may sink to a state of degradation far lower-far meaner than that of the most untutored savage who lives out the mere impulses of his nature in the deepest woods of New South Wales.

A few more years-and from curiosity not for my friend's sake, for he had removed-I spent a May-day at Sunnerton; but how sadly the scene was changed! Old Mr. Beaumont, God rest him, had passed away; there was the feast as in the old times, but alas! the directing hand and the warning voice was wanting. Uninterested with the noisy crowd, I left the green in the evening to wander by the side of the stream that flowed near the village. In the course of my walk, I found two men on the bank dragging the water, having suspicions of a body. I watched the result with painful anxiety. After several ineffectual efforts to find anything, a burthen was at length borne up-a human corpse, and there in the pallid and disfigured relic of mortality I beheld-imagine my intense horror-the remains of the beautiful Margaret. Reduced by premature age, and poverty, and sickness, to misery -friendless and penniless-appalled by conscience-wearied and disgusted with the excitement she was wont to mingle in-blighted and forsaken-she had turned her back upon the heartless city to seek once more the home of her childhood. Her mother was dead; and in that wrinkled inmate of the workhouse who, saddest of all bereavements, had lost his memory-she with difficulty recognised her father. Need I imagine for her, stronger motives to commit the awful deed that closed her life?

I chanced to know a coincidence. Montagu was married that very May-day to a lady of property and title; and little recked he of Margaret's fate; and yet, methinks, that when the laugh is loudest and the cup fullest, a cry from her grave shall be heard above the voice of mirth-and the hand of her unseen spirit shall dash the cup of pleasure, untasted, from his lips.

How treacherous thou art-how many luckless ones

Inviting by thy silver smiles,

And by the softness of thy music tones,

Hast thou ensnared in thy wiles,

Aye! lulled them with thy voice to sleep,
When sank the western sunbeam tired,
But ere the morning dashed them in the deep
With all thy fitful madness fired ;

Yet dost thou innocently roll to-day,
Heedless of those beneath thy waves-
No Ocean-hillock heaves above their clay,
No breaker marks their tearless graves.
But when I think how oft thy wild inconstancy
Has snatched from age its only joy,

Has woke to bitter life the stranger sigh,
E'en in the thoughtless bosom of the boy;

I cannot listen to thy rolling surge,

Or to thy waves that fain would sing of gladness,

But something murmurs like a funeral dirge,

Some note, methinks, is strangely blent with sadness.

II.

And ocean 'mid his uproar wild,

Speaks safety to his island child.

But yet we must not linger on thy crimes,

COLERIDGE.

Thou hast befriended us in danger's darkest times,
And from our foeman's rage and war's alarms
Protected us in thine encircling arms.

To seize our lands,

A thousand bands

Wait but Napoleon's glance,

On the Gallic coast, 1
An invading host,

Stands all the pride of France.
He looked upon the ocean,

That flows around our Isle,
He watched its fearless motion,
Its independent smile;
The day-dream passed away,

Of England all his own,

And Britons to this day]

No conqueror have known.

Flow on, bright sea!

Round the Isle of the Free,

And with thy sounding tide,
Some strain prolong,

For the gallant throng,

Who fought on Preedom's side.

III.

Thou that couldst subdue the earth itself,

And brook'st commandment from the heavens alone

For marshalling thy waves.

There was a wondrous time-long past,
When thine extended kingdom was so vast,
The very hills that frown on thee to-day
Lowered their lofty heads to own thy sway.
Thou didst aspire to reach the distant skies,
For laving o'er the giant Andes' top,
Thy monarch waves e'en then were fain to rise,
When earth and ocean's Ruler bade them stop.
That day is gone, and never can return,
Thou in the sun-lit cloud thy doom hast read,
This world with penal fire may burn,
But never shall by waters be o'erspread.
When Isis rests her foot of various light
Upon thy heaving bosom, subject sea!
Does not ambition gall thee at the sight
As fearlessly she smiles thy destiny?

CAMPBELL.

Yes! thy mad waves may spend their frenzied rage,
And threaten ruin to the peaceful shore,

But One has power thy fury to assuage,

And bid thine angry surges rise no more.

