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purposes, may be termed sinful. I have observed some whole families, and very poor ones too, who have used tobacco in all possible ways, and some of them for more than half a century. Now, suppose the whole family, consisting of four, five, or six, to have used but 1s. 6d. worth a-week, then, in the mere article of tobacco, nearly £200 sterling is totally and irrecoverably lost in the course of fifty years. Were all the attending expenses, such as appropriate implements, neglect of business, and other concomitants, taken into account, probably four times the sum would be too small an estimate." Captain Scott, in his interesting work "Rambles in Egypt and Candia," says"All the Arab race are addicted to the use of the pipe, and to this pernicious habit may be traced the origin of most of their vices, and a great proportion of their misery." And again, in a note, he observes-"Nothing tends so much as the pernicious and universal habit of smoking to retard all improvement amongst the natives of the East, producing habitual indolence, and occasioning an irreparable loss of time." He calls it elsewhere the "predominant vice of Mahomedanism." Now, with such warning and such examples before me, I own that I cannot contemplate the possibility of my countrymen becoming a nation of smokers, without the utmost pain. I would wish to put all parties, but especially the young, on their guard against the insidious and seductive approaches of the habit. The elegant pipe, the splendid snuff-box, and all the curious conveniences of tube, light, tobacco-pouch, and so on, are so many lures to the unwary; and many, by simply nibbling at these captivating baits, have been gradually led on, and at last turned into confirmed consumers. There is a temptation in the furniture of our fashionable snuff and cigar shops-"divans," as they are called, which it is hard to resist. It would seem almost worth while to "consume," for the sake of encompassing oneself with such beautiful toys; but I class all such resorts in the same category with the gin-palaces of London. Look to the end-observe what a confirmed habit of snuffing or smoking is-how wasteful, how enervating, how every way pernicious! The tyranny of it is dreadful. No man knows it thoroughly but he who has once been its slave. The craving of the nose once accustomed to be fed, for snuff-of the throat and fauces once seasoned to the use, for smoke-and of the teeth and gums once used to be drawn, for the reiterate chew-oh, it is dreadful!—and I say there is no remedy against the evil but teetotalism.

I have said nothing on those popular stimulants, tea and coffee, for, as generally used, I think they are both innocent, as they are certainly agreeable beverages. Let not my fair countrywomen, however, when they indulge in the "cup that cheers but not inebriates"-I mean the Howqua, or any other tea-mixture aim at celebrity for preparing it over strong; for in this state, like other stimulants that we have been considering, I have no doubt that it is bad for weak nerves.

F.

PEOPLE WITH ONE IDEA.-There are people who have but one idea: at least if they have more, they keep it a secret, for they never talk but of one subject. There is Major C-; he has but one idea, or subject of discourse, Parliamentary Reform. Now, Parliamentary Reform is (as far as I know) a very good thing, a very good idea, and a very good subject to talk about; but why should it be the only one? To hear the worthy and gallant Major resume his favourite topic is like law-business, or a person who has a suit in Chancery going on. Nothing can be attended to, nothing can be talked of but that. Now it is getting on, now again it is standing still; at one time the Master has promised to pass judgment by a certain day, at another he has put it off again, and called for more papers; and both are equally reasons for speaking of it. Like the piece of pack-thread in the barrister's hands, he turns and twists it all ways, and cannot proceed a step without it. Some schoolboys cannot read but in their own book; and the man of one idea cannot converse out of nis own subject. Conversation it is not, but a sort of recital of the preamble of a bill, or a collection of grave arguments for a man's being of opinion with himself. It would be well if there was any thing of character, any thing of eccentricity in all this; but that is not the case. It is a political homily personified, a walking common-place we have to encounter and listen to. It is just as if a man was to insist on your hearing him go through the fifth chapter of the Book of Judges every

