self about a feeble oak, that is not able to but the waters were not frozen, and lay support it. The thought of leaving her in calmly beneath my feet-the moon at this the power of the monster, almost deprived moment issued from behind a cloud, and me of my reason. Those who had here- I saw reflected in the transparent stream tofore been my friends were now my ene- my own figure. my hair was white and mies. Men who before had smiled upon my face pale, my eye had lost its fireme, now knew me not. I was an outcast death was pictured in every feature. The among mankind and the finger of scorn moon again sunk behind a cloud and left was pointed at me. Should I not have ha- one solitary star shining in the heavensted the world? like me, it had no companion, and it ap"The day soon arrived when I was to peared fast waning; as I stood gazing the leave the land of my fathers, and though morning came, and that star was the last during my confinement I had been denied to leave the sky.

every comfort, I was permitted to see Bea- The wishes which had been intruding trice once more. How vivid is the scene on me, now came to my mind. I longed of our meeting even now! I had not seen for one to whom I might open my bosom, her for several days, and oh! how altered I wished for a friend, some one to close -the once bright and glowing girl, presen- my eyes, and to weep over me when dead. ted the pale emaciated form of a being on You passed from your house just then, and the verge of existence. I did not weep, though I had seen you before I did not refor I felt an inward joy that she was pas- cognize you till that moment. Merlin sing to heaven, leaving the world which thought I, will perhaps know me, and may was so unworthy of her. I held her to still be a friend."

my bosom, and kissed her fair forehead." The Hermit again paused, evidently Here the Hermit burst into tears, and much agitated, when suddenly starting up Merlin was too much affected to inter- he exclaimed in a tremulous voice:rupt his sorrow. In a short time he re- "Merlin, look there! Methought Beatcovered himself, and continued his sto- rice passed the casement even now, and ry! smiling pointed to that star. It is the one "Excuse this weakness, my friend. I saw last night. Look at it!--See how These are the first tears I have shed for fast it wanes. Merlin your hour is come, many a long year, and Beatrice is worthy-I feel the hand of death is on me. Stop! of them all. As I held her to my bosom, take this miniature, it is Beatrice's; she I would not have exchanged her for the gave it to me on the day she became mine: wealth of all the world, and yet I was so-Keep it for my sake, and when I am soon to leave her. The officer reminded dead lay me beside the river, let no stone me, that the time had come for embarka-mark the spot where I lie, and—but tion. I unloosed my arms, and she gave the star is gone!"

one wild, long, loud cry-even now it Merlin waited for him to proceed but rings in my ears-and fell into my arms- his noble spirit had fled,

a corpse! Oh! in one short moment, how had my heart become cold! I looked on her, I saw death was on her cheek, and that her spirit had fled, yet I shed no tear

THE LADY OF RUTHVEN.

-I felt no regret. I looked round, and Travelling in the northern part of Great the eyes of many were on me-joy-heart- Britain, I turned aside from the road to felt, thrilling joy burst from my lips--I view more closely one of those ancient laughed to ecstacy, for the monster was edifices that stand, as it were a connecting disappointed! link, between times gone by and the pre"From that time, I have shunned all sent. I ever took delight in contemplacommunication with the world, for I had ting these mighty piles of past ages, for no one to love me, and I thought I hated they operate as a talisman on the imagi all men. nation, and in an instant the mercurial "Yester-night, I stood on the bank of a mind, in defiance of space and time, lives river, looking on the surrounding scene- whole centuries. While surveying the the chill air swept along the trees of the building, an aged man approached, and forest, which were stripped of their foliage accosted me. You appear,' said he, "to

'

be a stranger, and interested with the ex-pressed, indicative of cool determination. terior of the castle; perhaps the interior That,' said the old man, is the portrait may equally excite your curiosity; if so, of Lord Ruthven, who was at the slaying I will attend you through the building.' I of David Rizzio. He left his sick bed, to gladly accepted of the old steward's invi- which he had been confined for three tation, for such he proved to be, and I months, pale and emaciated, too feeble to could not possibly have had a better guide, bear the weight of his armor, or even to for he was communicative, and intimately support his own body without assistance, familiar with the history of the castle and to do a murder at the bidding of, and in its inmates, from the time the corner-stone the presence of his king.'

was deposited.

