When it was understood that Sir James Lowther, afterwards Lord Lonsdale, was to be elevated to the peerage, as a reward for offering to furnish government with a 74 gun ship, fully equipped, at his own expense, a lady said to John Kemble, the tragedian, "Dear me, what a whimsical thing it seems altogether! I wonder what title they can give him for supplying a ship; what can they call him, Mr. Kemble ?" To which he happily replied, "Why, madam, 1 should think he will be called Lord-ship."

Poetical Scraps.

STANZAS ON A SHIPWRECKED FRIEND.

To hail the yellow Chinese man,
Or Afric's sable race,
The Moor, or tawny Indian,

Or give the merchant chace.

We are a band of iron souls

No fear can ever tame;
We'll bear our deeds to both the poles,
In thunder and in flame.

We'll crest the white waves gallantly,
That rage and hiss below,
Comrades, huzza! we're free-we're free-
We own no master now.

Unmoor and sail, the breeze is full,

The skies are clear and bright;
We're free-we're free as yon sea-gull,
That scuds through floods of light.
Her anchor's up, ber head is round,
There's a ripple at her bow,
Her sails fill fast, no mooring ground
Restrains her courage now.

Huzza! she sweeps her gallant way,
Cheer, comrades, at my call!-
The wide world is our enemy,
But we will dare it all.

TOM STARBOARD.

Tom Starboard was a lover true,
As brave a tar as ever sail'd;
The duties ablest seamen do,

Tom did, and never yet had fail'd. But wreck'd, as he was homeward bound, Within a league of England's coast, Love saved him sure from being drown'd, For all the crew but Tom were lost.

His strength restor'd, Tom hied with speed,
True to his love as e'er was man;
Nought had he sav'd, nought did he need,
Rich he in thoughts of lovly Nan:
But scarce five miles poor Tom had gain'd,
When he was press'd; he heav'd a sigh,
And said, though cruel was his lot,

Ere flinch from duty he would die,

In fight Tom Starboard knew no fear,
Nay, when he'd lost an arm, resign'd,
Said, love for Nan, his only dear,

Had sav'd his life, and fate was kind.
The war being ended, Tom return'd,
His lust limb served him for a joke,
For still his manly bosom burn'd
With love, his heart was heart of oak.

Ashore in haste Tom nimbly ran,

To cheer his love, his destined bride; But false report had brought to Nan, Six months before, that Tom had died. With grief she daily pined away,

No remedy her life could save, And Tom arrived the very day They laid his Nancy in the grave.

DIBDIN

Richard Clifton was one of those wild, yet commanding spirits, that are great in good or evil, according to the more or less favorable circumstances, in which they may happen to be placed. His earliest years had been devoted to the navy, where, by his own unassisted merit, he had risen to the rank of a firstlieutenant; when a blow, given to his superior officer, thrust him on the world, a penny less outcast. The same energies, which had before made him the best of seamen, now rendered him the worst of citizens; for power is like the fiend that, once called up, must have something to employ it, or it falls on its master. There was a blight on his fame and on his hopes, yet still there was one chance for him: he had long been attached to Lucy Ellis, who on her side most truly loved her sailor, in spite of all his faults, real or supposed, and the one list was [No. 21.

SHAKSPEARE.

equal to the other; for calumny' like the raven, is fond of preying on the dying and the dead. Had the father of the maiden consented to their union, it is most probable that the life of Richard would have been honorable to himself, and useful to his country; but old Ellis was one of those heartless, selfish beings, who love their children only as they minister to their own comfort, or gratification: he wished to see his daughter married to a rich man, not because those riches might make her lot more comfortable, but because a rich son-in-law added to his own importance. Such a proposal, therefore, excited his warmest indignation; it was a cutting up of all his prospects, of the hopes that he had been toiling to realise for many years; she would be a be gar-an outcast; the alliance v infamy. In all this, however, the was much more regard shown

himself than his child; and Lucy felt that there was. This was the corner stone of the subsequent evils: the harshness of her father made her more open to the false flatteries of her lover; though at the same time she was not altogether ignorant of her own weakness: in the hour of temptation she flung herself on the honor of the man she adored; she owned her inability to resist him, in all the fervor of a real passion, and urged that very passion as a plea for his forbearance. With many this prayer had been effectual, but not with men like Richard Clifton, who have no settled rule of conduct, and are either bad or good only from the impulse of the moment. The consequence was the seduction of Lucy, and in a few months afterwards, her lover joined a band of smugglers, and was either killed, or drowned, or had fled the country; for each of these reports had its particular defenders.

