Seeks not, and wishes not relief:
And driving hope from out the breast
There's nought on earth can give it rest.
I've seen the stern unflinching rock
Torn rudely by the Earthquake's shock;
And the unbending, firm, old oak,
Fall blasted by the lightning's stroke;
And I have seen the human soul
Gush forth 'mid streams of human blood,
And the red tide of battle roll
That sent it trembling to its God;
I too have seen, by th' headsman's hand,
The felon sent to the dreamless land,
Reckless, and fearless of his fate,
With lip of scorn-with brow of hate;
But Earthquake, lightning, battle-field,
The felon, and the headsman's steel,
Ne'er paled my cheek, or made me feel
Within my heart, what men call fear-
Such guest found never welcome here.
Yet at that moment I confest
A new emotion in my breast-
A pity I had never felt-

A grief to make the stern heart melt,

As on that stricken one I gazed,

So changed of late, demented, crazed.
Bewildered, crashed, o'erwhelmed, amazed-
How deep was her unrest.

*

Cold as the corse within the tomb,
The victim of a settled gloom
That for good reason-known to few-
From year to year upon him grew-
Love's power my master never knew ;
Or if he had, long years had flown
Since he could call such power his own.
It might be, restless mem'ry cast
Its shadows o'er the hidden past,
And that his thoughts thus darkly dwelt
On what his earlier years had felt.
Strong is the heart's first love, and deep
A something that can never sleep;
Its object may prove false, or die,
And Time his years may tell by scores;
Still must the lonely bosom sigh,
And still the heart the past deplores.
His eye dwelt not on Nora long,
Before his thoughts had done her wrong-
And lips with serpent guile expressed
What eye and thought alike confessed.
She heard with scoru, and woman's pride
Swelled in her heart-an angry tide,
She strove in vain her tears to hide,
And nobly, fearlessly, replied:
Much as I wish to burst the chain
That binds me to a menial train,

I will not, nay! I cannot be

The cursed thing thou name'st to me.
Avannt! I wish not for thy gold,
'Tis rusted with the blood thou'st sold,
"Twould make my guilty heart grow cold;
And rather would I yield to heaven

The life not in its mercy given,
And lie before thee still and cold,
The spirit from the frail clay riven-
Unwest; unsepulchered, unshriven.

On this dark theme I will not dwell;
What boots it that I stop to tell
The sick'ning tale-young Nora fell
A victim to a scheme which hell
In all its blackness never laid
To damn a mortal-ruin maid.
The girl was drugged, and from that sleep
She only waked to mourn and weep.
Who could, or who would wish to live,
When the best boon that life can give,
Fame, honor-all we prize-have fled,
And hope is in the bosom dead;
Oh tell me, stranger, is there one
So base as still to struggle on?
Poor Nora by her own hand died,
She could not struggle with her pride,
And well she knew the grave would hide
The sense of sorrow and of shame
That hung upon her sullied name.
Bernardo saw his loved one die-
His beautiful decay,

And the dear love-light in her eye
Melt like a dream away;

And from that moment he was changed,
His very nature was estranged;

The visage which before was mild,
Grew gloomy as the grave, and wild,
And since then he has never smiled.