And is that,' said 1, the man who shed

He led me through lofty chambers that blood in cool blood, and calmly sat down frowned in all the gloom of gothic times; in the presence of his insulted queen, and extended galleries and stately halls, con- tauntingly called for drink to quench his cerning each of which some anecdote was thirst, while his bony hands were still rife in his memory. He paused with pe- reeking with the life blood of her favorite! culiar satisfaction in the armory, hung But who are those young men to the left, round with banners, arms, and the trophies on the same canvass, whose countenances of war. He was familiar with the histo- are full of manly beauty, and glow with ry of every weapon and coat of mail, and intelligence?

gave with tedious accuracy an account of The last of the name of Ruthven. The the various conflicts in which the several sons of that Earl of Gowrie, whose restindentations, perceptible on the warlike less spirit burst forth at the raid of Ruthapparel, were received. From the armo- ven, and finally terminated its earthly ca ry we passed into the gallery of family reer on the scaffold. His sons were the pictures, which afford many of the rudest pride of Scotland in their day, and fell at with some of the finest specimens of art. the same instant, while perpetrating the Here might be scen the mailed knight most inexplicable conspiracy that history scowling death to his prostrate antago- has recorded. Their dead bodies were nist, or gazing with eyes full of devotion brought into parliament, indicted for high on his lady love; there a judge, with fat, treason, their honors and estates were for unmeaning face and full-bottomed wig, feited, and the ancient and proud name of looking askance to a hoop petticoat, and Ruthven forever abolished."

a diminutive countenance peering beneath And who is that,' I inquired, pointing a wilderness of curls, not unlike an owl at a female portrait, whose face rivals in from an ivy.bush; a little farther, a group loveliness all that the Italian artists have of corydous and sheperdesses, watching combined in their ideal beauty? Where their flocks, which had called forth the female softness is so admirably blended greatest care of the artist; and then came with masculine vigor, and the trial for the matter-of-fact portrait of modern days, mastery at the first glance appears doubtwhich can do nothing more for an ugly ful, but on a nearer view it is plain to see face than make it handsome, or place a that the latter, in this instance, as in all man in a studious posture with a book in others, maintains a transcendant influence his hand, though he scarcely comprehends over the former. Behold the arched brow the alphabet. where pride sits enthroned; the eye beWhile surveying the different portraits, neath it beaming love, and the lips that my eye fell on one calculated to make the would tempt an anchorite to press them, spectator shrink at the first glance. It was were it not for the latent fire in that eye; a warrior clad in a coat of mail; his hair and the firmness of purpose indicated by was gray, his countenance thin and cada- that chin, at the same time that the curve verous, and his eye as fierce as that of the of beauty is preserved, forbids even the This I capacious, and reposed on a pair of thick, should judge to be the work of some enbushy brows. His cheek bones were high, thusiastic painter, who, in a delirium of his chin robust, and his thin lips com-love, deliniated the mistress of his imagi

enraged tiger. His forehead was hony, passionless kiss of an anchorit even the

nation, rather than the being that nature Most glorious guerdon, after a feverish had created.' existence, when we reflect that—

7here's not that work

Of careful nature or of cunning art,
How strong, how beauteous, or how rich it be,
But falls in time to ruin.

The withered cheek of the old man glowed at my praise, and he replied: "That is the swan of the house of Ruthven, who was reared in the raven's nest when her own flock was scattered. She was, the child of the last of the name; still an infant at the time of her father's murder; ANECDOTE OF THE FRENCH POLICE. and when the storm tore up, root and branch, the noble tree that had withstood A merchant of high respectability in the rage of warring elements for centuries, Bordeaux, had occasion to visit the methis last frail scion was transplanted to a tropolis upon commercial business, carryforeign land, where it grew in beauty wor-ing with him bills and money to a very thy of its parent stem. Rightly have you large amount. On his arrival at the gates judged in pronouncing that picture the of Paris, a genteel looking man opened the work of an enthusiastic lover: it is by the door of his carriage, and addressed him to celebrated Vandyck, to whom nature not this effect:-"Sir I have been waiting uponly lent her coloring, but watched every on you for some time; according to my touch and carefully guided his hand.-notes you were to arrive at this hour; and Charles the martyr, at whose court the your person, your carriage, and your portorphan of the fallen house of Ruthven manteau, exactly answering the descripwas a maid of honor, bestowed her in tion I hold in my hand, you will permit marriage on the impassioned painter, and me to have the honour of conducting you never did the skilful artist exercise his to Monsieur De Sartine." The gentleman brush with greater success, that when de- astonished and alarmed at this interruplineating the lovely features of the object tion, and still more so at hearing the name of his adoration.' of the Lieutenant of Police mentioned, de