And He has said, whose word no change may know, "These are thy bounds, thou shalt no further go."

IV.

Hail to thy face and odours, glorious sea!
T'were thanklessness in me to bless thee not.

Despite thy pride, despite thy cruelty,
Thou hast a sovereign blessing to impart;
Thou canst relieve the sick, O balmy sea!
And lend new courage to the sinking heart;

CAMPBELL.

He who with load of years or tiring pain
Pursues life's weary pilgrimage,

May seek from thee fresh health again,

A cordial for the ills of age;

For thou dost breathe upon the shattered form,
And by the magic of thy healing wave

He lives again-with youthful vigour warm,
And turns his back upon the yawning grave.
We thank thee, therefore, while the loss we weep
Of those thy rage has taken from our side,
For the stout barrier of thy circling deep,
For the soft medicine of thy rippling tide;
Or watching fearlessly the tempest's frantic play,
Bless the strong Hand that can thy billows stay.

J. OF M.

WHAT IS HOPE?

Oh! what is Hope! the radiant ray which beameth,
O'er the glad visions of our joyous youth;
The Elfin land, of which the spirit dreameth;
A world of light, where sunshine ever streameth,
Fraught with the smile of mirth, and love, and truth.

Oh! what is Hope? the sunny beam which glideth
Before the glooms that haunt us here below;
It is the fay, whose dreamy accent chideth
. Man's cold despair, and with its smile derideth,
The cares that press their signet on his brow.

Oh! what is Hope! too oft like those sweet flowers,
Which bloom at sunrise on Egyptian streams;
Yet fade, when over Heaven's coerulean bowers,
The evening star its pensive beauty showers,
Bright as the pageants of an angel's dreams.

Oh! what is Hope? the one lone bird that singeth,
Along life's path, to soothe the pilgrim's sigh;
It is the earth-born star, whose radiance bringeth
A balm for woe-whose incense upward springeth,
And leads the spirit to Eternity.

C.

PAUL MANSFIELD.

(Continued from page 36).

I left Mansfield Hall in a sort of whirl, which ceased only when I found myself in Grosvenor-square, at the house of my uncle, undergoing the sort of examination to which prisoners, when first arriving at Newgate, are subjected. I was considered to have misbehaved in a most atrocious manner, in having allowed any portion of my affections to be shared without a licet migrari, issued by the rest of the family. It was therefore in no enviable mood that, after a few hours stay in town, I found myself being puffed and paddled towards the shores of France, and remained the twelve hours of torture to which men are doomed on leaving the white cliffs of Albion, alternately dreaming of Kate and being excessively ill, till, a passive victim, I was handed from Custom-house officers to hotel delegates, and, finally, to bed,-perhaps the most to be pitied of God's creatures.

It was only when arrived at Paris, and ensconced in a snug corner of the Embassy, that I began to think that after all, the world was not such a detestable place, and that though crossed in love, it was still worth my while to refresh exhausted nature, and endeavour to enjoy myself as much as circumstances would allow.

And now let me recall some of those pleasant hours of my youth, and in fancy figure once more in that maze of gaiety and elegant dissipation for which Paris appears to have been especially created. From my situation as "attaché" I found myself introduced into the best society, and, with the exception of a few evenings which I was forced to devote to visits of etiquette, my engagements were as agreeable as numerous.

Lord and Lady Elkington were both advanced in life, but had neither of them lost any of the gusto of youth for its enjoyments. Their only daughter, Lady Fanny Somers, was a perfect model of a young English lady of fashion. With a delightful näiveté of manner, she possessed lurking beneath its surface a perfect hollowness or rather total absence of heart, added to which, her beauty was of that exquisite delicacy only met with among our own country women. I will not at present give a more detailed account of the character and habits of my relative and his family, leaving them to develop themselves in my narrative, if any have patience to peruse it.

Among the most favourite of the varied amusements then in vogue were the masked balls, which all the élite of Parisian society were in the habit of giving.

There amid everything that could charm the eye-every kind of