severity. The slaves are prostrated on the ground, and the body is indecently exposed to the gaze of by-standers; the arms are extended, the wrists being made fast; the legs are brought close together, and secured at the ancles by a rope, which passes through a hole, and is pulled tight, stretching every muscle even to agony. An attempt was lately made, at a vestry meeting of the parish of St. Andrew's, in Jamaica, to obtain an abolition of the cruel system of stretching negroes, who are about to be flogged.* An opinion was given by the medical attendant of the institution, that that mode of punishment was the least likely to injure the slave. It had already, he said, been proposed to use the halberd for the purpose, as in the army; but he thought that the contortions of the body, during the infliction of a flogging, might cause the dislocation of the wrists. One member of the vestry stated that he was ready to make oath that he knew a negro who was of no service to his owner, from the effects of stretching by means of the block and tackle, and he had no doubt that there were many other such instances. Another member was also against the use of the block and tackle. He himself knew a negro who was totally useless in consequence of being stretched in the workhouse. He thought the halberd the milder of the two punishments. During this discussion the majority of the commissioners retired from the board, one or two at a time, and the meeting was adjourned sine die! At the date of the last official return of the state of gaols and workhouses in Jamaica, there were in that island 488 slaves in confinement who had been committed by a public court, or by the order of three magistrates. Of this number 174-viz., 146 men, and 28 women-were condemned to hard labour in chains for life, for the offence of having absconded from their masters for six months or more. Others, convicted of the same offence, were condemned to imprisonment and hard labour for different periods, varying from one to twelve months; many were also sentenced to receive thirty-nine lashes when committed, and again on their discharge. Of this class there were, at that period, eighty-two-viz., sixty-three men, and nineteen women. A further number of sixteen had been committed as "runaways;" having asserted their claim to freedom, but possessing no documentary evidence of the fact, they were condemned, although un their appraised value from the funds of the genius that should be thus faithful to true religion might be regarded as trees by the In the return from which these particulars side of that "river of the water of life," are taken, allusion is, in some cases, made to having in their fruit and foliage a virtue to the conduct of the prisoners during their con- contribute to "the healing of the nations." finement. In one parish (St. Catherine's) the But, on the supposition that there were a man superintendant of the workhouse states that sufficiently discerning, impartial, and indefatinearly one half of the slave convicts thus sen- gable for a research throughout the general tenced for life are well disposed, steady, quiet, body of our poetical literature, it would be attentive, and obedient. How deeply is it to curious to see what kind of religious system, be lamented that men, whose good conduct and what account of the state of man, as had thus extorted from their gaoler this fa- viewed under moral estimate, and in relation vourable testimony, should be kept in chains, to the future destiny, would be afforded by a and subjected to imprisonment and hard la- digested assemblage of all the most marked bour for the remainder of their days! And for sentiments, supplied by the vast majority of what offence? Frequently for no moral crime. the poets, for such a scheme of moral and In some cases, perhaps, for resistance to op- religious doctrine. But, if it would be expression, justified by the best feelings of human ceedingly amusing to observe the process and nature; while in others the timid slave, who the fantastic result, it would, in the next has committed unintentionally a venial of place, be very sad to consider that these falfence, for which he is threatened with punish-lacies have been insinuated, by the charms of ment, flies to the woods that he may escape poetry, into countless thousands of minds, the infliction of the lash. It is not, however, with a beguilement that has, first, diverted in the public gaols alone that the slave is them from a serious attention to the gospel, treated with unjustifiable severity. There is then confirmed them in a habitual dislike of on every estate a place of confinement, of the it, and finally operated to betray some of them proceedings in which no record is kept. A to the doom which, beyond the grave, awaits slave may be here incarcerated and flogged at the neglect or rejection of the religion of the mere will and caprice of his owner or Christ. overseer, free from the control and inspection of any magistrate. The law affixes no limit to confinement in the stocks or bilboes on the plantation, nor provides any means for control