I left the gallery with my mind filled manded to know what Monsieur De Sarwith widely different reflections from those tine wanted with him; adding at the same which occupied it on entering. The mute time, that he never had committed any ofcanvass on which I had been gazing, had fence against the laws, and that he could read to me a striking lesson on the vicis- have no right to interrupt or detain him. situdes of human life, and, the futility of The messenger declared himself perfectly the attempt to perpetuate a name. Here ignorant of the cause of the detention; I beheld a long line of ancestry, who had stating at the same time, that when he had kept monarchs in awe and been linked conducted him to Monsieur De Sartine, he with royalty, extinguished by a breath-should have executed his orders, which a single word and the last remaining were merely minsterial. After some furdrop of their haughty blood, the very es- ther explanations, the gentleman permitted sence of their race, a thousand times dis- the officer to conquct him to the hotel of tilled, indebted for its preservation to cha- the Lieutenant of Police. Monsieur De rity, and finally bestowed on one whose Sartine received him with great politeness; progenitors had passed as obscurely and after requesting him to be seated, to through the world as the purling stream his great astonishment he described his through the untrodden wilderness and portmanteau, and told him the exact sum yet to the talents of this man is she more in bills and specie which he had brought indebted for the duration of her name, with him to Paris, and where he was to than to the daring deeds of her turbulent lodge, his usual time of going to bed, and I here also learnt that he who a number of other circumstances, which was the monarch's terror, the monarch the gentleman had conceived could only himself, and she for whose charms the be known to himself.-Monsieur De Sar monarch might proudly have sighed, can tine having thus excited attention, put this obtain no more substantial fame than an extraordinaay question to him.-"Sir, are outline of their features on perishable can- you a man of courage ?"-The gentlemen vass, or a page in history seldom opened. still more astonished at the singularity of

ancestors.

PHENOMENA OF THE DEATH
BED.

such an interrogatory, demanded the reason why he put such a strange question, adding at the same time that no man ever Whatever the cause of dissolution, whedoubted his courage.-Mons: De Sartine ther sudden violence or lingering malady, replied, "Sir, you are to be robbed and the immediate modes by which death is murdered this night!-If you are a man brought about appear to be but two in numof courage you must go to your hotel, and ber. In the one the nervous system is pri retire to rest at the usual hour; but be marily attacked, and there is a sinking, careful that you do not fall asleep; neith- and sometimes an instantaneous extinction er will it be proper for you to look under of the powers of life; in the other, dissoyour bed or into any of the closets which lution is effected by the circulation of black are in your bed-chamber (which he so venous blood in the arteries of the body, accurately described);-you must place instead of the circulation of the red arteyour portmanteau in its usual situation, rial blood. The former is termed by synnear your bed and discover no suspicion; cope or fainting-the latter, death by asLeave what remains to me. If however, phyxia. In the last mentioned manner of you do not feel your courage sufficient to death, when it is the result of disease, the bear you out, I will procure a person who struggle is long protracted, and accompa shall personate you, and go to bed in your nied by all the visible marks of the agony stead."-After some further explanation, that the imagination associates with the which convinced the gentleman that Mons. closing scenes of life-the pinched and De Sartine's intelligence was accurate in pallid features-the cold clammy skin-every particular, he refused to be persona the upturned eye-and the heavy, laboted, and formed an immediate resolution rious, rattling respiration. Death does literally to follow the directions he had not strike all the organs of the body at received:-He accordingly went to bed the same time; some may be said to surat his usual hour, which was eleven vive others; and the lungs are among the o'clock. At half past twelve (the time last to give up the performance of their mentioned by Mons. De Sartine) the door functions and die. As death approaches, of the bed-chamber burst open, and three they become gradually more and more men entered with a dark lantern, daggers oppressed; the cells are loaded with an inand pistols. The gentleman, who, of creased quantity of fluid, which naturally course, was awake, perceived one of them lubricate their surface. The atmosphere to be his own servant.-They rifled his can now no longer come in contact with portmanteau undisturbed, and settled the the numerous blood vessels spread over thh plan of putting him to death.-The gentle-air-cells without first permeating this viscid man, hearing, all this, and not knowing fluid-hence the rattle; nor is the contact by what means he was to be rescued, it sufficiently perfect to change the black may naturally be supposed was under venous into the red arterial blood; an ungreat perturbation of mind during such prepared fluid consequently issues from the an awful interval of suspense, when, at lungs into the heart, and is thence transmitthe moment the villains were preparing to ted to every other organ of the body.commit the horrid deed, four police officers The brain receives it, and its energies apacting under M. De Sartine's orders, who pear to be lulled thereby into sleep-generwere concealed under the bed. and in the ally tranquil sleep-filled with dreams which closet, rushed out and siezed the offenders impel the dying lip to murmur out the with the property in their possession, and names of friends and the occupations and in the act of preparing to commit the mur-recollections of past life-the pleasant der. The consequence was, that the babble of green fields'-and Napoleon ex prepetration of the attrocious deed was pires amid visions of battle, uttering with prevented, and sufficient evidence obtain his last breath-Tete d'armee?'—

