Reverse, and cold, the turning blood, "So soft and fair, I know a maid, A wretched man her love betray'd, Deep frowning turned the bride's dark eye, Tho' loose in scattered weeds arrayed, But when he spied that sunken eye, Look'd rich, and happy, with its yellow store. "Why droops thy head, thou lovely maid, All nature seem'd to teem with joyous life, Upon thy hand of snow? Is it because thy love betrayed, Quick from her eye the keen glance came, And oft she muttered o'er his name, Full hard against his writhing brows, "O cursed be the golden price, "Yet now I'll hold thee to my side, Nor friends, nor wealth, nor dizened bride, Shall ever stand between. "When thou art weary and depressed, And when dark fancies vex thy breast, "I'll tend thee like a restless child, `Where'er thy rovings be; Nor gesture keen, nor eye-ball wild, "Night shall not hang cold o'er thy head, And I securely lie; Nor drizly clouds upon thee shed, "I'll share the cold blast on the heath, The sporting insects danced upon the stream, 'The cooing stock-dove pour'd his evening song, And bleating lambs, from distant mountains, lent Their vocal offering to the passing breeze. Fair was the scene, when fill'd with thankful praise, We trod the path that skirts the churchyard green, There delving deep, a grey hair'd sexton plied His busy task. Skulls strewn 'mong ghastly heaps Of mouldering bones garnish'd the dark grave's side, While near it stood, with meditative eye, The flaxen hair that curl'd around his brow. He wondering gazed at this grim wreck of things That once were human; and methought his eye Glisten'd with grief, to think that one he loved, His aged grandsire, tenant of this grave, Must soon be like the fragments scatter'd round. We passed away, but that mild summer's eve, knight, Not lure him (an Armida!) from the fight! Jannes. What a poor hypocritical rascal this must have been!-I sincerely hope he has been dead and buried for centuries, and that there is no fellow of the same kidney now alive. He wishes, you see, to keep up a sickly sentimental flirtation, without any more serious views, with some kindhearted girl, whose only weakness seems to have been, throwing away a thought on such a fantastic puppy. Although he talks in rather a loftier tone, I think he must have been a cold-blooded monster, like your favourite Swift, who did not hesitate to sacrifice two uncommonly amiable women to his weak and capricious vanity-the high-minded and generous Stella, and the passionate and fascinating Vanessa! What do you say to that, Mr Editor? Ed. Why, there is much to be said upon both sides. We confess a great penchant for Swift, and- -[Enter a servant with a letter.-A letter with rk post-mark upon it! We ondence with votaries of all conditions, and from every nook in the kingdom. Perhaps this may be a tuneful cobler, or apothecary, or-but we shall read it. MR EDITOR, I AM a writer's clerk! [So, so!] Nay, more, I am a writer's clerk in a country town. [Better still. This confession, I fear much, will have the effect of making many of your fashionable readers stop short at the very first sentence of my communication, and, like the lovers in Dante, " read no more." But then, Sir, I am a poet, at least so all my friends here tell me, and I believe them; [poor lad! and, moreover, have little doubt that I shall be able, with your leave, to bring over the judicious part of readers to the same opinion. your My only fear is, that, in the plenitude of your benevolence, you may be indisposed to give me any encouragement in my ardent pursuit of literary fame, under the erroneous impression that I am one of those weakling young-> sters, who, conceiving themselves to have abilities and attainments of no ordinary kind, look down with contempt on the trammels of a profes sion, and break their parents' hearts, and ruin their own prospects, by spending their time in inditing sickly ballads and sentimental sonnets, to the total neglect of their proper avocations. But I can assure you, Sir, I am quite a different sort of personage from these unfortunate youths. I may say, without vanity, that I am now, and have been ever since I entered on my apprenticeship, most attentive to business, and have all along given the greatest satisfaction to my employers. Well, well! It is only during my few leisure hours, and par ticularly on the Saturday afternoons, that I have been in the habit of devoting myself to the worship of the Muses, We hope his worship on the Sundays is not to the same Deities,] and to the indulgence of those sacred emotions which were first kindled in my early youth, amid the lovely scenes of this delightful country. Of late years I have had more opportunities than formerly of making myself in some measure acquainted with the hiterature of the times in which I live, by means of the periodical works which are at present so much in vogue, and, above all, by the constant perusal of your invaluable Magazine. You [Some sense in this fellow! can have but a faint idea, Mr Editor, of the intense interest which is created in my mind by the sight of your green covered numbers, as they monthly reach this ancient burgh-how eagerly I seize upon them-run over the table of contents, and proceed to devour those articles which are most