ing pain in his head, and a strange confusion of mind which the poor girl, from some of his incoherent expressions, had attributed to his excess of affection. With words of comfort she soothed him; her arm now returned the support she had received from his; she led him home languid and half delirious, whilst she herself felt stunned as well by the violence as the unaccountable nature of his illness. On reaching home, they found that the noise of social enjoyment had risen to the outrage of convivial extravagance; but the moment he staggered in, supported only by the faithful arm of his wife, a solemn and apprehensive spirit suddenly hushed their intemperance, and awed them into a conviction that such an illness upon the marriage day must be as serious as it was uncommon. Felix was put to bed in pain and danger; but Alley smoothed his pillow, bound his head, and sat patient, and devoted, and wife-like, by his side. During all that woeful night of sorrow she watched the feverish start, the wild glare of the half-opened eye, the momentarily conscious glance, and the miserable gathering together of the convulsed limbs, hoping that each pang would diminish in agony, and that the morning might bring ease and comfort.

"Poor girl, put on thy stifling widow's weeds, And scape at once from Hope's accursed bands!" We feel utterly incapable of describing, during the progress of this heavy night, the scorching and fiery anguish of his brother Hugh; or the distracted and wailing sorrow of poor Maura. The unexpected and delightful revulsion of feeling produced upon both, especially on the former, by his temporary recovery, now utterly incapacited them from bearing his relapse with anything like fortitude. The frantic remorse of the guilty man, and the stupid but pungent grief of his sister, appeared but as the symptoms of weak minds and strong passions, when contrasted with the deep but patient affliction of his innocent and uncomplaining wife. She wasted no words in sorrow; for, during this hopeless night, self, happiness, affection, hope, were all forgotten in the absorbing efforts at his recovery. Never, indeed, did the miseries and calamities of life draw from the fruitful source of a wife's attached and affec

tionate heart a nobler specimen of that pure and disinterested devotion which characterizes woman, than was exhibited by the stricken-hearted Alley Bawn.

There was something in this peculiar case, as, indeed, there are in all family occurrences of a similar nature, which induced them to try upon the suffering boy the full extent of their humble skill, rather than call in a strange physician, to witness the disastrous, perhaps fatal effects of domestic violence. Had the cause of Felix's illness been unknown to Hugh or Maura, they would have procured medical advice in the early part of the night. Let us, however, not press too severely upon the repentant brother. Shame, and remorse, and penitence ought to plead strongly for the hope deferred that made his heart sick." Hugh's passions arose to violence, but not to murdera distinction which both law and morality too frequently forget to make.

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When Hugh saw, however, that nothing except medical skill could save him, he forgot his crime, and its consequences. Stung to madness by his love of Felix, and his fears for his recovery, he mounted a horse, and had almost broken down the animal by over exertion, ere he reached the village of B, where the doctor he sought lived. After an impetuous and violent knocking the door was opened, and a man pale and horror-struck entered, whom the doctor was inclined to receive rather as the patient than the messenger. Yes! haggard, wild, yet weak and trembling, he staggered into the room, and, sinking on a seat, in a voice husky and hoarse said:

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Docthor! oh docthor, you wont refuse to come! It's thrue he was my brother-but I had not-I had notoh-no-no-I had it not in my heart to murdher him! My brother is dyin'! Oh come, docthor! come to my brother, he's dyin', and 'twas I that struck the blow!"

With a vehemence of grief that was pitiable, and an exhibition of the wildest gestures which characterise despair, he then uttered a cry that rang through the house.

"Oh Felix, agra, my brother, I'm your murdherer! My sister and I are both wealthy-he's dyin',__docthorcome, come. Oh, agra Felix-agra

Felix! To see you well-to see you well-the wealth of the world, if I had it, would go. My life my life

docthor! Oh that would be but little-but it, too, would go—I'd give it-all we have, my sister and I, to our blanket to the shoes on our feet, and the coat and gown on our backs all-all-you'll get-if you can save our brother that I struck down and murdhered!"