ed to convict the offenders.-Mons. De

Sartine's intelligence enabled him to pre- EVERY man, at the bottom of his heart, vent his horrid offence of robbery and entertains the same sentiments as a ruler; murder, which, but for his accuracy of he would possess all power against others, system, would probably have been carried but would not that others should have into execution. any against him.

HOW TO GET OUT.

Jannoyed at his situation, he replied with warmth, You stupid fellow, John, why, An eccentric, though worthy and ex- why, why did you not tell me at first, cellent divine (the Reverend Emanuel John; you great fool, John, shout John. Glebe,) having, a few summers ago, de- O, dear, we are fast! shout and raise the termined to make a tour, he took leave of house, John; the servants must get assis. his flock, over whose souls his care was tance and break the door down."" extended, with more than ordinary feel

ings of good will; but as he was what the world calls 'a good liver,' he extended his

"

And still they gazed, and still their wonder grew,
That one small head, could carry all he knew."

care likewise over that generous and in- MODERN FEMALE EDUCATION. spiring beverage which promotes 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul;' in short he possessed a cellar well stored with the best wine. This store must be allowed to have naturally demanded his attention be- If admiring rustics gazed with astonishfore he left home, and its security in his ment at the knowledge of the village absence was what every man of common schoolmaster, how much more astonishcare would have endeavoured to promote ing are the acquirements of a modern well as far as possible. With this intention, educated young lady. The painter, the therefore, the doctor rang his bell, and his sculptor, the professor of music, the chefaithful servant, John, immediately stood mist, the astronomer, the professor of before him: then taking out of his purse a languages, the theologian, confine themhalfcrown, he said, 'Here, John, take this selves to the study to which they have go to the blacksmith's in the vilage, and devoted their lives, and if they sometimes buy with it three tenpenny nails immedi- indulge in lighter pursuits, they only enately.' deavour to attain perfection in that one Picture to yourself now the worthy doc- science to which they bring all the powtor and John in the subterraneous vaults, ers of their mind. But a young lady at consulting the safety of the choice spirits eighteen or twenty, must play the piano there immured-Give me the candle, with the most brilliant execution, she must John, shut the door and drive a nail in charm the ear with the sweet strains of here at the top.' John hammered. Hit the harp, and sing with the science and it hard, John, drive it up to the head.' 'I pathos of a Catalani, or tune some lighter have, sir.' Now drive another in here lay to the sound of her Spanish guitar. above the lock, John.' 'Yes, sir.' Up She must sketch with the pencil of a Salto the head, John.' I will, sir.' Now vator, and imitate the glowing tints of a the third here, a little way from the bottom Raphael, or a Reubens. John. Yes, sir.' This being accom- Besides all this, she must dive into the plished, both paused to view the work, mysteries of the chemist, and the astronowhen the doctor exclaimed with exulta- mer, which takes man a whole life to tion, Now John I think we have done attain perfection in, and still leave him the business cleverly: you don't think any something to learn; and like king Solomon, body can manage to get in now, John, do she must be able to speak of all plants, you? John, however, it seems, during from the creeping moss, to the hyssop on pause at the conclusion of driving the the wall. And with all the weight of knowlnails, had reflected that he was on the edge on her head she must dance with the wrong side to run away, and had nailed grace and agility of a Taglioni. Yet wohimself and his master up in the cellar, man is reproached for her love of variety, along with the wine, in their anxiety to and accused of being incapable of keeping prevent others from getting in: he there- her mind fixed on the subject. Is she not fore very laconically observed in answer taught this by education? Is not every o his question-No, sir; I am afraid no- hour devoted to some new subject? ody can get in: but how are we to get customed from childhood to perpetual ut?-Conviction then first flashed upon change, does not variety become necessahe doctor's mind, and being considerably ry to her existence?

the

EVA.