believe, are the mothers of the nineteenth century; and these are the devices which unmarried man has to dread, from the first moment of his listening to a pleasant voice, or looking upon a pair of rosy lips. The author dolefully cries, "beware!" latet anguis in herbá! A serpentine race, truly! were the story true. What equivalent do you bring to offer in exchange for the treasures you seek? Are you ready to sacrifice, for them, the vanity of showy living, the luxuries of selfish independence? Have you energy to labour for her sake; good temper to enliven the home she is to inhabit; steadfast unperverted affection, to offer in return for the heart After this summary of the main personages in whose virgin love you expect shall be unchangethe drama of courtship, we need not call up the ably yours? With these aims and possessions, humbler actors in the scene, the victimized males you may fairly demand from Fortune a prosperous in their several parts of the "spooney," the voyage; and, in pursuing it, need not greatly fear good young man,' the "shy youth," the shipwreck from the dangers which beset the "genius," the "old bachelor," the "rake." Alas! sensual, the frivolous, or the ambitious. There is what can the wisest do, when surrounded by such a secret talisman, by which true feeling at once a labyrinth of snares? All, gentle or simple, must awakens its counterpart in other natures, and departake of the common doom; and be cajoled, tects the approach of what is false. There are, no tempted, tickled, or thrust into matrimony, ac- doubt, scheming mothers and managed misses to cording to the special weakness of each individual. be found hovering about in most circles, although We close the book with a feeling like that of start- the list of these is scarcely long enough to terrify ing awake from the oppression of some feverish any but fools or cowards; they are not fordream, beset with inextricable troubles, and hag-midable to those who really deserve to fall into ridden by all manner of mopping and mewing phantoms. Are these abominable figures, the ingenuous reader sighs, really the maidens and matrons of our England? Gentle bachelor! the case is by no means so desperate. There is no reason, for all you have read, to take the broad hints of this manual, and fly from thoughts of marriage and the company of virtuous women, to more questionable indulgences. There are still flowers growing, without number, throughout this world of ours; (even in the few exceptional circles of the very fine and ambitious, which it is your own fault, by the bye, if you desire to frequent,) there are still to be found, in all classes, simple affections and pure characters -for those who deserve them. Far more, indeed, we fear, than are ever destined to blossom into full life at the call of a suitor worthy to claim such inestimable gifts in the woman of his choice. In the middle classes especially, within which all the features of national character are moulded, in which our sweetest female flowers are reared, how many are left to wane, the unconscious possessors of all that nature has designed to impart and receive happiness! Be not deceived by cynical satires, which are hardly true of the most frivolous class, which are mere libels on the myriads of healthy, affectionate dispositions, that only wait the impulse of a kindred nature to "discourse eloquent music." Go and study for yourself in this school; not, indeed, unprovided with some previous lessons, but these very different from the instruction we have just been listening to. Is your own heart pure? are your own views disinterested? Do you seek, in the company of women, a social enjoyment, refined from all that is unworthy of her purity? Do you desire in a wife-not wealth, or distinction, in the first, or even in the second, place but the harmonious complement of your own imperfect being; an object of unfeigned love and entire confidence; a companion chosen for her own sake, and prized for her proper worth? Are you able to love such a creature as well as you love your own dear self? better hands. The manly, generous "Calebs," whose own heart conceals nothing unworthy, will not be left unprotected from deceit by its instinctive warnings; guided by it, he will find, let him take our word for it, natures deserving of all his love, blooming in genial abundance on the solid ground of English society. Whatever his merits may be, he need not fear to meet with many a female heart, not inexorable to a wellurged suit, whose virtues and loveable qualities will thrice outweigh all the worth of his own. And what right has any less deserving wooer to complain, if his chance with the fair sex is less happy, if one whose objects are selfish is made the victim of interested schemes? He is, perhaps, tempted with connubial thoughts, after the dissipation of years has perverted