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time you meet, or like the story of the Cosmogony in the Vicar of Wakefield. It is a tune played on a barrel-organ. It is a common vehicle of discourse into which people get and are set down when they please, without any pains or trouble to themselves. Neither is it professional pedantry or trading quackery: it has no excuse. The man has no more to do with the question which he saddles on all his hearers than you have. This is what makes the matter hopeless. If a farmer talks to you about his pigs or his poultry, or a physician about his patients, or a lawyer about his briefs, or a merchant about stock, or an author about himself, you know how to account for this; it is a common infirmity; you have a laugh at his expense, and there is no more to be said. But here is a man who goes out of his way to be absurd, and is trouble. some by a romantic effort of generosity. You cannot say to him, All this may be interesting to you, but I have no concern in it;" you cannot put him off in that way. He has got possession of a subject which is of universal and paramount interest, and on that plea may hold you by the button as long as he chooses. His delight is to harangne on what nowise regards himself; how then can you refuse to listen to what as little amuses you? The business admits of no delay. The question stands first on the order of the day-takes precedence in its own right of every other question. Any other topic, grave or gay, is looked upon in the light of impertinence, and sent to Coventry. Business is an interruption to it, pleasure a digression from it. As Cicero says of study, it follows the man into the country, it stays with him at home; it sits with him at breakfast, and goes out with him to dinner. It is like a part of his dress, of the costume of his person, without which he would be at a loss what to do. If he meets you in the street, he accosts you with it as a form of salutation; if you see him at his own house, it is supposed you come upon that. If you happen to remark, "it is a fine day,” or "the town is full," it is considered as a temporary compromise of the question; you are suspected of not going the whole length of the principle. Is not this a species of sober madness more provoking than the real? Has not the thenretical enthusiast his mind as much warped, as much enslaved by one idea, as the acknowledged lunatic, only that the former has no lucid intervals? If you see a visionary of this class going along the street, you can tell as well what he is thinking of and will say next as the man that fancies himself a tea-pot or the Czar of Muscovy. The one is as inaccessible to reason as the other: if the one raves, the other dotes! -Hazlitt's Table-Talk.

COMFORTABLE CIRCUMSTANCES FAVOUR FORESIGHT.— It is a most remarkable fact, totally at variance with what might a priori be expected, but confirmed by the universal experience of mankind, that the dominion of reason over the passions, the habit of foresight, and the power of forming a systematic plan for the conduct of life, are just in proportion to the degree in which the danger of immediate or the pressure of actual suffering has been removed from mankind. The savage who has no stock whatever for his support-who is in danger of immediate starvation, if his wonted supplies from the chase or his herds were to fail-is totally regardless of the future in every part of the world; while the rich man, whose subsistence and affluence are almost beyond the reach of chance, is incessantly in disquietude about the manner in which his subsequent life is to be spent. The certain prospect of instant death to himself and all that are dear to him, from the occurrence of a probable event, is unable to draw the attention of the one from the enjoyments of the moment; while the slight and improbable chance of a diminution in the smallest articles of future comfort, renders the other indifferent to the means of present enjoyment which are within his reach. Alison's Principles of Population.

APPRECIATION.-After all, it is appreciation rather than he must be of hearing his pictures called "beautiful, exquipraise that is delightful. An artist, for instance, how tired site!"-of being told for the one hundredth time that he has surpassed himself; but let any one point out to him one of his own thoughts on the canvass, which he supposed likely to escape the general eye, and how grateful it is! Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the Office

of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.Agents:-R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street, Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; SLOCOMBE & SIMMS, Leeds; FRASER and CRAWFORD, George Street, Edinburgh; and David Robertson, Trongate, Glasgow.

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HOLY-CROSS ABBEY, COUNTY OF TIPPERARY.

IN a recent number of our Journal we led our readers to the | named, as late as the year 1182, at which time it was banks of that beautiful river,

"The gentle SUIRE, that, making way
By sweet Clonmel, adorns rich Waterford;"

and we now return to it with pleasure to notice another of the
beautiful architectural remains of antiquity seated on its
banks the celebrated Abbey of the Holy Cross. This noble
monastic ruin is situated in the barony of Eliogarty, county
of Tipperary, three miles from Thurles, on the road to Cashel,
and seven miles north-east of the latter.