congenial to my taste. (Jannes aside) -What an ass! Alas! Sir, I earnestly wish that this pleasure were of longer duration, or more frequent recurrence; but we are here miserably ill off for books. We have, to be sure, a public library, but it consists only of about 50 volumes, and our funds are so low, that there is little chance of any very speedy increase to our small stock. I find, however, that I am wandering from the object which I had most particularly in view in introducing myself to your notice. I have told you, Sir, that my friends have taken up the idea that I have a considerable talent for poetry, &c. Land so he goes on, and then says he sends us a poem.] If the verses which I now send you shall appear to you deserving of insertion, [O yes! we shall print his poem for him! (Jambres) What! without having read it? I shall take a speedy op portunity of endeavouring to give you some account of my early life, and of the progress of my mind. Nor do I think, Sir, that this will be altogether useless or uninteresting. It can never be a useless task to trace the effect of circumstances and peculiar events upon a young mind, and I think, Sir, that even the early feelings and youthful loves of a writer's clerk in a coun try town may afford some insight into human character, and human feeling, which may not be unworthy of the notice of such as attend to the workings of nature, wherever they manifest themselves. The verses I send form the first part of a pretty long tale, which I wrote sometime ago, and of which I shall send you the remainder, if the portion I now transmit shall meet your approbation. It is the first, and, indeed, the only attempt I have made to write in the Scottish dialect, and you will, I trust, judge of it accordingly. I am, Sir, with great respect, your humble servant, J. M. Lanark, 3d Nov. 1820. VOL. VII. prayers, Wi' my tears, an' my sighs, an' my And I gaed by her side doun the banks o* the Clyde, An' the hours stal awa unawares. 'Twas a still simmer nicht at the fa'ing o' licht, At the gloamin's saft an' schadowie hour, An' we wandered alane till the day-licht was gane, An' we cam to a sweet simmer bour. The mune was up i' the clear blue skye, The mune and her single wee starre, The winds gaed gently whisperin' bye, Thair was stilness near an' farre. Alane we sat i' the green simmer bour, An' oh! that hour, that hallowit hour, My fond heart wull never forget; Though drear is the dule I haif suffered sinsyne, That hour gars my heart beat warmly yet. Weel the partin' time cam, an' the partin' time past, An' it past na without the saut tear, An' awa to anither an' farre awa land I gaed, an' I left my ain dear. I gaed, an' tho' ither and brichter maids Wuld smile wi' fond luve i' their ee, I but thocht o' the sweet green bour by the Clyde, An' that thocht was enough for me. End of Part First. Well, what do you think of the writer's clerk? He is not a Platonist at least. Jambres. No, on the contrary, there is too much billing and cooing with him. The scene he describes reminds one, somewhat unfortunately too, of that beautiful passage in the close of Coleridge's poem, entitled Love, in which there is so perfect a mixture of every thing that is warm and pure in that passion. There are no Platonic and unnatural altitudesbut there is the artless confession of an innocent and warm-hearted girl so difficult to be described, yet described with such truth and tenderness. I will repeat you the verses, for they are engraven on my heart as well as my memory. The poet, you know, is painting the effect of a pathetic tale which he had related, on the feelings of the gentle creature who was listening to it. ALL impulses of soul and sense And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, She wept with pity and delight, She blushed with love and maiden shame; And, like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name. Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside; She half inclosed me with her arms, 'Twas partly Love, and partly Fear, I calmed her fears; and she was calm, How fine the view, in the close, of "wedded love," that "mysterious law" advancing to sanctify whatever might appear too ardent in the virtuous girl's passion!-Ah! There is no breathing upon the shrinking sensibility of that law, with impunity! No man nor woman, no rank nor station, not the throne itself—A Hawk er under the window, " Here are the last words and dying speech of the Green Bag: Queen Caroline for ever!"-0, the Queen's acquittal! I sincerely hope she is innocent, but she certainly shewed too much favour to that low man. Ed. Yes, Queen Caroline, it must be owned, was too favourable to Jock Porteous. We remember well the disturbance it occasioned. But that is the only stain on her blessed memory. See, here, her name in our Prayer-Book. Jannes. No, my friend, Queen Caroline's name is in no Prayer-Bookhinc illa lachrymæ !-(Aside to Jambres)-Poor gentleman! he is really farther gone than I thought. He is actually thinking of George the Second's Queen. He cannot possibly see out the year. Ed. What are you saying there, gentlemen? Jambres. We are saying that we rejoice to see you in such vigour of mind and body, and that we do not doubt you will see out another century. Ed. We assure you we have no doubts of it ourselves. (Aside)— Don't much like those fellows.