against the abuse of such punishments. These places of confinement are entirely removed from the public eye. No record is required to be kept of the flagellations which are inflicted, however severe; and to such treatment the slave population of our West India colonies is daily exposed, without the possibility of redress, if only the party who inflicts the punishment is prudent enough to limit the stripes to thirty-nine, or take care that no free person witness it, when that number is exceeded. These wrongs could only be tolerated in a society whose sense of public justice has been subverted by the most odious and debasing of all human institutions; and it is in vain to expect in the West Indies any just system of criminal law, so long as slavery shall be permitted to inflict its cruelties upon the negro race, and spread its pestiferous and deadly influence throughout the other classes of the community. OF THE CLASSICS. No. X. BRITISH POETS. You have, probably, seen Pope cited as a Christian poet, by some pious authors, whose anxiety to impress reluctant genius into an appearance of favouring Christianity has credulously seized on any occasional verse which seemed an echo of the sacred doctrines. No reader can exceed me in admiring the discriminative thought, the shrewd moral observation, the finished and felicitous execution, and the galaxy of poetical beauties, which combine to give a peculiar lustre to the writings of Pope. But I cannot refuse to perceive that almost every allusion, in his lighter works, to the names, the facts, and the topics, that specially belong to the religion of Christ, is in a style and spirit of profane banter; and that, in most of his graver ones, where he meant to be dignified, he took the utmost care to divest his thoughts of all the mean vulgarity of Christian associations. "Off, ye profane!" might seem to have been his signal to all evangelical ideas, when he began his Essay on Man; and they were obedient, and fled; for if you detach the detail and illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline and general principles of the work, it will stand confest an elaborate attempt to redeem the whole theory claimed by any one; the slave being, in such MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE of the condition and interests of man, both in cases, usually sold for the benefit of the island. Besides these prisoners, there are in the gaols various other descriptions-felons, misdemeanants, deserters, slaves levied on for their masters' debts, or by the collector for taxes, and who are committed to the gaol or workhouse until claimed or sold. The punishment for an assault upon, or even offering violence to, a white person, is imprisonment and hard labour for life. In this return a female slave appears to have been condemned to this terrible punishment "for assaulting her master;" another woman, "for offering violence to her master," is condemned to six months' hard labour, and to thirty-nine lashes, both on her committal and discharge. In many instances these severe sentences are pronounced, not by a public Slave-court, but by three magistrates, and the owners are, in such cases, indemnified for the slaves thus sentenced for life, by being paid Vide The Watchman, or Free Press, a colonial newspaper, February 5 and 9, 1831. In extending the censure to the poets, it is gratifying to meet an exception in the most elevated of all their tribe. Milton's consecrated genius might harmoniously have mingled with the angels that announced the Messiah to be come, or that, on the spot, and at the moment of his departure, predicted his coming again; might have shamed to silence the muses of paganism, or softened the pains of a Christian martyr. Part of the poetical works of Young, those of Watts, and of Cowper, have placed them among the permanent benefactors of mankind; as owing to them there is a popular poetry in the true spirit of Christianity, a poetry which has imparted, and is destined to impart, the best sentiments to innumerable minds. Works of great poetical life and death, from all the explanations imposed on it by an unphilosophical revelation from heaven. And, in the happy riddance of this despised, though celestial light, it exhi bits a sort of moon-light vision, of thin, impalpable abstractions, at which a speculatist may gaze, with a dubious wonder whether they be realities or phantoms, but which a practical man will in vain try to seize and turn to account, and which an evangelical man will disdain to accept in exchange for those forms of truth which his religion brings to him as real living friends, instructors, and consolers, which present themselves to him, at his return from a profitless adventure in that shadowy, dreary region, with an effect like that of meeting the countenances of his affectionate domestic associates on his awaking from the fantastic succession of vain efforts and perplexities, among strange objects, incidents, and people, in a bewildering dream. But what deference to Christianity was to be expected when such a man as Bolingbroke was the genius