of schools pines for home, I yearned within the dark walls of cities, and amidst the hum of unfamiliar men, for thy sweet embrace-and thy bosom whereon to lay my head, and weep wild tears at my will! I thank thee, Nature, that thou art round and with me to the last! Not in the close thoroughfares of toil and traffic-not tethered to a couch, whence my eyes asking for thee, would behold only those dim walls which are the dying man's worst dungeon, or catch through the lattice the busy signs and crowded tenements of the unsympathizing herd-not thus shall my last sigh be rendered up to the Great Fount of Life! To the mystic moment when the breath flutters and departs, thy presence will be round me, and the sentiment of thy freedom bathe my soul like a fresh air! Farewell thou, and thy thousand ministrants and children!-every leaf that quivers on the bough-every dewdrop that sparkles from the grass-every breeze that animates the veins of earth, are as friends, that I would rather feel around my death-bed than the hollow hearts and ungenial sympathies of my kind! O Nature, farewell! if we are re-united, can I feel in a future being thy power, and thy beauty, and thy presence, more intensely than I have done in this?"

When I was about to take leave of L me, in a meaning voice, to is," said he, "that Dr.

*

for the night, he asked stay with him a little longer: "The fact implies a doubt whether I shall see another day; so be with me, at least till I fall asleep. I mean," added he, smiling, "not in the metaphoric, but the literal sense of the word."

Accordingly, when he retired for the night, I sat by his bedside, and we continued to converse, for he wished it, though but by fits and starts: he gave me several instructions as to his burial, and as to various little bequests, not mentioned in his formal testament. While indifferent to the companionship of men, he had never been ungrateful for their affection: the least kindness affected him sensibly, and he was willing in death to show that he had not forgotten it. Indeed I have observed, that the more we live out of the world, the more little courtesies, such as in the crowd are unheeded, are magnified into favours-true that the same process of exaggeration occurs in respect to petty affronts or inconsiderate slights. The Heart never attains the independence of the Mind.

Before the window, which looked out into the garden, the dark tops of the trees waved mournfully to and fro; and above, in deep relief, was the sky, utterly cloudless, and all alive with stars. "My eyes are very heavy," said L- "close the curtains round ; did so, and crept softly into the next room, where the Nurse sate dozing in a large chair by the fireside.

my

head." I

"Does he sleep, Sir?" said she, waking up as I approached. "He will shortly," said I; "he seems inclined to it."

"Poor gentleman! he will soon be out of his sufferings," said the

Nurse; and she therewith took a huge pinch of snuff.

Yes! this is the world's notion. With what wondrous ingenuity they shift off the pain of regret! A friend, a brother, nay, a son dies -they thank God he is out of his afflictions! In one sense they are right. They make the best of their own short summer, and do not ask the cloud to stay longer than sufficient to call up the flowers or refresh the soil. Yet this is a narrow view of the subject of death. A bright genius disappears-a warm heart is stilled, and we think only (when we console ourselves) of the escape of the individual from his bed of pain. But ought we not to think of the loss that the world—that our whole race sustains? I believe so. How many thoughts which might have flashed conviction on the universe will be stricken for ever dumb by the early death of one being! What services to earth might the high purity, the deep knowledge, the ardent spirit of L- have effected! But this we never think of. "Poor gentleman!" quoth the Nurse, "he will soon be out of his sufferings!" and therewith she took a huge pinch of snuff.-My God! what shallow self-comforters we are!

"He is a good gentleman!" said she again, turning round to the fire; "and so fond of dumb animals. Cæsar, Sir, the dog Cæsar, is it at the foot of the bed, as usual?—ay, I warrant he lies there, Sir, as still as a mouse. I am sure them creturs know when we are sick or not. Ah! Sir, how the dog will take on, when" and the Nurse, breaking off, applied again to her snuff-box.