-Gentlemen, we have been interrupted, and cannot have Pringle's poem now-So good day to you. LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. Remarks on the Comparative Number of the Sexes at Birth. The celebrated M. Hufeland of Berlin has inserted in his Journal of Practical Medicine, some observations in illustration of the comparative numbers of the sexes at birth, which possess considerable interest. Dr Arbuthnot, physician to Queen Anne, first (Phil. Trans. Vol. xxvii.) pointed out, from the bills of mortality of London, that the number of males born exceeded that of females. This was confirmed by Gravesende, and the proportion was determined by the laborious Süssmilch, from an immense mass of documents, to be 21 males to 20 females. It was however doubted if this law was universal; and, in particular, Bruce and Niebuhr contended, that in countries where polygamy is tolerated, the females exceed the males; and Forster even went so far as to assert, that this excess of the females was owing to the feebleness of the men. But this effect is denied by Hufeland, from his own observations. One man in the prime of life begot only daughters, and after he was old and debilitated, sons. Porter, the English Ambassador at the Porte, denied (Phil. Trans. Vol. xlix.) the excess of feniale births in Turkey, and found that polygamy did not favour population, as the children commonly did not exceed from three to six in polygamous families. In China, the numbers are said to be equal, (Letters edifiantes et curieuses, Recueil 26.) In Tranquebar, an accurate record was kept for seventeen years by the missionaries, from which it appeared, that among the Europeans there, 156 boys and 141 girls were born: and among the natives, 914 boys and 857 girls. In Calcutta, a four years register gave 1290 boys, and 1240 girls, almost entirely from Tamul parents. In Batavia in 1748, among the Chinese, there were under four. teen years of age 1063 boys and 896 girls; among the Malays, 203 boys and 201 girls; among the Macassers, 691 boys and 599 girls; among the Javanese, 3949 boys and 3860 girls: In all, 34,000 boys and 28,000 girls, (Valentyn, Beschryving van Amboynu.) Humboldt found, that in New Spain the proportion was as 100 to 97, whereas in France it is 100 to 96 only. Hufeland thought it interesting to ascertain the proportion among the Jews, as a remarkable remnant of an Oriental and Patriarchal People; and he found that of 893 successive births in Berlin, during sixteen years, 528 were boys and 365 girls, a proportion almost as high as 28 to 20. But upon the whole, the number of males born to that of females seems to be 21 to 20 over the whole earth. The proportion of the sexes is reduced to perfect equality before they reach the age of puberty, as more boys than girls die before fourteen. By the assistance of Link, and especially of Rudolphi, Hufeland has extended the comparison over animated nature in general. In hermaphrodite flowers, all proportions between the sexes are found, but monogamy is very rare, and the excess of the male sex (or more stamina than pistils) very great. Diœcious plants are more analogous to animals, and here the male sex predominates, as may be observed in a field of hemp, or in the willow and poplar tribes. Worms are generally hermaphrodite, but there are two kinds of intestinal worms where the sexes are distinct, and in these the predominance of the female is immense. Indeed, of one, the oxyuris, no male has been detected. In insects in general the male predominates, but the working bees and amazon ants are undeveloped females. In fishes, Bloch says the males are most numerous; but Staunton, in his voyage to China, states that the sealfishers reckon 30 females to one male. Of the amphibia little is known; but according to Rudolphi, the male is much less frequent among the Lacerta agilis than the female. In birds, the female decidedly predominates. In the mammalia, polygamy is most frequent, and one male is sufficient for thirty or forty females. Upon the whole, it ap pears that the female sex is most numerous among animals, except the human race. Professor Hufeland then proceeds to an inquiry peculiar to himself, in endeavouring to ascertain the principles and commencement of the equality of the sexes. In come families it evidently does not hold. In some the children are all boys, in others all girls. He next took several fa milies, as 20, 30, 40, or 50 in one place, in conjunction; or small villages of 150 to 300 inhabitants. But even then the just proportion was not yet established. some years only boys, in others only girls, were born; nay, this disproportion conti nued sometimes for a series of a year or two, but by uniting ten or fifteen years together, the regular equality appeared. In He next considered that what took place in ten years in small populations, must take place every year in larger societies, and he accordingly found it confirmed by actual enumeration. He went so far as, by the aid of the Minister of State, Schuckmann, to ascertain the comparative number of boys and girls born in one day over the whole Prussian dominions, and the result corresponded with his anticipations. |