neither is it strictly correct to assert, that as dogs which have worried sheep are not beaten or hung as an example to dogs, so neither can madmen be punished as an example to madmen. Nothing can be more opposed to all experience in the treatment of mental diseases, than the supposition that they are impervious to the force of example, or the fear of consequences, except indeed in the most advanced stages of furious mania.

The great evil and danger which would appear to result from the present state of the law, as it was applied at the late trial, consist in the extension to cases where the absence of moral control is by no means fully established, of all the precautions and immunities which the humanity of our criminal jurisprudence has invented or allowed. That absence of control was not established, as we have already seen, but assumed as the certain and inevitable consequence of that amount of mental delusion under which a man like M'Naughten apparently labored.

latter, the compassion of the jury, enlisted with equal or greater intensity on behalf of the prisoner, accepts and adopts the plea of insanity on very slender grounds. In either case a jury is called upon to examine facts of the most perplexing kind, and to weigh evidence frequently of the loosest character which can be tendered in a court of justice; the singular diversity of the result at which a jury so placed will arrive, in the one case or in the other, is a sufficient proof of the absence of fixed rules or principles to guide its decision.

By the old law of France, great care was taken that the plea of insanity should be tried as a distinct question from the main question of the guilt of the prisoner, and always before other Judges. By the penal code of modern France it is laid down as a general principle, that where there is insanity (démence) there is no crime or delinquency; consequently, whenever insanity can be successfully pleaded, the imputed criminality of the prisoner falls at once to the ground. To a certain extent this may To borrow the motto of our northern co- be said to be the case in England; at least temporary, "Judex damnatur, cum nocens the more celebrated cases of insane crimiabsolvitur." In this case, the eminent nality are of such a nature that the whole judge who decided the cause and stopped defence and acquittal of the culprit turned the trial before it had reached its natural upon the unsoundness of his mind. The termination, stands fortunately above all criminal act itself was patent and overt; animadversion. Nor can we refrain from and the more openly it was committed, the paying our humble tribute of respect to greater reason is there to believe that such that exalted and unbending dignity of our an act was insanely committed. Perhaps principal ministers of justice which raises there would be some advantage in separatthem in such questions above the reach of ing the two questions which are thus simthe censures and influences of the day. ultaneously brought before the jury, instead But the obvious fact that "nocens absolvi- of allowing the main interest of the trial tur," the felon is acquitted,-provokes to turn at once upon the circumstances and some sort of inquiry into the state of the evidence indicative of insanity. law which has led to such a result. might be effected by allowing insanity to be pleaded at a later period of the proceedings, as in arrest of judgment; and the inquiry arising upon this plea might then be conducted without so direct and especial a reference to the crime set forth in the indictment, and it might be brought before a special jury better qualified to enter into an investigation of so peculiar a character.

Nothing is more embarrassing than to suggest even an experimental remedy in a case of difficulty arising out of the most mysterious and complicated symptoms which can distract the mind of man, and one which is so closely connected with the deepest springs of human infirmity. The subject is tangled and abstruse, but in the course of the administration of justice in this country, it is brought before a tribunal which has less of legal acuteness and severity than of human sympathy. Hence arises the discrepancy we have already pointed out between the verdict of a jury on a question of insanity, in a civil and in a criminal case. In the former, it seems charitable to the subject of the inquiry to defend his liberty of action, and to give him credit for sanity, until absolute demonstration of his malady is produced. In the

This

With regard to the test of insanity, or to speak more accurately, the test of moral responsibility, it does not appear to us that the mere proof of the presence or absence of the faculty of distinguishing right from wrong, is the safest that can be adopted. The number of persons of insane mind who are utterly unconscious of what is right and what is wrong, is comparatively small, yet they are not fit objects of punishment, at least not of capital punishment,

TROJAN, THE SERVIAN KING.

TRANSLATED BY JOHN OXENFORD.

