news we received was that of the colonel's death. I cannot pause here.-I cannot tell how that pure, noble, and devoted creature, his wife, roused every energy of her spirit and of her religion to bear the blow, and to live for her children. She did not live long,-and while my heart was prostrated to the dust by this crowning affliction of my life, my husband returned-returned hardened and brutalized in manner, and in principle, by his foreign sojourn. Why should I proceed? I have nothing more to relate but darkness and decay.

"My protectress had left me a generous annuity—a simple, but sufficient provision for life, but it was regularly seized and squandered in riot; and, after much resistance on my part, and barbarity on his, I was compelled to follow him in his miserable career. He had received his discharge from the army, and had connected himself with some strolling people. I cannot bear to relate the life of degradation I was compelled to witness and to suffer. I cannot paint all the scenes and schemes of imposition and fraud into which I was successively dragged. It is enough, that I was one of a company of fire-eaters, of Indian jugglers, of giants and dwarfs, of endless changes and speculations equally despicable. Alas! how often, as I have entered a town, weary, dejected, and

heart-sick, and have beheld the bright windows of warm, happy homes, illuminating the twilight streets, I have pictured to myself the happiness, the knowledge, the loving fellowship, which filled them; and lamented that I was not even the lowest servant in one of them. But it might not be; and the very beings I aspired to love, and to be loved, would, could they have seen me in my wretched habit, and wretched company, have turned from me with contempt. But the course is run. I am now approaching that glorious country, where mind and love are the substance of existence. My track has been miserable; but I know it has not been in vain. My proud heart has been broken, and softened, and subdued; and I would not relinquish the blessed gift of soul, which has led me to pant after alliance with intellectual beauty, 'as the hart panteth after the water brooks,' were it to be purchased by a ten-fold fiery ordeal!"

THE TWO SQUIRES.

It was on a pleasant May morning that a gallant gentleman, Dauncey Dauncey, Esq., rode forth from his ancestral hall, and across his noble ancestral estate, on a steed which, now that horseflesh, like other commodities, has acquired a tolerable price, might, by a knowing eye, be valued at some five hundred pounds. He was followed only by one servant, mounted, as an ignorant spectator might deem, much better than his master, having said master's great coat duly belted at his back, and beneath him a capacious pair of saddle-bags,thus indicating according to the simple mode of the times, before carriages were so common, or ever M'Adam was born for the civilization of

roads—that he was bound on a considerable journey. Mr. Dauncey was, indeed, “a squire of high degree:" not such an one as might possibly be found even in this day, and in more places than one, did we deem the quest profitable, who have indeed ceased" to handle the plough or the goad," but "whose talk is of bullocks;" but he might have presented a goodly image of a knight of the golden age of chivalry,—as handsome in person, as gallant in bearing, as bold in heart, as Arthur Pendragon himself, had it not been that, although full of lofty speculations and generous thoughts, he had no decided relish for the shock of horses, the crash of spears, or the shouting of idle people, but had much rather see a young grove of trees flourishing in the sunshine, horses bearing home the harvest, or a group of merry peasants dancing under an oak. An education of that solid and venerable splendour which then only bore the name of learning, and which then, indeed, was seldom acquired except by those ambitious of climbing high in church or State, had opened and elicited the full strength and glow of a truly noble spirit, crowning it with a dignity disdainful of everything mean, and touching it with aspirations after a thousand good deeds to his fellow-men.

He rode on, past many a substantial farm-house and snug cottage, from which came forth venerable

age, manly and womanly youth, and troops of smiling children, with bows and curtsies, and "God speed you, Sirs," and eyes that followed, till the next turn of the road hid the beloved master, who was leaving them for the mighty space of a few months. He rode on, over the open heath, fragrant with the golden-flowered furze; down the deep lane overhung with hawthorn, bending its boughs beneath their loads of snowy bloom; through woods where the clear waters ran sparkling across his path, and the sun cast his flickering beams on the stems of gigantic oaks, now clad in their fresh amber foliage, and filled with a clamour of rejoicing birds. He had a heart to feel all the beauty and gladness around him; and, as he issued from beneath the covert of the trees, on the brow of the next hill, and cast back his gaze on the wide, wooded, and beautiful track, all his own, and upon the fine old mansion, showing its manifold gables and peaked roofs in the midst, he inly exclaimed, “ Thanks be to Him who has meted me so goodly a portion! But one thing wantest thou, fair scene, to match thee with the fairest throughout merry England; and it shall go hard but this crowning charm is thine ere another winter darken thy fields, and brighten the happy hearths within thee." He turned his horse, and rode smartly on;-and God's blessing

VOL. II.

M