*

*

*

The sun came up with cloud and gloom,
As if to mourn o'er Nora's doom,
And shed a sad funereal ray
Upon the cold turf where she lay.
Nature may sometimes seem to wear
Like man, a dark and troubled air,
And dress herself in sable weeds
In sorrow for earth's damning deeds.
It was the moon next that succeeding
Which saw poor Nora cold and bledding,
Laid in the dark grave of dishonor,
And the cold earth thrown back upon her;
Slowly, heavily passed that day,
And night came with her robes of grey
Thrown sadly on her sombre breast,
And, ushered in the hour of rest;
But one who laid him down that night
Woke not to see the morning light,
But grim and ghastly in his gore
He slept the sleep that wakes no more.
The slaves that night-myself their head-
In vengeance sought my master's bed;
In vain he wept, in vain he plead,
We heeded not the words he said;
Pale stranger! I can see them now-
The fear-drops on his pallid brow-
As they gushed forth when first he woke,
And read the intent he had not spoke
Gleam wildly from Bernardo's eye;
He knew the closing hour was near.
He started with a frantic cry
Of mental agony and fear-
Prayed us his wratched life to spare.
We smiled upon his phrenzied prayer
Made eloquent by deep despair-
Listened with stern disdain to hear
His voice made hoarse by sudden fear.
Ha ha! he knelt, that craven thing
Before his guilty soul took wing-
He knelt to one he deemed his slave;
Entreaty came too late to save
The craven from a well-earned grave.
But let it pass! for why should I
Dwell longer in the years gone by-
Live o'er their suffering-feel their care-
The present is enough to bear.
He died and then for life we fled
We scarce knew how-we only sped
From slavery, and for freedom's air-
To any place, we cared not where;
VOL. III. NO. XLI.

Than touch that cankered, blood-bought pile;
Or should thou even make me free,
And take me once more to the Nile,
Tyrant I would not yield to thee.
Oh! say no more that I am fair,
My limbs too beautiful to wear
The links whose iron brings despair;
Christian thy hands have linked them here,
And made them stronger year by year.
Thy power can work but one ill more,
One greater evil to deplore-
Leave one more wreck upon the shore

*

*

N. S. VOL. I. NO. VI. 0. S

១១

Death by the Law.

The Topic. No. VII. Death by the Law. London: Published for the Proprietors, by C. MITCHELL, Red Lion Court, Fleet street.

Statistical Evidence.-The following statistical abstract has been previously made public; but it is so concise, logical, and, in our view, unanswerable, that we feel bound to reprint it.

“In 1843 a return was laid on the table of the House of Commons of the commitments and executions for murder in England and Wales during the thirty years ending with December, 1842, divided into five periods of six years each. It shows that in the last six years, from 1836 to 1842, during which there were only 50 executions, the commitments for murder were fewer by 61 than in the six years preceeding with 74 executions; fewer by 63 than in the six years ending 1830 with 75 executions; fewer by 56 than in the six years ending 1824, with 94 executions; fewer by 93 than in the six years ending 1818, when there was no less a number of executions than 122. But it may be said perhaps, that, in the inference we draw from this return, we are substituting cause for effect, and that, in each successive cycle, the number of murders decreased in consequence of the example of public executions in the cycle immediately preceding, and that it was for that reason there were fewer commitments. This might be said with some color of truth, if the example had been taken from two successive cycles only. But when the comparative examples adduced are of no less than five successive cycles, and the result gradually and constantly progressive in the same direction, the relation of facts to each other is determined beyond all ground for dispute. More especially when it is also remembered that it was immediately after the first of these cycles of five years, when there had been the greatest number of executions and the greatest number of murders, that the greatest number of persons were suddenly cast loose upon the country without employ by the reduction of the Army and Navy; that then came periods of great distress and great disturbance in the agricultural and manufacturing districts; and above all, that it was during the subsequent cycles that the most important mitigations were ef fected in the law, and that the punishment of death was taken away, not only for crimes of stealth, such as cattle and horse stealing, and forgery of which crimes corresponding statistics show likewise a corresponding decrease, but for the crimes of violence too, tending to murder, such as are many of the incendiary offences, and such are highway robbery and burglary. But another return laid before the House at the same time, bears upon our argument, if possible, still more conclusively. In table 11, we have only the years which have occurred since 1810, in which all persons convicted of murder suffered death; and compared with these an equal number of years in which the smallest proportion of persons convicted were executed. In the first case there were 66 persons convicted, all of whom underwent the penalty of death; in the second 83 were convicted, of whom 31 only were executed. Now see how these two very different methods of dealing with the crime of murder affected the commission of it in the years immediately following. The number of commitments for murder in the four years immediately following

248

The Pauper's Death-Bed.