I.

when their impulses are so extravagant, and their power of self-control so enfeebled that they are the victims of merciless and absurd [Servian legends are not, I believe, commondelusions which they obey though they be ly known. The following, which is a very culieve them not. On the other hand, where rious one, is taken from the introduction to a colevery circumstance in his life tends to war-lection of Polish traditions, by M. Woycicki, rant the inference that a man does habitually The poetical prose in which it is written, and exercise the control of free volition over all the dash of puerility, seem to me very effective. -J. O.] his ordinary actions, we should be most unwilling to exempt him from punishment on "QUICKLY give me my horse! quickly bring the ground of a mere mental delusion, be- it hither! The sun has long vanished. The cause the fear of punishment is quite as like-moon and stars are already shining, and the dew ly to restrain such a man from a crime as the already glistens on the meadows. delusion, under which he labors, is calculat-wind blows no more, and if it does, 'tis no more ed to impel him to commit it. In a word, the heating, but cooling. So quickly to horse! Evonly test which a court of criminal justice ery moment's delay is time lost. With beating can safely allow itself to adopt, and the heart has the black-eyed virgin already long awaited me. With the speed of the hurricane only inquiry upon which it ought to enter, or of the eagle do I fly on my swift-footed steed, is, whether the criminal had sufficient in- because the night is so short and the day is so telligence to know that the act he has com-long, and I can only live at night-time." mitted, is punishable by law, and sufficient control over his actions not to be the mere victim of blind impulse or frenzy.

THE ISLAND OF THE EARTHQUAKE.

AN island lay upon the placid sea,

Calm, in its glowing beauty, as the dream

Of a fair child, who sees in ecstasy

Some heavenly vision on its slumbers beain;

Where all that's beautiful in hue and form,

The south

Thus spake Trojan, king of the valiant Servians, who could not endure the rays of the sun. Never had be seen the light of beaming day. For if a single ray had shone on the head of Trojan, he would have passed away as a cloud, and his corpse would have been dew.

II.

The obedient squire brings the horse from the stable. Trojan flings himself on it, and will away. His faithful servant follows him.

"So fresh and cool! 'Tis the right time for me!" cries Trojan, joyfully. "The stars, indeed, are shining, and so is the moon; yet their pale beams are without warmth. The pearly

Bright flowers, and birds whose plumage seems of dew, like white coral, covers the green meadow,

gems,

And golden fruits, and regions ever warm

With life and joy; and plants, whose giant stems
Are crown'd with blossoms like the amethyst;
And silver streams making sweet melody,
As with the air they keep their gentle tryst;
And all things fair seem blent harmoniously.
Thus calm and beautiful that Island lay,
And many the soft silent morn did bless,
Who, at the fading of the star of day,
Were hopeless, wretched, homeless, fatherless!
One moment, and a low convulsive moan

and in every drop can I see the form of the stars and the face of the moon. What a stillness prevails! Nothing disturbs my mind, scarcely when the hoarse voice of the owl sounds from the dark wood."

"Oh! my sovereign," replied the squire, "I prefer the sun and the hot day, even though its beams do glow and give warmth, to the gloomy shades of night. Then am I quite blind, and the most lovely colors become black—the violet, the rose, and the scented elder-blossom. And gone-beasts, and man. Only to the wanderer does a at night every thing slumbers-the birds, the

Came from the heaving bosom of the earth;
It trembled-palm-groves, cities, towers, are
Yon mass of ruins tell where they had birth!
A weeping mother came to seek her child,
Now cradled in its grave; reproachfully
A beauteous boy besought, in accents wild,
The hollow earth to set his parents free-
Alas! his only answer was the sigh
Of the night-wind, the frown of the dark sky.

solitary light beam from the village by the roadside; only the faithful guardian of the house awakens the echo with his barking, when he sees a wolf or something strange. As the billows of the sea, as the waving corn-field when stirred by the wind, so does the echo move and

Yet there were some who knelt in grateful prayer-incline itself on all sides. No bird interrupts the

The loved beyond all other earthly prize,

Heaven, in its pitying love, did gently spare;
Still in that Island songs of praise arise,
Echoed by angel-voices in the skies!

M. E. M. G.

Roman Antiquities.-Beneath an ancient cairn, on the hill of Knockie in Glentanner, has been found a very interesting treasure of bronze vessels, celts, spear-heads, bracelets, armlets, rings, and other relics of remote antiquity.

silence of night, for the minstrel of the springthe lark, flies merrily over the green meadow, when awakened by the beams of morning, and greets the shining day with the sun. At night she sleeps, like every other creature, to refresh her strength. But we, O king, pursue our way in the shades of night."

jan lashed his steed with increased severity, and flew along with the swiftness of a dart. Quickly does he go over the bridge of lindenwood, and over the paved court. Now he springs from his horse, and enters the well-known halls.

