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Had she died, James would have suffered, no doubt. The lingering remains of affection was not altogether extinguished, selfish as he was, and wavering; yet he was often deeply pained, though not sufficiently so to see his conduct in the light that his good friend the priest would willingly have made him view it; and no one rejoiced more sincerely in Mary's recovery than he did; that heavy pressure, at least, was removed from his conscience. He was unremitting and brotherly in his kindness: and she was able to move about once more unrepining and almost cheerful, anxious to perform another painful task, even yet a formidable one to her feelings; but she felt that, if his letters and presents were returned, she would be better satisfied with herself. Some she packed up and sent to him; the others she heaped upon the fire, with tears in her eyes, and sorrow in her heart, over the ashes of her hopes.

"Well," she said, drying her eyes, "he shall see I am neither foolish nor mean. I can be a sister and a friend, at all events."

In the meantime, James wrote to Isabella's uncle and guardian, to ask his consent to his marriage with Bell. Two or three weeks passed without any reply to his letter, and he might be daily seen waiting the arrival of the post, and inquiring, with feverish anxiety, for his letters, and then turning away, with slow step and thoughtful eye. At length an answer came.

Mr. M- had been from home, had only arrived the day before, but hastened to acknowledge the receipt of his letter, and the honour of his proposal. However, an insurmountable obstacle existed in the difference of their faith-James being a Roman Catholic. It was impossible, with the principles he had so deeply implanted in Isabella's heart, that they could hope for happiness, &c., &c.; and ended in the most decisive manner, by a direct refusal of his consent.

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glorious as those in which he had already distinguished himself; not to lose one day, but return, as he valued all a soldier should prize. Here was matter for his thoughts; his state of mind could scarcely be guessed. His soldierly fame jeopardised! Isabella refused to him! yet neither were absolutely lost. If she loved him, she would marry him, even without her uncle's consent; then he would join his regiment, and retrieve his lost ground.

"Oh," said he, " let me but be sure of Bell let her be my wife, and they shall see I can be treble-sinewed, hearted, breathed, and fight maliciously.'"

With these thoughts and hopes he went to Isabella; she read her uncle's letter composedly, and, with a languid voice and soft sigh, handed it back to James.

You

"What do you say, Isabella?" "Oh, that must decide the affair. I cannot displease my uncle! know by my father's will I'd lose onehalf my fortune, if I marry without his approbation."

"Is it possible, Isabella! Can you be serious? Why should even the the fear of that, the loss of money, or the prejudices of a doting fanatic make us give up our mutual happiness? I cannot offer your wealthI cannot say I have a home to take you to; but I do not care for money : I have my sword and my commission. We will have means enough in the meantime-one-half of the money is yours, at all hazards: marry me without his consent. I shall then have confidence in the future-I must join my regiment for a time, to save my honour, and do credit to you, my pearl of the golden hair! but God will protect me for your sweet sake; then when I shall have got a company, or, it may be, a step further, I'll come home, love, and take you to some sweet spot in this delightful land, and live in love and peace. Say yes, Bell."

"I am very sorry, James, we ever thought of each other. I cannot marry you-my uncle's will shall always rule me. I am quite determined; so you should join your regiment as soon as possible; you need not say another word to me on the subject."

No arguments he could use-no pleading could change her decision, he rushed from the house like a madman.

To any one who had met him, as he crossed the hill-his swift, firm step, steady, but glaring eye, compressed lips, and pale face, would have told, that he was a man bent upon some wild, hopeless, daring deed. Mary was in the hall, as he came to the door she said, "Oh, James what is the matter?-are you unwell?"

:

"Oh, only a little uncomfortable; I'll be better presently-are you going out?"

"Yes; I was just going down to the bay. Will you come? You will be better out in the air. I'll wait, if you are not disposed to come immediately." "Thank you, Mary! I'll just go up for my gun.'

"Oh, then, James, I must make a bargain with you. If you come with me, you must not fire very near me; I am weak even yet, and might appear ridiculously nervous; you, strong people, can't understand what some goodnatured people call fine-lady airs; but come, make haste now, and I'll talk away our sad, or sick, or sorry fancies, for I feel well to-day."