whose imparted splendour was to illuminate, and the demigod whose approbation was to crown, the labours which, according to the wish and presentiment of the poet, were to conjoin these two venerable names in endless fame? If it be said for some parts of these dim speculations, that though Christianity comes forward as the practical dispensation of truth, yet there must be, in remote abstraction behind, some grand, ultimate, elementary truths, which this dispensation does not recognise, but even intercepts from our view by a system of less refined elements, in which doctrines of a more contracted, palpable, and popular form, of comparatively local purport and relation, are imposed in substitution for the higher and more general and abstracted truths-I answer, And what did the poet, or "the master of the poet and the song," know about those truths, and how did they come by their information? MILAN. MILAN is a large and elegant city, with a population of 130,000 souls; but having been twice razed to the ground, by Attila and by Frederick Barbarossa, it contains no remains of its ancient greatness. It possesses, however, many handsome palaces, the second cathedral in Italy, several fine theatres, good streets and promenades, and some valuable collections of paintings, statues, and books. The cathedral, called the Duomo, is in many respects the most remarkable building I have yet seen; and I believe it may be pronounced, as far as external decoration goes, to be the most gorge ous edifice in the world. From its want of a tower or dome, corresponding to the size of the church, it yields in majesty to York Minster and St. Paul's, to say nothing of St. Peter's at Rome; but in the richness of its materials, and the profusion and beauty of its ornaments, it far outshines them all. It is a Gothic edifice, nearly as long as our largest cathedrals, and wider than any of them, built entirely of white marble, which has retained its colour better than any other I have seen; its nave and double aisles are supported by fifty-two clustered columns, and fifty half columns; and on the exterior its roof is encircled by a triple row of pinnacles or spires, each about sixty feet high, of the lightest and most elegant form, and crowned by statues as large as life. Its walls, buttresses, and spires, are crusted with a profusion of tracery and statues, of which you may form some idea when I mention, that on the exterior of the building alone there are no less than three thousand four hundred statues; and these, being disposed in tasteful manner, do not encumber the building, but give it an effect the most florid and beautiful. The pinnacles are a hundred and twenty in number, and they were all, except two which are ancient, and six or eight added lately, erected in the time of Napoleon, who nearly completed the edifice, after it had been more than four centuries in an unfinished state. The Duomo is in the form of a Latin cross, and it has an octagonal tower rising to a small elevation above the roof, and then suddenly contracting into a slender tower of the same form, which is itself terminated by a spire, and a brazen statue of the Virgin; this is extremely elegant, but it is too light to have any thing of majesty. You may be curious to * He is so named somewhere in Pope's works. know what all the multitude of statues which times as old; so that I am at a loss to conceive any motive for making this exhibition, except the desire to get money by it. Had the fea tures been tolerably preserved, it might have been excusable to show them to those who admired the character of St. Charles; but it is a disgusting mockery to exhibit a withered corpse enshrined in splendour. The eyeless sockets of the head seem to tell how vain are the costly gems that sparkle around them; and the shrunk brow appears little fitted to receive the golden crown that hangs over it. We were told that the value of the crosier was upwards of thirteen thousand pounds sterling, that of the crown, three thousand five hundred, and that the frame in which the body is laid contained forty-five thousand ounces of pure silver. After quitting this chapel, we were allowed to see the treasury, where we beheld relics of each of the twelve apostles—a tooth of one, bones of another, &c.-contained in small bottles, and placed in a sumptuous case; we also saw several patches of the garments of the Virgin Mary. And here I made a strange mistake; for, being told they were upon a splendid stand before me, I touched an old dirty cloth which hung from it, and asked if that was the garment, thinking it had a marvellous look of antiquity. The sacristan, half shocked and half amused, explained that that was merely the covering of the stand, and pointed out a few small bits of cloth, very much resembling printed cotton, cased in gold and jewels, which I found were the veritable garments of the Virgin. There is here also a nail of the cross, preserved in a case of rock crystal. But these are nothing compared with what may be seen at Cologne, where I saw the skulls of the three kings of the east who came are