House on the motion, that every negro child born after the first of January, 1832, shall be free. They say, 'Oh, do not emancipate the slaves suddenly; they are not prepared, they will revolt!" Are they afraid of the insurrection of the infants? Or, do you think that the mother will rise up in rebellion as she hugs her little freeman to her breast, and thinks that he will one day become her protector? Or, will she teach him to be her avenger? Oh, no! there can be no such pretence. .

I will carry with me to my own country the recollection of this splendid scene. Where is the man that can resist the argument of this day? I go to my native land under its influence; and let me remind you that land has its glory, that no slave ship was ever launched from any of its numerous ports. I will gladly join any party to do good to the poor negro slaves. Let each extend to them the arm of his compassion; let each aim to deliver his fellow-man from distress. I shall go and tell my countrymen that they must be first in this race of humanity.

world with what injustice our fair claims are met, and under what tyranny the people suffer.

There are two frightful clauses in this bill. The one which does away with trial by jury, and which I have called upon you to baptize; you call it a court-martial -a mere nickname; I stigmatize it as a revolutionary tribunal. What, in the name of heaven, is it, if it is not a revolutionary tribunal? It annihilates the trial by jury: it drives the judge off his benchthe man who, from experience, could weigh the nice and delicate points of a case-who could discriminate between the straightforward testimony and the suborned evidence-who could see, plainly and readily, the justice or injustice of the accusation. It turns out this man who is free, unshackled, unprejudiced who has no previous opinions to control the clear exercise of his duty. You do away with that which is more sacred than the throne itself; that for which your king reigns, your Lords deliberate, your Commons

assemble.

If ever I doubted before of the success of our agitation for repeal, this bill, this infamous bill, the way in which it has been received by the House, the manner in

1833.*

I do not rise to fawn or cringe to this House; I do not rise to supplicate you to be merciful towards the nation to which I belong towards a nation which, though subject to England, yet is distinct from it. It is a distinct nation; it has been treated as such by this country, as may be proved by history, and by seven hundred years of tyranny. I call upon this House, as you value the liberty of England, not to allow the present nefarious bill to pass. In it are involved the liberties of England, the liberty of the press, and of every other institution dear to Englishmen.

Against the bill I protest in the name of the Irish people, and in the face of heaven. I treat with scorn the puny and pitiful assertions that grievances are not to be complained of, that our redress is not to be agitated; for, in such cases, remonstrances cannot be too strong, agitation cannot be too violent, to show to the

1 Delivered in the House of Commons in 1833.

the personalities to which they have been subjected, the yells with which one of them has this night been greeted-all these things dissipate my doubts, and tell me of its complete and early triumph. Do you think those yells will be forgotten? Do you suppose their echo will not reach the plains of my injured and insulted country; that they will not be whispered in her green valleys, and heard from her lofty hills? Oh! they will be heard there; yes, and they will not be forgotten. The youth of Ireland will bound with indignation; they will say, "We are eight millions, and you treat us thus, as though we were no more to your country than the Isle of Guernsey or Jersey!"

I have done my duty; I stand acquitted to my conscience and my country; I have opposed this measure throughout; and I now protest against it as harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, unjust, as establishing an infamous precedent by retaliating crime against crime-as tyrannous, cruelly and vindictively tyrannous.

DANIEL O'CONNELL.

THE DEPARTURE OF THE SWAL

LOW.

[William and Mary Howitt, two English authors, that may most properly be treated together. William Howitt was born in 1795, at Heanor, in Derbyshire, and was educated at various schools in connection with the Society of Friends, to which persuasion his family belonged. In his youth he was fond of outdoor sports, and he celebrated in verse the scenery with which he was familiar. In 1823 he married Miss Mary Botham, a lady of literary tastes and acquirements, and whose family, like his own, was attached to the principles of Quakerism. The Forest Minstrel, with their joint names on the title-page, was published during the year in which they were married. For three or four years thereafter they employed themselves in contributions to annuals and magazines, and in 1827 a selection from these fugitive pieces appeared, under the title of The Desolation of Eyam. From this date till 1837 William Howitt wrote The Book of the Seasons, Popular History of Priestcraft, and Tales of the Pantika. During the same period Mary Howitt produced The Seven Temptations, and a country novel, entitled Wood-Leighton. In 1837 William and Mary Howitt removed to Esher, in Surrey, and at that place William Howitt wrote Rural Life in England; Colonization and Christianity. In 1852 he went to Australia, where he remained two years. In the last years of his life his wife and he (both become converts to spiritualism) lived in Italy. William died at Rome, March 3, 1879. Among his later works are: Law, Labor, and Gold, or Two Years in Victoria; The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain; The Northern Heights of London; The Illustrated History of England, 6 vols., completed in 1861; History of the Supernatural in All Ages and Nations (1863); Discovery of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand (1865); and The Mad War Planet and other Poems (1871). Mary died in 1888.]

