He, to whom she had been so long and tenderly attached, was now to fall, as it were, by the hand of his betrothed bride! Such was the strangeness and suddenness of the event, that her feelings being wrought up to the highest pitch of excitation and terror, her very despair seemed to give her strength; and casting all fear of consequences aside, she made a vow to save him, or to perish in the attempt. Bitterly weeping, and with dishevelled hair, she ran wildly through the city, beseeching pity and compassion from all her friends and acquaintance, and soliciting everybody of rank and influence to unite in petitioning for a pardon for her lover, or that her life, she being the sole author of the fault, might be accepted in the place of his. The circumstances being made known, such was the tenderness and compassion excited in her be half, and such the admiration of her conduct, at once so affectionate and spirited, that persons of the highest rank became interested for her, and used the most laudable efforts to obtain a free pardon for the poor soldier. The ladies of the place also exerting their influence, the governor, no longer proof against this torrent of public feeling, granted him forgiveness, on the condition of his being immediately united to the heroic and noble-hearted girl, and accepting with her a small donation,-an example which was speedily followed by people of every rank; so that the young bride had the additional pleasure of presenting her beloved with a handsome dower, which satisfied their moderate wishes, and crowned their humble happiness. "YE trumpets, sound your loudest notes, For Scotland's golden crown is mine, Thus spoke the Bruce, his gleaming sword True hearts, all danger braving. He vow'd the Scots' best blood should flow With many a horseman, Edward now, And when they saw King Robert's band, For see the might of England's king, "Oh, stop, King Robert, stop, I pray! Thus, wildly shrieking, to the king His steed up-reining, "Halt !" he cried, Then crowding thickly rank on rank, And see, a wonder! Edward's host Miscellaneous. "I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own, but the string that ties them."-Moutaigne. PAVING OF TOWNS. BEFORE the eleventh century none of the great cities of the present day were paved, except Rome and Cordova. Paris did not enjoy this advantage, according to Rigord, physician and historian to Philippe-Auguste, who relates that the king, being at the window of his palace which commanded a view of the Seine, perceived that the carriages passing in the mire diffused a most offensive odour, which induced him to issue an order for the paving of the streets, notwithstanding the expense of it; the dread of incurring which, he was aware, had hitherto deterred his predecessors. Since that period the city took the name of Paris, instead of Lutetia, which originated in the number of its sloughs. Even London was not paved at that time; many of its principal streets were not thus improved till the fifteenth century. Holborn was done in 1417. Dijon commenced the paving of the streets in 1391. In 1285 an order from Philippe-le-Hardi commanded the citizens of Paris to pave and sweep the street before their houses at their own expense; but this mandate was so badly executed, that, in 1309, the city was swept at the public cost, under the inspection of the police. Till the fourteenth century the inhabitants of Paris were suffered to throw every nuisance from their windows, provided they cried out three times, "Take care!" This license was interdicted in 1372; and still more strictly in 1395. An order was also issued to prevent pigs running through the streets, in consequence of the accident which happened to the young king Philippe. That prince, returning from Rheims, where he went to be crowned, while passing Saint-Gervais, a pig dashed between his horse's legs, and threw him down. The king fell backwards; and, in a few days, died of the injuries he had sustained in the fall. It is rather remarkable, that the monks of the Abbaye de Saint-Antoine, having pretended that they could not -without failing in the respect due to their patron aint-keep their pigs from running about the streets, it was decided that these animals should continue to wallow in the mire, provided they had each a little bell round their necks! It appears that cleansing the streets was regarded as the most degrading occupation. It was generally poor Jews, or attendants on the public exccutioner, who had the care of them. INFLUENCE OF PECUNIARY CIRCUMSTANCES UPON CHARACTER. Is the higher and middle classes of society, it is a melancholy and distressing sight to observe, not unfrequently, a man of a noble and ingenuous disposition, once feelingly alive to a sense of honour and integrity, gradually sinking under the pressure of his circunstances, making his excuses, at first, with a blush of conscious shame; afraid to see the faces of his friends from whom he may have borrowed money; reduced to the meanest tricks and subterfuges to delay, or avoid, the payment of his just debts; till, ultimately grown familiar with falsehood, and at enmity with the world, he loses all the grace and dignity of man.