I did not feel at home in this conversation, and I soon stole again into the next room. What a stillness there was in it! It seemed palpable. Stillness is not silent, at least to the heart. I walked straight up to the bed. L's wan hand was flung over the pillow. I felt it gently; the pulse was almost imperceptibly low -but it fluttered nevertheless. I was about to drop the hand, when L― half turned round, and that hand gently pressed my own. I heard a slight sigh, and fancying he was awake, I bent over to look into his face. The light from the window came full upon it, and I was struck-appalled, by the exceeding beauty of the smile that rested on the lips. But those lips had fallen from each other! I pressed the pulse again. No-the fluttering was gone. I started away with an unutterable tightness at my heart. I moved to the door, and called (but under my breath) to the Nurse. She came quickly; yet I thought an hour had passed before she crossed the threshold. We went once more to the bed-and there, by his master's face, sat the poor dog. He had crept softly up from his usual resting-place; and when he saw us draw aside the curtain, he looked at us so wistfully, that no, I cannot go on !-There is a religion in a good man's death that we cannot babble to all the world!*

As these papers have been fortunate enough to attract a more than usual degree of favourable attention, it is the Author's design to collect, revise, and reprint them in a separate shape.

POLITICAL CONVENIENCES; OR, THE RESULTS of the REFORM BILL. A DIALOGUE.

"Alter et idem."

SCENE.-St. James's Street.

TIME.-Five O'Clock P.M. 20th August, 1832.

A. WHAT! Boroughby, in Town? returned already?

B. Quite unexpectedly-and, as you know, contrary to my original intentions. I was very late in the field.

A. I believe it; you never were a break-of-day sportsman. But are the birds shy already? You can scarcely have had six days of it.

B. Six days! why, you know they only allow us two now, and quite enough of it. You may have seen in the John Bull a specimen of the treatment I received. But the editor stood by me; a good ally and true is Bull when an old friend is in a scrape.

Yes, it cost me three new coats in two days, and much excoriation of the right hand; but I've been returned these three weeks, and in town since we met.

A. Returned these three weeks-and in town since we met! why, we have not met these three months! But let me hear this adventure which you allude to in Scotland-for, clever as Bull is, I marvel what his assistance would be worth in a sporting dilemma.

B. Sporting dilemma! Scotland! Why, it took place in my own town-where else should it? In the market-place-the Guildhall would not hold the ten-pounders.

A. At cross purposes indeed! Grouse-shooting in the marketplace of Rottenborough! Why, my dear fellow, I'm inquiring how the new Forsyth behaved, and you answer me I know not whatabout ten-pounders !

B. Oh! I understand-excuse my dulness, but really I am so overburthened with business, even at this early period of the Session. I thought you were inquiring about my election.

A. Election! Business of the Session! What! Boroughby a member of the Reformed House of Commons! or, as he himself described it, in the last speech of his that I had the pleasure of hearing, "a delegate to the National Convention." And then all that pathetic passage about" bidding adieu, more in sorrow than anger, to an ungrateful country, whose service hitherto had been perfect freedom-but in whose councils, ruled, as they must henceforward be, by the collective prejudices of small shopkeepers and low attorneys, no man of honest purpose and unbending integrity would condescend to share-" and something more which the Times report had about "the truckling slave who could stoop to crawl into the House under the rod of a ten-pound constituency." That expression "stooping to crawl," by the by, puts one too much in mind of the "narrow portals."

B. Why, yes, very true, you cannot be more surprised at my present position than I am myself. But there are circumstances there are duties, my dear friend, which supersede all personal feelings. I did my best, as you know, to avert the Bill, and to preserve the town of Rottenborough, to which I am sincercely attached by long March.-VOL. XXXIV. NO. CXXXV.

S

family connexion-by a long interchange of mutual good offices, from the degradation of a Liverpool or Dublin constituency, with all its attendant corruption. My efforts, and those of better men than myself, were unavailing; and now that the Bill is upon us, the next duty of one who wishes to preserve the institutions of the country is, not, like the self-denying dupes of Cromwell and Robespierre, to abandon the helm to those who raised the storm for the purpose of obtaining the command of the vessel; but to keep the deck as long as I may, and strive to avert the perils of the season-the too probable results of the Bill. How strongly I have been confirmed in the truth of the apprehension which I have all along entertained of those results, you may guess from the unexpected, and to myself astonishing, fact, of my having accepted a seat;-with extreme reluctance however, and not until after repeated solicitations from all the respectable portion of my new constituency.

A. You speak, I presume, of the corporation of Rottenborough, and the seven other honest and independent freemen, who, in conjunction with a majority of the Aldermen, have been in the habit of returning you.