The origin as well as the name of this celebrated monastery is derived from a piece of the holy cross for which it was erected as a fitting depository. This relic, covered with gold and ornamented with precious stones, was, as O'Halloran states, but without naming his authority, a present from Pope Pascal II, in 1110, to Murtogh O'Brien, monarch of Ireland, and grandson to Brian Boru, who determined to found a monastery in its honour, but did not live to complete it. But, however true this account may be as to the gift of the relic, there is every reason to doubt it as far as the date of the foundation of the monastery is concerned, which, as appears from the original charter still in existence, was founded by Donald O'Brien, King of Limerick, the son of the Murtogh above

richly endowed with lands for its support by its founder. These grants were confirmed in 1186, by King John, then Lord of Ireland, who further ordered that the monks of this abbey should enjoy all chartered liberties and freedoms, as appears from the following record of the 20th Edward I. A.D. 1320:

"EDWARD, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquitain, to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know ye that brother Thomas, Abbot of the Church of Mary of the Holy Cross, near Cashel, came into our Chancery of Ireland the day after the feast of Michael the Archangel, in the 13th year of our reign, at Cashel, and exhibited in our said Chancery a certain charter, not cancelled, nor in any respect vitiated, under the seal of John, formerly Lord of Ireland and Earl of Morton, in these words:

'JOHN, Lord of Ireland and Earl of Morton, to all justices, barons, &c., as well French as English, Welsh and Irish, and all other liege men of Ireland, greeting. Know ye, that, for the love of God, and for the salvation of my own and the souls of my predecessors and successors, I have granted and given, and by these presents do grant and give, to God and the blessed Mary of the Holy Cross, and to the Cistertian

this church we may observe generally, that they are of very elegant taste of design.

Monks serving God there, in free, pure, and perpetual alms, the under-written lands, as fully and freely as Domuald O'Brien, King of Lymberick, gave and granted, and by this Thus much of the abbey church itself; but of the ruins of charter confirmed to the Cistertian Monks of the Holy Cross; the cloisters, which are of meaner architecture, and of all the to wit: Kelkaterlamunu, Ballydubal, Ballyidugin, Bally- other edifices appertaining to a monastic establishment of this girryr, Ballymyoletobin, and Ballytheloth, Gardath, Ballas-grandeur, though in a tolerable state of preservation, it would chelagh, Bally thougal et Ithologin. These lands I have be tedious to the general reader to give a detailed account, given for the salvation of my soul, and those of my predeces- nor would our present space permit it. Neither can we desors and successors, and for the souls of my soldiers who lie scribe what is of higher interest, the magnificent monumental there, to enjoy peaceably, with all liberties and free customs, remains for which this abbey is so eminently distinguished. without any secular exactions in fields, ways, forests, fisher- But we shall return to the subject in a future number, and in ies, &c. I have also granted that they shall be free from all the mean time we shall only add, that this abbey is well worthy mulets in my courts, for what cause soever they shall be the attention of the antiquary and architectural student, and amerced, and also free of all toll whatever; they shall sell or that to the pleasure tourist of cultivated tastes it is of the buy, for their own use, throughout my land of Normandy, most delightful interest. P. England, Wales, and Ireland; and that their lands be not put in plevine.-Witnesses, a Bishop of Ferns; John de Courcy, de Angulo, Riddel, Chancellor, and David of Wales.'

It appears also that in 1233 the above charter of King John was confirmed by King Henry III, who took this monastery into his protection, which protection he again renewed in 1234; and that it was again confirmed by King Richard II. in 1395, and that in 1414, James Earl of Ormond, and the Lord Deputy Thomas le Botiller or Butler, prior of St John of Jerusalem, further granted the protection of the crown to this house.

THE ITALIAN ORGAN BOY.

CONCLUSION.