kept the bones of St. Ursula and eleven to worship Christ at his nativity, and where thousand virgins, who came from England in one ship to convert the Huns, but were barba rously murdered by them. It seems astonishing that such gross impostures should so long find credence. shall only further say, that it contains numeOf this magnificent cathedral I rous altars, rich in marble and gilding, several excellent pictures, splendid monuments, and all those decorations which are accumulated by the munificence, taste, and devotion of successive ages in the churches of Italy. preserved, embalmed in a sumptuous frame in Last Supper. This painter, whose great and fresco painting, by Leonard da Vinci, of the versatile talents displayed themselves as well in sculpture, poetry, music, architecture, and geometry, as in that line which has more particularly raised his fame, was a native of Milan, where the inhabitants are justly proud of him. The fresco of the Last Supper is ture of the ancient Greeks. The countenance behold this monument, reflect that their conduct will make it their glory or their reproach. Let them be persuaded that similarity of manners, not proximity of blood, gives them an interest in this statue. much injured by time and a damp situation; but the greater part of the countenances may still be well discerned, and I have seldom been more gratified with any production of the pencil. In point of composition and character, it seems to me to press hard upon the sublimest "Remember-Reşemble-Persevere." works of Raphael, and, like the productions of that divine artist (with whom Leonardo was After perusing this and similar evidence contemporary), to have the simple dignity, of the vast talents of Mr. Burke, it will be truth, and grace, which characterise the sculp-highly amusing to read an instance of his of Christ is such a personification of his cha-jocularity. It is related on the testimony racter that it can scarcely be regarded without of his biographer, Mr. Prior, and is as reverence and emotion; it expresses all we can conceive of wisdom, purity, benevolence, and resignation in the prospect of injustice and suffering. Judas is the hardened villain; but the rest of the disciples are all consternation and curiosity at the announcement their master has made, that one of them shall betray him. I think it would improve a man's heart to contemplate this picture daily. EPITAPH ON THE MARQUIS OF MR. BURKE's taste in epitaph, or rather character-writing, was put in requisition by the completion, in August, 1788, of the splendid, and, in this country, unequalled, mausoleum to the memory of the Marquis of Rockingham, erected about a mile in front of Wentworth House, in Yorkshire, from which, as well as from the surrounding country, it forms a noble and interesting object, ninety feet high. The interior of the base is a dome supported by twelve Doric columns, with niches for the statues of the deceased nobleman and his friends, among whom the distinguished writer of the following piece now takes his stand. The inscription, for force, precision, and fitness, has, perhaps, like the mausoleum itself, no equal among the mortuary remains of the country : "CHARLES, MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM. “A statesman in whom constancy, fidelity, sincerity, and directness, were the sole instruments of his policy. His virtues were his arts. follows : Two strolling players and their wives, who paid frequent visits to the neighbourhood of Penn and Beaconsfield, chiefly on account of the liberal patronage of Mr. Burke, had acquired some celebrity from performing, by means of rapid changes in dress, and considerable powers of mimickry, all the characters in the pieces which they represented. On one hibited, to whom a pair of leather smallclothes was deemed an indispensable article of dress, but unfortunately there was no such article in their wardrobe. In this dilemma, Mr. Burke, who was then at General Haviland's, at Penn, and whose invention and assistance commonly contrived to overcome their difficulties, was applied to; for a moment he was at fault, but soon recollected that the idencostume. How to procure it, however, was the tical garment formed part of his host's military difficulty; to ask for it they knew would have appeared in the eyes of the owner a species of profanation; the old General was held fast in bed by the gout, the wardrobe stood close to the bed, and in this seemingly secure station were deposited the leathern indispensables. "Come, Dick," said Mr. Burke to his brother Richard, who equally enjoyed a jest of this kind," we must out-general the General; you must be the decoy, and I shall be thief; attack the old soldier on his favourite military topic, lead him to the heights of Abraham, where his prowess was displayed with Wolfe, fight in the mean time, if my fingers be nimble, the battle and slay the slain once more; and and my luck good, I shall be enabled to march off with the breeches." This jocular scheme was successfully accomplished, and merriment to the visitors at Penn. of these occasions