B. Not exclusively; no. To do them justice, some of the tenpounders are far from violent men-far more tolerant of reason than I could have supposed.

A. Tolerant of reason! Yes, I always told you so. But I never said that I would answer for the extent of their toleration, if experimented upon by so hot a Tory as yourself.

"Li

B. Nay, my dear friend, excuse me-I must correct you. beral Tory" you know I always professed myself. Tory by birth and connexion, rather than by principle or conduct.

A. Well, well! On previous occasions, I suppose, the habits of the Nursery prevailed over the conviction of the Senate; or, to paraphrase the apology of the Athenian dramatist, "My tongue was in the presence-chamber, but my heart was on the hustings."*

B. Nay, my dear friend, this is scarcely polite. But I never could break you of that prejudice which stamps with the name of bigotry every shade of opinion less Jacobinical than your own.

A. Well, be it so. Liberal Tory shall henceforth be your political style and title, for any gainsay of mine in dispute thereof. But what could induce you, even in that character, to solicit the representation of seven hundred "small shopkeepers," "low attorneys," "sour sectarians," and "countinghouse clerks," including, I believe, some score or two of radical weavers, "with politics as bilious as their countenances," as their virtual representative used to describe them. B. Solicit the representation! no! I never should have lent myself to that. I was solicited, as I said before, to accept the representation, by a numerous and respectable deputation, who assured me that the political opinions expressed in my late address would be satisfactory to a great majority of the electors.

A. Your late address! Why, I remember reading it. Yes, surely, you spoke about "opposing with your last breath the innovations of the Revolutionary Bill;" and was there not something about “Ra

ἡ γλῶσσ ̓ ὁμώμοχ ̓, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώματος.--Euripidis Ilippolytus.

dicals in Politics and Infidels in Religion;" and "throwing away the scabbard ?" Were all these things quite "satisfactory" to a constituency who are, almost to a man, the creatures of that Bill?

B. Oh! you mistake-I allude to a farewell address, which I put forth to my late constituents, the day after the Royal assent, wherein I explained at length the reasons which had compelled me to oppthat is, which had prevented me from giving my support to Lord John Russell's Reform Bill-desirous as I had always been of such a change in the constituency as might, without violation of existing rights, place the representation more in harmony with the growing intelligence of the people. I told them in fact on the hustings, as I have all along told you, that nothing but the obstinate refusal of the Ministerial majority to listen to any proposal of amendment could have prevailed upon me to vote against a measure to which I have always been friendly in principle.

4. Indeed! And was this quite satisfactory? I thought the Political Union of your town had passed a resolution, pledging themselves that when the Reform Bill should be the electoral law of England, no one of its members who might thereby obtain the franchise, would ever vote for one of its former opponents?

B. 'Tis true-they did so; and some of them, I am sorry to say, who had set up a candidate of their own, carried their malignant hostility to all established reputation so far, as to ask me to my face on the hustings for an explanation of that former address, to which you at first alluded, and of which they had actually reprinted and circulated copies.

A. But that of course was of no consequence. Secure in the support of all the respectable inhabitants, you told them that the address sufficiently explained your principles, which, if they disliked, they were free to oppose. I only hope, that in expressing yourself firmly, you did so with urbanity; for, "Liberal Tory" though you be, permit me to remind you, my dear friend, that your "liberal" opinions were sometimes inculcated in rather an aristocratic manner, and in rather uncompromising language.

B. I heard no complaints on that score; nor was it probable that I should give cause for any. You would have seen, if you had bestowed sufficient attention on my former address, that their conduct originated entirely from a misapprehension, on their part, of the meaning of some passages thereof, of minor importance, and in some of which, perhaps, I had not been sufficiently careful in the choice of my expressions.

A. But you satisfied them?

B. Entirely that is, the reasonable and more intelligent among them. Some incurable Cobbettites went away grumbling about "sudden sunshine soon overcast ;" and I overheard the red-haired lad of that radical apothecary in North Street muttering something about "the effects of the Purge," and "Lord John's prescription operating quickly," but I couldn't catch his meaning. His master voted against me on account of my opposition to the Bill, he said on the hustings; but I know the real motive-mere personal piqueI turned away a groom last year for sending to his shop for some blisters.