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LETTER TO MR. BENNETT.

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yourself; but without assigning one of the ninety-nine reasons which cut off the probability, not to say possibility, of visiting Hackney this year (and in the whole calendar of time there is no year but this, since the past have been, and the future are not), I can only accept the invitation in my heart, and hope to enjoy the pleasure of it in the spirit, should I be spared to see the swallows and hear the cuckoo again. I am under an engagement to visit Bristol for a few days in May on a missionary anniversary, and again in October, for a fortnight, to deliver my lectures there on the 'British Poets.' My spirits have been and continue too much depressed by personal troubles, as well as by late domestic afflictions, to allow me to look beyond the morrow (with the exceptions afore-mentioned); and daily mercies alone enable me to go softly on my way of life, as one with whom the end of, all things is at hand, and who has needed to be sober and watchful unto prayer, lest, after all the long-suffering and loving-kindness of God my Saviour towards me, I be at last a castaway. At Hull several friends (especially Mr. James Bowden and his family connections) inquired very kindly after you. I am obliged by your extract from Lesche's 'Polar Discoveries,' because it shows how kindly attentive you are to my credit as an author. I have not seen the publication, but I am sufficiently acquainted both with the northern histories and traditions respecting East Greenland to know that it is dif ficult to distinguish fact from fable in them, and to make both bend to my purpose as a rhymer. Cottle's 'Recollections of Coleridge' I read with peculiar interest, having had personal acquaintance with the biographer, and no ordinary feeling of curiosity to learn more of the actual character of the most mysterious of the master spirits of our age, as influencing its literature. Lockhart's 'Memoirs

of Walter Scott' at present absorb my whole soul in reading them volume by volume. His history is more intensely attractive to my mind, and in itself even more marvellous, than any of his fictions either in verse or prose.”

CHAPTER XVI.

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VICTORIA ON THE BRITISH THRONE-REJOICINGS AT SHEFFIELD-APPEAL FOR THE POOR-LETTER TO A FAR WEST COLLEGE-AT BRISTOL LECTURING TOUR-CENTENARY OF METHODISM-REV. WILLIAM JAY'S JUBILEE-DEATH OF IGNATIUS MONTGOMERY.

A YOUTHFUL Sovereign ascended the British throne in 1838, a maiden queen, before whom all hearts in the realm bowed in loyal homage. Never were coronation festivities celebrated with more hearty and universal cordiality. Processions, illuminations, dinners, suppers, balls, soirees, animated old England, with less of the bacchanalian jollity of the olden time, and more of the rational, genuine enjoyment, becoming a higher tone of national intelligence and morality.

Sheffield was not behind its sister cities in the expressions of the day. Beside the salutes and decorations which heralded and adorned the occasion, a public soiree was held at Cutler's Hall, at which Montgomery was invited to contribute by his presence and his pen. On the afternoon of the 28th of June, four hundred gentlemen and ladies of every shade of religious opinion sat down to table, at which the venerable poet presided, with Miss Sarah Gales on one side, and a beautiful niece on the other.

Tea being over, he arose and addressed the meeting in a tone of remark befitting a gallant, Christian gentleman:

"Her Majesty," he said, in closing, "the first of a line of sovereigns since a maiden Queen filled the throne, has succeeded to an empire on the face of which, between the rising and setting sun, there exists not one slave among the hundred and twenty millions of her subjects; for whatever tyranny may be exercised under the name of apprenticeship in the West Indies, every man, woman, and child in those islands, by law as well as by equity, is free. My heart's desire and prayer is that the reign of Victoria may be rendered more illustrious than that of any one of her predecessors in their day, by being a reign of mercy, a reign of peace; so that wherever the ensigns of her authority appear, they may be the pledges of her benignity, not to her subjects alone, but to all kindreds and nations with whom she is in concord."

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In the course of the evening, the spirited ode Sceptre in a Maiden Hand," was sung by the choir to the air of "Rule Britannia," which was received with rapturous applause.

While these festivities were enlivening the higher, the poet was not unmindful of humbler circles. Accordingly he wrote and circulated the following appeal:

"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing may be lost.

"So said our Saviour after he had fed five thousand men in the wilderness with five barley loaves and two small fishes, and so will all his followers do whenever they have opportunity. Tens of thousands of our townspeople will be feasted by their friends, their employers, or from their own abundance, on the coronation day of our most gra

APPEAL FOR THE POOR.

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them for whom

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cious sovereign Victoria. Let it then be indeed a good day,' 'a day of feasting and joy, and of sending portions to one another, and gifts to the poor.' (Esther, ix. 17–20). Among the latter, let us not forget the poorest of the poor, —the old, infirm, and desolate of that sex to which our young and lovely Queen belongs; and while we eat the fat and drink the sweet,' let us send portions unto nothing is prepared.' (Nehemiah, viii. 9.) the Aged Female Society purpose on the day after the coronation (Friday, the 29th instant) to invite the venerable objects of this benevolent institution to take tea with them (by favor of the master cutler) at the Cutler's Hall; that these - the youngest of whom is more than thrice, and the greater number four times the age of her Majesty — may have a day of humble feasting and as hearty gladness as the youngest and strongest of those on whom Providence has bestowed gifts more abounding. Let such then but contribute the value of the crumbs that fall from their wellspread tables on that day of universal hospitality, and their mites cast into the treasury will be sufficient to furnish 'the widow and her who has none to help her,' with an evening's entertainment which will be remembered with gratitude to the last evening of her long and suffering life. The funds of the charity are so limited, that less than fourpence per week is all that can be afforded, on the average, to each of its poor objects. It cannot, however, be doubted, that the compassionate liberality of its well-wishers will enable the ladies of the committee to make three hundred old hearts happy, at a season when millions of all ages and conditions throughout the British Empire will be rejoicing together."

This appeal was not in vain. About twenty pounds were collected, and a bouncing bottle of Jamaica rum, which had

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