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undoubted form, she sunk into mortified silence, and Fanny felt even worse than her mother, and for reasons that lay nearer her heart.

In a little while the bride took her old place in society, and many who, in her seclusion, passed her coldly, or all unnoticed, met her now with smiles and with congratulations. Of all the changes that followed as a consequence of her marriage, there was none that filled her with so much delight as the improved prospects of her uncle, Mr. Hartman. Her husband became his fast friend, and sustained him through every difficulty. One home held them both. How purely and brightly the stream of Jessie's happiness flowed on, need not be told. Virtue and integrity had met their just reward. In adversity she was not cast down; and when prosperity again smiled she was not unduly elated. In either relation to society, she was a dispenser

of blessings to those she loved.

It is a fact worthy of notice, that those who looked down upon Jessie, and passed her unnoticed while she was only a governess, now referred to the noble, self-sacrificing spirit that prompted her to act as she had done, and spoke of her conduct with admiration.

Aphorisms.

SELECTED FROM THE WORKS OF JOHN ROBINSON.

HE that giveth or doeth good readily, giveth twice; he scarce once or at all that doth it slackly: he rather, in truth, suffers a good turn to be drawn from him. Living springs send out streams of water; dead pits must have all that they afford drawn out with buckets. We should therefore have the mind, though we want the ability, of Theodosius the emperor, who did much good upon request, but none of his own accord and unasked; and so meet, as one saith, a just request in the teeth, and grant it before it be made, as God many times doth ours. Above all, beware of that agueish goodness, which comes by fits only, and when men are pleased, for so, they say, the devil is good.

He that hath not all Christian graces in their measure hath none; and he that hath any one truly, hath all. For as in the first birth the whole person is born, so is it in the work of regeneration, the whole person is born again, though not wholly.

Neither, indeed, can we be safe from being drawn away from God otherwise than by continual drawing near to him. For, our way to heaven is up a hill, and we drag a cart-load of our corruptions after us, which, except we keep going, will pull us backward, ere we be aware.

Religion is the best thing and the corruption of it the worst; neither hath greater mischief and villany ever been found amongst men, Jews, Gentiles, or Christians, than that which hath marched under the flag of religion, either intended by the seduced, or pretended by the hypocrites. God is not pleased with good intentions exercised in evil actions; much less either pleased, or deceived with the vizards of impiety and inhumanity; but as he will repay unto the wicked according to their evil works of all kinds; so will he render double vengeance unto them, who, under the livery of religion, seek countenance for impiety and wickedness.

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'And in the garden (there was) a sepulchre.'-John xix. 41.

Nor only when Death is our fondest hope blighting,
Are we summoned to think of our own certain doom;
There's no vision so gay, and no scene so inviting,

But there's something which silently points to the tomb!

In life's crowded way, children's voices behind us
Seem to hurry us on with the turbulent wave;
And the white hair of some should not fail to remind us
How far they've advanced in the march to the grave.

When the sun quits the sky, though it may be in splendour,
We should think of the time when our day will be gone;
Whilst the darkening landscape that mourns his surrender
Is the sign of a darker night hastening on.

E'en the town with its glittering spires presages

Our doom, nor can we the warning distrust;

For they stand in their pride, and have stood for ages,

Whilst the hands that upreared them have crumbled to dust!

The Spring also warns, by the gifts it doth bear us,
That man, like the flower, must blossom and die;

That disease, like a bleak hostile wind, will not spare us;
That old age, like the chill frost of winter, is nigh.

Let not pleasure and mirth our spirits so harden,
That we mark not the tokens of death which abound,
And which, like a grave in a fresh-budding garden,
Look so dark 'mid the light and the beauty around.

But why should the grave be a sad expectation?
Though the careless see nothing but horror and gloom,
Yet the thoughtful may gaze with a glad resignation,
For Christ by his presence hath hallowed the tomb!

To die is to sleep! and the Christian shall waken
To rejoice in a lasting and more brilliant day,
To inherit a bliss which can never be shaken,

Where sorrow and sighing shall flee far away.