his feelings, and deadened his emotions. Or he seeks a wife as he would any other article of domestic furniture, to make his home more pleasant to himself. Or he is ambitious of a fashionable connexion, or desires, by marriage, to increase his pecuniary means. Or possibly he is apt to be caught by a pretty face or a beautiful person, having no deeper sense in his own heart of what real love can give or require, to temper this excitement by suggesting what else may be wanting in the object of a momentary warmth. He has no profound idea of what it is to offer or possess a whole heart; he has, himself, nothing of the kind to bestow; his emotion is, at best, superficial, his purpose is entirely selfish. Thus peor ly furnished on his voyage of discovery, our woder sails into the matrimonial sea; and calls on heaven and earth for vengeance on a deceitful sex, if he brings home any thing less than a faultless paragon! Hav ing nothing but rubbish to bargain with, he expects to be repaid with pearls and diamonds. His own expedition is in open contempt of all just relations between the sexes, of the natural laws of love and marriage; and yet he exclaims at the unparalleled wickedness of the pretty pirates that surround and capture him. Corrigez vous, is all that need be said in reply to his Jeremiade against the worldliness of women. It is our selfishness, quite as much as their vanity, that spoils the sex, and sows 666 tered?' "She is changed, indeed,' I said, from the elegant girl into the beautiful woman; a change that I find very charming.' tares in the sweetest garden of life. It is we who | 'Ay, poor thing,' said Best, in a tone of comtoo frequently teach them to overvalue external miseration, you found her, of course, sadly alcircumstances; it is our example that makes them feel how the vulgarest interests determine a marriage far oftener than the true choice of mutual attachment. We fret at privation, and are ashamed of poverty; we, on whom the burden falls not with half the weight that it flings on the shoulders of the wife; and yet we denounce in women the hope of an establishment, and the preference of wealth to worth! We have fallen, without intending it, into a graver tone than we began with. The subject, in truth, if viewed on this side, is serious enough to those who perceive the real tendency, on morals and manners, of any influence that is apt to promote celibacy. That the ambition for display, and the desire of luxury, are now exerting this influence in the middle classes, can hardly be denied. The expense thought indispensable in living, makes thousands unable or afraid to marry, who would not have lived single in more modest times. To keep up a certain state is the first condition of keeping a house; with a companion, if you can, if not, without one. To begin life early, on a moderate scale, with a beloved partner, not ashamed of frugal habits and humble means, nor despised for them by others who have more; this healthy custom of our middle classes, in former times, is now all but banished from them. The few who venture to marry before they are rich, and who do not imitate the extravagance of the wealthy, are regarded as lost to society; pitied by their friends, looked down upon by acquaintances. All young couples are expected to start in their domestic career on the footing of the first of their class, at the cost of being forsaken by the class they belong to. The effect of this is obvious enough. It makes bacheors rakes, and tempts damsels to rate their admirers by their income. But it lies with the nen to be the first in reforming this grievous abuse. Let us dare to be honestly poor, and we shall find women willing enough to share our narrow means, and brighten quiet homes with disinterested love. In the note-book of a friend, to whose expeiences we have been indebted before now for arious sketches, we fell upon the following anec. lotes, gathered in the commonest walks of modern ociety, which may serve to relieve the austerity of our closing remarks, with an instance or two rawn from the life, and rather germane to the ubject in hand. "I had turned from the door of M's cottage, t Mortlake, and was walking my horse, in a mood f agreeable reflection on what I had just seen here, when Best overtook me, riding the same vay, and pulled up. Best is a 'man about town,' whom you see every where; one worth listening o at times, as his constant circulation in society, nd the want of any character of his own, make im as fit a reporter as I know, of the opinions urrent there. I told him where I had been callg; he had been, like myself, pretty intimate t the house of Sir Charles, both before and since I- married his daughter. "You surprise me!, and how does she seem to keep up her spirits?' I could hardly help laughing at the pathetic tone of Best's inquiry. "I have rarely seen any one