beating time to the tune. The effect of the bell and voice, especially after a long winter-night, has always been very pleasing to me. Nor is the fuller chorus of the subsequent procession less so. The chant, by being somewhat monotonous, harmonizes with the stillness of the hour; and without chasing away the soft slumbers of the morning, relieves the mind from the ideas of solitude and silence, and whispers life and activity returning with the approaching day.

The fever having stopped its ravages about the end of autumn, and nearly disappeared a few weeks before Christmas, my friend and myself prepared to return home. I shall never forget our melancholy arrival in this town on the last evening of December. Besides the still existing danger of infection to those who had been absent, there was a visible change in the aspect of the town, no less than in the looks and manner of the inhabitants, which could not but strike the most thoughtless on the first approach to that recent scene of woe and misery. An unusual stillness reigned in every street; and the few pale faces which moved in them, conjured up in the mind a vivid representation of the late distress. The heart seemed to recoil from the meeting of old acquaintances, and the signs of mourning were every where ready to check the first risings of joy at the approach of friends that had been spared.

The Sunday after our arrival, we went, according to custom, to the public walk on the banks of the river. But the thousands who made it their resort before the late calamity had now absolutely deserted it. At the end of the walk was the burying-ground, which, during the great mortality, had been appointed for that quarter of the city. The prevalent custom of burying in vaults within the churches kept the town unprovided with an appropriate place for interment outside the walls; and a portion of waste land, or common, now contained the remains of ten thousand inhabitants, who in their holiday rambles had, not long before, been sporting unconsciously over their graves. As we approached the large mounds, which, with the lofty cross erected on the turf, were yet the only marks which distinguished the consecrated from the common ground, we saw one of the Rosarios, or processions in honour of the Virgin, slowly advancing along the avenue of the public walk. Many who formerly frequented that place for recreation had, under the impression of grief and superstitious terror, renounced every species of amusement, and marshalling themselves in two files, preceded by a cross, and closed by the picture of the Virgin on a standard, repaired every Sunday to the principal place of burial, where they said prayers for the dead. Four or five of these processions, consisting either of males or females, passed towards the cemetery as we were returning. The melancholy tone in which they incessantly sang the Ave Maria and the Lord's Prayer, introducing the last after every ten successive repetitions of the first -as they glided along a former scene of life and animation-and the studied plainness of the dresses, contrasted with the gay apparel which the same persons used to display on that very spot, left us no wish to continue our walk. Among the ladies, whose penitent dress

was most striking, we observed many who, not satisfied with mere plainness of attire, had, probably under a private vow, clothed themselves in a stuff peculiar to some of the religious orders. The grey mixture used by the Franciscans was most prevalent. Such vows are indeed very common in cases of danger from illness; but the number and class of the females whom we found submitting to this species of penance, shewed the extent and pressure of past affliction.

So transient, however, are the impressions of superstitious fear when unsupported by the presence of its object, that a few months have sufficed nearly to obliterate the signs of the past terror. The term of the vows having expired with most, our females have recovered their wonted spirits, and put aside the dull weeds of their holy patrons. Many, it is probable, have obtained from their confessors a commutation of the rash engagement, by means of a few pence paid towards the expenses of any war that may arise between his Catholic Majesty and Turks or infidels—a Crusade in petto, for which government collects a vast yearly sum, in exchange for various ghostly privileges and indulgences, which the King buys from the Pope at a much cheaper rate than he retails them to his loving subjects.

One loss alone will, I fear, be permanent, or of long duration to the gay part of this town. The theatrical representations, which, on the first appearance of the epidemic fever, were stopped, more by the clamour of the preachers than the apprehensions of the inhabitants, will not be resumed for years. The opinion formerly entertained by a comparatively small number, that the opening of the theatre at Seville had never failed to draw the vengeance of heaven sometimes on its chief supporters, sometimes on the whole town, has been wonderfully spread under the influence of the last visitation; and government itself, arbitrary and despotic as it is among us, would have to pause before any attempt to involve this most religious city in the unpardonable guilt of allowing a company of comedians within its walls. L. D.

TO LELIA.