Long stood the squire, holding his horse by the bridle, till sleep oppressed his eyelids. At last he sprang up, and said, "The cock is already crowing! I must awake my king. Far is the way to the castle, and the day will soon

dawn."

they came up to Trojan. They looked, and they saw a mantle; they raised it, and they saw a man; and then they pulled it away entirely. Trojan shrieked, and entreated them by all that was dear to them-"Cover me again with the mantle; let me not burn in fire!"

In vain does he entreat them, for the sun is shining brightly, and its rays fall straight upon Trojan's face. Suddenly he is silent; his eyes are turned to two drops of liquid; head, neck, and breast have flowed away, and soon the whole body appears changed to tears. The corpse of Trojan shines for a moment like dew, but even these drops are soon dried up by the

He approaches the door of the chamber, and knocks with all his strength: "Awake, my lord! Awake, my king! It will soon be day. Let us quickly mount our steeds, and return to the cas-melting beams of the day.

tle."

"Disturb me not in my sleep," cried Trojan, angrily; "I know better when the day dawnswhen the signal of my death-when the sun sends down its first beams. Wait without with the horses."

The obedient squire answered not a word, but waited a long time. He gazed before him, and with horror he saw the first breaking of the dawn. He again ran in hastily, and still more loudly knocked at the door of the dark chamber. "Awake, my sovereign!" cried he, in despair. "I have already seen the dawn of morning. If thou stayest a moment longer, the rays of the sun will kill thee."

"Yet wait a moment; I will at once hasten hence. If I can but mount my steed before the dawn is awake, and the clear sun shines, 1 shall be soon in my castle."

The obedient squire waited long. At last Trojan came; he mounted his steed, and fled with the speed of an arrow.

IV.

He had scarcely crossed the paved court and the bridge of lindenwood, when the clear light came towards him from beyond the mountain. "That is the sun!" cried the squire, with ter

ror.

VI.

At sunset the faithful squire hastens into the field, with the servants of the castle; but Trojan is not there. He only sees the mantle, and he wrings his hands, and weeps bitterly. Vain are thy tears! They will not awaken the king.

Of Trojan's castle nought is now left but ruins, and in his dark hall, where the sun once never shone, it now beams brightly on the nests of the swallows, and dries the damp walls.

TO THE SPRING.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
Welcome, gentle Stripling,

Nature's darling, thou-
With thy basket full of blossoms,
A happy welcome now!
Aha!-and thou returnest,
Heartily we greet thee-
The loving and the fair one,
Merrily we meet thee!
Think'st thou of my Maiden
In thy heart of glee?

I love her yet the Maiden

And the Maiden yet loves me!
For the Maiden, many a blossom
I begg'd-and not in vain ;
I came again, a-begging,

And thou-thou giv'st again :
Welcome, gentle Stripling,
Nature's darling thou-
With thy basket full of blossoms,
A happy welcome, now!

"Then the moment of my death is near!" replied Trojan, with suppressed rage. "I will alight from my horse, and press my poor body close to the damp earth. Do thou cast thy mantle over me, and about sunset fetch me with my courser." And he sprang trembling from his horse, and sunk exhausted on the damp earth, while the faithful squire carefully spread the AERIAL NAVIGATION.-The first attempt at flymantle over the poor king. He then hastened ing in the air occurred early in the 16th century, to the castle, and knocked at the iron gates. when an Italian adventurer paid a visit to Scot"Open, porters-open, quickly!" cried he, land. He was very favorably received by King trembling with alarm. Down fell the draw-James IV., who presented him with the abbacy of bridge, the squire entered the gate, and sum-Tungland; and, having promised to gratify the moned all the servants. "Where is the king? Where is Trojan?" they all ask; and he points with tears to the courser. "The king lies in the field, on the damp earth; his body is covered with a mantle, and at sunset I shall fetch him

with the courser."

My

court with the exhibition of a plan which could enin a few hours, he had an apparatus made, conable any person to reach the most elevated region Thus equipped, he leaped from the battlements of sisting of huge wings, to be propelled by cords. Stirling Castle, and, as might be expected, speedily reached the ground. His reasoning on this unlucky event is worthy of being preserved. wings," said the Italian, were composed of variIt was a sultry day; not a breeze was stirring, and the sun scorched like fire. Trojan trem-ous feathers of a dunghill fowl, and they, by symbled beneath his mantle with heat and fear, and pathy, were attracted to the dunghill on which I fell; whereas, had my wings been composed of he swore, that if he escaped, he would never eagle's feathers alone, as I proposed, the same again wait the approach of dawn. sympathy would have attracted my machine to the highest regions of the air."