look brighter or happier, I can assure you; indeed, I seem to have brought an air of cheerfulness out of M's pretty little ménage, that will keep me in good humour for a week to come.' "God bless me!' said Best,' why, she can see nobody there. They tell me M- cannot afford her a carriage, and keeps but one man servant! To think of such a creature as she was,—you know how we all admired her, -throwing herself away in this manner; exposed to such privations; estranged from all her proper connexions, and living in a suburb, the Mrs. M of a plain clerk in the Admiralty, whom nobody knows! It is a sad mésalliance. Indeed, as a friend of her father's, I have always felt a kind of delicacy in intruding upon her ;- it must be so distressing to her to be reminded of the sad descent she has made.' "Perhaps you are right,' I said; for I knew it useless to present my own different view of the subject. You will, however, be glad to hear that she bears the loss of her dashing acquaintances pretty well on the whole, and seems to live in great content with her husband and children; and that the house is not at all without society that seems very much to her liking.' - "While Best remained silent, in a kind of wellbred surprise, I took advantage of the cross road from the bridge, and, turning my horse's head that way, wished him good morning. "What had this young creature done, to excite such unaffected compassion, to lose herself so sadly in the eyes of men of the world? "She was an only daughter; and Sir Charles, although his inherited estate had been rather lessened than increased by foreign employments, kept a very fine house, frequented by the best company. Being himself, however, a man of intellect and cultivation, he understood this word in a more liberal sense than it commonly bears in his class; and counted, amongst its most welcome ingredients, those who were rich in genius, or otherwise remarkable for personal desert, as well as persons of birth and fashion. His manner of thinking was not without effect on the mind of his motherless daughter, whom he had educated with peculiar care. In the circle which surrounded her at home, on her first entrance into the world, glowing with beauty, wit, and high spirits, she found other distinctions admitted besides those of rank or ton, and had the advantage of drawing some comparisons, which are not always within the reach of handsome girls on their preferment.' She might have been married in her first season, had she chosen to listen to any one of some halfdozen of the most unexceptionable' admirers, who were struck by her graces of person and mind. Until her twentieth year, however, no one appeared | highest expressions of esteem for his son-in-law; and his fashionable daughter retired from the grand world into suburban life at Mortlake, M———— having meanwhile obtained a higher station in his office. In every society you heard the same kind of comments on the match: pity, mixed with something very like contempt both for Sir Charles and Miss R-; wonder at the father's 'eccentric' indulgence, at the young lady's 'singular prepossession,' at the modest assurance' of the bridegroom; and, at the end of all, long prophecies of the misery in store for one who had thus 'lost herself,' and whom 'nobody could visit.' "They had been married five years at the time of my last call. I had been enjoying the sight of quiet domestic happiness, in a way of life modest but not mean; sufficiently provided with merely temporal necessaries; more than ordinarily rich in intellectual resources, and in the pleasures of elegant pursuits; enlivened also by the society of not a few, whose education and talents gave a real worth to their company; blessed with the warmest mutual attachment; happy in beautiful, healthy children. This I had seen: and a moment afterwards chance, as I have already detailed, gave me the world's commentary upon it. to make the slightest impression on her heart; and then, singularly enough, she was assailed by two very different persons almost at the same moment. One, the Hon. Captain F, heir to the Barony of F- a handsome, gallant, fashionable young fellow, with a commission in the Household Troops, and a present income of five thousand a-year, declared himself a lover by the most marked addresses, and at first seemed to make better progress than any preceding suitor. The other person on whom her notice fell soon after the commencement of the Captain's advances, was a young man of humble birth, quiet manners, and the possessor of a modest clerkship in a public office. But Miss R's eye was not long in discovering in him endowments which she rated higher than the world, it seems, can approve of. M had a mind of peculiar refinement, well stored, and of no common power. The few who still read poetry in our day, knew him as the author of a work deservedly