CARLO having recovered himself, proceeded as follows:-
"In the thus light-hearted and unmurmuring though tedious
and toilsome accumulation of the fund that was to purchase
station and happiness for Bianca, the first of the three years
sped prosperously past. Francesco-for old Marcolini, con-
fiding in the integrity and industry of my father to fulfil the
conditional arrangement, laid no restraint upon him-was our
almost daily visitor, and not rarely a cheerful assistant in the
lighter labours of our garden, in tending our rich parterres,
our fig-trees, and our vines. One serious drawback on our

Thus protected and fostered by royalty, the Abbey of the Holy Cross became one of the most magnificent and wealthy in the kingdom, and its mitred abbot was styled Earl of Holy Cross, the lands belonging to the abbey constituting an earldom. He was also a baron of parliament, and usually vicar-happiness-the first flush of devotion to Bianca over-we general of the Cistertian order in Ireland. The abbey was originally a daughter of the Abbey of Maig, or MonasterNenagh, in the county of Limerick, and was subjected to that of Furnes in Lancashire by the Abbot of Clarevaux, in a general chapter of the order in 1249. After the dissolution of the monasteries in Ireland, Holy Cross Abbey with its appurtenances was granted by Queen Elizabeth in 1563 to Gerald Earl of Ormond, in capite, at the annual rent of £15, 10s. 4d.; and we believe this constitutes at present the estate, by purchase, of a worthy and deeply learned fellow of Trinity College, namely, Dr Wall.

soon experienced. Ludovico, though at times he worked harder and longer than the rest, and rejected the occasional cheap indulgences my father permitted, had unfortunately been so entangled with his lawless and loose-living companions, that after a while he was again seduced by them into scenes of profligate amusement and disgraceful licence. It mischanced that near the close of the year, the very day before the great fair of Telese, to which we had long looked forward as likely to swell our savings much, our father met with an accident which disabled him from going to it. The cart, laden with our richest and choicest garden produce, my As a monastic ruin, the Abbey of Holy Cross ranks in mother's eggs and poultry, and Bianca's contribution of nosepopular esteem as one of the first, if not the very first, in gays, needlework, and straw plaits, was in his unfitness Ireland. But though many of its architectural features are necessarily entrusted to the charge of Ludovico. At the fair of remarkable beauty, it is perhaps as a whole scarcely de- he unfortunately fell in with some of his low-principled assoserving of so high a character; and its effect upon the mind ciates, who seduced him into a gambling booth, where soon, is greatly diminished by the cabins and other objects of a infected with the excitement of play, he hazarded a small mean character by which it is nearly surrounded. Like sum, which by an evil chance was returned to him threefold. most monastic structures of considerable importance, its Inflamed by the easy acquisition, he thought with rapture general form is that of a cross, consisting of a nave, chancel, how much readier a way this was for a lucky fellow, as he and transept, with a lofty square belfry at the intersection of appeared to be, to make his money, than by the slow and the cross but it is distinguished from other structures of the dull and difficult returns of labour, and almost anticipated his kind in having in both of its transepts two distinct chapels returning home that night with Bianca's fortune in his pocket, beautifully groined a feature which imparts much interest and an immediate abridgement, in consequence, of the weary and picturesqueness to the general effect. Between two of postponement of her wedding. He risked a higher sum with these chapels and the south transept there is a double row of success, another with disappointment, and so on with varying three pointed arches, supported by twisted pillars, each distant fortune, till a friendly neighbour, who had heard where he was, about two feet four inches from the other, and having a simi- came in and forced him with difficulty from the fatal fascinalar pointed arch in front. The object of this singular feature tion. He had been at the table but a short time, and had lost has given rise to much conjecture, but the more rational but little, which, to escape detection, he replaced by a loan; opinion seems to be, that it was designed as a resting place but he was inspired with a passion for play, which, whenfor the dead bodies of the monks and other persons previous ever an occasion was afforded, he eagerly indulged. But notto interment in the abbey, or its cemetery. In addition to withstanding this, and the occasional losses and anxious this, the interior of the church has another very unique evasions to which it exposed us, our efforts flourished, and and remarkable feature, namely, that the choir arch is our reserved earnings increased apace. Never before had we not placed as usual beneath the tower, but thirty feet in gathered such abundant returns from our garden and few advance of it, thus making the choir of greater length by four-fields, for never before had we tended them with half the care. teen feet than the nave, which is but fifty-eight feet long, the Our sales were quick as our produce was luxuriant, and entire length of the church being one hundred and thirty feet. before half the allotted period had expired, Bianca's purse This peculiarity appears, however, to be an after-thought, was by the half more valuable than we had ventured to expect. and not the design of the original architect, which was evi- At this time my father was induced by my mother's influence dently to limit, as usual, the length of the choir to the arch and representations to try and bring the suspense and postin front of the tower, and the second arch is unquestionably ponement of the nuptials to a close, by borrowing on security of more modern construction. The steeple rests on four what would complete the stipulated sum, and engage old beautifully groined arches, the supporters of which are con- Marcolini's consent to an immediate union. This was acnected in the centre by a great variety of ogives passing dia- cordingly done, the necessary sum furnished by a money-lender, gonally from their angles; and the roof of the choir, as well Marcolini's approval obtained, a day fixed, our festive arrangeas those of the side chapels, is similarly enriched. The nave ments made, and all was light and merriment. But, alas and appears to have been of meaner architecture, and has lost its alas! a cruel blow was in wait to dash to pieces our fond roof; but it has aisles formed by four pointed arches on each and joyous schemes, just as they seemed to approach reality. side, and which lead into the transepts. Of the windows in