FROM the rude summit of an Alpine height,
I view'd the bosom of the vale below,

Clad in its wintry robe of stainless white,
A virgin vest of deep and dazzling snow.
And o'er its surface shone morn's crimson rays,
Shedding soft rose-tints on its purity,

Like beauty's fair cheek blushing in man's gaze,
Seeming as lovely, that I thought on thee.
But when a wild-roe, bounding in its lightness,
Essay'd with silvery feet to traverse o'er

The smooth expanse, not deeming such calm brightness
Could e'er deceive,—yet sunk to rise no more-

A quench'd sigh chill'd my heart, for, Lelia! then

I turn'd from the false snow, and thought on thee again !

C. L.

MILK AND HONEY, OR THE LAND OF PROMISE.

In a Series of Letters from America.

LETTER I.

SIR BALAAM BARROW TO MR. JEREMIAH DAWSON.

CONTENTS.

The Wasp, Captain Waters-Yankee Porter at New York-Reasons for quitting England-Decline and Fall of the Mammonian Empire at Lloyd's-Gradation from private Carriage to public Stage "irksome"-Calamity at KenningtonHerne Hill and Madame Storace-Diogenes in his Tub-Tirade against Assessed Taxes, Tithes, and Parsons-Fox without a Tail.

DEAR Sir, the American Brig, Captain Waters,

Having landed me safe with my son and two daughters
On the Pier at New York; and a porter, half drunk,
Having trotted off" slick right away" with my trunk,
In trowsers, black cravat, and yellow straw hat awry,
To one Mrs. Bradish's, fronting the Battery;
(I paid half a dollar, for which the gaunt Yankee
Return'd me the devil the ghost of a Thankye);
I dip a bad pen in an inkstand of pewter,

To con o'er the past, and descant on the future.

You know-who does not? what commercial voids
The Peace has produced in the squadron at Lloyd's;

Time was, when my own coach (with biscuits the boot in)
Convey'd me, at three, from the 'Change-gate to Tooting,
And when Tooting clock had toll'd half-after ten,
Convey'd me, next morning, to London again,
Where brokers pronounced me, in special committee,
The most well-to-do sort of man in the City.

Well! finding trade shy, and the taxes encroach,
I sold off my horses and laid down my coach:
My girls, for their parts, preferr'd walking; and Dick
Could never ride backward without being sick.
So I now, with a visage as sour as Judge Page's,
Took a sinall house at Clapham, and rode in the stages.
Descending "a grade," I ascended to ride

As one of the six who were licensed inside;
And met the mishaps that occur, in wet weather
When a jury of legs are impannell❜d together.
I wanted to let down the glass, but a youth
On the opposite side had a pain in his tooth:
I wanted to pull up the glass, but was chid
By a widow, whose brat would be sick if I did:
I wanted to sleep, but a girl in a shawl
Kept asking how far we were off from Vauxhall;
And, nine times in ten, some tremendous fat woman,
Who wanted to get out at Kennington Common,
With a kick, on alighting, that set the coach rocking,
Left the mud of her clog on my white cotton stocking!
Why, Sir," even you must admit that a Nation
That tolerates this must expect emigration.

"But why"-in your last you interrogate-" roam
Abroad, when you might sport the savage at home?
If Nature attract you, you 're mighty unlucky
Indeed not to find her on this side Kentucky.
I'm apt to suspect that the dame lurks beneath
The brushwood of Finchley, and Wimbledon Heath,
And proffers, unfetter'd by Custom-house laws,
Abundance of hips and whole hedges of haws.
Nay, more"-thus you argue-" my worthy friend Barrow,
You need not go even so far off as Harrow:

At Dulwich I'll point out a glen, wild and patchy,
Not a mile froin the mansion of Madame Storace,
Where Nature, not shackled by Townsend or Sayers,
Has scoop'd out, to shelter the Slick right away-ers,'
A snug hollow tree, where a patriot may lodge in his
Glory, nor envy the Tub of Diogenes!""

All this, Jerry Dawson, 's undoubtedly true,
But with the main question has nothing to do.

In all the cross-grains of us mortals below,
"Tis not what ourselves, but what other folks know.
What a kicking would many a hectoring elf
Bear with, could he but keep the fact to himself!
To be jilted is nothing, mere pastime and revel,
But then to be known to be jilted 's the devil.