praised for its rich imagination and masculine energy. In familiar intercourse his reserve wore away; and what he then said had the vivacity and freshness that bespeak the presence of a living mind, and have power to animate even the dullest hearer. In short, he was, in character and endowments one of Nature's noblemen: and Louisa had an eye to see, and a heart to prize this nobility above all things. She took delight in hearing him talk, long before she was aware of any other emotion in his favour; even while listening, not without a certain feminine delight, to the flatteries of her handsome martial suitor. How the lips of a genuine man, and the heart of a poet, are moved by the influence of such a listener as Miss Rneeds not be told. In her presence, M― was always more than himself; and at times seemed like one inspired. Louisa fell deeply in love with him; while he, earlier enamoured, never ventured a word, hardly a glance, of peculiar admiration. He was too sensible of the worldly disadvantages of his position, to flatter himself with a hope of gratifying his wishes. Although in the prime of life, he was no longer a boy to be ignorant of its relations, or run headlong into a desperate pursuit. He was too deeply in love, indeed, to tear himself from the danger, but had self-command enough to conceal his affections for a long time. Thus matters went on throughout an entire winter. As Louisa's indulgence of the Captain's suit grew less, so her The other anecdote offers a rude contrast to the demeanour towards M- became daily more gra- rather idyllic character of the Mortlake drama. cious. Any one in different circumstances would have read the kindest encouragement in her manner "Mr. Burton Pickering, whose acquaintance I and looks; but M felt his distance, and still had made when abroad, had for some years give kept silence. To the surprise of every one, it be-up wandering, and lived in bachelor independence came known about Easter, that she had civilly in a northern city I need not name. In my frequent refused the formal offer of Captain F's hand. At the end of the season,-to close the story,-in a passionate moment, when about to take leave for some months, M- -, overcome by the irresistible softness of the woman he loved, threw himself at her feet, and declared his love. She accepted him; to the consternation of her acquaintance, her rich worshippers especially. To their still greater surprise, Sir Charles gave his consent too, with the M "Here, I thought, are all the essential gifts of life in abundant measure and my sweet friend is surely one of the happiest women in existence. In the world she has left, the opinion of both sexes is that she must be one of the most unfortunate. Why? Does she prize what she has forsaken, and despise what she has chosen? Perhaps not; but they can keep no company,' she is quite lost to the world,' and 'fallen into a lower rank.' She might have been Lady Fnow she can never rise beyond the wife of plain the government clerk, and the author "When such is the tragical view, taken by society, of a match in which sympathy and love have united two beings, thoroughly on a par in natural rank, and only separated by accidents of social condition, a marriage in all essentials becoming, dignified, and happy,-who is to blame, if other motives too often prevail in courtship? why need we wonder that there are few girls venturesome enough to follow the dictates of their better affeetions,-even if parents did not stand in the way?" of visits to the neighbourhood, we grew rather int mate, having musical tastes, as well as recollections of foreign adventure, in common. He was a cultivated person, and a professed connoisseur in female beauty and manners; so fastidious, indeed, that few ladies in the circles he now frequented could obtain his critical approval; piqued himself greatly on his savoir vivre, and experience of man and womankind; and was altogether far more indul ent to himself than to others; in other respects, well-mannered, agreeable person enough. When saw in the county newspaper the announcement his marriage with the daughter of a Major I expected to behold, on my next country sit, a paragon of womanly attractions. On the y of my arrival, I met Pickering in the street, ad offered my congratulations. He did not reive them as warmly as might have been exected from a bridegroom of three months only; it fell into a kind of monologue, the meaning of hich I could not comprehend, until he came towards e close. In marriage,' he said, at last, a sen ble man looks for something very different from hat pleases in company, or is sought in more gitive connexions. Beauty and gracefulness are arming gifts, but soon become insipid to a husand it is as the mistress of his family, the other of his children, that he must choose a -mpanion for life,' &c. From this I collected, hat