One morning, as by sunrise my father was going to the

garden-it was to decorate a bridal arbour which we had constructed for the occasion-I heard from him, as he passed through the inner room, a cry of astonishment and dismay, and hurrying in, found him gazing in horror upon an open and, alas, empty box-it was the one in which Bianca's long hoarded dower had been kept! All was gone-the hardly gathered earnings, the borrowed money, and with it all our mirthful plans and sparkling expectations; and, though a grave, strong-minded man, he was for the time quite crushed and broken by the shock. Carlo,' said he, we are ruined, utterly undone. Villains have plundered us: your sister's heart will be broken, and there is nothing left for us but despair. These weakened limbs could not go through such another term of trial in the face of such misfortune. It will be well if they last long enough to earn what will meet the demands of Bartolo the broker. Your brother, to whom we might else have looked for aid, is getting worse and worse in his evil ways: he has turned-that ever I should have to speak such words of son of mine!-yes, turned a worthless profligate and gamester. The God of Heaven grant,' continued he, turning ghastly pale, and staggering against the wall as his eye fell upon a well-known knife, that, with its blade broken, lay upon the floor, that it be not even worse. Carlo, look on that, and tell me, O tell me, that you know it not! With horror I recognized my unhappy brother's knife; and a fragment of the steel fixed in the box showed too plainly in what base work it had been employed. I was struck speechless at the sight; but in defiance of all evidence, when I thought of my warm-hearted generous brother, I burned with anger at myself for my momentary misgiving, and almost fiercely chid my father for his dark suspicion. ⚫ Carlo,' answered he gravely, you are yet childish and inexperienced, and know not the power of evil company, the blight of that accursed vice upon every principle of truth and honesty. Your brother, I have told you, is an abandoned gambler-consorts with all the dregs and refuse of the country, mocks at the entreaties of a mother, the warnings of a father, the honest, ay, till he bore it, the ever honest name of his family; and he who does all this, will, time and temptation pressing him, but feebly shrink from the basest act. But go,' added he with stern emphasis, 'call him. Though guilty, I will see him face to face before I lay my curse upon With fear and trembling, for I knew how terrible my father's temper was when roused, I was obliged to confess that he had not spent the night at home; and his forehead grew still gloomier and more wrinkled as he listened.