a fox-hunter was to be ex Othello lifts the dagger over Hedelmone (the name of Desdemona was too unmusical for Parisian ears), Odalbert, the heroine's father, Loredan, and the Doge of Venice rush in. The latter personage seizes the dagger, exclaiming-" Malheureux, qui fais tu? Tu vas de ce poignard immoler la virtu !” The play was published with both catastrophes, for the Parisians to take their choice; and the coteries found an interesting and unending topic in the respective merits of the denouement funeste and denouement heureux. But the actor, probably from his English education, was less tender, and more natural, than his audience. The denouement heureux sat uneasily upon him; and, a few nights after its adoption, as Ducis, the author, was passing behind the scenes, he saw Talma striding away in one of the dark passages, in full soliloquy. "Shall I kill her? No, the audience will not suffer it! Yet, what do I care! I will kill her: they shall learn to suffer it. Yes, I have made up my mind; she must be killed?" Ducis, who stood aloof from the whirlwind of this debate, now came forward." What is the matter with you, Talma ?"-" I am determined—I must put her to death !”—“ I am of your opinion, Talma; but what then ?”—“ Her fate is fixed!"- "Then go through your determination!" The actor went through with it, to the surprise of the general audience, and to the peculiar agonies of the most obviously handsome and fashionable; but there was so much truth and dramatic feeling in his per formance that the death became the established mode, and Talma had all the honours of a successful intrepidity.—Blackwood's Magazine. SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. mankind that they were all equal, first awaTHE diffusion of Christianity, by teaching kened men to the injustice of a system which made one man the property of another. Frethe feudal lords were induced to enfranchise quently, at the intercession of their confessors, their slaves; and, from the ignorance of the times, the administration of justice devolving A clear, sound, unadulterated sense, not perplexed with intricate design, or disturbed by subsequently afforded a frequent topic for into the hands of the clergy, opportunities fre ungoverned passion, gave consistency, dignity, and effect, to all his measures. In Opposition, he respected the principles of Government; in Administration, he provided for the liberties of the people. He employed his moments of power in realizing every thing which he had promised in a popular situation. This was the distinguishing mark of his conduct. After twenty-four years of service to the public, in a critical and trying time, he left no debt of just expectation unsatisfied. 66 By his prudence and patience he brought together a party which it was the great object of his labours to render permanent, not as an instrument of ambition, but as a living depository of principle. "The virtues of his public and private life were not in him of different characters. It was the same feeling, benevolent, liberal mind that, in the internal relations of life, conciliates the unfeigned love of those who see men as they are, which made him an inflexible patriot. He was devoted to the cause of liberty, not because he was haughty and intractable, but because he was beneficent and humane. "Let his successors, who from this house ANECDOTE OF TALMA. THE French are notoriously delicate in murder upon the stage! In the height of the Revolution, when the guillotine was permanently patriotic, and the judges fell asleep, wearied with signing sentences of bloodshed, a dagger lifted upon the stage would have thrown the whole mob of regenerators into hysterics. On the first representation of Othello, the death of Desdemona before the audience raised an universal tumult. Tears, groans, and menaces, resounded from all parts of the theatre; and, what was still more demonstrative, and more alarming, several of the prettiest women in Paris fainted, in the most conspicuous boxes, and were publicly carried out of the house. Ducis was alarmed for his tragedy, for his fame, and for his life. The author of so much public combustion might have been sent to expiate his temerity in the Bastile. He took the safer mode, and altered the catastrophe. At the moment when quently occurred of showing particular indulgence to this unfortunate class of society. In the eleventh century, the pope formally issued a bull for the emancipation of slaves; and, in 1102, it was declared in the Great Council of the Nation, held at Westminster, unlawful for any man to sell slaves openly in the market, which before had been the common custom of the country. THE TOURIST. VOL. I.-No. 43.-SUPPLEMENT. "UTILE DULCI."