to render reformation hopeless: human nature is debased to its uttermost depth, and the cheering light of Hope extinguished, too often, for ever!—We must, therefore, put out of the question, as a means of reformation, the system of discipline pursued by the Government towards the worst class of offenders. But, taking the system of Prison Discipline in its general and more extended application, we are of opinion, that, with the active and judicious cooperation of the free population, Transportation may be rendered available to the effectual Reformation of the Prisoner; but, that without such co-operation, the system can only be viewed, as a good system of punishment, and not as a means of reformation.

R.

[In looking over the preceding remarks, we find, that our correspondent has failed to consider the prisoner's situation, with reference to his mental sufferings, with the exception of a casual allusion to his state of bondage: with many men, this conviction is a source of bitter affliction, and, of itself, sufficient to nullify the pleasurable effects of the physical comforts he may receive.-ED.]

SONG:

Merry, merry little Stream,

Tell me, hast thou seen my dear?
i left him with an azure dream,
Calmly sleeping on his bier-
But he has filed!

I passed him in his churchyard bed-
A yew is sleeping o'er his head,

And grass roots mingle with his hair.

What doth he there?

O cruel! can he live alone?

Or in the arms of one more dear?

Or hides he in that bower of stone,

To cause and kiss away my fear!

He doth not speak, he doth not moan
Blind, motionless, he lies alone;

But ere the grave-snake flesh'd his sting;
This one warm tear he made me bring,
And lay it at thy feet

Among the daisies sweet.

Moonlight, whisperer, summer air,

Songstress of the groves above,

Tell the maiden rose I wear;

Whether thou hast seen my love.

This night in heaven I saw him lie,
Discontented with his bliss;

And on my lips he left this kiss,
For thee to taste, and then to die'

THE DYING GIRL.

Lay me beside my mother,
Pillow me on her breast,
That she who oft hath sheltered me
May once more shield my rest.
I would not die away from home,
And have a stranger's hand
To make my grave my last sad couch,
In a distant, unloved land.

Lay me beside my mother,

In her cold and silent omb;
And let the flowers I planted there
Above me wave their bloom :
Their chalices of sparkling dew

Shall consecrate the spot

Where she is resting silently

Who soon must be forgot.

Lay me beside my mother:
Together we have known

The lovely structure Hope had reared,
Too sadly overthrown :
Together we have bent in grief,

Together used to weep,

Lay me beside my mother then,

Together let us sleep!

THE HATED ONE.

*K.*

Why any one part of God's creation should be doomed to live separate from its fellow has puzzled my philosophy to discover. He who made all things ordained companionship among them, but the love which should link hearts together, has never fluttered its purple wings over mee-has never connected with its roseate fetters

one soul with mine.

I might not have been so comely as my brother, and thus been less the object of attraction when a child than he; but I have learned that parents should make no distinction between their offspring, and mine did; no pleasure was allowed me; even the children who visited at our house shunned my society; and in all the sports that youngsters love, I was a banished and a banned one. Often have I slunk away from them, and while the merry laugh was echoing in my ears, poured my tears silently and bitterly, unthought of, uncared for.

I grew up. Books were my only solace; still unkindly treated, in spite of every obstacle, I made myself master of several languages, and while I was thus improving and informing my mind, avoiding at the same time every thing by which, coming in contact with my species, I might excite their envy, and increase their dislike, I could win no eye of love, but the countenance of scorn met me at every turn.

One night-years of sorrow have not obliterated that one night from my heart, but like the sea-shells on the mountain-top will ever lie there, to register to memory's latest hour, what has been-I was attracted by the flashes of fire issuing from the lower rooms of a house, so suddenly, and with such fury, as to threaten the instantaneous destruction of the dwelling. On reaching the spot, I found the family had escaped, and were gazing on the conflagration. of their property with feelings of bitter anguish, when a shriek, and an exclamation of intense suffering burst upon my ear.-I was no misanthrope, although the world now deemed me such, and calumniated me for what itself had caused; and when I learned that one was still amid the blazing pile, I rushed boldly through the flames, hurried to the room, and when the smoke cleared away sufficiently to allow me to see, I beheld the sweetest girl my eyes ever rested on. Apparently senseless, she was stretched on her bed, like those of whom we read in fairy tales, transformed to marble, but the heaving breast, throbbing rapidly, yet faintly, beneath the light drapery that veiled it, gave sufficient token of humanity. Supernatural strength, I believe, assisted me, and when I had borne the half-dead beautiful creature through the volumes of smoke and flame which now enwrapt the whole building, and coloured the passing clouds with a lurid tinge, when I bathed her pallid brow in the stream, whose pellucid waters murmured in song hard by; and when her first smile beamed upon her preserver, a look of heart-felt gratitude; fear, hope, and exquisite pleasure passed by turns through my lone and desolate breast.

The latter feeling, that of pleasure was, alas! of short duration. I knew my actions had been misrepresented by my enemies, but it was not until that moment that the whole extent of their calumnies flashed upon me. Then I discovered I had been described as a monster capable of the vilest crimes, as one, whom mankind should shudder at, dread, and abhor. After the first look of thankfulness, and after the first expressions of gratitude from her parents and sisters who crowded around me, I noticed for long-continued slights had made me quick to perceive every change of countenance, and every transition of feeling towards me a desire of parting with my attentions, and from half-uttered sentences which my ever wakeful ears had caught, I found I was doomed to be a shunned, a hated one. Oh! how I have treasured that one look she gave me when she first woke to life and reality, as a desert traveller, amid the Simoom blast, or the sand-storm, will turn with a tearful re.

membrance to the flower-studded and fountained Oasis he has parted with for ever!