Kind husbands oft wink at faux-pas of co-sleepers ;

But, if the town knows it, they can't close their peepers : And traders are loth "their affairs" to disclose

To the pity of friends and the malice of foes.

Impress'd with these truths, my two daughters, my son, And myself, soon determined to cut and to run; Resolved to invest all our spare love and money

In the land that is flowing with milk and with honey. "Why, Sir!" Job himself could not parry the

I constantly felt in the county of Surrey.

worry

At the bare word " assessment" my diaphragm writhes,

I faint at the vile monosyllable "tithes ;"

I don't care a farthing for gibbets and axes,

But I can't bear the plural of tax, namely, taxes.
Some folks hate a spider, but I hate a parson,
As much as an Albion Director hates arson !

Then hey! for the West,-how I grudge every hour I
Expend, ere I cross Mississipi, Missouri,

With woods where the view of an Englishman rare is,
And squat myself down in the Illinois Prairies.

If I hit, well and good; if I miss, well and good too;
I'll sink what it does, and proclaim what it should do.
I'll change the brown Wabash to yellow Pactolus;
If I tumble, like Wildgoose, I'll not tumble solus.
My taken-in friends may reproach me-who cares?
The trap that diminish'd my tail shall dock theirs.

B. B.

LETTER 11.

MISS SABRINA BARROW TO MISS FANNY FADE.

CONTENTS.

Opening allusion-Æneas and the Sibyl-Gradations-from a Beauty to a Blue-
Joys of Eighteen-Bond-street—The Opera-Tooting Assembly-Quadrilles-
Sister Lydia coming out-Sister Sabrina going in-Ap and Peri-helion-Waltzes
-Terpsichore sells off her stud-La Poulle-Pilpay and sop-Dogs, Cats,
and Birds-Evangelical Blues-Anti-parturient-Evans's Sects-Floating Ark-
Hebrews at Hackney-Belzoni-Women in Egyptian Hall and London Tavern—
And why-To strangle two Serpents-Abelard and Eloisa-Sabrina's Reasons
for going to America.

NAY, Fanny, you wrong me: I am not " quite frantic,"
Even though I have ventured to cross the Atlantic.
The thing, unexplain'd, may excite your surprise,
But when you consider the wherefores and whys,
(This Letter shall paint them) I hope to awaken
Your hearty applause at the step I have taken.

My age, my dear Friend, I may say, entre nous,
Is not what the public suppose-thirty-two;
For, if they the baptismal fact would divine,

Let them strike out the "Two," and interpolate "Nine."
We Blues love a classic allusion, so I seize

The Sibyl's, who walk'd with the Son of Anchises,
And scatter my leaves, per the Lynx, Captain Wade,

To paint all my woes to my dear Fanny Fade.

At lively eighteen, when the men praised my hair,
And Papa lived at Tooting and Finsbury-square,
Too proud of my title, Sabrina the Pretty,

I turn'd up my nose at a match in the City;

Drove shopping to Bond-street, where few people knew me-
Saw beaux, three by three, raise their glasses to view me;
Went off to the Opera-sat in the pit-

Took mighty good care not to speak to a Cit:
And hoped, when my suitors began to importune,
At the end of the season to marry a fortune;
Yet spring follow'd winter, and still fail'd to bring
The thing that I wanted-a Man with a Ring.
Descending a peg, with a mercantile beau
At Tooting Assembly 1 sported a toe :
Had still many partners, each fortunate man,
Mark'd, one after one, on my white spangled fan.
Wherever they came from, I aim'd to entrap 'em,
As far down as Mitcham, as far up as Clapham :
In private rehearsals, I practised my heels
To open the very first set of Quadrilles :

Set right, by mere pushing, each blundering fool;
And knowing that Lydia would soon come from school,
It struck me, while eyeing the mole on my chin,

That her coming out might be my going in;
For Shakspeare has open'd that truth to mankind,
If two men ride one horse, one must ride behind.

I therefore redoubled my ogles and freaks,

Drew a hare's foot of rouge o'er the bones of my cheeks,