He stopped half-way up the hall, came back-put his arm round her waist-kissed her passionately, and said, " Mary, my own kind, gentle love! my first love, good and true— God bless you!"

Mary released herself, blushing, half-crying, and almost angry.

"James, this is unjust, unkind, foolish! I don't understand you: remember we are friends. Now, I trust to be always that to you, so don't vex me again."

He turned away with a look-such a look of sorrow!-and she walked out to wait his coming, or almost inclined to go alone: but she relented, and turned back, for she wondered at his unusual manner, and saw that something had distressed him. Just as she entered the hall again, she heard a gun fired; the report startled her so, she nearly screamed, and thought for an instant, he must have intended it to try her; then she was sure he could not be so illnatured, and thought it must have been to clear or re-charge it. She waited awhile, then called two or three times, and becoming impatient, went to the stairs, but there was no answer; all was silence; then the awful thought struck her heart like an arrow she ran up stairs, and there was blood coming out under the doorway:

the lobby was swimming, and the slow, smoking steam was trickling down the staircase! She called, she screamed-and, sick as death, she fainted, just as the other persons of the house came, terrified by her cries.

They forced the door, and there the body of poor James was found; his feet towards the door-his gun beside him his face disfigured-his skull shattered-and his spirit fled! From the position of the body, there was a hope that his death might have been accidental-but God alone knew! and the wild lament of the mourners was blended with the petition, for intercession and pardon for his madness.

Bell Maclelland's feelings, never hitherto very acute or lasting, were painfully so on this occasion. For a year she mourned

"She mourned, but smiled,

At length, yet smiling mourned."

She married happily, and lived three years a wife and mother, blessed with all that wealth and love could give, to lighten the gloom of the shadow of death, that too often hovers for years over the path of the consumptive,

"And makes a twilight of a sunny place."

She died young, and beautiful, and beloved her short trials had improved her character, and rendered her fitter for a happier world.

Dark as Mary's future prospects appeared, time, the sorrow-killer, brought her contentment. She found calmer pleasure in the fulfilment of her constant duties. In our disappointments and sorrows here—when misfortunes, like dark clouds, hang heaviest—we should remember, that the sunbeams are bright, behind those clouds, and will, in God's good time, break through, and clear the gloom

"For though sunbeams now are tarrying
Away beyond the shadow,

That in cold gloom is burying

Each greenwood here and meadow,
And round our hills and valleys is
A prison, chill and black;
Yet have they built them palaces
Of gold upon its back,
With roofs of rainbow trellises,
Out of the drifted rack."

Mary lived unmarried, though beloved by all who knew her. She dwells among her own people, and might never have been heard of out of her own mountain glen, but for the melancholy fate, and mad romance, of her soldier-lover.

RECENT TOURISTS IN ITALY.*

DESPITE of all the modern facilities of travel, the iron wheel that furrows the sea, and the iron rail that traverses the land throwing open to the traveller the northern regions of Europe, as well as the whole of the oriental world of elder time, and the new world of the West-Italy still maintains her attractions, and invites the denizens of every land to its shores. Little wonder that it should be so. To the scholar, the poet, the artist, the man of refined taste, Italy teems with charms. For him it is still

"The garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree."

For him, too, its

"Very weeds are beautiful, its waste More rich than other climes' fertility; Its wreck a glory, and its ruin graced With an immaculate charm, which cannot be defaced."

While the seeker after lost health, and most miserable of all mortals-the thoroughly idle man-each turns his languid steps, with something like hopefulness, to those salubrious skies and luxurious regions.

If Italy has ever been thronged with travellers, they have also left abundant memorials behind them. To enumerate all the descriptive works on that country, tour-books, and guide-books, romance and novel, history and poem, truth and fiction, would be no light task; and one would imagine that nothing short of some physical convulsion, working a change on the face of the country-an irruption from the slumbering craters of her volcanoes, or from the tideless waters of the Mediterranean-could justify another topographer to give us his incidents of travel.

