supposed it to be a convent, which conjecture was strengthened by the approach of a priest proceeding towards it. As I had ever found the holy fathers to be social and communicative, I accosted him, and began to make inquiries about the large prison-looking abode before us. He in formed me that it was not a convent, but an asylumn for insanity, containing inmates from many different parts of Spain; and proffered his services to procure me admission, in case I felt any curiosity to visit its cells. Although the exhibitions of a madhouse are of the most painful description, I felt a strong desire to behold them, even as we feel a fatal impulse to leap from the precipice into the gulf from which the flesh shrinks and recoils. I therefore accepted the offer of my conductor, and proceeded along with him to the asylum, whose massy portals opened at his call, and closed after us with a hoarse and sullen sound.

·

Upon entering the drear abode, my ears were assailed with strange and discordant sounds, blending in wild chorus. The voice of laughter, "where laughter is no mirth," the groans of despair and shouts of unearthly glee, echoed by the clanking of chains and the sound of the keeper's lash, rung through that hell of human agony, whose dwellers, like the benighted blind, dwelt in darkness at noonday.There might be seen every species of mental aberration,-madness with its "phantom crown' and fettered hands, and melancholy,-deep, religious and hopeless melancholy, struck into despair by the terrors of a world to come, deeming itself already in the place of lost souls, and sitting mute in the blackness of darkness. But who may unveil the visions that beset the maniac's cell,-perchance more wild and incongruous than the horrors that haunt our most fevered dreams! The sights around me soon became so intolerable that I was about to leave the place, when all at once there arose from a neighbouring cell a strain of music, at first low and faint, as a sigh struggling into sound, or such as breaks upon our dreams. I never heard its like before, and never shall again. If sorrow could mingle with the songs of the blest, I might have deemed it the anthem of a departed spirit; but no, it was a strain of earth, the breathings of a woman's voice and of a broken heart, which longed to be at rest. I could not intrude upon such sacred but when at last the strain died sorrow; away into silence, I entered the cell, and in its dim light beheld a young female of exquisite symmetry sitting in an attitude of deep dejection, with her brow resting upon her hands. She raised her head at

my approach, and in a maze of horror, as if I had beheld a visitant unveiled from the world of spirits, my gaze grew fixed and frozen upon the face of Francesca Zamora !

As soon as the mist had passed from my brain, and the stupor from my heart, I inquired of the keeper what he knew respecting her; but the only information he could give amounted to this, that she had been brought to the neighbouring village by some shepherds, who had found her wandering among the wild recesses of the mountains, half-famished with hunger; and as she could give no account of herself whatever, and was evidently labouring under mental derangement, she had been received into the asylum, where she had since remained in the state in which I then beheld her.

I drew near and addressed her by name, and tried, by every means I could devise, to awaken some slumbering recollection, and to strike some chord of her heart; but all in vain. With a cold vacant gaze she regarded me for a moment, and then bowed down her head as before, and sunk into a profound silence. I could endure the sight no longer, and quitted the mournful scene. Upon arriving at Lisbon, I lost no time in transmitting an account of what I had seen to the friends of Francesca, and to Edwards. But the tale of sorrow never met his ear, for ere my letter had arrived at the British camp he was far beyond the reach of bad news,-he had fallen in battle!

Tales of Field & Flood.

stains

This matin sweet, these breezes, this broad sun And glorious scenery have assoil'd me from!

Oh! to be blest with health, and (boon more rich)

To meet the morning splendours with an eye
That sickens not at waking; to go forth
Rejoicing in sound strength-to feel the wind,
(Unfanged and turn'd to fragrance by the sun,)
Salute the kindling cheek;-to hear the voice,
And view the various race that Labour, sire
Of happiest children, sends abroad: the hind
With shirt stript up and brawny muscles bare,
Poising his massive implements; the coif'd
And ruddy matron swelling her short cloak,
Scarlet or purple, or more sombre grey,
With the clean treasures of the weekly mart.
The high blue sky that, like the costly frame
Of some fair picture, girdles the rich scene,
Feathering and fleeting as the bridegroom sun
Changeful but always beautiful; the mist
Withdraws the virgin veil from nature's face;

