walking, or rather swinging, her portly figure unan-round their heads, and complain that it is cold too
nounced into the drawing-room, and holding out her much.' It is a very dry wind, and comes from over the
hand to be shaken, said, with a movement meant to be a great desert of Sahara. I was thinking one day lately
low curtsy, I am the sewing-girl, marm!" She was how very strange it appeared to a new comer, thus
followed at a respectful distance by her attendant, and carefully excluding the refreshing wind in this sultry
was arrayed in a gaudy-patterned gown, with high head- climate, let it blow from any quarter, when Dr.
dress, gold earrings, and coral necklace, fanning herself entered the piazza, and, looking approvingly at the
all the while with a handkerchief, redolent with musk, so closed casements, his first greeting was, 'windows shut to
as to display the numerous silver rings which glittered the land-side-that is right!' in a most emphatic tone. The
on her large hand. She came to enter upon her duties swampy Bullom shore, with its mangrove-jungles fraught
next morning an hour or two later than had been fixed with unwholesome vapours, being separated from this
upon, and, after sitting for a short time in my drawing-colony merely by the river, of course when the wind
room, said, 'Sun too hot here,' and that she would like blows right across, Freetown comes in for its full share of
to go into the front piazza, where she amused herself by the miasmata. The harmattan is disagreeable from its
looking out of the windows for about ten minutes between extreme dryness and the sand it brings, which causes a
each stitch. About two hours earlier than she had agreed to dark, thick, reddish haze throughout the whole atmos-
work, she asked leave to fold up,' and go home for that phere, almost obscuring our view of the opposite shore.
day; to which I at once assented; and seeing that a Every article of furniture is shrinking and cracking,
child of eight years old could have done as much in one paper and the boards of books curling up, veneer peeling
hour as this professed sewing-girl,' in what she con- off, and the strings of the pianoforte breaking. I hear it
sidered a whole day, I added that I should not require is much stronger at the Gambia, where it feels like the
her to come back. Having given the same work to a breath of a hot furnace, causing the panels of doors to
black man to do, you cannot imagine how quickly and shrink and fall out, and glass to become so brittle, that it
neatly he got on."
snaps asunder, though untouched by any person. It has
one good effect here, in rendering the water so deli-
blessing, and that arising from the springs in the vicinity
In a warm climate good water is a great
ciously cool.
of Freetown is excellent."

The difficulty of obtaining female servants appears to be among the most annoying of Sierra Leone minor domestic miseries. In the present case, after many trials and failures, Dinah, the laundress, succeeded in procuring for her mistress,

"A nice tidy-looking voung person, who, besides having been at school in the mountain villages, had been in the service of a European family before. She was accompanied by her mother, who could speak scarcely a word of English, but seemed, nevertheless, quite pleased at the arrangements made; and as the girl herself worked very neatly, read remarkably well, and had some activity, (a rare quality with a negro, I can assure you,) I congratulated myself on having at last obtained so efficient "a help.' But she had not been three days in the house, when Dinah came back with a very lugubrious countenance, followed by Eliza's mother, who, as they both my room, immediately commenced a long 'palaver,' using at the same time strange gesticulations, accompanied by such sentences as these: Looka, now, ma amie!' addressing me, looks, ma piccan! she ma head,' (knocking her hand on her brow as she spoke,) che ma foot, ma good foot,' (beating on the floor at these words;) then stretching out her long bare arm, and making some rapid movements with the skinny fingers, 'she ma hand.' The interpretation of all this was, that Eliza, when at home, thought, went messages, and worked for her mother; who, having already repented giving up the services of her daughter, was now resolved to have her back."

entered

Back accordingly she went, but to return some months after, being brought again by the old woman herself. In one portion of the book, the author asks"Is it not strange that the land wind, which is considered so unhealthy, is nevertheless a dry wind, while the delightful sea-breeze, to whose bland influence we willingly throw open all the windows, is, on the contrary, moist ?'

