languidly replying to those who from time to time addressed him, and looking as if he thought himself a much finer gentleman than "the bores" around him, when the folding-doors were thrown open, and Isabella gracefully advanced, cordially greeting some, and courteously, but more distantly, receiving others of her guests. In sudden amazement at the blaze of beauty which burst upon his sight, Evelyn started up and remained standing while she walked through the room. It was now his turn to be noticed, and Mr. Walton introduced him to his daughter. Albeit his previous resolves, Evelyn's salutation was more profound than fashionable, but Isabella, slightly curtseying, passed on to another part of the room, where she was speedily engaged in gay conversation, without seeming at all to be aware of the honour Mr. Evelyn had done her father and herself by accepting their invitation.

Evelyn felt mortified and confused; he was ashamed of himself for having involuntarily risen when Isabella made her entrée, and he had nothing for it but to sit down awkwardly. Yet he could not feel anger against the beautiful girl, on whom his eye was now riveted with intense admiration.

"No, I never saw any one half so lovely!" said he to himself; and in truth few could have been more perfect in form and feature. Isabella was above the common height, but not awkwardly tall; her figure was slender, yet round; her hands and feet small; her throat, long and finely turned, was white as alabaster; and her brow was also of dazzling fairness. Unlike the generality of ladies in the West Indies, there was a rich bloom on her cheek-not the chubby red so often to be met with among the country beauties of England, Ireland, and Scotland, but a tint delicate as that of an opening rosebud. Her hair was of a dark and glossy auburn, while her pencilled eyebrows were still of a deeper shade. Her eyes, full of intelligence and expression, were of a bright hazel, that peculiar colour which seems to change, sometimes appearing of a sparkling black, sometimes of the softest blue; and her small, wellformed mouth, with its short upper lip, had, along with an expression of firmness, a sweetness in its smile that was quite enchanting.

"And this beautiful creature is the person I have been teaching myself to dislike and despise !" internally exclaimed Evelyn, still gazing at her as long as he could without rudeness.

"It is a pity that young men should be so conceited and presumptuous," said Isabella to herself, as she glanced towards Evelyn; "he has an intelligent and agreeable countenance."

At dinner, Evelyn, as the greatest stranger present, was placed next to Miss Walton, while on her other hand sat a deaf old gentleman, who piqued himself on his skill on carving, and who was too much engrossed with that occupation, and with demolishing the viands before him, to waste much time in conversation. The lady on the other side of Evelyn was one of those unsociable beings who never venture, in company at least, to put forth more than a "yes" or a "no;" and he was soon tired of dragging from her these alternate monosyllables. Isabella and Evelyn were, therefore, reduced to the necessity of maintaining profound silence, or of speaking to each other. Insensibly they began to converse, and before dinner was half over they were engaged in lively discourse.

"A pleasant young man this, after all," said Isabella to herself.

"What a charming creature!" thought Evelyn. In short, they were mutually pleased; and when the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner, Evelyn sought Isabella with the air of one who did not much fear being unwelcome, and who was anxious to renew an agreeable tête-à-tête.

Many were their subsequent tête-à-têtes; sometimes in a crowded ball-room, sometimes at a quiet dinner-party, often in Isabella's drawingroom, during the sultry hours of morning, and oftener still on the lone wild shore, when the last fading rays of the declining sun cast a purple haze around, or the moon's bright beams were dancing on the glittering

waves.

Evelyn was an altered being; so, too, was Isabella. A new charm seemed to have been added to her existence, an intoxicating sense of happiness such as she had never before experienced; very different, indeed, from the triumph of gratified vanity, or the calm consciousness of domestic peace. It was the charm of young and happy love, casting, as it were, a spell of enchantment around her. The waving of the cocoanut branches, the rustling of the distant canes, seemed more musical than ever; the wild flowers that she trod on in her path seemed to blossom in brighter luxuriance; the very air of evening seemed more pure and balmy.

Evelyn and Isabella, though they had at first met under inauspicious circumstances, had now become warmly attached to each other, and they were not doomed, like too many others, to know the misery of blighted hopes.

They married, and found all their visions of happiness realised; for, though the less volatile Isabella possessed, perhaps, the stronger mind, both were amiable, both ardent in temper, and cultivated in understanding.

Evelyn gave up the scheme of making all his negroes suddenly free, and applied himself, with Isabella's advice and assistance, to increasing their comforts; providing them with sound moral and religious instruction, and endeavouring to raise them by degrees in the scale of civilisation to a level with the free peasantry of other countries, thus to fit them for the enjoyment of rational liberty.

Still, freedom and equality were his favourite themes, though he never could exactly define what he meant; and many were the arguments which he and Mr. Walton held on these subjects, both, perhaps, being partly right, and both partly wrong.

STEREOSCOPIC GLIMPSES.

BY W. CHARLES KENT.

VII. BURNS AT MOSSGIEL.

BRIGHT dews of labour on his brow,
Warm passion in the ruddy glow,
Deep-flushing lustrous eyes below-
What love flames back

Where through green leaves the white gleams flow
That mark her track!

Sweet glimpse but of a rustic girl

With tartan veiled, whence streams one curl,
Where fluttering witcheries unfurl

Love's springe of hair

Of ringlets, yea! the pink, the pearl,
His heart to snare!

