other poor people, think of my accident, and give a few additional shillings for me, and I must also find some who want where I am, for my danger was great, and I must be thankful in every way I

can.'

His death was lingering, but happy. His children and his childrens' children were about his bed, and derived instruction and consolation from the scene. He had done duty in his parish church up to the third Sunday before his decease. He spoke little.

"Among the intelligible fragments that can never be forgotten, were frequent exclamations of My time is short; it is well to be prepared for death.' Lucy,' this was the affectionate servant that attended along with his sonsdear Lucy, be earnest in prayer! May you see your children's children.' From time to time he expressed great fear that we were all over-exerting ourselves in sitting up at night with him; but the last night he said, Have patience with meit will soon be over. Stay with me, Lucy, till I am dead, and then let others

take care of me." Then again he became exhausted, or his mind wandered in a troubled sleep. Awaking a little refreshed, he held out his hand to us, saying as if he felt it might be the last opportunity, God bless you be good, and come to me!' Even then, though we were all overpowered, and lost all self-command, he continued firm. His countenance now began to vary and alter. Once, however, we had the satisfaction of seeing it lighted up with an indescribable expression of joy, as he appeared to be looking at something before him, and uttered these words, That blessed book!'"

"When the incessant presents and enquiries of his friends in the town were mentioned, he said, What a trouble I am to them all!' And in the course of the night, these most consolatory words were distinctly heard, All is well at last!' Lucy, who could scarcely be persuaded to leave him, day or night, and was close by him when he died, says that the last words he uttered were, God bless youGod bless you.'"

Such was the end of the poet.-The following was the last tribute to his memory :

"The shutters of the shops in the town were half closed, as soon as his death was known. On the day of his

funeral, ninety-two of the principal inhabitants, including all the dissenting ministers, assembling of their own accord in the school room, followed him to the grave. The shops on this day were again closed; the streets crowded; the three with black cloth, as well as the pulpit and galleries aud the organ loft were hung chancel. The choir was in mourningthe other inhabitants of the town were in

their seats and in mourning-the church rible solemnity seems yet recent while I was full-the effect appalling. The terwrite. The leader of the choir selected the following beautiful anthem :

When the ear heard him then it blessed him; And when the eye saw him, it gave witness of him.

He delivered the poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to help him; Kindness and meekness and comfort were in his tongue.'

As we withdraw from contemplating the termination of this good man's career, and turn to the deplorable end of the Scottish poet, we cannot but be struck when we consider that in genius the unfortunate was immeasurably superior to the successful bard. The question we are all ready to ask is, what is this genius which avails not to give happiness nor insure even respectability to its possessor? From whence does it spring, or to what end is it given? Alas! ask the Burnses and the Byrons, and they will answer in their miserable lives and untimely deaths! In order to insure an honoured and successful career, talent must go hand in hand with virtue; and when it does, no opposing influence can at this day prevent it from being appreciated and rewarded.

Having thus brought the third act of our dramatic view to a conclusion, we feel that we have an apology to make works, useful and interesting in themto the public for sacrificing two little selves, to a particular object. We recommend our friends to read these

books, particularly the life of Crabbe, which is written in so good and simple a spirit that we cannot avoid seeing much of the father's character in the son who is his biographer. Many scenes are well described, particularly those wherein the peculiarities of old English customs are brought before us

some interesting particulars relative to to the publication of Crabbe's poems

are given; and we are led to expect a valuable addition to literature in the forthcoming volumes, in several pieces of his which have never been published, or are long out of print.

Of the merit of Burns's life, considered as a piece of writing, we are not quite satisfied. It is put together by one who had every means of obtaining the best information, and who is, besides, intimately acquainted with that class of life and those local peculiarities with which Burns was conversant. With all these advantageswe cannot help thinking, nevertheless, that the writer has fallen too much into the modern system, such as was adopted by Moore in his life of Byron, and deserted the style that was natural to him, for one which is not successful even in the hands of those who best understand its use. An anxious and harrassing pursuit of the wild poet into the minutiæ of his every day life, a scrutiny which poor Burns could bear by no means well-a constant endeavour to account for ideas which were unaccountable, because flowing from the imagination and eccentric character of the poet-all this is calculated neither to interest the reader, exhibit the bard to advantage, nor to instruct the world; and we cannot help thinking the elaborate description of every little song he wrote, a topic occupying more than half the volume, more than ordinarily tedious. However, in spite of a few Scotticisms, the style of writing is good, possessing considerably more of vigour than the English clergyman has displayed in his composition. Many of the descriptions breathe much of the spirit of poetry, and the moral reflections are appropriate and just.