And is the swallow gone?

Who beheld it?
Which way sailed it?
Farewell bade it none?

No mortal saw it go;—
But who doth hear
Its summer cheer
As it flitteth to and fro?

So the freed spirit flies!
From its surrounding clay
It steals away
Like the swallow from the skies.

Whither? wherefore doth it go?
"Tis all unknown;
We feel alone

That a void is left below.

WILLIAM HOWITT.

THE BROOM-FLOWER.

O, the broom, the yellow broom!
The ancient poet sung it,
And dear it is on summer days
To lie at rest among it.

I know the realms where people say
The flowers have not their fellow;

I know where they shine out like suns,
The crimson and the yellow.

I know where ladies live enchained
In luxury's silken fetters,
And flowers as bright as glittering gems
Are used for written letters.

But ne'er was flower so fair as this,
In modern days or olden;
It groweth on its nodding stem
Like to a garland golden.

And all about my mother's door

Shine out its glittering bushes,
And down the glen, where clear as light
The mountain-water gushes.

Take all the rest; but give me this,
And the bird that nestles in it-

I love it, for it loves the broom-
The green and yellow linnet.
Well, call the rose the queen of flowers,
And boast of that of Sharon,
Of lilies like to marble cups,

And the golden rod of Aaron:

I care not how these flowers may be
Beloved of man and woman;
The broom it is the flower for me,
That groweth on the common.
O, the broom, the yellow broom!
The ancient poet sung it,
And dear it is on summer days
To lie at rest among it.

MARY HOWITT.

THE PRIEST WHO ATE MULBERRIES.

[Robert Wace was born on the Island of Jersey, in the beginning of the twelfth century. He was one of the most distinguished of the French Trouvères. For a long time he dwelt in the city of Caen, where be devoted himself to the composition of romances. From his humorous pieces we select two examples.]

Ye lordlings all, come lend an ear; It boots ye naught to chafe or fleer,

As overgrown with pride:

Ye needs must hear Dan Guerin tell
What once a certain priest befell,
To market bent to ride.

The morn began to shine so bright,
When up this priest did leap full light
And called his folk around:

He bade them straight bring out his mare,
For he would presently repair
Unto the market-ground.

So bent he was on timely speed,
So pressing seemed his worldly need,
He weened 't were little wrong
If pater-nosters he delayed,
And cast for once they should be said
E'en as he rode along.

And now, with tower and turret near,
Behold, the city's walls appear,
When, as he turned aside,
He chanced in evil hour to see
All hard at hand a mulberry-tree
That spread both far and wide.

Its berries shone so glossy black,
The priest his lips began to smack,

Full fain to pluck the fruit;

But, woe the while! the trunk was tall,
And many a brier and thorn did crawl
Around that mulberry's root.

The man, howbe, might not forbear,
But reckless all he pricked his mare
In thickest of the brake;
Then climbed his saddle-bow amain,
And tiptoe 'gan to stretch and strain
Some nether bough to take.

A nether bough he caught at last;
And with his right hand held it fast,
And with his left him fed:
His sturdy mare abode the shock,
And bore, as steadfast as a rock,
The struggling overhead.

So feasted long the merry priest,

Nor much bethought him of his beast

Till hunger's rage was ended;

Then, "Sooth!" quoth he, "whoe'er should

cry,

'What ho, fair sir!' in passing by,
Would leave me here suspended."
Alack! for dread of being hanged,
With voice so piercing shrill he twanged
The word of luckless sound,

His beast sprang forward at the cry,

And plumb the priest dropped down from high

Into the brake profound.

There, pricked and pierced with many a thorn,

And girt with brier, and all forlorn,

Naught boots him to complain: Well may ye ween how ill bested He rolled him on that restless bed, But rolled and roared in vain :

For there algates he must abide
The glowing noon, the eventide,

The livelong night and all;
The whiles with saddle swinging round,
And bridle trailing on the ground,

His mare bespoke his fall.

O, then his household shrieked for dread,
And weened at least he must be dead;

His lady leman swooned:
Eftsoons they hie them all to look
If haply in some dell or nook
His body might be found.

Through all the day they sped their quest;
The night fled on, they took no rest;
Returns the morning hour:
When, lo! at peeping of the dawn,
It chanced a varlet boy was drawn
Nigh to the mulberry-bower.

The woful priest the help descried:
"O, save my life! my life!" he cried,
"Enthralled in den profound!

O, pluck me out, for pity's sake,
From this inextricable brake,
Begirt with brambles round!"

"Alas, my lord! my master dear!

What ugly chance hath dropped thee here?" Exclaimed the varlet youth.