Let the grave then be dug where sweet flowers allure us!
Which tell when the reign of the winter is o'er;

Sweet flowers! which cach blossoming spring may assure us
That the winter of death shall soon be no more!

Univ. Coll., Lond.

F. L.

Alonthly Retrospert.

THE office of the journalist, we have sometimes thought, resembles that of the delicate artist who takes portraits by the solar beams. The photogra pher has but to prepare his material and adjust his apparatus-the sun strikes the image on the silvered surface with a fidelity the pencil cannot attain. So, the chronicler of current events does best his work when he permits them to paint themselves, in due proportion, on his page.

To-day we spread once more this narrow sheet, and turn it towards the social firmament-instantly the invisible finger writes, in colossal, sombre characters, that the typographer can faintly imitate,

Death of the Duke of Wellington.

On the morning of Tuesday, the 14th of September-(we must repeat the story, though it will soon be known widely as the English tongue)—the Duke's servant went to rouse his venerable master, at the usual early hour, from the hardy couch on which he slept. The old man refused to rise, and desired that an apothecary might be sent for. The medical gentleman quickly attended, and found no symptoms of death. An hour or two later speechlessness and insensibility seized the Duke. Twice or thrice he regained consciousness, but not speech; and finally sank beneath the stroke that had missed him in a hundred fields of death, and had been evaded to the eightyfourth year of his age.

Universal was the sensation created by the announcement of an event thus sudden, though long anticipated. The Queen, it is announced by the First Minister of the Crown, received the intelligence with profound grief. Perhaps none but those in immediate contact with, or close relationship to, the illustrious deceased, can be said with sincerity to have experienced deep emotion. For it is one of the privileges of old age to excite, at its extinction, only chastened and decorous sorrow. To the public, the Duke was the most eminent of living men - an object of unbounded pride and gratitude. But his glory was a reflection from the past-his services were believed to have ended. The news of his death, therefore, unlike that of Sir Robert Peel, did not strike with consternation and grief-as at the falling of a pillar of the state, the irreparable loss of a private friend. The Duke's services were inestimable, but they were remote-Peel's were but just rendered; himself was suffering, Prometheus-like, for the boon he had won for his country; and the blessings he had bestowed were in every hand. Nevertheless, more honourable to the departed than his countless titles, his galaxy of decorations, his statues, palaces, and vast estate, is the effect of the announcement of his decease. The expression of feeling is everywhere the same-not, as we have said, bewildering surprise or poignant grief; but kindly regret, and anxiety to do the highest honour to his ashes. In commanding a public funeral, at St. Paul's cathedral, the Queen has but anticipated the wishes of the whole community.

Very remarkable is the unanimity of opinion on the character and career

6

of the Duke and very illustrative of the secrets of popularity. A vast amount of thoughtful and eloquent writing has been expended within the past fortnight upon this theme, but very slight is the diversity of judgment. The eminently practical character of his intellect is universally remarked as at once the strength and defect of the whole man. Clear-sighted, but not far-looking-intent upon the completion of the thing immediately before him, without much thought of the next-inflexible in the execution of independent resolutions, but readily adapting himself to unforeseen circumstances he did to perfection the work of a soldier, and of a ruler so long as men were content merely to be ruled. It was in applying the maxims of the camp to a world of discordant opinions and antagonistic interests that he failed. But, even then, his native humanity and good sense came to the rescue. His heart revolted from settling by the sword conflicts of opinion, as soon as his understanding perceived that it was only opinions that were in conflict. In military and civil life alike, the motive power of his deeds was the selfsame-not ambition nor vanity, not theories or speculations, but simple loyalty. The service of his Majesty'-the 'conduct of the Queen's Government'-were the considerations which overruled in an instant every rebellious instinct, every factious prompting. But his loyalty was not the chivalrous fidelity of personal attachment to a sovereign or a dynasty—or not that alone. It was the synonyme of duty-of obedience to the public authority-of devotion to his country's weal. When the sovereign superseded him at Lisbon, two deep, by flagrantly incompetent officials, he submitted without a murmur to the mistaken censure of the public, as well as to the private slight. When the same sovereign appointed him with twenty thousand men to fight fifty thousand, he accepted the commission, and resolved to do his best. Certainly, this is not what a man is made for―and Wellington would have been greater had loyalty been modified by a higher estimate of his own personal importance in the state. The one blemish on his escutcheon-refusing to interfere for the life of Ney -would then have been avoided; and diffidence of giving advice unasked, would not have permitted his Peninsular soldiers to go unrewarded for forty years. The grandeur of his military achievements made him great -the turn of his intellect, and the habits of his life, so essentially English, made him popular-his kindnesses made him widely beloved. It was pleasant to see the white-haired warrior saluted at every step of his daily ride, by rich and poor alike—still more so, to read of his winning the hearts of little children and young maidens. His was the picturesque old age, so finely described by Hartley Coleridge :