TOWARDS midnight I had managed to fall into an uneasy kind of dose, from which I was aroused by a strange and astounding clamour. The ship was lying down nearly on her beam-ends, the waves rushed madly past her sides, and the wild blast mourned shrilly and sadly on the night air, dashing the loose sails against the masts with the noise of thunder; while, at intervals, the voices of the crew mingled with, or rose above the elemental clamor. Presently, I recognized the voice of Sellis issuing a peremptory command. Instantly there was a confused trampling of feet overhead, a clattering of blocks and slackened cordage, and a voice, broken by a thousand fogs, dismally summoned, "All hands, reef topsails!

I am not ashamed to confess that I clung to my hammock in considerable trepida tion; but when the master-at-arms pre-. sented himself at my side, and demanded, "Why the h― I did not turn out?" I fairly shivered with affright. "Come, come," said he, rudely shaking me by the shoulders; "every one that cracks a biscuit in this ship must do something for it."

Resistance I knew to be wholly unavailing; I quitted my hammock, and,

scarcely aware of what I was about, drew on my trowsers, and followed him up the companion ladder, my teeth chattering with cold and apprehension. The night was pitchy dark; and the ship, close upon a wind, drove furiously through the long heavy sea, occasionally throwing up vast sprays from under her bows, and flooding her decks fore and aft sky above, and sea beneath, presented alike black and dismal murkiness, save a long line of phosphoric radiance, which the vessel left behind her, and the momentary dismal brightness that succeeded to the breaking of each long swell as it swept across her laboured track. The wind came in sullen gusts, for a moment laying the ship nearly on her broad side, and straining her every spar and timber in a fearful manner; and then dying away, left her rolling and pitching in the trough of a tremendous sea. One of these squalls had just spent itself as I put my head on deck, and the cross swell catching the ship on her weather quarter, bore her larboard bow under water; but as suddenly righting herself, the masts creaked and nodded, as though about to fall, the sails (thrown back for the moment) fluttered loosely against them with a tremendous noise; and the deluge of water she had taken in forward descended again to its parent source with the force and noise of a cataract.

My tormentor, the lieutenant, (Sellis); immediately perceived me, and said, "Ha, ha, shipmate, is it you? come jump into the mizen-rigging. Let go the topsail halyards!" he sung out in an authoritative tone.

66

voice.

Ay, ay, Sir!" responded a gloomy

I

I could scarcely see my hands before me, but as remonstrance would only subject me to some new mortification, groped my way to the weather rigging; and when all else had began to ascend, 1 placed my feet in the lanyards, and cautiously followed them to the topsail yard. For the service I was of, I might quite as well have remained on deck. Absolute terror utterly incapacitated me from any exertion, save that of clinging with convulsive tenacity to the yard. Suspended on the tottering spar over the midnight and stormy sea-a false stepa sudden yaw of the ship, might sweep me into its inexorable vortex; and before I was missed, she might have passed miles on her trackless way. I thought. of this, and my faculties and limbs seem. ed paralyzed.

When I again found myself safe in my hammockB.

AGNES:-A SWISS TRADITION. (For the Olio.)

The snow was on the mountain side,
The gentle current ceased to glide;
For Winter, with his chilling blast,
Had iced it as it rippled past,
And bound it in an iron chain,
To wait some summer hour again
Yet oft there was a faint moonbeam,
Which ever and anon would gleam
Upon the frozen track, and show
A span of light, o'er leagues of snow,
And served to make the desert shore
Look still more barren than before!

'Tis thus some hope will often steal
Along the soul, and be believed;
Yet, as it withers, make it feel

More sad than when it first was grieved: And now the faint and feeble ray

But came, 'twould seem to fade away.
The Alpine heights, that brave the skies,
Look like tall pyramids of ice,

At which the gazer's brow must bend,
And marvel where that pile can end;
Yet marvel more that for its base

It has on earth a resting place;
And it is now that silent hour

Of closing night, when thought has power
To turn the soul from guilt and crime
More than at any other time.