No such physical change, it is true, has taken place in Italy; but in the moral features of the land a change has been, and is in progress-partly of

slower growth, and partly, as of late, rapid and violent as the earthquake shock. The spirit of revolution which has swept over the face of Europe, shaking thrones and perplexing nations, has not passed without breathing on Italy. From north to south-from the snow-clad barriers of Helvetia to the vine-clad hills of Sicily-a struggle has convulsed her. Lombardy has risen against the iron rule of Austria, and has struggled with a valour worthy of a better fate than, alas! is now at all likely to be the issue of the contest. Rome, long suffering from the vices of a system as anomalous as it is incompatible with political liberty, has organised the rudiments of popular freedom, and a representative government; and Sicily, in an indescribably short space, has separated from Naples, and worked out for herself a new constitution. With matter so deeply interesting, there is yet room for one who has an investigating spirit, and a philosophic mind, to produce something still new upon Italy.

Two works now lie before us, each the production of fellow-citizens, who have not gone vapouring through the land during a three-months' steam tour, but have resided for a period of two years in Italy, and have noted men and manners, according to their different opportunities and powers of observation. Acting on the good old adage of "First come first served," we shall give precedence to Mr. Geale. Passing down the Rhone from Lyons to Marseilles, where he embarked for Leghorn, Mr. Geale's tour may be said to commence from that point; thence he visited Florence, where he passed a considerable time, and afterwards proceeded to Rome by way of Perugia, returning to the former city by way of Siena. His next tour was to Venice, by Bologna, Ferrara, and Padua, returning by Este, Mantua, and Modena, as far as Pistoja, in which

"Notes of a Two Years' Residence in Italy." By Hamilton Geale, Esq., Barrister-at-law. Dublin: James McGlashan, 21, D'Olier-street. 1848.

"Italy in the Nineteenth Century, contrasted with its Past Condition." By James Whiteside, Esq., A.M., M.R.I.A. London: R. Bentley. 1848.

town, and at Lucca, he appears to have passed the summer. Finally, embarking at Leghorn, he reached Naples, visited, of course, Pompeii and Pæstum, wintered in Rome, and returning once more to Florence, he passed through Bologna, Parma to Milan, and thence by Como and the Spleugen into Switzerland. Mr. Geale is evidently of that class of travellers who have a very keen relish for the beautiful, both in nature and art. His book abounds with vivid and well-written descriptions, and, occasionally, judicious criticisms. His style is picturesque and polished, abounding a little too much in sentimentalism and poetical quotations-a fault, indeed, this last, which it seems impossible for a tourist in Italy to avoid and his personal impressions evince that his taste is correct and cultivated. However, as we remarked just now, the field of descriptive writing on Italy is so entirely preoccupied by his sedulous predecessors, that we shall not largely transfer to our pages details which can only differ from those with which every reader is familiar, in the mode or force of expression. Let it, then, be understood, once and for all, that in every appropri ate locality the muse of Byron, the brilliant imaginativeness of De Stael, the elegant annotations of Hobhouse, and the lively, dashing, and fearless piquancies of Miladi Morgan, have all been evoked to illustrate and adorn the sights and scenery of "sunny Italy ;” and this observation we may as well announce as applicable to both our fellow-countrymen whose books are before us.

Mr. Whiteside sought Italy principally to restore the health which severe application to professional toil had somewhat impaired. In Ireland. the reputation of this able lawyer is too well known to require any comment. As an orator, vigorous, sarcastic, and full of playful, but most trenchant humour; dexterous as an advocate, smashing at a cross-examination; an accomplished scholar, and a man of an inquisitive and well-stored mind. Every one looked forward to his promised tour as a work to entertain, to interest, and to enlighten. Happily, returning health enabled him to fulfil the expectations of the public. The invalid seems to have shaken off lassitude and depression at an early stage of his journeyings; and

we can scarce lay our finger on a line in which he is dull-never upon a page in which the peculiar features of his mind, a quick conception, and a clear intellect, have not left their impress.