-Horace. MONDAY, MAY 20, 1833. PRICE ONE PENNY. THE BOURSE, OR TRIBUNAL DE COMMERCE, PARIS. It is believed by some ingenious etymologists that the name Bourse, designating a public place, where merchants assemble and transact business, is derived from the edifice called the "Hotel des Bourses," at Bruges, in Flanders, so called from the escutcheon of the builder which it bore, and which contained three Bourses, or purses. Near this the mercantile assemblies were held. naparte, and is another instance of his financial ingenuity. Perceiving the desirableness of such a building, he imposed an annual tax on the mercantile body, ostensibly for the purpose of supplying the funds necessary for its erection. The building, however, was suspended by various causes for a number of years, during which period of delay the payment of the tax continued, so that a much greater Most of the chief cities of Europe have sum was amassed than was requisite for long contained an edifice for this purpose, the completion of the work. It was comamong which may be mentioned those of menced in March, 1808, but was not London, Bruges, Antwerp, Amsterdam, completed. until after the downfall of the Rotterdam, &c. Paris, however, though conqueror, and, indeed, until after the it had long been one of the first accession of the late monarch, Charles commercial cities, has not possessed X. It will be perceived by the above such an edifice until a comparatively engraving, which gives a faithful view of recent date. It owes its origin to Buo- the edifice, that it is built in the Corin thian order of architecture, raised upon a basement which gives it an elevation superior to that of the neighbouring buildings. It is surrounded by sixty-four columns, sixteen on each side, and encloses not only the hall in which merchants meet, and the business of the public funds is transacted, but also those courts whose jurisdiction extends only to litigations arising out of commercial transactions. The judges in these courts are usually chosen from retired merchants, and their decisions are guided more by the principles of equity, and on the plan of arbitration, than by any written law. The interior is decorated with emblematical paintings, and is exceedingly well adapted for the purpose to which it is assigned. LETTER FROM A PERSON IN JAMAICA TO A FRIEND IN ENGLAND. enchantment that dwells with the romantic. If what I have said respecting a journey into the interior of the island shall have awakened in you an expectation of interesting descriptions, I am afraid I shall disappoint you in what I shall detail in this communication. The fact is, that the scenery in Jamaica, though novel and extremely striking-sublime in some of its features, and beautiful in others-possessing every thing to awaken inquiry, and to satisfy After gaining the successive eminences that curiosity is associated with so little of senti- mark this distance, as the traveller advances ment, and that little of no pleasurable characto the interior of the island, rising now in ter, that, to one who has imbibed the maxim loftier and more rugged elevations, he is surthat to feel delighted is nothing without feel-prised by the sudden opening into extensive ing the mind instructed and the heart im- plains, stretching far, and parallel to the range proved, its natural beauties in its social de- of the deep inland mountains. Here, beneath formities imprint no interesting emotions. clumps of shade, left to adorn an occasional To the voyager, approaching the shores of swell, or to overshadow the waters of the Jamaica, the country appears, from the ex- cattle-pond, the peculiar herds and flocks are treme clearness of the atmosphere, to be one seen to repose. From these levels the hills splendid mass of mountain scenery, rising in precipitately rise in frequent cones, between boldness and fertility from the ocean. The whose hollows the labour of cultivation has bright green of the nearer objects, and the planted the coffee shrub. Beyond, the eye endark blue of the more distant, under a piercing counters a boundless amphitheatre of wood, sun and a cloudless heaven, so nearly assimi--forests of stupendous trees,-the magnificent late to each other, that the valleys between each successive ridge, from the sea to the inland mountains, cannot be traced by the eye. It is only when we approach these lands of eternal freshness, in the grey clearness of the sunrise, or in a cloudy sky and a moist and slightly dense atmosphere, that the character of the country is readily discoverable. Then, in the clear and distinct colours of the aerial perspective, we perceive hill succeeding hill, extensive valleys intervening, and the interior mountains rising in majesty over all. ceiba, the wild tamarind, the St. Mary-tree, The blooming rose its fragrance breathes in vain, sweet small devotions of home! in which I was wont to offer a little incense-a cake-a chaplet of flowers, when will my circumstances be such as to secure my old age from poverty and calamity!" ON THE HABITS OF TAME BIRDS. BY MATTHEUS SYLVATICUS. Ir is a common observation, confirmed by those naturalists who have had the greatest experience, that our knowledge of the wonders of creation is still in its infancy. One very interesting point, on which we are much in the dark, is that faculty of the brute creation called instinct. Now, Sir, it has always been my opinion, that one clearly substantiated fact tends more to elucidate truth than any