its dews: "Come, mother," said the little girl, shivering with cold, "let us go home ;-father is there by this, I dare say;—and we will all sit by the fire, and dry our clothes;—I am so wet;-and baby's wet too, mother, come, let's run, Jemmy, and get there first."

At the voice of her child she started, her thoughts had been on the dark waves, and vied with them in wildness; she found, for the first time, that they were indeed wet; for as night and increasing distance shut the little vessel from her view, she had insensibly drawn nearer and nearer to the shore, till she could trace it no longer, she now turned towards home, occasionally stopping and looking wistfully round; strained her eyes to see, and ears to hear, something of him who had been the joy of her heart, with whom she had rejoiced in prosperity, and on whom she had leaned in sorrow.

On her arrival at home, her children were waiting for her; she had sometimes left it to meet him with a sorrowing heart, but never till now had she returned uncomforted, because she had never before returned without him. Her humble fire-side appeared cheerless and dull, like the countenance of the dead, wanting the soul that animated it. "Alas!" said she, seating herself before the turf fire, which the boy was assiduously blowing, "alas! what hardships my poor husband endures, even at this moment; whilst I am seated at ease with his own dear innocents smiling round me, he is battling with the foaming waves, or haply sinking in their briny bosom,"

her face was pale, a tear rolled down her cheek, and heaving a deep sigh, she raised her eyes to heaven, and ejaculated with almost delirious fervour, "Oh! spare-spare himor we must all perish."

After having put her children to bed, she gave them each the nightly maternal kiss, but not in smiles as she was wont-it was bedewed with tears, as she thought on their wretched father. From the roar of the waves which was heard like distant thunder, and the increasing fierceness of the wind, as it whistled through the crevices of her lowly dwelling, it was evident that the storm grew more furious; she arose, Eur. Mag. Vol. 82.

and opening the door, stood listening; not a star shot forth its silvery ray to enliven the mariner with the whisperings of hope; no sound was heard, save the dread concussion of elemental strife, or the remorseless dash of billows; sometimes she fancied she could hear an approaching footstep; but it was all a deception, and at length she closed the door in the bitterness of despair. The thought suggested itself,-he might have sheltered in some of the neighbouring creeks,—but as morning approached, and James came not, these hopes gradually died away. -Once indeed she imagined she heard him at the door, she sprang to open it; and a neighbouring fisherman presented himself;-he was a dark looking and surly fellow, who had always been viewed by Lucy with an eye of fear mingled with disgust; as she understood he was connected with some smugglers that frequented the coast, and she trembled lest he might persuade James to join in their illegal and dangerous traffic. He said he was just come to ask if James was come home; she answered in a low and feeling negative.

In his rough uncultivated manner he endeavoured to cheer her;—but there was a degree of coarseness and brutality in his manner, that made Lucy involuntarily shudder. One circumstance he mentioned which encouraged her to hope all was well.

Mayhap," said he, "he's now gone to Davy's, after all-one o' th' boats is snugly riding in St. Anthony's creek;" she clasped him by the arm in an extasy of delight, and was about to ask him to step in, when he continued,---" And what if he is drowned-and that's the worst, you know---ye'll stand a rare chance to better yourself. I've had some thoughts about you myself---you're passable enough, and you've gotten a pratty pair of eyes of your own, and a nice soft rosy cheek, I'll warrant." He was about to place his brawny arm round her neck, when she stepped back, and dashed the door in his face; the unfeeling brute, after having endeavoured to open it in vain, muttering his deadly curses, slowly retired, and the last sound of his foot-fall was soon mingled and lost in the roar of the tempest, As

D

day advanced, the storm abated, and Lucy stepped to the shore she sought each crevice for him, but in vain; and not a single object greeted her eye on the dark waste of billows, that could lend the least light whereby to guess at his fate. "Haply," thought she, as she watched their unquiet heaving, "he has been swallowed up in your greedy bosom." At times she thought she could discern something at a distance floating on the waters; but it was too remote, and the glimpses she caught of it too faint to enable her to distinguish whether it was a piece of wreck, or one of those clumps of sea-weed, that having been severed from the rock where they grew by the fury of the waves, are often seen floating about after a storm.