The doctor, a man of great skill and humanity, immediately ordered his horse, and mounting him, accompanied Hugh to the sick bed of his brother. On arriving there, they found him worse; and never before, nor during his whole professional experience, had the doctor witnessed such a scene. Hugh took his place behind Felix, who, by the doctor's direction, was placed in a half-sitting half-recumbent posture in the bed; his arms were placed distractedly about him, his breast was his pillow, and his cheek, wildly and with voracious affection, laid to his. He was restrained from crying aloud, but his groans were enough to wrench the heart from which they proceeded to pieces. Sympathy, in fact, was transferred from the sick boy to his brother; and perhaps more tears were shed, by the lookers-on, from pity towards Hugh than Felix.

But where was she, the bride and wife of a changeful day-of a day, in which the extremes of happiness and misery met? Oh where but where she would and ought to be, at his bed-side, hoping against hope, soothing his wild ravings by her soft sweet voice; and when, in his delirium, the happy scenes of the past day seemed reacted, then she knelt, ever ready to lead him, by her words and caresses, into a forgetfulness of his present pain. In his desperate struggles he fancied they were tearing her from him; and when the strength of several men could scarce restrain him, then came the mildness of her power. With her gentle hands and her fond kind words she laid him in peace once more, and, kneeling by his side, cooled his burning temples with her pale fingers, and wet his parched lips with the draught prescribed by the physician. When the crisis, however, approached, she saw by the keen glance of observant affection, that the doctor's manner betrayed

his hopelessness of her husband's recovery. Then did her strength give way, and one violent fit of hysteric sobbing almost broke down both her reason and physical powers. Unavailing was all their tenderness, and fruitless every attempt at consolation. Even her own beloved mother failed. Alley asthore agus machree," said she, don't give way to this, for it's sinful; it's wrong to cry so bitterly for the livin'. You know that while there's life there's hope. God is marciful, and may think fit to pity you, anien machree, and to spare him for the sake of our prayers, that your heart mayn't be broken. Here's the priest, too, an' sure it's a comfort, if the Lord does take him from us, that he's not goin' widout the holy saicriments of the church, to clear away any stain of sin that may be on him."

Felix, tranquillized by the satisfaction that always results from the consciousness of having received the rites of the church, yet moved by the deep sobbings of his miserable brother, took his hand, and thus addressed him: "Hugh dear!"_

"Oh Felix, Felix, Felix darling, if you spake kind to me my brain will turn, and my heart will burst to pieces! Harsh, harsh, avourneen, speak harshly, cruelly, blackly-oh say you wont forgive me-but no, that I couldn't bearforgive me in your heart, and before God, but don't spake wid affection to me, for then I'll not be able to bear it."

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Hugh," said Felix, from whose eyes the keenness of his brother's repentance wrung tears, despite his burning agony; Hugh dear"-and he looked pitifully in the convulsed face of the unhappy man-" Hugh dear, it was only an accident, for if you hadthought-that it would turn out—as it has done But no matter now-you have my forgiveness-and you deserve it; for, Hugh dear, it was as much and more my own thoughtlessness and selfwill that caused it. Hugh dear, comfort and support Alley here, and Maura, too, Hugh; be kind to them both for poor Felix's sake." He sank back, exhausted, holding his brother's hand in his left, and his mute heartbroken bride's in his right. A calm, or rather torpor, followed, which lasted until his awakening spirit, in returning consciousness of life and love, made a

last effort to dissolve in a farewell embrace upon the pure bosom of his virgin wife.

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Alley," said he, "are you not my wife, and amn't I your husband? Whose hands should be upon me-in what arms but your's should I die? Alley think of your own Felix-oh don't let me pass altogether out of your memory; an' if you'd wear a lock of my hair, (many a time you used to curl it over on my cheek, for you said it was the same shade as your own, and you used to compare them together,) wear it, for my sake, next your heart, and if ever you think of doin' a wrong thing look at it, and you'll remimber that Felix, who's now in the dust, always desired you to pray for the Almighty's grace, an' trust to him for strength against evil. But where are you asthore? My eyes want a last look of you; I feel you-ay, I feel you in my breakin' heart, and sweet is your presence in it, avourneen machree; but how is it that I cannot see you? Oh my wife, my young wife, my spotless wife, be with me-near me!" He clasped her to his heart, as if, while he held her there, he thought it could not cease to beat; but in a moment, after one slight shudder, one closing pang, his grasp relaxed-his head fell upon her bosom-and he, Felix, who that morning stood up in the bloom of youth and manly beauty, with the cup of happiness touching his very lips, was now a clod of the valley. Half unconscious-almost unbelieving that all could be over, she gently laid him down. On looking into his face, her pale lips quivered; and as her mute wild gaze became fixed upon the body, slowly the desolating truth forced itself upon her heart. She then sank upon her knees, and prayed to God that, if it were his will, and lawful for her in her misery to utter such a prayer, he would not part her in death from him who had been to her far dearer than all that life now contained-without whom the world was now empty to her for ever.

