! When day declines, and I have marked yon venerable pile, steeped in the roseate hues of sunset, glowing and godlike, as reflected from Him, whose throne is light, I have thought of the hoary head silvered by age, and whitened with the purity of regeneration, ripe for the harvest,-flickering awhile on the verge of earth, and throwing around him the rich beauties of holiness; and when the last ray has fled, and all is clothed in the sable robe of night, 'tis as the sombre quiet of the grave, silently reposing till the day-star from on high shall visit the earth, and the Sun, radiant in the glory of the heavens, "shall arise with healing on his wings." Where can we find the purest and most refined feelings of humanity so beautifully developed as among the unsophisticated and untaught occupants of these simple mounds? I accompanied Filia to a rural burying ground; she led me to a grave somewhat more elevated than the rest, and while I read the in scription on the headstone, she reverently bent the knee of piety, and plucking a blade of grass, nurtured by the dust of a parent, gently placed it in her bosom!-it was a touching scene, and the unbidden tear flowed in sympathy with the sweet sorrow of the mourner. as The village churchyard, that is pressed by the merry foot of infancy, bears him anon to lisp his first lesson at the Sunday school-and with more sober step, to prepare for taking on himself the fulfilment of his baptismal vows; in after years yields to the firmer step of manhood, he passes on to plight his troth to the chosen of his heart, often the companion of his childhood; and when age and infirmities have weaned him from the world, the same sacred soil that has claimed his kindred for generations past, opens its gloomy depths and receives the casket, whose jewel is called to adorn a crown of surpassing glory; truly may he be said to "sleep with his fathers!" But where are the bones of him buried in a city? Darkness and infamy too frequently can alone tell where !-perhaps strung together, and incased in the sanctum of the anatomist!-perhaps scattered to the winds by the zeal or the levity of the student, or, more revolting still, adorned with silver and with gold, to be made the instrument of administering to the midnight orgies of the infidel! and shall not that re-embodied scull rise in accusation against the voluptuous, sacrilegious traducer? How soon are the fairest and the most powerful forgotten! Each passeth as a shadow, yet must there have been beauties in all, for all were moulded by an unerring hand, and stamped with the divine image, from the day-flower, whose life sets with the sun that evening shrouds and the night-dews weep for, to the amaranth that flourishes beneath the rainbow of emerald, and is sunned by the "Sun of Righteousness!" Turn then with me from the gorgeous pageant of the city—from the imposing plumes of the wealthy and the great-to dwell with undazzled eye on the lowly bier of the villager, and feel at thy heart's core the unaffected grief of its follower, who, drooping beneath the weight of her bereavement, yet lifts the eye of resignation to Heaven, and to the measured toilings of the funeral knell breathes forth in faith and hope, "Thy will be done!" "It was but a dewy greensward bed, Meet for the rest of a peasant head: But love-oh! lovelier than all beside!- Were it not that my kindred lie entombed in a vaulted sepulchre, and that with all the yearnings of affection, strong even in death, I wish that my dust may mingle with the dust of my parents and my children, I would select the spot beneath yon willow for my long home of rest -for surely it is sweet to know that, though the world may jeer, and laugh as the breeze that wantons with the pall, and may turn with indifference from the lifeless burden it covers, there is still one living thing, created by the same great Power, and spotless as when first from the bosom of its mother earth, that shall droop, and shed tears in the dews of heaven over our grave: and sweeter still, that that pellucid shower should call forth an emblem of the immortality of the soul from our very dust, in the springing grass that rises in matured verdure, meet for the scythe of time-the gathering of the grain -the consummation of all things! West Ashby. E. P. |