THE WOODMAN'S WIDOW.. Pinched are her looks, as one who pines for bread, CRABBE. THERE are too many persons living in the world more apt to fix their attention upon the summit of the pyramid, on which the sun always shines, than to mark the wretchedness or the corruption that dwells or festers around its base. Misery is the antipodes of splendour in more respects than one. In the great drama of existence, feelings, the reverse in their character, as well as in the mode of their operation, find out different scenes for the enactment of their respective parts. Splendour, crowned with blooming wreaths and decked with gems and gold, sweeps past in all its gorgeous array, drawing after it the gaze of wonder, the shout of applause, and the rebellious turbulence of popular approbation. Misery, clothed in rags, or wrapt in the tattered garments of want and beggary, avoiding the public gaze, slinks into obscure nooks and corners, the low-roofed hut, weather-beaten and dilapidated, or the roofless hovel, tempest-scowled and rainflooded. Let us then go forth. The storm, which lately shook the heart with fear and wonder, is past and gone. The mighty army of clouds, mass upon mass, is hurrying away in the far distance; and the dread artillery of heaven is only faintly heard. The sky above is without a cloud; and the air is calm and serene, as the evening is stealing onwards with noiseless footsteps. The more level beams of the sun seem to shine with increased splendour, as they light up the harmonious scene. The woods, arrayed in all their thousand tints-an ocean of foliage -have rocked themselves to rest; and branch and leaf are hung with innumerable gems, sparkling in the evening's golden beam. Let us linger along the immemorial foot-path that skirts the margin of the wood which climbs the higher ground, sweeps through the adjacent valley, and crowns the highest peak far, far beyond. Behold! what drooping female form is that whose footsteps, struggling beneath the weight of age, are bent hitherward? It is the Woodman's Widow. A bundle of sticks is placed upon her head, crushing her clean, but ribbonless cap; and her right hand grasps a stout staff to support her weary frame. A tattered straw bonnet is slung on her left arm, which steadies her burden; and on her drooping shoulders is hung a faded black shawl, extending partly over a gown of the same hue, which has seen better days, as if there had been a struggle between the wear and tear of the material and the strength of the affection which clung to the retention of even the mournful rag. Seventy summers have rolled their course along, and brought change after change; and seventy winters have scattered their snows upon her head, and bowed her once upright frame. She was the mother of many children; but some have gone down to the grave, and others have sought. far-distant homes. During the life-time of her faithful partner, they occupied a small neat dwelling perched on a delightful little eminence, immediately adjoining, yet overlooking the wood, the scene of his hardy labours. She was then the most cheerful of the cheerful, kindly disposed to the stranger, a helper of the needy, a pitier of the stricken and the distressed. At that time, her spirits gushed as bright as the well at the bottom of her own garden. Her days were as placid as a summer lake; and her heart leaped with joy, like the merry brook stream of the adjacent wood. Since the commencement of the period of her widowhood, she occupied a small cottage situated in the village hard by; and her old favourite residence was haunted with the presence of the stranger who knew her not. Cast upon the wide world, at the decline of her day, without a home and without a friend, she has plodded her way, through more sorrow and suffering than fall to the lot of the generality of persons that move in her humble sphere of life, grappling with the demons of want and misery, yet possessing a somewhat still cheerful and elastic tone of mind, which, allied to strong common sense and to a peculiar bluntness of manner, have carried her through, but neither diminished her sufferings, nor added, as is invariably the case, to the number of her friends. Indeed, the name of ELLEN ASPEN was well known to all the country around. Yet the remembrance of brighter days would, at times, cloud her memory; and the tears would chase each other over her furrowed cheek. Yet was she possessed of an independent spirit and so far from entertaining the desire of being troublesome to any one, parish or individual; so far from courting the hand of charity by the whine of misery or destitution; so far from claiming pity by a recital of wrongs, however deep, or of sufferings, however painful, she laboured with her own hands to supply her own wants, which were easily satisfied, and to augment her comforts, which were not required to be numerous. She was employed in the labours of the field, when her exertions were required by the neighbouring cultivators of the soil; and she filled up her vacant time by gathering water-cresses from the running brooks, seeking for mushrooms in the open pastures, and morels through the neighbouring woods, or, failing these, gathering sticks for her humble fire. Her cottage was scantily furnished; but cleanly withal. A geranium or two ornamented her lowly window; and the wall-flower, and the woodbine, and the rose, refused not to shed their perfume, beneath the care of her own hand, in her scanty garden, heedless, as it were, that |