Among the rippling wheat he stands,
A tawny reaper with brown hands,

That swathe ripe sheaves with crackling bands,
Or with keen blade

Sweep gold waves back from stubble-strands
With shocks arrayed.

Rough, sunburnt, stalwart son of toil,

To till, to sow, to glean the soil,
How fair for thee that ringlet's coil

That lures thy gaze!

Not rudest lot thy fame shall foil
To chant her praise!

One moment there, one moment gone,
Quenched seems the arrowy beam that shone
That twinkling golden tress upon

In trills of light

Hope's shadowy mist of dreamings drawn
Before thy sight!

Seen through which tremulous haze of hope,
Spread wide before thy fancy's scope—
A's when o'er midnight's mystic cope

God's

gems are seen

Strange visionary splendours ope

And shine serene.

A young athletic peasant, thou!

Full soon Fame's crown shall gird thy brow,
Thick gemmed with scarlet berries' glow,

'Mid bristling leaves,

Thy sceptre, but a sickle now,

Sway souls for sheaves.

That wondrous sceptre of thy song
Shall ever to thy land belong,
While every rapture, every wrong,
That thrills thy breast,

By sympathy shall thrill the throng
Thy woes have blest.

Then million millions yet unborn
Will hail with joy this autumn morn,
When, loitering 'mid the ripened corn,
Thy glorious eyes

Watched through yon maze of leaf and thorn
Thy life's best prize.

Thy bonnie Jean, thy winsome wife,
Sweet blossom of that rugged life-
Rough rind with tenderest fibres rife,
Whence bloomed yon flower,
Rich guerdon of thy manhood's strife,
With healing power.

Was not her type that gowan fair,
When, toiling down the glebe of Ayr,
Thy footstep tracked the hissing share
That turned the mould,

And pity yearned that jewel rare
With love t'enfold?

The bonniest lass of blithest charms
Thou e'er didst win with wooing arms,
To soothe thee midst the world's alarms
In home's dear rest,

With looks whose merest memory warms
Thy manly breast.

The fairest of them all was she

Yon "lass that made the bed for thee!"

To whom thy trust in grief may flee,
By anguish riven-

When Highland Mary e'en shall be
Still loved in heaven!

Unheard as yet Fame's trumpet-call
From yonder lowly labours' thrall
To grand Walhalla's deathless hall,
Where waits his throne-

Yon peasant-poet counts worth all
Her love alone!

Around him thus the day-beams shine
O'er locks more black than raven's crine,
O'er glittering orbs of light divine,

And radiant face,

Where sentience thrills each lordly line

With nerves of grace.

Ah! better, Robin, thus to stand

With sickle aye in healthful hand
Than leader of a brawling band

With gauge or bowl,

When bowed to sordid craft thy grand
Heroic soul!

Sept.-VOL. CXVII. NO. CCCCLXV.

F

SLAVERY IN BRAZIL.*

THE question of negro slavery having been recently the subject of so much sharp controversy in connexion with the system of free immigration introduced by the Emperor Napoleon, our readers will probably be glad to receive any information which may serve to throw light on the present condition of the slave trade in its principal stronghold-Brazil. In M. Dabadie's very interesting work we find much valuable detail on the matter. Himself an ardent opponent of slavery under any garb, he devoted much time and research to the question during a recent visit to South America, and we purpose to condense his remarks, as proving where the slave trade must be vigorously attacked if we desire its utter suppression.

:

After passing a well-deserved encomium on the English cruisers, our author is forced to the conclusion that, despite all the willingness they have displayed, they have only succeeded in putting a slight check on the slave trade. Swift sailers, built expressly for the trade, still land every year thousands of negroes at Rio Janeiro, Bahia, and Pernambuco. This results partly from the neglect of the French cruisers and the complicity of the Brazilians, who never capture a slaver save when compelled; and partly from the immense profits derived from the trade. The slave dealers rapidly amass enormous fortunes, which open up to them the path to honours and the highest offices in a country where slavery is generally regarded as necessary. Their calculation is very simple if one vessel out of five arrive safely, a considerable gain is realised. In addition, they manage matters so that all the personal risk is run by men whose names are borrowed at a price, but who receive an infinitesimal share of the profits. To what cruelties such a system leads, the following extract from the Morning Chronicle of February, 1858, will supply a proof. "We learn from the Cape that the steamer Sappho, while cruising off the west coast of Africa, sighted a suspiciouslooking vessel of about 900 tons, which, on being chased, ran ashore. The Sappho, being prevented from approaching by the shallowness of the water, lowered its boats. The slaver did the same, after throwing overboard eight hundred negroes. When the boats' crews boarded the vessel, they found four hundred negroes still on board, who were taken to Sierra Leone. The slaver was burnt, and during the operation, her men fired on the Sappho's boats from the shore. Half the negroes thrown overboard reached the land, the rest perished in the waves.

Brazil is the only country in South America which enjoys a monarchical government, and is also the only one that has maintained slavery. This is not surprising: the Brazilians imagine that slavery is a question of life or death for them. The owners of the soil are convinced that, were the negroes emancipated, their fields would remain uncultivated, and general misery succeed the present opulence. The middle classes in the towns, accustomed to the enjoyments of miserable sloth,

* A travers l'Amérique du Sud. Par F. Dabadie. Paris: Ferdinand Sartorius.