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who could so basely forget every lesson of honesty he was taught from his childhood, who could plunder his poor sister of what we have painfully earned for her by the sweat of our brows, and doom her to hopelessness and life-long loneliness, to feed his own vile profligacy, would not scruple to dip his hand in blood, ay, in the blood of his household, for their inhe ritance. We are not safe with such a one. Away to your brigand comrades of the hills-lead the villain life you incline to-do what you will-but never cross this threshold again!' My mother and Bianca, roused by the noise, now hurried fearfully into the room, and a glance at Ludovico's horror-struck and supplicating posture, at the shattered box, and my father's inflamed and convulsed countenance, was enough without words to inform them of the revolting truth. My father's heart is hardened against me,' exclaimed Ludovico, and I wonder not. I have indeed been looselived and disobedient, but never base nor dishonest, and let me not be now condemned because these appearances are against me. I solemnly swear by- My father fiercely checked him. Add not perjury to infamy-it needs not swearing-the matter can be put beyond a doubt, ay, even beyond your own audacious denial. Mark those footsteps in the soft soil before the door: that bed was left by me smooth and unruffled yesternight-they are those of the villain thief; and, Ludovico, I cannot mistake the footprints of him who has wrought by my side since boyhood-wretched father that I am! they are yours. Deny it if you can.' Convinced in my own heart of his innocence, I sprang forward to apply the test, but soon recoiled in horror, as before the anxious eyes of all I proved the accurate correspondence of the marks-a shock which for a moment crushed my own faith in my brother's truth. What now availed my mother's entreaties, my sister's tears, Ludovico's continued passionate assertion of his innocence, to change the stern conviction of my father? He vehemently reiterated his sentence of banishment, and counselled him, if he would mitigate the keenness of remorse, to confess his crime and return its ill-gotten fruits. Ludovico, stung to the quick by his reproaches, and by the agonies of my mother and Bianca, felt resentment rise in his heart to strengthen him to support his fate, and indignantly rose to depart. Cease your prayers, my mother and my Bianca. Carlo, you will live, I feel, to see me righted, and my father, too, to repent his harshness to his son, and his distrust in one whom he has often detected in error, but never yet in ignominy. My sister, if my heart's blood could at this moment be coined into treasure to replace that which you have lost, and build again your shattered hopes, freely would I pour it out. But words are idle to make your heart what it was but an hour ago. I go-better any where than hereAbout half an hour afterwards, my heart leaped within me and if you hear of me again, it will be of one who has learned as I caught the sound of Ludovico's cautiously approaching seriousness from suffering, and proved by acts his love and steps-for on such occasions he strove to steal in unnoticed interest for you all.' As he finished speaking, he hurried from --and I rushed to the door. There indeed he was coming up the door without further farewell, and, plunging among the the walk in front. But what a figure! his eyes were blood-thickly wooded slopes, was speedily lost to my passionate shot, his face haggard, his dress disordered, his gait uneven, pursuit. and altogether he appeared still under the power of a deep overnight debauch. My father upon hearing rose to meet him, and at the sight of his agitated and afflicted features, Ludovico, overcome with dismay and confusion, only afforded confirmatory evidence of guilt. Without a word, my father beckoned with his hand to him, and walking into the room, pointed to the forced and vacant box, fixing his eyes sternly and accusingly upon my poor brother, who with fainting knees accompanied him. With constrained silence he then lifted up the broken knife from the floor, fitted it before Ludovico's eyes to the fragment remaining in the lid, and then turning up the haft, presented it to him. A cry of dismay and horror broke from his lips as he recognized his knife, and the terrible truth burst upon him.

him.'

He said nothing, but fell upon a seat, folded his arms, and remained looking fixedly upon the ground in great and fearful agony of thought.

I am innocent, oh, my father, I am innocent,' he cried as he fell on his knees before him. But, alas, the action, in place of removing, was about to rivet the evidence of his guilt, for as he stooped, a key fell from his pocket-a false one for the door which led from the very room into the garden, which he had privately procured for the purpose of secret admission when belated in his revels. My father, without other reply, seized it, applied it to the door, and opened the lock. He then turned to him, as if every stay and doubt were banished, and with a voice in which pain and sorrow only aggravated passion, exclaimed, Wretched boy, I disown thee! Never shall villain, gambler, robber, liar, be called son of mine. Away, then, from my presence and my roof for ever! He

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That evening, however, a boy left a billet from him to Bianca, in which he mentioned his intention of trying to turn his musical talent to account, by proceeding to England, where he was told that money was but lightly thought of, and purses were ever open, and where he might readily glean both what would support himself, and supply something towards enabling my father to meet Bartolo the usurer, and perhaps, too, old Marcolini, upon the day first fixed for her union with Francesco. He concluded by asking pardon from our offended confidence and affection for once more scornfully denying the odious charge-a denial which, amid our joint tears over the letter, we believed as firmly as the words of holy writ.