The snow is pure, and human tread
Has never press'd its virgin bed;
But when the foot of man shall trace
On its pale front his blighting pace,
"Twill leave upon its tint a stain
That heaven alone can cleanse again.
And there is one fair maiden now,
As pure as is that virgin snow,
Yet when the foot of man shall stain
With eager tread that frozen plain,
The might of Heaven alone can clear
The snow of virtue tainted there.

I will not say how Agnes met

The stranger form that wooes her now,
Suffice, her sparkling eyes of jet

Were never seen to sparkle so,
As on that even when he came,

A wilder'd traveller faint and pale,
To share awhile their cheering flame,
And crave a shelter from the gale.

And many a day he tarried there,
For 'twas the rigid time of year,
When Winter, in his annual wrath,
With frozen gales, had bound the path.

The stranger-he was young and gay,
Had journey'd far o'er distant climes,
And had, besides, that winning way,

That lures the struggling heart ofttimes
Against its better reason, on,

Till guilt and shame and sin are done.

And can we muse, when Agnes heard
Of dangers dared, and death incurred,
Of peril from the raging deep,

Or the high mountain's mighty steep,
Of human savage, or the snake,
Couched for his prey beneath the brake;
Of this, and more, told with a tongue
Of softest softness, that she hung
Enamoured o'er the teller, till
Her soul was moulded to his will.

Ah! can we muse, that she who ne'er
Had heard the tale of guile before,
Or felt its poison blight the ears,

Should know nst till the ruin is o'er,
The deadly danger in the tone
Falsehood and guilt had claimed their

own.

Of meeting, and would ring the knell,
Deeper than that of death-" Farewell!"
The stranger met her tearful eye,
Her heaving heart, her deepened sigh;
He marked her hectic cheek-that hour
Proclaimed his victim and his power!
And well too was he versed in guile,
Knew when to frown, and when to smile,
As seemed the maiden most inclined
To yield to passions, or the mind;
And thus he whisper'd when farewell
He bade to all, and left the dell,
That he would meet her when the sway
Of night succeeded that of day,
E'en by the frozen hill, and state
His name, his rank, his home, and fate,
That bade him leave her but to come
And claim her mistress of that home,
When friends, who else would frown, should
hear

How he was loved, how she was dear.

And now the spoiler's foot has press'd
The snowy path with many a strain,
And now he hangs upon that breast
That never can know peace again.

For ruin, bitter ruin, has cross'd
Her path of youth that soon is lost
In clouds of shame, once wont to beam
On waking joy, on nightly dream.
She is the victim; and the tear
Falls even now o'er virtue's bier.
Oh yes! the frenzied moment past,
How bitter has it grown to cast

A thought upon the yesterday!
How sad to think the morrow's sun
Will shine upon a guilty one!

She tries, alas! but cannot pray;
Her voice congeals, and anguish seals
The words her tongue would say.
And he, the spoiler, can he see,

The ruin that his guilt has wrought,
Without one pang of sympathy,
One agony of thought?

Or kneels he but to lure the more
The victim he has lured before?
Alas! no penitence is his,
No thought of mercy's sympathies,
No conscience to rebuke the deed -
He follows that accursed creed
That gives the passions vent; and sneers,
Alike at woman's wrongs and tears.

What though he kneels? he would not bow
Before the GOD by whom he swears;
And his corrupted heart, e'en now,
Denies the vow his tongue declares.
And yet he swears by heaven and earth,
By honor-all that life has worth,
That, ere another moon has run
Her course of light, the HOLY ONE,
Who registers such acts in heaven,
Shall hear the sacred bjessing given !
Yes, at the altar will he seek
To call the roses to her cheek,
To lull her spirit; and her dim
And tearful eye, when turned on him,
Again shall shine as when at first
It turned upon that form accursed.