The wind continued gradually to abate, but the face of the ocean, as far as eye could reach, presented but one dreary forest of waves. She returned once more to her hut with less of hope, and gloomier fears. After having dressed her smiling in nocents, and partaken their frugal but melancholy breakfast, the affectionate family sallied forth to the beach there was now only a moderate breeze, but the billows were still rolling darkly and tumultuously; after searching for some time, the little boy espied something the retiring tide had left on the shore close by the church-yard;---they hastened to the spot; it was a sail severed from the mast, apparently belong ing to some small lug sail boat. As they drew near, Lucy perceived a dead body attached to it ;---the feet were all that was visible, the sail covering the head and neck ;---she ran; ---she knelt down beside it; ---and with her right hand, gradually uncovered the neck ;---it was bare, and the unbuttoned shirt collar lay carelessly open; one arm was stretched out, and the other formed a pillow for the head, which heeded it not ;--could it be James ?---she gazed wildly around, her eyes appeared starting from their sockets;-her heart sickened ;---she could proceed no further, but turning away her head, looked intensely on the invidious wave ;--meanwhile the officious little girl had drawn the sail wholly aside;--shivering with acutest agony, she again turned her head, and was

outstretching her hand to complete the dreadful task, it touched the marble cheek, her eye at the same time resting on the fine, but faded features of her adored James, which her child, unconscious of the awful truth, was in the act of kissing. She fetched a deep and mournful sigh, and fell senseless on the corpse: from that time her mind became a ruin and a wreck. On her revival to life, her mental powers were deranged; she laughed, she wept, she talked incoherently,-but oftentimes kindly and affectionately: like an instrument out of tune, there was something sweet even in her ravings;-each future ill of life fell on her heart like dew on the adamantine rock, leaving no trace behind-there were ideas, but they were disunited and broken;-there was imagination, but it was lawless and unreined ;---there were thoughts, but they were wild and wandering: thenceforth her mind became like a comet in its flight, rolling unchecked through the eternity of space. Her children were orphans ;---during her lifetime, one only feeling gleamed through the darkness of delirium that enveloped her ;---it was maternal love--she still pressed her helpless infant to her bosom with the tenderest care---when it wept, she soothed it; when it slumbered, she watched it; when it smiled, she kissed it--night and day became the same to her; and all objects, all sights, all sounds, were alike unheeded, or only noticed with a heartless smile.

She would sometimes start distractedly, and exclaim, "There--there--the waves have got him ;--they sweep--they roll---they burst over his head ;---save---save---oh! save him:"---and then with a loud laugh fall exhausted on the ground. The day arrived when they were to consign the last remains of the departed and lamented James to the parent earth. He was borne from the pretty cottage, once the abode of happiness and content, now of death, orphanage, and delirium she saw him laid in the grave, hard by the spot where his body was first discovered, but she was wholly unconcerned: her look was vacancy, and her every action bespoke her a lunatic :---her children sobbed bitterly as they saw

ཝཱ, ཙྭ

THE ease and expedition of travelling in this country have long been a source of domestic benefit, and a theme of foreign admiration. In particular, the appointments of our mail coaches excite the attention of every stranger, who is astonished and delighted at the precision, rapidity, and safety, with which he finds himself, by their agency, transported from one extremity of the island to the other.

But for those, also, whose journeys are of a more limited nature, extraordinary facilities have of late years been provided. Among the numerous conveniences with which the metropolis now abounds, there are few of less questionable utility than the short stages, as they are called, which maintain an hourly communication with the neighbouring villages. The number of these vehicles is almost incredible. At one house alone, bearing the elegant name of "The Goose and the Gridiron," above two hundred arrive, and, of course, from the same place as many depart, daily.

The accommodation thus afforded to the public at large, is great; and to several extensive and highly valuable classes of the community it has become indispensible. Clerks in public offices, and the second and third ranks of the mercantile and professional world, who cannot afford to keep their own carriages, or even to incur the regularly returning expense of a hackney chariot, are nevertheless enabled, by means of these humble and cheap conveyances, to enjoy the health and comfort of a country residence. A century or two ago, most of the predecessors of such individuals were compelled, with their families, to live in the City; and to the closeness with which they were packed, the impure air which they constantly breathed, and their want of due exercise, was probably attributable that general dwarfishness of stature, of which the Westend wits of former days availed themselves so unsparingly in their

jokes upon cockneys. A very fa vourable alteration has, however, taken place in that respect. It is no longer usual to transact business after four or five o'clock. About that hour, persons are to be seen hastening from all quarters, to the back of the Royal Exchange, to Gracechurch-street, to St. Paul's Church-yard, to Charing-cross, or to the White-horse Cellar, thence to be trundled down to a late dinner at Homerton, Blackheath, Hampstead, Clapham, or Hammersmith, and to forget, in the evening blaze of their own fire-side, the various anxieties by which, perhaps, the earlier part of their day has been clouded. It has often been our boast, that a word synonimous to "home" is not to be discovered in any other language than English; and that the social pleasures, the recollection of which is inseparably connected with that endearing expression in the minds of most Englishmen, are no where relished with so much cordiality and glee as in England. How deeply, then, are we indebted to a contrivance, by which the value of home, to those who have one, is so materially enhanced.

Although circumstances do not render the advantage, which I have described, so important to myself as to thousands of my more happy fellow-citizens; although no lovely wife and prattling children bustle to prepare me for my morning departure, or hurry to welcome me on my evening return; although I seem