4.

The shepherds went to tend their flocks, and

REMINISCENCES OF MEN AND THINGS, | who knew him best often predicted that the occupations of his future life would be simply

BY ONE WHO HAS A GOOD MEMORY.
From Fraser's Magazine.

DE LAMARTINE.

WHEN first I saw the kind-hearted and

gentlemanly De Lamartine, he had returned
from his travels in the East, oppressed by
grief, and weighed down with domestic ca-
He had lost his only daughter.
lamity.
Far, far away from the scenes of her infan-

"Aimer, prier, et chanter !"

De Lamartine had returned to Paris, but his excited the love and the sympathy of mul travels had preceded him. His grief had titudes of beings in all quarters of the if not in every cottage, at least in many a globe. His tale of wo had been told,

cy and childhood, from her father's own dwelling of the poor, as well as of the rich;

beautiful dwelling, from the trees and the moss, the vineyards and the fields, she loved so well; beneath another sky, and surrounded with many faces unfamiliar to her heart, she breathed her last sigh in the arms of her parents in the Holy Land, and her soul winged its happy flight to the heaven of her

Christian

and the fact that he was a royalist, and opposed to the new order of things in France, was wholly lost sight of, and he was regarded as the travelled Thane and the poet. His fine active mind had been subdued by the loss he had sustained which was truly sublime; and those who to a degree of humility and submission Saviour and her God. At the Chateau de St. Point, near Macon, in the centre of are not well acquainted with the power of France, she had received her earliest and a cultivated and moral nature to throw off dearest impressions; and its solitary and and decision, would have imagined that De its grief and to gird itself with strength romantic scenery was not forgotten by her, Lamartine could never again sing of beau even when her light foot pressed the sward of holier and lovelier lands. "La terre naty, of nature, and of love, but would betale" was beautifully sung by her father, in come in principle a recluse. His wife, an one of his delicious "harmonies;" and her English lady of good family, of benevolent young heart expanded under the genial in- formed and highly cultivated mind, had and gentle disposition, and of well-influence of the kindly and noble sentiments shared with him in the East all his sorrows, which he possessed. With a passion for all that was beautiful, good, just, and wise, turned to Paris bereft of the idol of their as well as all his enjoyments, and had rethat father had impregnated her charac-heart's affection. To them the world had no ter: and she was the reflected image of charms. Tears and sighs, remembrancesclad versed with him the regions of the East. in mourning, and grief which knew of no She had beheld his fine heart bound with and their friends looked on them as we are joy at the pious traditions of the scenes of our salvation. She had visited the shores and on trees riven by the storm. wont to do on objects blasted by lightning, The sun of Malta, the coasts of Greece, the ruins of Athens, the plains and the mountains of appeared to shine in vain for them, for she who loved the first golden rays of the Syria, and that Palestine so dear to the heart of every Christian. But Gethsemane was morning now slept in her grave. True, doubly hallowed to his soul, for death but they were only the remains--the body her remains had been brought to France, snatched from him the being in whose ex-without the spirit. The moon, that fairest istence and happiness the dearest hopes of companion of the night, disclosed in vain himself and his wife were centered; so that he sang in pathetic and mournful strains the following deep and precious thoughts, descriptive of the state of his mind :"Maintenant tout est mort dans ma maison aride, Deux yeux toujours pleurant sont toujours devant moi ;

himself. But Julia died! She had tra

Je vais sans savoir ou, j'attends sans savoir quoi,
Mes bras s'ouvrent à rien, et se ferment á vide,
Tous mes jours and mes nuits sonte de même cou-
leur,

La prière en mon sein avec l'espoir este morte,
Mais c'est Dieu qui t'écrase, ô mon âme soit forte,

Baise sa main sous la douleur !"