was soon confirmed by the report of others, d shortly afterwards by my own observation, hen I called,—a civility which Pickering seemed r from eager to invite. Miss P-, at the time of er marriage, was no longer young, had never en tolerably comely, was uneducated, awkward, d empty, beyond expression: Mrs. Pickering as a woman, in short, that men of far less exisite pretensions than her husband must have onounced all but intolerable, and quite unprentable.' The attraction that had outweighed r defects, was the reputed wealth of the Major, w an infirm old man, whose fortune, it seems, is coveted by Pickering, his own income being r from handsome. In expectation of the death ich was to enrich him, the ill-married husnd lived on as he could; and, being heartily hamed of his wife, withdrew altogether from ciety. A wretched scene it was within doors,little inviting to a by-stander, that I never Deated my first visit. The aversion with which ckering regarded his wife's gaucheries and silly k, his positive dislike of her unattractive per1, were scarcely covered by an attempt at decent ility. I left the house pitying her much, and itemning him more. A few months after this 1e, Major P― actually died. What fell out sequently I learned two years later. "The fortune to which Pickering succeeded s less in nominal amount than he had counted on, and most of it was invested in the shares of tain joint-stock undertakings, the prosperity of ich was questionable. Of these, the company which the largest amount was sunk came to a nd-still in the following year: the dividends of other were promised only for the year ensuing. SILENCE SOLITUDE and Silence! who love best t led by Evening venture offt to shore Of ready money there was none. The mortification of the man who had sold himself for such a deceitful prize, was bitter and indignant. He visited on the poor wife the effects of this disappointment, in a way that must have broken the heart of any delicate woman. Luckily for her, Mrs. Pickering was of an obtuse nature, that seemed indifferent to any thing short of personal ill usage. The measure of the husband's vexations, however, was not yet full. He had found two-thirds of his wife's inheritance worth nothing. It now exposed him to serious pecuniary demands. One company, whose shares he inherited, was broken up; and the proprietors were called upon to contribute heavily to the liquidation of its debts. Pickering fell into despair. Abroad, he was tormented by the claims that beset him, threatening to absorb all his remaining substance. At home, he shuddered at the presence of the woman whose person he abhorred, whose connexion had brought him ruin in place of the wealth he expected. The scenes at home were terrible. A week before the term of payment, Pickering destroyed himself: and the miserable widow now lives, on the wreck of the property saved from his creditors, in a lodging in a Welsh cottage. Of her I learned one trait, that ought not to be forgotten. Poor as she is, she has undertaken the support of an orphan, the natural child of her late husband, born, too, during the period of her marriage. The mother, a young actress, did not long survive her seducer. The story of Pickering's infidelities had not been concealed from his wife; and the widow, inforrued of the death, sought out and adopted the infant!" It would be absurd to take such incidents for instances of what commonly occurs in the history of marriage. But every authentic case that the libeller of woman can adduce of scheming virginity and ensnared manhood, it would be easy to ans wer with a parallel of selfishness in the stronger sex, or with an instance of devotion and generosity in the gentler. By this process, indeed, nothing more is gained than the silencing of partial cornplaints and condemnations, and restoring something like an equilibrium between the opposite parties in the game of wooing. The true theory of its moves has still to be attempted; but where to repeat our former inquiry the Philidor really able to teach the combinations of this curious play? The science, we lament to say, has yet to be discovered: let us be thankful to Nature and Destiny that kindly provides, meanwhile, for a passable continuance of the practice. AND SOLITUDE. If ye were as ye seem, an outstretched shore where is V. To which our hearts' vexed waves might crowd and die. False false your seeming love is cruelty, And emptiness your store. How oft from the world's chase have wounded hearts A host of ambush'd thoughts, that with their darts 774 MARY STUART'S FAREWELL TO SCOTLAND. BY MRS. CHARLES TINSLEY. FAREWELL, farewell, my fathers' land! stern fate has Its gentle graces elsewhere prized, they bade me cast done its worst: The eyes that tearless look their last, wept sore to see thee first!