Why need I stay to mention all the gloom and grief which was now spread over our but lately so bright and hopeful household, for Ludovico, despite his thoughtless frowardness, had been the life and spring of all our movements.

My father's dark locks soon became streaked with grey, for his pride of honesty in an unblemished name was sorely abased: his heart was wounded and enfeebled; and when the fever of his first anger was past, he began to think at times that perhaps he had dealt too hardly and hastily with Ludovico. My mother often wept: my sister's cheek became wan and pale even with Francesco by her side: my own heart was faint and joyless: a cloud of spiritless sadness and depression settled over all, and every thing seemed to lament him who was far away among strangers, in loneliness and disgracehim whose bold spirit, athletic form, and buoyant beauty, had,

notwithstanding his frailties, been the pride and glory, secret or avowed, of all.

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plined, my necessary limitation of space compels me to forego.
I need scarcely add that I was instrumental in furnishing a
supplement for his insufficient means, and I did not lose sight of
the noble lad, till, with mixed emotions of buoyant anticipation,
and perhaps momentarily regretful gratitude, he parted from
me on his return to Italy. In imagination I often make one of
the reunited family, and at times, too, indulge the hope that
the chances and changes of a shifting lot may some time en-
able me in very deed to look on old Girardi and his spouse,
Carlo and the reformed Ludovico, the fair Bianca and the
faithful Francesco, and claim a return in kind—an evening
spent among their gleeful rural party for the fellow-feeling
I had the good fortune to conceive for the desolation, and the
part I was privileged to take in abridging the banishment, of
the Italian Organ Boy.
J. J. M.

KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE.

Second Article.

BOULDERS-CONTINUED.