As both our tourists have travelled pretty much over the same ground, we may conveniently consider, in juxtaposition, the observations of each, in relation to subjects somewhat out of the general routine of sight-seers. The social state, the political relations, the habits and nationalities of the various Italian states, have formed the study of each. Each, however, seems to have studied in different lights, characteristic, no doubt, of their several moral and intellectual diatheses. Mr. Geale has contented himself rather with those salient points of national character, which are obvious to ordinary observers, and rarely looks far beneath the surface. Hence he is seldom original. Whiteside abounds in acute observations, masterly views, clear sketches, a mass of information gathered in every direction, politics, jurisprudence, statistics, and general history; and adopted, we must say, with a spirit of frank and unbounded appropriation, which the generous and modest nature of an Irishman could alone be capable of achieving.

Mr.

From every one who visits Italy, Tuscany solicits a very principal share of consideration. The high state of cultivation to which her people have attained beyond the sister states, in laws, social polity, agriculture, and substantial comfort, engage the attention of the philosopher; while the magnificent collections of statuary and paintings in the capital, constitute Florence, in the eyes of the man of taste, the "Etrurian Athens," which holds him bound by irresistible attractions.

Agriculture in Tuscany is efficiently promoted both in practice as well as in theory. Every acre of land is brought into cultivation-every new improvement in farming is introduced. Farming societies are extensively es tablished, and prizes awarded; and Mr. Geale assures us that "Florence may now nearly vie with England or Scotland" in the state of her agriculture. Amongst his other great reforms, the Archduke Leopold, afterwards Emperor of Austria, introduced

into Tuscany the metaric system, which, notwithstanding some evils necessarily concomitant upon its interference with the previous rights of property, has, we believe, been attended with the happiest results, in the encouragement of the small property class of farmers. Still we are disposed to agree with Mr. Geale, that such a system is manifestly inapplicable to a large and powerful state, and would not be tolerated in a free country. Mr. Whiteside has considered this subject at great length, and with much ability. Having first examined the state of agriculture in Tuscany during the middle ages, he gives us a very laudatory picture of its character at

present:

"The whole country is cultivated (so far as it is capable) as a beautiful garden. The lands at either side of the road from Cortona to Florence (some sixty miles) present a picture of cleanliness, skill, variety of tillage, comfort in the dwellings and appearance of the people, not to be surpassed in any part of Europe. The vale of Arno is celebrated for the superiority of its tillage. I had never seen such an appearance of perfect cultivation; there is not a spot remaining of natural turf, nor a meadow left to its natural produce; every inch is planted or dressed by the hand of man; even the rivulets are changed into a thousand canals. There is a variety of vegetation, while the surface of the land is shaded by the leaves of the vine. The character of the landscape is wholly artificial."

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We shall not follow our author through his very able and discursive inquiry, in which he institutes a comparison between the land tenures of several continental states. He concludes his disquisition with the following application :

"It might, however, be a useful inquiry, whether something like the Tuscan system of letting could not, to some extent, be introduced into Ireland with advantage. Upon what ground in reason or justice, for example, should a landlord receive, where he has not grantthe whole crop is destroyed by unforeed a lease, one farthing of rent, when seen calamity, and famine overspreads

the land ?"

The proposition contained in this question is more specious than sound. In the abstract, the case put never arises save in the con-acre system, the evils of which cannot be sufficiently reprobated; yet, even in that case, natural justice does not interdict the owner from seeking the performance of a contract which he enters into irrespective of providential casualties, and long previous to their occurrence, though charity or expediency may suggest a partial or total remission of it. But in the ordinary cases, "where the landlord has granted no lease," the tenant holds from year to year at a fixed rent, and is seldom disturbed while he pays it. In practice this does not, so far as the question under consideration, differ from that of a tenure by lease. The rent in each case is based on the estimated average product of the land during a number of years; and in each case the tenant has the surplus profits of a favourable year to compensate for the deficiency of a year of failure. Indeed Mr. Whiteside seems to answer himself in a subsequent paragraph:

"Rent should be considered as the setting apart a reasonable portion of the crop for the owner of the land; it follows, when there is no crop, not owing to any default in the farmer, there ought to be no rent. The owner is entitled to the whole produce of the land, minus the hire of the time, labour, and skill which give that produce. In this view, if nothing could be or had been produced without default in the tenant, the owner would be, and should be, the sufferer. If, owing to the character of the people, the division of crop could

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