And in another this explanation is given:

“The harmattan wind is now blowing, and every thing in the house is covered with an impalpable red dust; even our eyes are affected by it. The windows being kept carefully shut towards the point whence it blows, I do not perceive that the heat within doors is at all lessened by the influence of the harmattan; but I see the natives do not like it. The women are all wrapped up in plaid shawls, and the men in blanket jackets, whilst our servants go about with handkerchiefs bound

The rainy season appears to set in somewhere about June, and to continue from three to four months. The following description of a tornado in May gives one an idea of the deadly effects of Sierra Leone on European

residents, from the exhalations of the earth, no less than
from the miasmatic influences of the swamps and rivers.
'At first, when the rain comes down, the smell from
the earth is excessive and unpleasant, and, as I should
suppose, unwholesome, like that arising from stagnant
water and decayed vegetable matter. Though every
window is shut as close as possible, this detestable
smell penetrates even into the inner rooms, so that once
or twice at night, when there has been no wind, I have
been aware of there being a slight shower, by the strong
earthy odour which accompanied it."

A few words on superstitions we cannot resist :

"The most common superstition that has come under
my notice is a belief in charms, here called ' gree-
grees.' One morning, in riding past a small field of
peas, then rich in blossoms, I desired Fanyah, (a black
maid) to pluck one for me, which she went to do, but
immediately came back without the flower, saying it was
a 'medicine bush,' that would kill her if she 'been
touch um.' Not understanding this, I asked an expla-
nation of the Aku horseman (or rather donkey-man),
who said, pointing to an upright stick in the midst of
the plot of peas, and to which a bunch of dried grass
was fastened, (as I had imagined, to scare away birds),
that tied up within this grass were poisonous leaves,
which the proprietor of the farm had put there as a
'gree-gree,' and that the general belief was, that whoever
stole any of the produce of the field would die from the
effects of the poison contained in these leaves, as much
as if he ate them. I have since seen many gree-grees'
of the same description; a broken bottle is placed on a
ground, or it may be an old bly or calabash, each said
stone, in a conspicuous part of the cassada, or corn
to contain a potion of deadly effect to the individual who
attempts to appropriate any of the productions of the
farm and such charms have the effect, it would seem,
when all other means fail, to prevent this very common
description of robbery."

These extracts, though giving but a faint idea of the many excellencies of this pleasantly-written book, will

serve to stimulate the curiosity of all who love " foreign who first put the nobleman on such thoughts was the great travel," and in its pages they will find both amuse- philosopher Bacon, who said that "poetry had something ment and profit. We must, however, draw this notice divine in it," and was necessary to the satisfaction of the human mind.--Leigh Hunt. to a close, with a passage to which many hearts will respond.

"In the morning, which was beautifully clear after the tornado, I found that, between tide and land-wind, the long and anxiously-watched sail had got a little farther to the southward, and a slight breeze setting in, she now made some progress. Oh! dear people at home! you little know the sensation of watching a vessel coming into port, when she is in a strange and distant land, the exciting, feverish anticipation of receiving the good news from a far country,' so truly and touchingly designated as being even as cold water to the thirty

soul.""

POETRY.

Ir is with the Poet's creations as with Nature's, great or

small.

Wherever Truth and Beauty can be shaped into verse, and answer to some demand for it in our hearts, there poetry is to be found; whether in productions grand and beautiful, as some great event, or some mighty, leafy solitude, or no bigger and more pretending than a sweet face or a bunch of violets-whether in Homer's Epic or Gray's Elegy, in the enchanted gardens of Ariosto and Spenser, or the very pot-herbs of the “Schoolmistress" of Shenstone. Not to know and feel this is to be deficient in the universality of Nature herself, who call upon us to admire all her productions.