number of theories and hypotheses, either wholly unfounded in fact, or built upon some casual exception to the general rule; and, with this feeling, I submit the following statement as a candidate for a corner in the "Field Naturalist's Magazine." I am extremely fond of what I call practical natural history; but, as I reside in a large town, you will suppose I may find some little difficulty in pursuing it. I am, however, so happy as to possess a garden, about 140 feet in length by 40 in breadth; in which, besides as many flowers as it will contain, I usually keep one or more tame birds, in the full enjoyment of unclipped wings, and at free liberty to leave my demesne if they feel so disposed; but several have thought proper not to do so for three or four years; and I believe that, when they at last disappeared, they were either Quitting, about the middle coast of the stolen or devoured by cats. The bird with island, the shore, which opposes its rocks Within a month from this, I expect to be at which I have had the most intimate compacovered with foliage and flowers to the blue what I call my home, partaking a little domes- nionship is the magpie, and I will now proand tranquil waters, the eminences are seen in tie happiness, the only portion of earthly feli-ceed to tell you a little of what I have observed bold yet not ungentle acclivity, with valleys of city afforded me here. Believe me, when pleasing inequality between. As, with a beauty away from the circumscribed dominion of the calculated to awaken attention, the convexities household gods, my portion is a silent heart of every retiring height are rounded into a brooding wretchedness. I write this to you regularity of form, so the separating hollows from among scenes of complete loneliness; the are marked with an evenness of surface that only sounds that break the silence of the soligives to the transitions an appearance uncha- tude are the music of the mocking-bird, the racterised by abruptness. Though diversified voice of the dove, the evening call of the wild by frequent rocks, rugged and unequal, they guinea-fowls, and the rushing of waters deepseldom burst in those bold, barren, and im-ening occasionally the murmurs of the seamense masses, to claim the appellation of crags, or to create any remarkable deviations from the general character of the country. The different foliage that crown these continual undulations, coloured in the brightest and most contrasting green, combine beauty with their variety. Where the hand of the cultivator has pruned the exuberance of nature, no scenery can be more delightful than the groves of the dark-leaved pimento, with which she had spontaneously clothed the face of the uplands. Detached in groups, with an interval that admits not their branches to intervene, they expose to the view the bright verdure of the turf beneath. As this tree suffers no unkindred rival to rear itself within the shadow of its leaf, the close, even, and unspotted sward, nourished by the showers of its dew-drops, enjoying a free air and unceasing shade, flourishes in perennial beauty. From their aromatic leaves and flowers, the breezes, that pour from every glen, waft a perfume of the most delicious fragrance with the coolness which they bring. Though every scene be calculated to impart delight, it is amid those through which the rivers take their course that we experience the breeze. Amid these scenes, I find a happiness in him. I shall not attempt to give you the characters of individual magpies, which I believe differ as widely as those of individuals of the human species: their loquacity and propensity to theft are well known; but I do not find many who are aware of the high notions which a magpie possesses of his own rights in whatever he deems his property. My magpie considers my garden as his estate; he walks jealously behind any stranger who goes into it; and if any attempt be made to touch a plant, a stick, or a stone, he flies at the offender with every demonstration of rage and fury. He perambulates his boundaries, i. e. the top of the surrounding wall, and never by any chance goes beyond them. Every evening, he voluntarily enters a cage appropriated to him, shuts the door after him, and goes to roost on the perch. On one occasion, having some greenhouse plants turned out in the borders, I wished to send them, for the winter, to a friend in the country: a cart was accordingly brought to the gate, and a man commenced removing the plants from my garden; but Mag, seeing his estate thus plundered, made a vigorous attack upon the spoiler; he would jump on each pot as the man took it up for removal, and peck his hand until the blood sprung from it; and he followed him, constantly pecking his heels, to the garden gate, but no further; for he then would run back to me, chattering loudly, and looking up to me for approbation. He once entered the open window of a room where breakfast was set out, before the family came down stairs; he drank largely out of the milk jug, tasted the butter, and concluded by throwing down upon the floor the toast, spoons, |