Years rolled on-studying by day, and only wandering out at night, my time had been passed. Near my resi deuce was a thickly-wooded forest, to whose cool and sequestered shades I used oftentimes to repair. One evening, it was bitterly cold, the snow lying and freezing on the ground, when taking my accustomed walk, a faint and feeble moan, as if from a person in distress reached me; I sought the spot, and to my astonishment, not unmixed with joy, I found the beautiful being I had rescued from the flames-she, whose one smile of kindness I had hoarded up as a miser would his only jewel-reclining on the earth, apparently in excruciating agony. Again I folded her in my arms, and carried her to my lonely dwelling: my cares soon brought her to a sense of her situation, and I learned from her confession, that guileless as she was, she had listened to the voice of a deceiver, and when the evidence of her shame could no longer be concealed, her parents had disowned her, and driven her from their protection to the jibes and jeers of a world whose charity is but a vapour.

Another glimpse of joy here opened to my view; I tended her with the affection of mother to child, my own hands presented her with her daily food, but a dark foreboding haunted me, and I felt assured the being I had made to love me, would be snatched from my embrace. The same dread flung its sable mantle around her, she smiled not, but often she essayed to do so, that I might not think her ungrateful, and as her time drew on, I clearly perceived it became a greater exertion. Days of watching and confinement exhausted me, and after a lapse of months I took my wonted stroll when I returned, she was lying upon her bed, she pointed to her infant; and while I blessed it for its mother's sake, and vowed to be its protector, her lips which had assumed the expression of speech, murmured audibly to my ears her thanks, and her oppressed spirit threw off its earthly shackles, and bounded away to realms of everlasting light and freedom.

1;

The charge thus committed to me I faithfully kept, and when poor. Amy first could walk alone, and with her sweetly musical voice. call me by my name, or look into my face with her laughing eyes, glistening with joy at some childish trick, how fervently I blessed her for her infant affection, and hope, fear, and love for her arose, within my breast in their widest and most extended sense.

But even the continuance of this was even denied me-my sole pleasure, for her mother had been only like the polar meteor, a ray of evanishing brightness.-A pestilence swept over the country, and my poor pet lamb became a prey to its accursed influence. With anguish unutterable, I watched day by day the ruddy tinge leave. her baby cheek, her frame become emaciated, her little energies fade, convulsion succeed convulsion, until the being, so lately warm with life, sank beneath the shafts of death, and the beautiful,

the holy, and the innocent, became the tenant of the narrow sepulchre.

Years have passed away. I have visited Iceland with its boiling springs and its snow-clad mountains-I have wandered through the Tropical climates, with their fevers, their deserts, and their EdensI have hung a garland on the tomb of Petrarch, at Arcquâ, and felt my spirit glow with fervour before the monument of the illustrious Washington-I have mixed with society in civilized and in savage life, but yet my object, the winning the love of one, hath never been attained. Like the prisoner of Chillon, I have viewed my few pleasures fade, and the light of love forgets but in solitary gleams, to break through the darkness of my lonely chamber.

Once I was in Greece. The red flush around the horizon announced the close of a sultry day, and as I folded myself to rest within the Temple of Theseus, reposing my head upon a fragment of one of its decayed Doric columns, a rustle behind me gave me some little alarm. Starting to my feet, I discovered a figure, upon whose brow was stamped a majesty and beauty worthy the descendant of the ancient Hellenes, although grief was depictured there also. He was one of those who mourned among her ruined fanes and once sacred groves, the faded glory of Greece, and the slavery to which she has been subjected for so many centuries: often had he breathed a vow for her rescue, and a reproach for the apathy of her children. Loving as I did the songs of her poets, and the pages of her historians; revering also the memories of her patriots and warriors, it was impossible for me not to enter into his feelings, and to fire with enthusiasm at his description of his oppressed brethren. There, with nought above us but the silent heavens, and the thousand stars of light which studded their cerulean canopy; with nought around us but the mouldering edifices, the splendid trophies of the arts and sciences of former days; with nought below us but the ground on which trod anciently the feet of heroes; we swore companionship through life. But the scarcelytasted cup was dashed in bitterness from my lips-a struggle in the cause of Freedom took place with the followers of the Crescent; and the newly-won partner of my sorrows was the first to fall beneath the sword of his country's oppressors.

I had heard of a new clime. There, thought I, perchance I shall obtain my quest, for which, in imitation of the days of Arthur's chivalry, I have roamed the earth through: and to the mountains of Tasmania my weary steps were bent. Before the more than barbarian cruelties of my misnamed civilized nation had implanted enmity in the breasts of the houseless tribes which inhabited this beautiful Island, I had found a home among them, and from the advantages which my knowledge gave me, I was deemed a god by the ignorant people. I gave them all that a wandering outcast could give, and bestowed upon them the blessings of tuition in the simple as of life. I had brought with me seeds and roots, and