'Hast thou not seen an aged rifted tower,

Meet habitation for the Ghost of Time,
Where fearful ravage makes decay sublime,
And destitution wears the face of power?
Yet is the fabric deck'd with many a flower

Of fragrance wild and many dappled hue,
Gold-streak'd with iron-brown and nodding blue,

Making each ruinous chink a fairy bower.
E'en such a thing methinks I fain would be
Should heaven appoint me to a lengthen'd age;

So old in look, that young and old may see
The record of my closing pilgrimage:

Yet, to the last, a rugged wrinkled thing

To which young sweetness may delight to cling?'

We are unwilling to mingle with our praises and regrets, one word of ungenerous depreciation; but we will not suppress a reflection natural under the circumstances, and demanded by the use that is threatened to be made of the prevailing sentiment. How terrible is the perversion of human power occasioned by war! We ask not, now, whose was the guilt of our ambitious wars in India, and our unnecessary wars with France; but we sigh, with irrepressible emotion, as we close the record of Arthur Wellesley's career. Had the victor of Assaye been permitted thenceforth to employ his extraordinary energies on works of peace, how sublime might have been the result! Cleared of jungle and delivered from extortioners, India might never have given birth to the cholera, suffer no more periodical famine, feed her hundred millions with a plenty unknown there since the time of Tamerlane, and blend the strength of Western with the luxury of Oriental civilization. It is vain, we know, to regret, and unjust to censure, the inevitable. But we remember, that the complexion of the future is determined by the contemplation of the past.

Lord Derby has addressed to the Home Secretary, by the Queen's command, a letter declaring that 'her Majesty received with the deepest grief the afflicting intelligence of the sudden death of his Grace the late Duke of Wellington;' and communicating her Majesty's wish that the mortal remains of the illustrious deceased' should remain, till the meeting of Parliament, at Walmer Castle; and the interment take place, at the public expense, and with all due solemnity, in the cathedral church of St. Paul's.' -Lord Hardinge has been appointed to discharge the duties of commanderin-chief. In the general order to the army communicating the event, and prescribing the mourning to be observed, it is said of the late Duke—' In him her Majesty has to deplore a firm supporter of her throne, a faithful, wise, and devoted counsellor, and a valued and honoured friend.'—High among the posts of honour filled by the Duke was that of the Chancellorship of Oxford. A number of the heads of that learned and religious body have already set about the election of Lord Derby to the vacant eminence. The motive to this indecent haste is indicated and contemned in an article of the Times of Friday last. The maxim, "Blessed be each man possessed of aught to give," is nowhere more cordially recognised than in our ancient seats of learning. The man who can make the head of a college into a bishop, a tutor into the head of a hall, or a master of arts into a fat rector, has more virtues than meet the eye-more capabilities than a superficial observer can detect, and is the object of a hero-worship more sincere and unfaltering than that which waits on mere virtue and merit. The dead may bury the dead; the living, especially those that live by patronage, must look to the living.'

The domestic occurrences that remain to be noticed are few, and with one exception, unimportant. The exceptional event is, the opening of a Manchester Free Library. Two or three sessions since, it will be remembered, Mr. W. Ewart gained the sanction of Parliament for a measure authorizing the rate-paying inhabitants of cities and boroughs to tax themselves for the erection of public buildings, to be used as libraries or museums; the contents being contributed, or purchased by subscription. The capital of the cotton district-in which, by the way, unexampled activity prevails,

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