Quietly and calmly she then arose, and but for the settled wretchedness of her look, the stillness of her spirit might have been mistaken for apathy. Without resistance, without a tear, in the dry agony of burning grief, she gently gave herself up to the guidance

of those who wept, while they attempted to soothe her. In reply to their attempts at consolation she only uttered one brief sentence in Irish. "Oh," said she, "God is good-still, still, this was a dark day to Felix and to me!"

At the inquest, which followed, there was no proof to criminate the wretched brother; nor, to speak truly, were the jury anxious to find any. The man's shrieking misery was more wild and frightful than death itself. From "the Dark Day" until this on which I write, he has never been able to raise his heart or his countenance. Home he never leaves, except when the pressure of business compels him; and when he does, in every instance he takes the most unfrequented paths and the loneliest bye-roads, in order to avoid the face and eye of man. Better, indeed, to encounter flood or fire, than to suffer what he has borne, when the malicious or coarse-minded have reproached him, in what, we trust, is his repentance, with his great affliction.

Alley, contrary to the earnest solicitations of Hugh and Maura, went back to reside with her mother. Four years have now passed, and the virgin widow is constant to her grief. With a bunch of yarn on her arm, she may be occasionally seen in the next markettown, the chastened sorrow of her look agreeing well with her mournful weeds. In vain is she pressed to mingle in the rustic amusements of her former companions; she cannot do it, even to please her mother; the poor girl's heart is sorrow-struck for ever. She will never smile again. As it is, however, the steady subdued melancholy of her manner increases the respect, without lessening the love, of all who know her. Who, indeed, could see her, and hear her sad history, without loving her purity, and her devoted affection to the memory of him that was only the husband of a day, without pitying the stricken girl who suffered so much, and wishing that time, which weans us from our greatest sorrows, may, by its influence, mellow her afflictions, until the bitterness of their spirit passes out of her soul.

Reader, if you want a moral, look upon the wasted brow of Hugh O'Donnell, and learn to restrain your passions and temper within proper limits.

I AM a dirty man-a very dirty man-the dirtiest man perhaps you ever met with, or heard of, except Magliabecchi, the celebrated librarian of Florence, who, like the Chinese, as D'Israeli tells us, "always wore his shirt as long as it lasted." It is now well-nigh an Olympiad since I endured the misery of a change of sheets; and the customary state of my outer man you may gather from the fact, that I merely shift my linen and shave myself when I wish to preserve a strict incognito. My friends call me the Great Unwashed, and sometimes (alluding to my 66 'capillary attractions") the Great Uncombed. Both appellations are tolerably correct; for never, since with raptures unspeakable, I escaped from the hands of the nursery-maid, about my tenth year, has the repose of my locks been troubled by the hairbrush, or the surface of my cuticle irritated with soap and towel. From my cradle up I had an instinctive and insuperable horror of the jug and basin, with all their abominable accompaniments. I am proud to say that I never submitted to the rack-comb with patience. It was always a rack indeed to me, and many a struggle, fierce and long, had I with aunt Letitia, rather than resign my head to its operations. The brush (I call heaven and earth to witness) was torture enough; I would just as soon have had my sconce in a bristling nest of hedge-hogs but its miscreant accomplices the combs! aye, there was a pair of them, rack and small-tooth.

:

"Arcades ambo," or "blackguards both,"

as Lord Byron renders it. I vow and protest, to escape their villanous fangs, had I had as many aunts as his Majesty of Troy had daughters, all standing about me in a circle, clothed in the terrors of Shenstone's school

*

MILTON.

mistress, I should have braved them all.