[Feb.

those in which all persons convicted were executed, was 270. In the four years immediately following those in which little more than onethird of the persons convicted were executed, there were but 222, being 48 less. If we compare the commitments in the following years with those in the first years, we shall find that immediately after the examples of unsparing executions, the crime increased nearly 13 per cent., and that, after commutation was the practice, and capital punishment the exception, it decreased 17 per cent.

"In the same parliamentary return is an account of the commitments and executions in London and Middlesex, spread over a space of 32 years, ending in 1842, divided into two cycles of 16 years each. In the first of these, 34 persons were convicted of murder, all of whom were executed. In the second 27 were convicted, and only 17 executed. The commitments for murder during the latter long period, with 17 executions, were more than one-half fewer than they had been in the former long period with exactly double the number of executions. This appears to us to be as conclusive upon our argument as any statistical illustration can be upon any argument professing to place successive events in the relation of cause and effect to each other."

From other investigations, we learn that correspondent effects have accrued from the diminution of capital punishments abroad. In France, during the five years ending with 1829, the number of trials for murder was 1182. The executions for the same crime amounted to $52. In the following five years, ending with 1834, the executions for murder were only 131, and the number of trials 1172.

In Belgium, during the five years terminating in 1829, the executions for all crimes were 21; the convictions for murder, 84. In the subsequent five years there was no execution for any crime; and the convictions for niurder were only 20.

In Prussia, including the Rhine Provinces, for the crime of murder, there were executed in the five years ending 1824, 47 persons. The convictions amounted to 69. In the five years ending with 1829, there were convicted 50, of which number 26 were executed. And in the five years ending with 1834, the convictions had decreased to 43; the execuions to 16.

Journal of a Poor Vicar.

I have to-day, December 15, 1763, visited Dr. Snarl, and received from him £10, the amount of my half-year's salary. The receipt even of this hardly-earned sum, was attended with some uncomfortable cir

cumstances.

Not till I had waited an hour and a half in the cold ante room, was I admitted into the presence of my reverend employer, who was sitting in an easy chair, at his writing desk. The money designed for me was lying by him ready counted. My low bow he returned with a lofty side nod, while he slightly pushed back his beautiful black silk cap, and immediately drew it on again. Really, he is a man of much dignity; and I feel I can never approach him without the awe I should have in entering the presence of a king.

He did not urge me to be seated, although he well knew that I had walked eleven miles in the bad weather, and that the hour and a half's standing in the ante-room had not much helped to rest my wearied limbs. He pointed me to the money. My heart beat violently when I attempted to introduce the subject I had long been contemplating-a little increase of my salary. With an agony, as if I were about to commit a crime, I endeavored to break ground, but at every effort words and voice failed me.

"Did you wish anything?" observed the rector very politely.

"Why--yes-pardon me; everything is so dear that I am scarcely able to get along in these hard times with this small salary."

"Small salary! How can you think so? I can at any time procure another vicar for £15 a year.'

"For £15! Without a family, one might indeed manage with that

sum."

"I hope your family, Mr. Vicar, has not received any addition? You have, I think, only two daughters?"

"Yes, only two, your reverence; but they are growing up. Jenny, my eldest, is now eighteen, and Polly, the younger, will soon be twelve."

"So much the better. Cannot your girls work?"

I was about to reply, when he cut the interview short by rising, and observing, while he went to the window, that he was sorry he had not time to talk with me to-day. "But you can think it over," he concluded, "whether you will retain your situation for a New Year's gift."

He bowed very politely, and touched his cap, as if wishing me to be gone. I accordingly lifted the money, and took my leave, quite disheartened. I had never been received or dismissed so coldly before, and feared that some one had been speaking ill of me. He did not invite me

to dinner, or to partake of any refreshment, as he had done on former occasions. Unfortunately I had depended on him doing so, for I came from home without breaking my fast. Having bought a penny loaf at a baker's shop in the town, I took my way homeward.

How cast down was I as I trudged along! I cried like a child. The bread I was eating was wet with my tears.

But fy, Thomas! Shame upon thy faint heart! Lives not the gracious God still? What if thou hadst lost the place entirely? And it is