Our readers may be surprised that we have not said so much as a word upon the subject of the poetry of the bards, and that we have thrown our legitimate burthen-criticism-overboard. But we beg them to observe, that, in the first place, we gave notice of what our object was in the commencement of this paper-an object

quite distinct from, and, in our opinion, above that of criticism; and to recollect, besides, that such observations are more appropriate to a review of the subsequent volumes, than the first of each work, which is devoted solely to the life of the poet. We hope to return, ere long, to the province which is more peculiarly ours; and in taking up the other volumes, to draw the attention of the public to the writings by which both the one and the other have been so celebrated. In this duty we hope to be found unprejudiced by any observations we may have been induced to make upon their lives, being fully aware of the necessity of examining poetry upon its own merits, and not as illustrative of character, or influenced by any personal likings or dislikings—a light in which it has been too exclusively viewed by some. We know that posterity will only look to the fruits of genius, not to the watering or pruning that promoted their growth; and it was under such a conviction that we so studiously avoided touching upon the writings of the bards, anxious as we were that the man and the poet should be kept apart, and that head and heart should be brought to separate and distinct tribunals.

We ought, perhaps, also to apologise for the arbitrary nature of the comparison we have drawn ; but the power with which talent acts upon that portion of the world that does not possess it, is so often applied in a pernicious direction, that to press it into some good service appeared to us to be an object well worth attempting, even at the risk of finding ourselves chargeable with want of judgment in doing so. As genius enhances the pleasures, so it increases the responsibilities of its possessor. It is not given for individual, but for general purposes; it is a talent which must not be hid in a napkin, but put out to interest; and we know from the highest authority that we shall be answerable for its use at the great moral adjustment of all things.

"A kingdom for a horse!" A thousand times would I have given a kingdom to be off a horse. I never mounted one of the species, were it only a hobby, without sensations of the most dismal nature imaginable. They may talk as long as they like of the pleasure and healthfulness of riding it has but one good effect on me -it always makes me think of futurity: never, I frankly own, am I half so serious as when I find myself what is called "well mounted." The parson's horse has ten times more influence on me than his sermons. I have been a regular auditor of the latter, for the last ten or a dozen years, and I cannot say that they ever induced me to amend my life in a single particular. I was on his horse's back only once, and I made a resolution then against profane swearing which I have kept religiously ever since; so that one ride was better than upwards of five hundred discourses, for I suppose the efficacy of a preacher is to be measured by the practical improvement of his hearers." "Well mounted!" What a perversion of the use of words! "Well mounted!" In what does the "well" consist, I should gladly be informed. Well dressed I can understand; well fed is intelligible; but well mounted is altogether past my comprehension, unless it is to be taken as a parallel phrase to well cudgelled, or well kicked. To be "well mounted" means nothing else in the world than to have a remarkably fair chance of getting one's neck broken. A man is said to be better and better mounted in proportion as that chance is greater and greater; and he is consequently best mounted when the chance of being dashed to pieces is a maximum, or as near certainty as it is possible

The Travellers.