Such is his vow, he need not swear,
Nor moon, nor sun will shine again
On him or her. The Mighty One

Has heard the stifled prayer of pain,
And the next spot on which they meet
Will be before his judgment seat.
Even while he swears, even while his form
Is crouching on the icy ground,

farce; the prison walls strike chillness into the vessels of the heart, but why should pity draw out her tears in a cause so unworthy of them? Our pity is alive to the awakening sensations, the throbbing emotions, the despairing hopes, the fugitive dreams of Lucy and Polly, whose inbred affections are so unhappily wrought and worked upon. Both of these girls are more worthy than their parents, whose life might have made them worse; their virtue was retrievable, not so Mrs. Peachum's, who had lived in open violation of law and justice. Who that has a spark of moral rectitude, will defend her deluding Filch into further crime? What has the author done to reprehend her conduct? he has shown her, it is true, in her natural colours, but they go off the picture in shade without leaving a right impression in the mind of the observer. I believe that many a one has filched after having seen this representation-many a one quarrelled about the division of illgotten money and goods-many, alas! have committed crimes in the hope of reprieve, and dared to be heroic in unjustifiable acts, because other great captains before them have been so, and escaped that justice which is due to its offenders. At least, by way of representation, some idea of punishment ought to be realized, or where is the offence?

Some writers defend the "Beggars' Opera" upon the score of its having so much human nature infused into the dramatis personæ. There is a virtuous and a vicious humanity. The one leads to good, the other to ill. Which is the preponderating influence in this piece?Follies are not vices, though but too often the harbingers to them. Nothing should be countenanced upon the stage that is not moral. So far as the stage actors deviate from this principle, so far they have wandered from the original intention of scenic display. If this were the case, the theatre would not call for the condemning voice of the divine, but be instrumental in assisting him in the great work of cultivating the minds of society. A play may be lively and laughable without injury; serious and painful without danger. Which ever way passion is marked, whether lightly or heavily, the fruits of morality should be scattered for the gleaner's instruction. This is the end of all that is durable-this only will satisfy the mind when reflection awakes. Does any one feel the wiser or better, after rising from a perusal of the "Beggar's Opera," as it is now performed?

DRAMATICUS.

AN APPARITION. From Warner's "Literary Recollections."

My sincere respect for the memory of the Rev. Joseph Townsend, would, were Ito follow its impulse, lead me into a length of remark upon his character and attainments, incompatible with the nature of my work: I will therefore close this biographical sketch with the communication of a very singular fact, related to me in the first instance by him; but which has since been confirmed, by a voucher scarcely to be resisted-an indisputably true report of Dr. Alsop's viva voce declaration on his dying bed.

Lord William Petty was the third son of the old Marquess of Lansdowne, and brother to the present highly-gifted Lord of Bowood. He had attained the age of seven or eight years; as remarkable for the precocity of his understanding, as he was unfortunate in the delicate state of his constitutional health. The Marquess, called to London, by his Parliamentary duties, had left the child at Bowood, for the winter, with Mr. Jarvis, his tutor, and suitable domestics. The late Dr. Priestley, also, the Marquess's librarian, made one of the party. On an ill-omened day, beautiful and brilliant, but intensely cold, the gamekeeper, in compliance with Lord William's request, took the lad before him on horseback. His Lordship rode with his waistcoat open, and chest exposed; and an inflammation on the lungs was the immediate On the consequence of this incaution. first appearance of indisposition, Mr. Alsop, of Calne, the family apothecary, (himself much attached to the child), was summoned to attend his Lordship. His treatment promised favourable result, and a few days after, he left him, in the forenoon, apparently out of danger. Towards evening, however, the symptoms becoming decidedly worse, the family were alarmed and Mr. Jarvis thought it right to call for Mr. Alsop's immediate assistance. It was night before this gentleman reached Bowood; but an unclouded moon showed every object in an unequivocal distinctness. Mr. Alsop had passed through the Lodge Gate, and was proceeding to the house, when to his utter astonishment, he saw Lord William coming towards him in all the buoyancy of childhood, restored, apparently, to health and vigour.“ Í am delighted, my dear Lord," he exclaimed, to see you; but, for heaven's sake, go immediately within doors; it is death to you to be here at this time of night." The child made no reply; but, turning round, was quickly out of sight. Mr. Alsop, unspeakably surprised, hurried to the house. Here all was distress and con