What has been said of madness is extremely applicable to dirt: there is a pleasure in it which none but the dirty have any notion of. I have not the slightest doubt but that I should make a host of converts to my views upon this subject, could I but convey anything like an accurate idea of the happy life I have led, ever since I had the moral intrepidity to break my looking-glass, discharge my washer-woman, put the sweeping-brush under an interdict, and mend my pen, and occasionally open oysters with my razor. You would hardly believe all I have saved in time and money, and gained in warmth, peace, and comfort of every kind. All the pounds, shillings, and pence that your nice, neat, finical people squander upon that abominably nasty composition, soap, I spend at the bookseller's, in additions to my library, or at the pastrycook's upon queencake and gingerbread. I never take a trip in the long vacation to the English lakes or Scotch highlands, but I say to myself, thank my stars, I am superior to the foppery of white linen: better to be a sloven on Loch Katrine than an exquisite in the smoke and dust of Grafton-street. Besides (though no relation of the Greedy family) I have a tolerable appetite for breakfast, and an excellent one, in general, for my dinner; and with very little aid from old Gough, or older Cocker, I find that the smaller my disbursements to brushmakers, broomvenders, laundresses, and housemaids, the larger are my funds to meet the demands of my baker and butcher. Were I to deny myself the fruition of a dirty pair of hands, and a shirt to correspond, I should also have to deny myself the enjoyment of my natural, innocent, wholesome, and neces

sary three meals aday. Now, two such sacrifices are rather much to expect from one who is not a downright hero, or martyr. The most thoroughly contemptible person I ever met in my life was a dinnerless dandy. The fellow had but a shilling in his pocket, and, instead of ordering a muttonchop, what do you think he did?-the idiot bought a nail-brush. You can

have no idea what a despicable figure he made with his nail-brush. There he was, with nothing under his belt but a practical proof of the existence of a vacuum, yet he must purchase a nail-brush! See," I observed to a friend, "see what it is to be cleanly! See what the jug and basin bring people

to

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Then, I not only save money, but time. While others are rubbing, scrubbing, combing and currying themselves, as if they desired nothing more ardently than to get out of their skins, I get through a quantity of business that would amaze you. The moment I spring out of bed I am at my desk. No tarrying at the toilette-table; no washing, scraping, brushing, gargling, dabbling, or any of those disgusting processes which your fine gentleman rejoices in, and which take up so much of the "precious stuff that life is made of." Such as I go to bed at night, I rise in the morning; and such as I rise in the morning, I go to bed at night. I often compare myself to the sun, who, (let the poets say what they please,) never washed his face in all his days, the best proof of which is, that astronomers have observed a smut on his nose, which they calculate (Sir John Herschel informs us) to be at least 45,000 miles in diameter! That is something like a smut! In good sooth, Lady Thetis, if you discharge the office of nurserymaid for your fair nephew, Sol, you have no sinecure place, nor is the Atlantic too large a basin. It was an odd appointment for the poets to give you. I marvel, since their ears are so sharp as to hear the sun hissing in the ocean, they have not informed us that it was the whimpering of the bright-haired urchin, under his aunt's mother-of-pearl comb. You will pardon, Sir, this little my

seven

My

You have often heard of the dust of the schools; if you have a fancy to see it, visit me any day you please in my "sanctum-sanctorum." I will show it to you, an inch and a half thick, the accumulation of some six or studious years; I would not exchange it for a Gobelin carpet, or the gold dust under the feet of eastern monarchs, when they condescend to walk. study, Sir, has never been profaned by a sweeping-brush; it has never seen the face of that sworn foe to peace and literature-a housemaid. Its hangings were manufactured in the loom of Arachne; that's the drapery for me, at once cheap and classical. Literature knows nothing about moreen or muslin. Was it a Manchester weaver tapestried the Tusculan villa? Who was Socrates' upholsterer? The spider, Sir, the spider-the despised and persecuted spider.

"The sage's curtain-maker she by trade,

The poet's hangings in her loom are made,
She has illustrious customers, she spreads
Her drapery oft o'er great and good men's
heads:

Beneath her canopy they slumber sound,
While villains wake with silk pavilioned
round."

My poor spiders!-let me tell you how narrowly they escaped the utter ruin of their manufacture, about