for a probability to approach. Why, Sir, did you ever know an equestrian in your life who was not mad after spirited horses? Now in what does a spirited horse differ from a tame one, but this-that the latter will let you get on his back with little or no opposition, and carry you sedately, soberly, and in comparative safety-I say comparative, for tame or spirited, I place no trust in one of them-to your journey's end; while the whole object of the former is first by kicking, prancing, plunging, and capering, to prevent you from mounting him, and secondly, (supposing the first part of his plan to have been abortive, which in my case, at least, it seldom is,) to get rid of you in the least possible time, and with the greatest practicable detriment to your person? People shudder at bears and tigers. I will venture to say that not all the wild beasts of the forest, including the four quarters of the world, have occasioned one twentieth part of the mischief to society, or caused one twentieth part of the loss of life and limb, that is to be attributed to the horse. At the Zoological Gardens, one day, I saw a lady in a riding-habit, (she had but a few minutes before been on horse-back) express the greatest alarm at an innocent wolf in a cage. Now was there ever such inconsistency known? It is pardonable, however, in a woman; but there is no excuse for men whatever; they pretend to superior understandings, and they ought to show it in their conduct. The late Mr. Kean was consistent in this particular: he liked to be well mounted; but then he slept every night with a lion at his bed side—he was not guilty of the incredible absurdity of quaking at one description of savage

animal, and at the very same time, cultivating the acquaintance, and trusting himself to the mercy of another. The ingratitude of the horse is quite disgusting. All who have any knowledge of the brute allow that the higher he is fed, the more spirited he becomes; that is to say, the more kindly he is treated, the more likely he is to break your leg with a kick, or pitch you over his head and fracture your skull. A noble animal truly! Aye, "noble animal" is the phrase what a compliment to nobility! I have no doubt it was some Jacobin or Benthamite first called a horse a "noble animal." It was intended as a cut at the House of Lords.

Glory be to the inventor of steam travelling! I anticipate with raptures not to be uttered, the day when a man shall order his groom to have the kettle at the door at a certain hour, and take his constitutional ride on a courser which shall neither kick, nor curvet, nor lash, nor capricole, nor execute any one of those horrid movements and evolutions which render the horse species, in all its varieties, so justly odious. All the kettle can possibly do in imitation of its predecessor, is to foam at the mouth; there is an apparatus called a regulator, to prevent it from running away; and then its career will be confined to a rail-road, so as effectually to secure the rider from the danger he continually incurs at present, of being swept away over walls, gates, ditches, hedges, pigs, and old women, exactly as it may suit the sovereign will and pleasure of the ferocious and ungovernable quadruped between his legs. Caligula styled his horse a consul; but for my part I think horses in general are dictators; mine, at least, (whenever misfortune elevates me to the "bad eminence" of a saddle,) is always invested with that dignity. When steam-riding, however, becomes general, it will be quite another thing. Once guaranteed against all irregular and capricious modes of motion, I don't doubt but that I may hunt, or even ride a steeplechase. I shall very soon be as bold a kettle-man as any other gentleman of my weight; at present my hair literally stands erect on my head at the bare mention of a trot. No wonder the wonder would be, if my feelings were of an agreeable nature. There

VOL. III.

is no tie whatsoever between my steed and myself. There is no sympathy, no principle of connection; we feel towards each other like man and wife; we have but one sentiment in common-a hearty wish to part company the earliest opportunity that may present itself. Judge, then, how I must enjoy a ride! Were paradise conveyed to me in fee-simple, it would afford me no gratification were the grant saddled with the condition that I should ride but one half-hour in the day. I would not enjoy an excursion through Elysium, in company with Shakspeare, Spenser, and John Milton, on the back of the mildest and meekest palfrey that ever carried a girl. The gentlest of the race will snort, and toss his head, and paw the ground, and show some indication or another of spirit. It is the vice of the whole species, from Bucephalus to a cart horse.

To be spirited is the nature of the animal, as it is that of a leopard to be spotted, or of an hyena to be ravenous. It were just as impracticable to eradicate this detestable quality out of the horse, as to teach a vulture to eat his carrion like a gentleman. Get me a horse that has no spirit-warrant him sound in this particular, and you may name your price-he is really worth "a kingdom." I once advertised for a steed of this sort. The advertisement ran thus :

"Wanted by a gentleman who happens to have no fancy for a dislocated shoulder or a broken neck, a steady, safe, horse; the animal must be warranted to stand perfectly motionless while being mounted, never to exceed in pace a sober walk, and perfectly free from what is commonly called blood. A liberal price will be given, should the advertiser meet an animal to his taste. Applications to be made by letter, directed to Cadwallader Craven, Esq., Panic Hall, County Down."