But Providence is able and merciful to cleanse the character of the innocent and calumniated in the end, and after many weary months Ludovico's was cleared before all the village by the death-bed confession of one of his former associates, who, under the impulse of a late remorse, stated that the robbery had been committed by himself that Ludovico had on the night in question been designedly drugged by some of his accomplices his knife taken and purposely left in the room, and his shoes borrowed for the same end, of warding search or suspicion from themselves by his condemnation. By way of expiation for the diabolical villany, he secretly menaced his partners in the plot that he would reveal their names and give them up to justice, unless the money with the interest in full was forthwith restored, which in consequence was quickly done. And now that his son's good fame was established in the light of day, my father's breast was lightened of the burthen of conscious disgrace, but only to suffer the more keenly the poignancy of self-reproach for the extreme and unjust severity of his treatment; and often would he bitterly accuse himself of savage inhumanity, and madly wish that by IF the dreary waste of the sandy desert, when the hot and the sacrifice of his own life he could restore his exiled son to suffocating blast sweeps over its parched surface, appears his embrace once more. As I listened to his painful lamenta- to the affrighted traveller invested with all the charaetions and upbraidings, I formed a scheme, which was no sooner ters of sublimity, not less impressed with awe is the wandevised than I hurried to execute, of following Ludovico to derer of polar regions, when, gazing on the heart-chilling magEngland, of finding him, as in the credulity of inexperience nificence of the interminable ice which surrounds him, he I doubted not readily to do, and bringing him back with me hears the sigh of the coming snow-storm, fraught with danto home, to reputation, and to happiness. Knowing the op-ger or with death. But at a time when repeated voyages and position I would meet if I mentioned my secret, I collected as spirit-stirring narratives have rendered familiar to every one speedily as I could what money I supposed would defray my the beauties and the dangers of ice in every conceivable form first expenses, procured this organ, and my poor little marmo- of floe, of field, or of berg, and have excited sympathy for set, as I knew my wandering countrymen were wont to furnish the sufferings or admiration of the daring of those who, to themselves; and leaving a letter with a young neighbour to advance the cause of science, or to pursue for commercial give when I was gone, took my way to Naples, whence I got purposes the mighty whale, have ventured within the precincts a passage to London. My heart often died within me as I of that icy kingdom, it is not necessary to describe the wandered through its great and busy streets, and many is solitary grandeur of a scene in which ice spreads like a sea the hour of sorrow and hardship I endured; but desire for beneath the feet, and rises as a mountain above the head. Ludovico, and the hope of finding him which never failed me, Not even, then, by the side of a cheerful fire, in these more carried me through all. For nearly a year I traversed temperate regions, shall we unnecessarily indulge in shudderEngland, much of Scotland and Ireland, supporting myself ings at the thought of distant powers of congelation, or enter by grinding this poor music. I have not my brother's fine further into the subject of polar picturesqueness. It is as a voice and skill, but the people here are for the most part geological agent that we have now to contemplate ice in the indulgent, and not so delicate to please as those of Italy. various forms of fields and bergs, or of glaciers; its efficiency But the good God guided me at last to a happy meeting with as a moving power being first considered. Scoresby justly an old Neapolitan, who alone, of the hundreds whom I ques- denominates ice-fields "one of the wonders of the deep. tioned, was able to give me any information of Ludovico, with They are often," he says, "met with of the diameter of whom he had fortunately fallen in a few months before in this twenty or thirty miles; and when in a state of such close comvery city. With that cordial confidence which one is apt to bination that no interstice can be seen, they sometimes extend place in a fellow countryman when cast among strangers, to a length of fifty, or nearly a hundred miles." The average Ludovico had made known to him all his story, adding that, thickness of these fields is from ten to fifteen feet, and their having now by prudence and exertion of his talent for music surface is varied by hummocks, which rise to a height of from and few could touch a guitar or raise a voice like him-gathered forty to fifty feet. The weight of a piece of field ice, one a sufficient sum of money, he was about to return to Italy mile square and thirteen feet thick, is, according to Scoresby's and to the neighbourhood of his native village, to apportion estimate, 11,314,284 tons; and from the difference of specific Bianca once more, and set on foot some inquiry to redeem, if gravity between ice and sea-water, this floating mass is sufpossible, his forfeited character, and fix the guilt of the ficiently buoyant to support a weight of stones or other heavy robbery upon the real offenders, whom long reflection on the bodies equal to 1,257,142, or in round numbers one million circumstances had erewhile led him to suspect. Oh! how my tons. heart thrilled and burned within me as I listened to the longsought blissful words, and knew that in very deed I was at last upon the track of him-though the rapture of an unexpected meeting in this foreign land I was not to have-after whom I had made such a weary pilgrimage in vain. Not in in vain neither. I have done what I could, and when I stand proudly amid my family once more, and receive their embraces and congratulations, say, shall I be without my reward? My daily gleanings I hoard with the eagerness of a miser: little do I spend on food or lodging: for when I think of my own dear Montanio, of those to complete whose happiness I alone am wanting, I have but one wish, one prayer-to have wherewithal to carry me to my own beautiful land again, to my father's blessing, my brother's love, my mother's and my sister's arms.

Tears of tenderness and rapture started to the eyes of the ardent and devoted youth as he thus concluded his narrative, in which the fervour and interest of truth were, as he told it, beautifully blended with much of the elevation and singularity of romance.

Further particulars respecting this generous witness to the disinterestedness and fortitude with which family and fraternal love can inspire the young, the delicate, and the undisci

Grand, however, as such floating fields of ice are, they are exceeded in magnificence by bergs. One of these, Scoresby relates, was one mile in circumference, fifteen hundred feet square, and a hundred feet above the level of the sea; so that, allowing for the inequalities of its surface, he considered its depth in the water seven hundred feet, its total thickness eight hundred feet, and its weight about forty-five millions of tons-an enormous mass, capable of transporting at least five millions of tons of extraneous weight. In number, too, they are as remarkable as in magnitude: above five hundred were counted by Scoresby from the mast-head at one time, of which scarcely one was less than the hull of a ship, about a hundred as high as the ship's mast, and some twice that height, or two hundred feet above the surface of the sea; hence in total thickness about sixteen hundred feet. These, then, it must be admitted, are mighty engines fitted for the transport of rocks of colossal magnitude. But in the reasonings of sound philosophy, the apparent fitness of an object to perform some particular function cannot be deemed sufficient to establish the reality of its action: further proof is necessary, either de rived from analogy or from positive facts. In respect to ice-fields, the easiest of observation, it is remarkable that neither of the Captains Scoresby speaks of having noticed ex

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