-Malthus. 143 and gratitude is the incense of weakness to power-of poverty to wealth. How often are the warm affections, nurtured by happy circumstances, mistaken for the evidence of right principles! How frequently are the pleasurable impulses of the heart confounded with the well-directed judgments of the mind! This man was less changed than he knew of; the world of his circumstances was, indeed, different, but he was little altered; the same selfishness that once made him munificent, now made him mean; but, whether conferring or accepting favours, the spirit was one.-Lever. THE IMPERFECTION OF HISTORY. NOTHING is more delusive, or at least more wofully imperfect, than the suggestions of authentic history, as it is generally, or rather universally, written. And nothing more exaggerated than the impressions it conveys most agitated periods. The great public events of which of the actual state and condition of those who live in its alone it takes cognizance, have but little direct influence upon the body of the people; and do not, in general, form the principal business or happiness or misery even of Even in the worst and most disastrous times-in periods those who are in some measure concerned in them. of civil war and revolution, and public discord and oppression, a great part of the time of a great part of the people is spent in making love and money-in social amusement or professional industry-in schemes for worldly advancement or personal distinction, just as in periods of general peace and prosperity. Men court and marry very nearly as much in the one season as in the other; and are as merry at weddings and christenings -as gallant at balls and races-as busy in their studies and counting-houses-eat as heartily, in short, and sleep as sound-prattle with their children as pleasantly-and thin their plantations and soold their servants as zealously, as if their contemporaries were not furnishing materials thus abundantly for the tragic muse of history. The quiet under current of life, in short, keeps its deep and steady course in its eternal channels, unaffected, or but slightly disturbed, by the storms that agitate its surface; and while long tracts of time, in the history of every country, seem to the distant student of its annals, to be darkened over with one thick and oppressive cloud of unbroken misery, the greater part of those who have found to have enjoyed a fair average share of felicity, lived through the whole acts of the tragedy, will be and to have been much less affected by the shocking events of their day, than those who know nothing else of it than that such events took place in its course. -Jeffrey. have been thought to be able to do least; and there FEW men have done more harm than those who cannot be a greater error than to believe a man whom we see qualified with too mean parts to do good, to be therefore incapable of doing hurt there is a folly, in the meckest, when he sets his heart upon it, supply of malice, of pride, of industry, and even of that makes a strange progress in wickedness. Clarendon. THE honest and just bounds of observation by one person upon another, extend no further but to understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution in respect of a man's self; but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous.— Bacon. There was a time when he would not have stooped to such a course; but then he was rich-rich in the world's wealth, and the honour such affluence suggests; for, alas! humbling EVERY man is not a proper champion for the truth, as the avowal may seem, the noble nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of verity. traits so often admired in prosperity, are but the prompt- Many, from an inconsiderate zeal unto the truth, have ings of a spirit revelling in its own enjoyment; open- too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain handed and generous, because these qualities are luxu- as trophies to the enemies of truth.-Sir Thomas ries; free to give, because the giving involves gratitude; | Brown. A SONG, a song, keep singing, Of princes, gold, and gifts, O sing, A Christmas Carol. And shepherds waiting on their King! A star in east hath risen, Long groped they, as in prison, When first they mark'd its radiant light, That light of lights, whose rising ray, Wake up! wake up! they shouted, That hope was but in vain :- By Bethlehem's gates at last : With hymn and song they cheer'd the way, O'er many a palace towering, Where pride and prosperous sin abound, O Bethlehem, thou lowly And rests o'er thee, for to the cry From earth and heaven swelling, To sing the glories of the Child, Now sleeping with His mother mild. The sages, lowly bowing Before their mighty King, All reverence are showing For Him, who deign'd to fling, His royal robes aside, to save Our race from Satan and the grave. Their precious gifts outpouring, With gold and incense meet,- Homage of hearts that were His own, Homage with lowly worship shown. All