In answer to this advertisement, I had some dozen communications from millers, dray-men, proprietors of hackney coaches and jaunting cars, and persons of similar description; but I never saw any thing that entirely pleased me: there were, no doubt, amongst the animals submitted to my inspection, some remarkably fine jades as ever I saw in my life; there was one magnificent garron from Black

3 c

Rock, which I recollect struck me particularly; but every one of them, even the garron, had some blemish or fault which (being in my own way as hard to please in horse flesh as any jockey in Ireland) I could not possibly overlook one snorted, another had a dangerous trick of suddenly starting forward in a frightful small trot; a third had an uncontrollable ambition to keep pace with every waggon or dung cart that passed him on the road, and so on; the very best had got some blood in him; not even the steed who had been for the last ten years dragging six or seven fat butchers and bakers daily from Dublin to Black Rock, and from Black Rock to Dublin-not even he was unexceptionable; and "the short and the long of it" was, that not being as fearless a rider as Bellerophon of old, or Mr. Astley of our own days, I bought none of them, although the prices were so moderate, that I believe I might have secured a very respectable stud for a few pounds.

I have envied Mazeppa often. He had an uncomfortable ride of it, no doubt, in many particulars; but then he had one satisfaction, which I never experienced in all my life-he was in no danger of being thrown; he was as secure in his seat as any cabinet minister could wish to be; there was a tie between the horse and his rider; though the connection was perhaps agreeable to neither, still it was a connection; and in horsemanship as well as wedlock, since the parties must travel in company, any kind of attachment is better than none at all. There was never any absurdity half so ridiculous as that of the rule in the equestrian art, which prohibits a rider from grasping the pummel of the saddle in order to preserve his seat. In fact, it is against the laws of horsemanship to take the only way which, in nine cases out of ten, can be effectual to save one's life! Not grasp the pummel of the saddle! Why, how the deuce, Lalouette! is a man to stick on the brute's back?

"With your knees, to be sure, Mr. Craven !"

"With my knees!-that's a good one-thank you for that, Mr. Professor!-I owe you one-with my knees! --just as if I had got coblers wax on my knees, or as if my crural apparatus was made on the principle of a vice.

Have I not peeped into print-shops; have I not seen in Allen's and Waller's windows, whole series of pictures illustrative of the nonsense, the idiocy, the madness of depending on the knees, the stirrups, the bridle, or anything else in the world but the pummel of the saddle? Why do so many horrible accidents happen in fox-hunting? Simply because the sportsman is thinking of adhering to etiquette when he ought to be thinking of adhering to his horse; simply, because he takes your advice, Lalouette! and relies on his knees, instead of following mine, and placing his affiance in the pummel. Faith in the pummel, ought to be the horseman's religion. He that trusts in aught else is an infidel, and merits the damnation of a broken neck as well as if he walked in the ways of Voltaire and Paine, and he hath his desert. Methinks I see before me, at this moment, spread out as in a chart, the thousand mishaps, calamities, aud disasters that befal the rash equestrian

disasters that are the very corollaries of the science of the "menage"-legitimate and irresistible conclusions from the principles of Professor Lalouette, "A field of the slain rushes red on my sight!" The plain is strewn with riders in scarlet jackets or hunting-frocks. One hero is impaled upon a stake in a fence; acute are his pangs; he thinks of the pummel, but it is too late! Another dangles from a branch of an oak which has interrupted his career, and detached him from his steed; he no longer thinks a horse the noblest of animals.-A third is stuck inextricable in a quickset hedge; his head reposes on a pillow of thorns; his heels describe circles in middle air; who can describe his agonies?-A fourth is dragged by the stirrup (the last remaining link that binds him to his amiable courser) through the mire of fifty soils and the slime and slough of a hundred ponds and ditches; he dies amid the execrations of young ducks, and the malisons of millions of routed tadpoles.

-A fifth grovels in the lowest abysses of a quarry-hole, where it has pleased his spirited hunter to deposit him, until the general judgment: having no taste for geology, he bethinks him of the punch-bowl, but he never shall taste punch more.-A sixth-but 'twere as