* A prophet voice it was that spake so coldly then to me, Of all the gloom, and all the wo, and strife I've found in thee ! Ah, since I left thy shores, dear France, what rugged lore I've won ! How much a human heart may learn, and bear, and yet live on! I would, I would that I had died ere such dread things had been, Or ere such storm could burst to part a people and a queen! I tax mine heart for all the past, I tax it with good will, And here rejoice to know that God is in its secrets still; It sank not, Knox, beneath thy rude reproof, because it knew, That if the monarch's course had fail'd, the woman's had been true.+ Ah, sorely hath that woman's heart been tried amongst ye all, Where iron hands and iron wills had kept it still in thrall ! A prison'd bird it was, whose notes, though sad, were counted sin; And little knew they that condemn'd what passed its depths within; What lonely thought, what dull despair, through weary nights and days; What vain resolve, to light with smiles, the darkness of life's ways; To hide that weakness from my foes, they coarsely pray'd to see, And live a queen, at least, in mind's unconquer'd majesty. aside; And sternly tried me to the quick, as few have e'er been tried. Roused they not all the royal blood of Bruce within my frame, Holding me at unworthy bay, while no true lip cried "shame?" Stood I not lone amidst them all, such gross rude wrong to bear, As those hard men might well have rued had nobler ones been there? O in that hour I had one dream,—soon broken, wo for me! I saw from Flodden field § rise up old Scotland's chivalry; I knew my grandsire's nodding plume, I caught his kindling glance, And to my rescue mark'd him with his noblest ones advance. On, on they came! False Murray fell, 'whelm'd by his own disgrace, And savage Lindesey quail'd before that princely leader's face; Ten thousand hearts, ten thousand spears, were gather'd at my side, And I, once more a queen indeed, look'd up with queenly pride. Wild dream and brief-ah, they were right who call'd thy fancies vain, Poor, pining, fluttering, wearied heart!-trust not to such again. Waste not in phantom hopes the strength that thes may'st need full long, Amid life's stern realities, its care, and strife, and wrong. Yet happier days may rise. I go, a woman's grace to prove; With her some gentler thoughts may dwell, some mercy, truth, and love; It was not well thy cruel men should teach me to regret Or if, wild dreamer to the last, this trust should broken be. The frail strength of the womanhood themselves could I still, O God, am thine,--to stand, or fall, as pleasch so forget; Thee. THE LOST EAGLE. [Founded on an incident which occurred or the north-eastern coast of Scotland, in the autumn of 1839.] A story goes, which may be sung or said, And now I freely mean in verse to handle,- THERE was an Eagle soaring to the sun Above the cheerless caverns of the snow: The mountain-land-the land was not for him!- Pass'd where the falling billows' foamy length Ran flashing on the rocks, unheard and dim; And where the restless sea-mews white would go, Rising in clouds, soon broken, far below, A moment wheel'd his pinions in disdain— The shore was not for him! He launch'd above the ma His spread wings slept upon the whistling air, As o'er the darkness of the deep, unweary, Still on his westward flight he held, and there The ruthless tempest found him from his eyrie: Mary Stuart left her native country at so early an age, that her first impression of it was received on her return fr France. Her own sweet lines on quitting the latter country are familiar to most readers. John Knox singled out the poor queen immediately on her arrival in Scotland, as a desirable object of attack. Dtinguishing her by the undeserved name of " Jezebel," he denounced her conduct from the pulpit, in all public assemblies, 2 her absence, and before her face, with a coarse violence that was strongly contrasted by her own gentle endurance of wha was alike an insult and a wrong; for this was at a time when none of her enemies could bring worse charge against Mr than that natural cheerfulness of disposition, in her denominated "levity," which, in other circumstances, and by difere judges, has, I believe, always been characterized as one of the most estimable qualities of woman. In her interview with the delegates of the associated lords, Lindesey rudely grasped the queen's arm with his ma hand; and the savage touch, and the equally savage speech that accompanied it, both left their impression. § Long after this ill advised battle, the Scots entertained a fond belief that the gallant James IV. was living, and w re-appear amongst them: an exhausted hope this, of course, in Mary's day. He, the Haroun Alraschid of Scotland. most chivalrous of her monarchs, threw a far-stretching shadow over the spirit of the land when, with the flower of his lity, he fell on the disastrous field of Flodden. |