other gifts transcending, They brought their best-the heart; And with like holy homage kneel. From the German Fest-Kalender. King Henry lifted up his eyes "Repent thee, Henry, of the wrongs "I have past forty years of peace But what a weight of woe hast thou Laid on my latter days! "I used to see along the stream "Henry! I never now behold The white sail sailing down; Famine, Disease, and Death, and Thou, Destroy that wretched town. "I used to hear the traveller's voice Or maiden as she loiter'd home, "No traveller's voice may now be heard, In fear he hastens by; But I have heard the village maid In vain for succour cry. "I used to see the youths row down, "King Henry, many a blacken'd corpse "What if no miracle from Heav'n The murderer's arm control, "Thou conqueror king, repent in time, King Henry forc'd a careless smile, (1) While Henry V. lay at the siege of Dreux, an honest hermit, unknown to him, came and told him the great evils he brought on Christendom by his unjust ambition, who usurped the kingdom of France against all manner of right, and contrary to the will of God; therefore, in His holy name, he threatened him with a severe and sudden punishment if he desisted not from his enterprise. Henry took this exhortation either as an idle whimsey, or a suggestion of the dauphin's, and was but the more confirmed in his design. But the blow soon followed the threatening; for, within some few months after, he was smitten with a strange and incurable disease.-MEZERAY. BROUGHAM CASTLE. THE remains of Brougham Castle stand upon the banks of the river Eamont, about two miles south of Penrith, and upon the site of the Roman station Brovacum. Many altars, coins, and other antiquities, have been discovered here at various times; and traces of the camp, which enclosed an area of 120 paces square, may yet be seen. The name of the builder of this edifice has not come down to us; its earliest recorded owners were Veteriponts. Its architecture was of the strongest description; indeed, its local position in the troubled Border country, required that this should be the case. From the Veteriponts, it passed, by a female heir, into the hands of the Cliffords, one of whom, hav ing made large additions to it, placed the words, "This made Roger," over the principal gateway, leaving it an enigma for posterity, whether the castle had been the making of Roger, or that baron had made the gateway. "Wherever the mountains receded," says Sir Walter Scott, speaking of the English Borders, "arose chains of castles, of magnificent structure, great extent, and fortified with all the art of the age belonging to those powerful barons, whose names hold so high a rank in English history. The great house of Clifford alone possessed, exclusive of inferior strongholds, the great and extensive Castles of Appleby, Brough, Pendragon, and Skipton, each of which formed a lordly residence, as may yet be seen, from their majestic ruins. All these, and many others that might be mentioned, are so superior to edifices of the same kind in Scotland, as to verify the boast, that there was many a dog-kennel in England to which the tower of a Scottish borderer was not to be compared." About the end of the fourteenth century, it was attacked by the Scots, and terribly devastated, insomuch that an inquisition, made in 1403, returned the value of the demesne and buildings, as nothing; “because it lieth altogether waste, by reason of the destruction of the country by the Scots." It was soon, however, re-built on a greater scale than before. The people of the neighbourhood have a superstition that the castle is sinking into the ground gradually. On the side next the river, it was defended by three square towers. The main entrance was from the east; and the great central tower, which exceeded in height all other parts of the structure, had to be passed through before the interior chambers could be reached. The principal buildings were disposed in three masses, around an extensive court-yard, but the whole are now entirely in ruins. The grand tower is laid open from top to bottom, and three staircases, with many orna mented windows and fire-places, are exposed to view. The highest turret, however, may yet be reached by a steady head, and he who makes the ascent will not only be astonished at the number of passages winding from loophole to loophole in the thickness of the wall, but be rewarded with a very extensive view from the summit. That view embraces, in one direction, a large extent of champaign country; and in the other, the principal mountains of the lake district, including Helvellyn, Skiddaw, and Saddleback. Between these hills and the spectator, Lowther Castle is concealed amongst its fine woods; whilst, yet nearer, and within a short dis tance, Brougham Hall, the seat of Lord Brougham and Vaux, is conspicuous. Penrith Castle, once the resi dence of the subtle, false, and treacherous" Richard III., is to the north. Clifton Moor, the scene of an engagement, in 1745, between the retreating forces of the Pretender, and the troops of the Duke of Cumber |