LONDON IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

the picture which Macaulay gives of it in the seventeenth Take the present state of London, and contrast it with century, and there is no one but will admit the immense progress that has been made:-"If the most fashionable parts of the capital could be placed before us, such as they then were, we should be disgusted by their squalid appearance, and poisoned by their noisome atmosphere. In Covent Garden a filthy and noisy market was held close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit-women screamed, carters fought, cabbage-stalks and rotten apples accumulated in heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishop of Durham. The centre of Lincoln's Inn Fields was an open space, where the rabble congregated every evening, within a few yards of Cardigan House and Winchester House, to hear mountebanks harangue, to see bears dance, and to set dogs at oxen. Rubbish was shot in every part of the area. Horses were exercised there. The beggars were as noisy and importunate as in the worst-governed cities of the continent. A Lincoln's Inn mumper was proverb. * * * Till the last year of the reign of Charles II., most of the streets were left at night in profound darkness. Thieves and robbers plied their trade with impunity; yet, they were hardly so terrible to peaceable citizens, as another class of ruffians. It was a favourite amusement of dissolute young gentlemen to

What the Poet has to cultivate above all things is Love and Truth-what he has to avoid like poison is the fleet-swagger by night about the town, breaking windows, ing and the false. His earnestness must be innate and habitual, born with him, and felt to be his most precious inheritance.

Treatises on Poetry may chance to have auditors who think themselves called upon to vindicate the superiority of what is termed useful knowledge; but if the Poet be allowed to pique himself on any one thing more than another, compared with those who undervalue him, it is on that power of undervaluing nobody and no attainments different from his own, which is given him by the very faculty they despise. The greatest includes the less. They do not see that their inability to comprehend him argues the smaller capacity. No man recognises the worth of utility more than the Poet; he only desires that the meaning of the term may not come short of its greatness, and exclude the noblest necessities of his fellow-creatures. He is quite as much pleased, for instance, with the facilities for rapid conveyance afforded him by the railroad, as the dullest confiner of its advantages to that single idea or as the greatest two-idead man who varies that single idea with hugging himself on his "buttons or a "good dinner." But he sees also the beauty of the country through which he passes, of the towns, of the heavens, of the steam-engine itself, thundering and fuming along like a magic horse, of the affections that are carrying, perhaps, half the passengers on the journey; and beyond all this he sees the incalculable amount of good, and knowledge, and refinement, and mutual consolation, which this wonderful invention is fitted to circulate over the globe, perhaps to the displacement of war itself, and certainly to the diffusion of millions of enjoyments.

And a button-maker after all invented it!" cries a friend. Pardon me, it was a nobleman. A button-maker may be a very sensible and a very poetical man too, and yet not have been the first man visited by a sense of the gigantic powers of fire and water combined. It was a nobleman who first thought of it-a captain who first tried it and a button-maker who perfected it; and he

a

upsetting sedans, beating quiet, and offering rude caresses to pretty women. The machinery for keeping the peace was utterly contemptible. * * * Whitefriars was the favourite resort of all who wished to be emancipated from the restraints of the law. Though the immunities legally belonging to the place extended only to cases of debt,-cheats, false witnesses, forgers, and highwaymen found refuge there. For amidst a rabble so desperate, no peace officer's life was in safety. At the cry of "rescue," bullies with swords and cudgels, and termagant hags with spits and broomsticks, poured forth by hundreds; and the intruder was fortunate if he escaped back into Fleet Street, hustled, stripped, and pumped upon. Even the warrant of the Chief Justice of England could not be executed without the help of a company of musketeers.

PARTING.-Men seldom appear so humane, or in a position so advantageous to their humanity, as when they part. How few friends are there who endure a protracted separation without some abatement of warmth, or meet, by appointment, without some precautionary anxieties, or continue together long without some accidental discontents; but none, in any degree entitled to that character, ever part without much regret! Even the cheerful and social are not always exempt from those momentary perturbations with which selfishness chills the pulse, or controversy overheats it. The needle will oscillate a little from the just point of its affections, and though its polarity is never lost, it is seldom steady. Yet even the petulant, the irritable, and the more generous of the resentful, lose all unfriendliness as they pass away from each other-sighing at a conversation which, perhaps, they may have mutually desired. The last shake of the hand is sufficient to dissipate a hundred grievances. There are then no reproaches which we can recal beside those against ourselves.