In the mean time the dishonor of Lucy became too gross for longer concealment. On the discovery of her situation, the merchant at once turned her out of doors, as the destroyer of all his dearest expectations; and bade her starve or live, as she could best settle the matter with the world: nor could any after arguments of his friends, in the least affect his resolution; he was deaf to all remonstrance, whether of justice, or humanity. But the wrath of heaven, which had first smitten the guilty child, was not slow in punishing the heartless parent, who had arrogated to himself the office of vengeance, and executed it with more of passion than of equity, In his eagerness to amass a fortune, the merchant overstepped the bounds of prudent speculation. The first great loss stimulated to a second adventure for its retrieval; and that, miscarrying, in turn brought with it a further hazard, to fail like those before it; till the proud and wealthy Ellis found himself a destitute bankrupt, pursued and Med by the

vindictive spirit of disappointed creditors, who pleaded his cruelty in excuse for theirs. "You showed no mercy to your own child, how then can you expect it from me, a stranger?" was the answer of one to whom he was deeply indebted, and who had formerly been a fruitless intercessor for poor Lucy. Some, too, were actuated by less disinterested motives, and were glad to shelter their hatred of the father under the show of compassion for the child; but the result was the same to Ellis-he was a ruined man. His ostentatious charities, which had been so much praised in the days of his success, were now considered in their true light, and had not procured a single friend to pity or assist him in his difficulties.

So complete had been the failure, and so rigid his creditors, that a few weeks found him possessed of a few pounds only, whose word had once been good for thousands. In this dilemma he quitted his native town, which for the last month he had inhabited out of mere pride, and after a long course of suffering, became the guardian of a light-house, on one of the wildest parts of the English coast. A very short residence in this sad abode, made him a weaker though not a better man; he grew, not less selfish, but more timid,— more impressed with the actual and near presence of a creator; and he began to feel that there was not only an after, but a present, vengeance. Nor is this to be wondered at; loneliness brings the mind more immediately in contact with the works of the Creator, and from them with the Creator himself. No man of any imagination was ever an atheist in solitude, and, though in the case of old Ellis, religion was only the religion of fear, yet still it was better than no faith at all; it taught him a little more lenity to the faults of others.

Nearly two years had thus past, when, one September's evening, a or maniac, in squalid weeds, and

with a face gaunt from long misery, came to his door and begged a morsel of bread for the love of charity-it was his daughter! The recognition was quick and mutual, but with very opposite feelings. Sorrow, and pain, and remorse, suddenly threw a dark cloud over the old man's face; while the maniac's eye was lit up with an expression of rage and triumph, that was truly fiendlike, as she screamed out, "Ho, ho, ho! have I found you at last? take back your curse, old man; I have borne it long enough, and a sad load, and a weary one it has been to me; but take it back-it has curdled the milk of my bosom to poison, and my poor babe sucked and died. But take it back, and look that it does not sink you into the depths of hell. Many a time it has lain heavy on me, and I felt myself sinking, sinking, sinking, like one struggling with the waters; but then my sweet babe would come, with his cherub face all bright with glory, just like those skies where the sun is setting, and his little hand was stronger than my strength, for it would draw me back again when I was up to my breast in fire. But you have no child to save you, therefore look that your heart be strong you had best-no childno child, old man; for I deny you1 cast you off-go-leave this earth -it is mine-go-do you hear?you are the only peace-breaker, and I'll none of you. Go-you'll ask whither? but that's your conceru; there's a large world above, and a larger one below, and if they refuse you in the one it will only be a better recommendation to the other.

She might still have gone on thus, for Ellis was too much shocked to interrupt her; but the wild mood had exhausted itself: her eye was caught by the sun, resting with his broad red disk on the ocean, and her thoughts returned to the hungerpains which incessantly gnawed her, though they had been unfelt, or at least unnoticed, during the violence of her passion. On a sudden she

exclaimed. "I wish the sun would set, that we might go to supper." The old man endeavored to soothe the maniac, and, taking her by the hand would have gently forced her into the light-house; but it was all to no purpose: she positively refused to move a step till the sun was below the water. "He has a long way to go yet," she said; and taking up a handful of dust, scattered it slowly in the air, at the same time muttering, or rather chaunting, "Speed! speed! speed!" till by degrees her memory pierced out the words of a familiar song, which she poured forth in that wild manner so peculiar to insanity :