""Twas gluttony," the priest replied, "With peerless folly by her side:

But help me straight, for ruth!"

I

By this were come the remnant rout; With passing toil they plucked him out,

And slowly homeward led :

But, all so tattered in his hide,
Long is he fain in bed to bide,
But little less than dead.

Translated by WAY.

THE LAND OF COKAIGNE.

Well I wot 'tis often told,
Wisdom dwells but with the old;
Yet do I, of greener age,

Boast and bear the name of sage;
Briefly, sense was ne'er conferred
By the measure of the beard.
List for now my tale begins-
How, to rid me of my sins,
Once I journeyed far from home
To the gate of holy Rome:
There the Pope, for my offence,
Både me straight, in penance, thence
Wandering onward, to attain

The wondrous land that hight Cokaigue.
Sooth to say, it was a place

Blessed with Heaven's especial grace;
For every road and every street
Smoked with food for man to eat :
Pilgrims there might halt at will,
There might sit and feast their fill,
In goodly bowers that lined the way,
Free for all, and naught to pay.
Through that blissful realm divine
Rolled a sparkling flood of wine;
Clear the sky, and soft the air,
For eternal spring was there;
And all around, the groves among,
Countless dance and ceaseless song.

To have gained this precious gift;
But, alas! of little thrift,
From a kind, o'erflowing heart,
To my fellows to impart
Youth, and joy, and all the lot
Of this rare, enchanted spot,
Forth I fared, and now in vain
Seek to find the place again.
Sore regret I now endure-
Sore regret beyond a cure.
List, and learn from what is passed,
Having bliss, to hold it fast.

ROBERT WACE.-Translated by WAY.

TWO LETTERS OF ROBERT BURNS.'

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

ELLISLAND, Newyear-day Morning, 1789.

This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes; and would to God, that I came under the Apostle James's description !

66

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." In that case, Madam, you should "welcome in a Year full of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and selfenjoyment should be removed, and every Pleasure that frail Humanity can taste should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of Devotion, for breaking in on the habituated routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of Instinct, or even sometimes and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere Machinery.

This day; the first Sunday of May; a breezy, blue-skyed noon, some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of Autumn; these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holidays. Not like the Sacramental, Executioner-face of a Kilmarnock Communion; but to laugh or cry, be cheerful or pensive, moral or devout, according to the mood and tense of the Season and Myself. I believe I

owe this to that glorious Paper in the Spectator, "The Vision of Mirza;" a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word

Biog., Vol. IV., page 263.

of three syllables: "On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy; after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer," etc. We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our Souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them; that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on Minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favorite flowers in Spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brierrose, the budding birk, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a Summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey-plover in an Autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of Devotion or Poetry. Tell me, my dear Friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, that, like the Eolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident; Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to these proofs of those awful and important realities-a God, that made all things--man's immaterial and immortal nature and a World of weal or woe, beyond death and the grave-these proofs that we deduct by dint of our own powers of observation. However respectable Individuals in all ages have been, I have ever looked on Mankind in the lump to be nothing better than a fooling, head-strong, credulous, unthinking Mob; and their universal belief has ever had extremely little weight with me. Still I am a very sincere believer in the Bible; but I am drawn by the conviction of a Man, not by the halter of an Ass. ROBERT BURNS.

TO MISS DAVIES,

Enclosing a Song Inspired by her Charms.

August, 1791. It is impossible, Madam, that the generous warmth and angelic purity of your youthful mind can have any idea of that moral disease under which I unhappily must rank as the chief of sinners; I mean

a torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called a lethargy of conscience. In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes: beneath the deadly fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering out the rigors of winter in the chink of a ruined wall. Nothing less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed I had one apologythe bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so strongly am I interested in Miss Davies's fate and welfare in the serious business of life, amid its chances and changes, that to make her the subject of a silly ballad, is downright mockery of these ardent feelings; 'tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend.

Gracious Heaven! why this disparity between our wishes and our powers? Why is the most generous wish to make others blest impotent and ineffectual as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert? In my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would I have said "Go, be happy! I know that your hearts have been wounded by the scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above you-or worse still, in whose hands are, perhaps, placed many of the comforts of your life. But there! ascend the rock, Independence, and look justly down on their littleness of soul. Make the worthless tremble under your indignation, and the foolish sink before your contempt; and largely impart that happiness to others, which, I am certain, will give yourself so much pleasure to bestow!

Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful reverie, and find it all a dream? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one comfort to the friend I love!-Out upon the world! say I, that its affairs are administered so ill. They talk of reform: good Heaven! what a reform would I make among the sons, and even the daughters fools from the high places where misbeof men! Down immediately should go gotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches accompanied by its shadow.

As for a much more formidable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with