Nothing could better describe the feelings of De Lamartine when I first saw him than those stanzas of his own; and those

mitigation, were their constant companions;

lighted to wander in sylvan scenery, or on the bare and cold mountain, with her father as her guide and her teacher, could no longer ask his aid, or his counsels, and no longer applaud with her smiles or her tears the sweetest efforts of his muse. The landscape, with its varied scenery and multiplied attractions; society, with its excitement and its distractions; solitude, with its pensive thoughts and its self-examination; all appeared before them monotonous and sad, for she was no longer the admirer of the landscape, the charm of society, or the companion of the lonely hour. Books had

her charms for them; since she who de

no delights for them. Pictures, the representations of the past, the present and the future, were without beauty in their eyes; statues and marbles were but dull and lifeless blocks to them, since she who admired and appreciated them all, was now silent and cold as the marbles themselves. Public affairs they would not or could not converse about. They had scarcely a tear to spare for others they had so many to shed for themselves; and though dynasties had been changed, old institutions of the first revolution revived, and a new state of things both moral, political, and religious, had come to life, De Lamartine and his admirable wife were evidently unaffected by the changes, and viewed them all as events with which they had nothing to do-and to which they were indeed bound to remain strangers. He had still in his absence been elected a deputy, and he hoped to perform the duties of his office, but with sorrow and with tears.

How unearthly is the human mind, how pure its breathings, and how bright, or rather, spiritual, are its soarings, when thus brought by calamity, disappointment, and the ravages which death has made on those the soul loves, to view this world as a mere sojourn, life as a rapid journey, a fitful dream, and a day of sunshine and of cloud too speedy in its flight to be remembered; and when God alone seems capable of filling the vast desires of the soul, and the demands of a care-worn, a bereaved, and an empty heart!

epochs most favorable to our moral, intellectual, and religious improvement. It is undoubtedly true that some thought the grief of De Lamartine excessive, whilst the vulgar and the worldly-minded stigmatized it as affected. But his friends only feared that its sincerity and intensity might have such an effect on his future efforts, as to render his poetry morbid or fretful, his character repining and discontented, and thus to withdraw him from those busy scenes of daily life where the force of his eloquence, the strength of his judgment, and the excellence of his example, might improve and bless mankind.

The publication of the Travels of De Lamartine in the East, was a sort of epoch in French modern literature. It seemed like the restoration of Christianity after years. of reproach, calumny, and persecution. For the Revolution of 1830 proclaimed "war against the priests ;" and that, also, 66 meant war against the altar," at which they ministered. The palace of the archbishop had been pillaged; the literature of centuries was thrown into the waters of the Seine as too bad to be preserved, because it was the literature of the church, multitudes of priests had been attacked, insulted, and beaten. The remnant of the old republican party of the last century now hoped to wreak its vengeance on the men and the clergy of the restoration. And, in one word, the goddess of Reason was again spoken of by the followers of Voltaire and Then it is that life's che-Rousseau. But the book of De Lamartine quered day is viewed in its true coloring; came as a voice from the tomb; like fresh that the cavils and the reproaches, the ca- waters rushing to an arid desert; like the lumnies and the misrepresentations of the overflowing of the Nile; like flowers on world, excite only pity and commiseration graves; and beauty, fertility, and verdure, -not amounting to scorn or to anger; and where rankness, poison, and death had the pursuits of life are estimated by their prevailed. Some read his book from a real, not by their imagined worth. Then it love for the wonderful, some for its poetry, is that the high destinies of our future be- others for its apparent romance, and multiing press themselves upon us in all their tudes became enamored once more with a vastness and grandeur; and that we feel all religion, with which were connected the the truthfulness of the declaration, "So glowing recollections of the Holy Land. God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them." This is not the pe-a riod of false sensibility, of affected sentiment, of artificial or of feigned emotion. But such moments as those I have thus referred to in the life of De Lamartine are, when not indulged to such an extent as to become prejudicial to our mind's vigor, usefulness, and future efforts for the good of society, the great halting places in our lives; the summits from which we take a large and expansive view of the world about and around us, and they are the VOL. II. No. II. 16

I know it will be replied that these were not the stern and strong characteristics of truly religious state of public mind and feeling, and that there was much of poetry and imagination bound up with these emotions. This I grant very readily; but it was surely something to give a new direction to minds which were unoccupied with good, and which were busily set on doing evil. It was surely something to assist in checking the blind and mad fury of many for attacking churches, for destroying the ornaments and paintings of the cathedrals, and for razing to the ground all that re