THE BLESSING OF THE BLIGHT.

The woes and miseries of Ireland since the bitter advent of the year 1846, are, unhappily, too well known in every corner of the sister kingdoms to need even a cursory description here. And while the sorrows of the green isle have been deep, her follies and crimes have been many and grievous. The mass of the population, with Turkish apathy, have sunk into a condition of helpless and hopeless pauperism, totally neglecting that ancient counsel: "Aide toi, et le ciel t'aidera :" "Help thyself, and heaven will help thee."

But to this unhappy state of things there are a few blessed exceptions; and to one of them we would now direct the attention of our readers, as affording a valuable instance of what the strenuous and benevolent efforts of a few can accomplish, in promoting the welfare and changing the destiny of many.

[PRICE 14d.

of course, be deemed capable of meeting such destitution as now urges us to this application, and which is each day increasing. Our great object is, with any funds supplied to us, to aid and encourage industrious habits among the people; to supply them with food as the reward of their own toil, and for this purpose to purchase gear for the fishing boats; to furnish materials for the employment of the females of the place in spinning and making nets; and only to give mere eleemosynary aid to poor widows and orphans, and to those recovering from the fever and influenza, which have lately added to the affliction of the district.

"Though surrounded by scenes so harrowing, our appeal moves from no desire to minister to Ireland's bane, idleness of habit; our aim is, in our little sphere, to promote that admitted by her truest friends to be, temporally speaking, Ireland's hope,-remunerative and reproductive employment. The result is with Him, who is man's example in overcoming evil with good,' the Author of the blessings of those to whose hearts we Its apply.

The village of Ballycotton is situated in a remote locality on the sea-coast of the County Cork. inhabitants are chiefly fishermen; the only resident gentry being the clergyman and the commander of the coast guard. These gentlemen arrived at their posts almost simultaneously in the commencement of the year 1848; and the condition in which they found the district, together with their plans for ameliorating the lot of its inhabitants, will be best explained by an extract from a letter addressed by them in April, 1848, to the Relief Committee of the Society of Friends:

"We beg to submit to your consideration the case of the distressed fishermen of Ballycotton and surrounding district, containing a population of about 2,500. Of these, at least two-thirds are now on the verge of extreme distress,-many hundreds utterly without food, except a few turnips obtained, we fear, in a manner not satisfactory to any friend of the moral improvement of the people. The only resource that suggests itself in this extremity is that afforded by the workhouse; but the Board of Guardians have refused out-door relief, and, besides the known disinclination of the people to go into the house, its distance is eleven miles, and its overcrowded state renders the Poor Law system almost a nullity to those for whom we apply.

"We are the only resident parties able to assist the people; but while anxious to do our own part, we cannot,

"GEORGE C. KINGSTON, Curate of Ballycotton. "R. EDWARDS,

Chief Officer, Coast Guard."

This appeal was responded to by a grant of meal and rice from the Society of Friends; and several small sums having been collected from various quarters, the. gentlemen, though with such inadequate means, commenced operations by selecting from the hundreds of the destitute, 95 of the poorest widows and female heads of families. These they employed in spinning and knitting, and paid them in meal, at the rate of about three pence for a day's labour. The poor creatures were most greedy for work at this wretched remuneration, and scores of applicants appeared. Seven weavers were also kept employed, and produced very good linen, flannel, and stockings. Hemp was purchased, spun and made into nets by the women, while a few pounds were expended in the purchase of sail-cloth, lines, and hooks for the fishing-boats of the place.

"Thus," Mr. Kingston writes, "we have been striving to combine with the object of feeding the famishing through their own industry, the permanent improvement of the natural resources of the place; and, in the midst of our many difficulties, we have the gratification