and having time for reflection and repentance, they became extremely devout. Having saved a Bible and Prayer-book from the Bounty, they now performed family worship morning and evening, and addressed themselves to training up their own children and those of their unfortunate companions in piety and virtue. Young, however, was soon carried off by an asthmatic complaint, and Adams was thus left to continue his pious labours alone. At the time Captains Staines and Pipon visited the island, this interesting little colony consisted of about forty-six persons, mostly grown-up young people, all living in harmony and happiness together; and not only professing, but fully understanding and practising the precepts and principles of the Christian religion. Adams had instituted the ceremony of marriage, and he assured his visitors that not one instance of debauchery and immoral conduct had occurred amongst them.

The visitors having supplied these interesting people with some tools, kettles, and other articles, took their leave. The account which they transmitted home of this newly-discovered colony, was, strange to say, as little attended to by government as that of Captain Folger; and nothing more was heard of Adams and his family for nearly twelve years, when, in 1825, Captain Beechey, in the Blossom, bound on a voyage of discovery to Behring Strait, touched at Pitcairn's Island. On the approach of the Blossom, a boat came off under all sail towards the ship, containing old Adams and ten of the young men of the island. After requesting and obtaining leave to come on board, the young men sprung up the side, and shook every officer cordially by the hand. Adams, who was grown very corpulent, followed more leisurely. He was dressed in a sailor's shirt and trousers, with a low-crowned hat, which he held in his hand in sailor-fashion, while he smoothed down his bald forehead when addressed by the officers of the Blossom. The little colony had now increased to about sixty-six, including an English sailor, of the name of John Buffet, who, at his own earnest desire, had been left by a whaler. In this man the society luckily found an able and willing schoolmaster. He instructed the children in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and devoutly co-operated with old Adams in affording religious instruction to the community. The officers of the Blossom went ashore, and were entertained with a sumptuous repast at young Christian's, the table being spread with plates, knives, and forks. Buffet said grace in an emphatic manner; and so strict were they in this respect, that it was not deemed proper to touch a morsel of bread without saying grace both before and after it. The officers slept in the house all night, their bedclothing and sheets consisting of the native cloth made of the native mulberry-tree. The only interruption to their repose was the melody of the evening-hymn, which was chanted together by the whole family after the lights were put out; and they were awakened at early dawn by the same

devotional ceremony. On Sabbath the utmost decorum was attended to, and the day was passed in regular religious observances.

In consequence of a representation made by Captain Beechey, the British government sent out Captain Waldegrave in 1830, in the Seringapatam, with a supply of sailors' blue jackets and trousers, flannels, stockings and shoes, women's dresses, spades, mattocks, shovels, pickaxes, trowels, rakes, &c. He found their community increased to about seventy-nine, all exhibiting the same unsophisticated and amiable characteristics as we have before described. Other two Englishmen had settled amongst them; one of them, Nobbs, a missionary. The patriarch Adams, it was found, had died in March 1829, aged sixty-five. While on his death-bed, he had called the heads of families together, and urged upon them to elect a chief, which, however, they had not yet done; but the greatest harmony still prevailed amongst them. Captain Waldegrave thought that the island, which is about four miles square, might be able to support a thousand persons, upon reaching which number they would naturally emigrate to other islands.

In 1856, the British government thought it advisable to deport the whole of the inhabitants, to the number of 194, to Norfolk Island, about 900 miles east-north-east of Sydney. This island had long been used as a convict prison, but the establishment had that year been broken up. The colonists were provided in their new quarters with houses, domestic animals, implements, seeds, boats, &c. In the end of the following year, they were visited by the Governor of New South Wales, who organised a magistracy among them, and established a code of laws. They had increased to 212. He found it necessary to introduce a few skilled workmen from England to teach them certain indispensable trades, and also a schoolmaster. On his second visit in 1859, the Governor found that two families, numbering 16 persons, had returned to Pitcairn's Island, and that others were thinking of following the example. This tendency he succeeded in checking. In 1862, the community had increased to 280 persons, and European usages were slowly spreading. Subsequent reports represent a steady advance in numbers and prosperity.

32

SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

HE following pieces have been selected, with some degree of care, from the various poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with the view of placing in the hands of the less opulent classes a pleasing specimen of productions once so deservedly popular, and still highly esteemed for their beauty of language and sentiment. The works principally selected from are the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and the Lady of the Lake, which were originally published between the years 1805 and 1810. The leading quality of these productions, as may be observed from our extracts, is fidelity in describing objects and appearances in nature and rural imagery, along with a charming softness of versification. Some of the lyrical pieces are also much admired.

SCOTLAND-MY NATIVE LAND.

BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth, as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung!

O Caledonia, stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
No. 40.

Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band

That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,

Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The Bard may draw his parting groan.

HYMN OF THE HEBREW MAID.

WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,

Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise,

And trump and timbrel answered keen; And Zion's daughters poured their lays, With priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze—

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But, present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.

And oh, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn.
But Thou hast said: 'The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.'

MELROSE ABBEY.

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white ;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave;
Then go-but go alone the while-
Then view St David's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!

TIME.

[From The Antiquary.]

WHY sitt'st thou by that ruined hall,
Thou aged carle so stern and gray?
Dost thou its former pride recall,

Or ponder how it passed away?

'Knowest thou not me?' the Deep Voice cried, 'So long enjoyed, so oft misused

Alternate, in thy fickle pride,

Desired, neglected, and accused?

Before my breath, like blazing flax,
Man and his marvels pass away;
And changing empires wane and wax,
Are founded, flourish, and decay.