Speed, sun, speed through the ocean wave, Where the mermaid sings in her coral cave, Where on sands of gold the pearl is white, And each glance of thine eye wakes some. thing bright;

Where thy fairest beams upon diamonds play,

That shine with a fairer light than they.
Speed, sun, speed, for from out the wave
A voice invites to the mermaid's cave;
Where the waters are rolling o'er her head,
Like the rainbow's arch o'er the evening
spread;

And each drop, which falls from that brilliant bow,

Turns to a gem of the same below.

The sun had sunk below the horizon, as the last words died on the maniac's lips; and Ellis having lit the beacon, they sat down to their humble supper. Both for a time were silent; the daughter, from the caprice of insanity; the father, because he was stunned and stupified by her appearance, coupled as it was with past recollections. Remorse was busy with him, though it was remorse without repentance. Lucy, however, was in a state that made all things a matter of indifference to her, and, as the evening darkened, her madness took a wilder

turn.

"Do you hear, old man? Ho! ho! the spirit of the winds is abroad Do you hear what a coil he kee up yonder, howling into the ear old ocean, and calling on him wake? Do you see the billows, to

how lazily they lift up their heads, as if loth to leave their slumber? How they toss and tumble, and roar and groan! but its all to no purpose; you'll sing a wilder tune yet, my merry boys, and I'll sing with you, and the curlew shall whistle, and the rain shall patter, and the thunder shall roar, and we'll have a brave music to your dancing, such as the foot of a king never danced to."

He

The face of the old man darkened at this raving-it was making his misery more miserable, and if remorse had brought any transient feeling of pity into his heart, it was quite extinguished when he found that his daughter's presence would be a constant vexation to him. looked at her with a countenance of wrath; but something seemed to stifle the expression of his anger for the moment, and he resumed his meal in sullen silence. The change did not escape Lucy; she fixed her elbows on the table, and, resting her head on her hands, gazed on him for several minutes without moving a muscle, to the sore annoyance of the old man, whose blood was already in a ferment; he swallowed the thin sour beer at long draughts, clutched the handle of his knife more firmly. and tried to force his attention from her, but all to no purpose. Her protracted gaze became at last intolerable, and he exclaimed, half rising from his seat, "What, in the devil's name, do you stare at me for? Can you find nothing else to fix

your eyes on, but my face?" "I was counting how long you had to live," said the maniac, calmly; "you have only a few hours, and then I shall be lady of this castle, and Richard will come home to me, and bring our little Lucy with him, and we shall be so happy! oh, so happy!"

This was too much for the patience of Ellis; he started up from his seat, and dashed away his plate, with a curse on the poor maniac, and the mother who had borne her.

Woman! witch! devil! you

were made to be my torture; but I'll not bear it many hours longer. Either you or me, and I don't much care which-"

He raised his hand to strike, perhaps to kill her; when a deep flash of lightning blazed between them, and the old tower rocked in the wind, as if it were going to tumble about their ears.

"Did you see him?" shouted Lucy.

"See whom?" said Ellis, pale and motionless from terror.

"Did you hear him?" echoed the maniac.

"Hear whom?" replied the fa

ther.

"So, you

neither saw, nor heard him?" "Whom whom?" exclaimed Ellis, almost frantic with fear.

"The devil!-the arch-fiend !— the fisherman of souls! He has you, father; he has marked you with his mark, and signed you with his sign. His broad lightning wings covered you as he spoke over you the baptism of hell:

One drop of thy blood where the stream is red!

One lock of the hair from thy purchas'd head!

One touch of baptizing flame to plough
The mark of your Christ from out your brow!
Ho! ho! how the cold and wat'ry sign
Hisses and dries 'neath this touch of mine!
While I'm lord of the flame, be the waters
thine.

The hair on Ellis's head was actually singed by the lightning; his brow, too, was slightly scathed; and, whether it was the electric shock, or the force of imagination, a single droop of blood did, indeed, fall slowly from his dilated nostrils. Is is impossible to calculate the power of fancy on such occasions; it is neither to be estimated, nor controlled by reason. The old man almost frantic dashed out of the lighthouse, as if impelled by some external agency; while the maniac quietly installed herself in a large oak chair before the window, with all the pride of a queen just restored