despondency in her adversity. If, then, her character be perfect, we must call it (as we before called it), humanly perfect. JACK KETCH, Worn down with age and sin, In words like these---" There's no reprief--- To lanterns dark and picklock keys, And if you've time, like me, repent--- I've sold you bargains at prime cost, For my poor carcase, when I'm gone. He might have liv'd in ease and fame, ACCOUNT OF THE FRANCISCAN CONVENT IN THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA. FUNCHAL, the capital of the island of Madeira, like other towns and cities of Roman Catholic countries, has no scarcity of churches and convents; but we met with little in any of them that could be considered as deserving of particular notice. The beams. and the roof of the cathedral are pointed out to strangers as being of cedar, a species of tree with which it is said the island was, at its discovery, nearly covered. Another curiosity which is shewn in the town, is a chamber in one of the wings of the Franciscan convent, the walls and ceiling of which are completely covered with rows of human skulls and human thigh-bones, so arranged, that in the obtuse angle made by every pair of the latter, crossing each other obliquely, is placed a skull. The only vacant space that appears is in the centre of the side opposite to the door, on which there is an extraordinary painting above a kind of altar, but what the subject is intended to represent, I am really at a loss to decide. A figure in the picture, intended probably for St. Francis, the patron saint, seems to be intent on trying in a balance the comparative weight of a sinner and a saint. A dirty lamp suspended from the ceiling, and just glimmering in the socket, served dimly to light up this dismal den of skulls. The old monk who attended as showman, was very careful to impress us with the idea that they were all relics of holy men who had died on the island; but I suspect they must occasionally have robbed the church-yard of a few lay-brethren, and perhaps now and then of a heretic (as strangers are interred in the burying-ground), in order to accumulate such a prodigious number, which, on a rough computation, I should suppose to amount to three thousand. The skull of one of the holy brotherhood was pointed out as having a locked jaw, which occasioned his death; and from the garrulity of our attendant, I have no doubt, we might have heard the history of many more equally important, which, though thrown away upon us who had no taste in craniology, would, in all probability, have been highly interesting to Doctor Gall, the famous lecturer on skulls in Vienna. On taking leave, we deposited our mite on the altar, as charity to the convent, which seems to be the principal object in view, of coìlecting and exhibiting this memento mori of the monastic and mendicant order of St. Francis. THE WAY TO BE HAPPY; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF JACK EASY. But Hudibras, who scorn'd to stoop To Fortune, or be said to droop, AMONG the happy people in the world, are those, in whose minds nature, or philosophy, has placed a kind of acid, with which care or disappointment will not easily mix. This acid differs very much from ill nature; it is rather a kind of salt, expressed from frequent observations on the folly, the vanity, and the uncertainty of human events; from that best of all philosophy, which teaches us to take men as we find them, and circumstances as they occur, good or bad, for better or for worse; that dwells not on future prospects, reflects not on past troubles, and cares not a fig for present difficulties, but dextrously turns them either to ridicule or advantage; snatching, at every opportunity, accidental pleasures, and nobly bearing up against the rubs of ill-fortune. When reflections upon the troubles of life are mixed up in a disposition naturally ill-tempered, they compose what is called melancholy; but as they have no chemical affinity with good humour, they will not easily combine; and the small particles that are miscible, produce only the sweet and acid salt of true philosophy. Such a traveller, in his journey through the world, was my honest friend JACK EASY. Jack came to a good fortune at the death of his father, and mounted his hobby without its ever having been properly broken in; he gallopped over the plains of Fancy, went off in a full canter to the road of Dissipation, and leaped over all the five-barred gates of Advice and Discretion. It may naturally be supposed, that before long his filly gave him a fall: poor Jack came down sure enough; but he only shook himself, brushed off the dirt of the road, and mounted again in as high spirits as ever; excepting, that he now began to sit firmer in the saddle, and to look about him this, however, did not hinder him from getting into a swamp called a Law-Suit, where he : |