My precious charge!" Not but with life!" I cried,
And life was given for immortality!

The flag which to my heart I held, when wet
With that heart's blood, was soon victoriously
In former times,

Regained on that great day.
Marlborough beheld it borne at Ramillies;
For Brunswick and for liberty it waved
Triumphant at Culloden; and hath seen
The lilies on the Caribbean shores
Abased before it; then too in the front
Of battle did it flap exultantly,

When Douro, with its wide stream interposed,
Saved not the French invaders from attack,
Discomfiture, and ignominious rout.
My name is Thomas: undisgraced have I
Transmitted it. He who in days to come
May bear the honoured banner to the field,
Will think of Albuhera, and of me!

TWO PASSAGES FROM MADAME DE STAEL.

"THERE is nothing so easy as to assume a very moral air in condemning all that depends upon an elevated mind. The duty, the most noble destination of man, may be perverted like every other idea, and become an hostile weapon for narrow-minded men; for the self-satisfied sons of mediocrity to impose silence on talent, to rid themselves of enthusiasm, of genius, of everything, in fact, which is inimical to them. One would say, in hearing them, that duty consists in the sacrifice of those distinguished faculties which we possess, and that intellect is a crime which we must expiate in leading precisely the same life as those who lack it. But, is it true, that duty prescribes to every character similar rules? Are not great thoughts and generous sentiments, in this world, the debt of those capable of discharging it?"

"STRENGTH of body, and generosity of soul, dignity of features, and boldness of character, loftiness of stature,

and commanding authority, were ideas almost inseparable, before a religion, entirely intellectual, had placed the power of man in his mind. The human figure, which was also the figure of the gods, appeared symbolical; and the nervous colossus of Hercules, as well as every other ancient statue of this sort, do not convey vulgar ideas of common life; but an Omnipotent and Divine will, which shows itself under the emblem of a supernatural physical force."

THE OLD SEA CHEST,

(A TALE OF A PILGRIM.)

By the Author of A Summer's Ramble in the Highlands.' PHOEBE MOWBRAY, at the age of sixteen, was the fairest and blythest maiden in the Hundreds of A—. Her father was an extensive farmer, who had made money by a life of industry, and had no child to inherit it save Phoebe. She had been instructed by the village schoolmaster to read her bible, and scrawl characters of a very hieroglyphical aspect; nay, it was averred by that erudite personage, though even her father questioned the asseveration, that she could cast up accounts by the simple rules of arithmetic with nearly as much accuracy and expedition as himself. But these accomplishments were too common-place to satisfy a doating parent, who had it in his power to leave his daughter heiress to some fifteen hundred and odd pounds, secured in the bank of the neighbouring borough at the interest of four and a half per cent. Phoebe was, therefore, placed at an expensive boarding-school in the borough, where she learned to stutter most execrable French, to murder a few tunes on the spinet, paint flowers, embroider muslin, and dance like an opera girl. She was also instructed, whether by her governess or her school-companions does not appear,

to talk much, and think more of beaux and dresses: nay, it was whispered, long before she returned to her paternal roof, that her little heart had been half-crazed by a brave and handsome young roamer of the sea, attached to a sloop of war which frequently touched at the port where the said school was situated. It may or may not have been so; but certain it is that she went home to her father's house a changed girl. The green fields she had once loved so dearly, the cattle she had formerly delighted to tend and milk, the humble but sincere friends of her childhood were looked upon with aversion: in short, the bustle and disorder of a farm-house disgusted her, and she saddened and fell sick at the misery of her lot. Phœbe had seen splendid rooms, and, what is by courtesy, termed 'polished society," during her absence. Many of her schoolfellows were gentlewomen by birth, and hesitated not to express a thorough contempt for every thing plebeian. She had been jeered about her father's kine and dung-carts, till, in the anguish of her little heart, she wished that there had been no such things as kine and dung-carts in the world. The young midshipman, too, could not understand how so pretty a girl could be the daughter of a man who had toiled all his life at the tail of a plough. Had she been the daughter of a weatherbeaten tar, he would have considered her beauty as her birth-right. As it was, he pronounced her a rara avis of her kind:

Old Peter Mowbray's heart was filled with sorrow and alarm when he saw his daughter pine and waste away with untold grief. He occasionally invited his neighbours of an evening to a social dance, trusting that society would enliven her; but she invariably sat moping and silent in a corner till they departed. He half smothered her with gay dresses; but they were either wastefully abused, or left to rot unworn. At length he conjured her, by the love she bore his gray hairs, to say what would make her happy; and Phoebe, overcome by his importuni

ties, confessed that he could only make her so by giving up his snug farm, and becoming an idle gentleman in Lyme. The honest farmer, assailed by paternal affection on the one hand, and prudence on the other, knew not how to decide; but the conflict terminated, as such conflicts usually do, by prudence being discomfited. He disposed of the remainder of his lease at a disadvantage, sold his stock and crop at a bad season, and turned his back on the country. The small sum of money he had vested in the bank consequently became his sole dependance.

Phoebe was not long in discovering, to her astonishment, that perfect happiness is as rarely an inhabitant of the town as of the country. Her high-born friends, transformed from chattering school-girls into fine ladies, either entirely overlooked her, or visited her only to enjoy a laugh at the expense of her homely father; and the young midshipman's calls, though he loved her dearly, were necessarily few and far between.

This was only the commencement of Phoebe's misfortunes. One day the whole town of Lyme was thrown into a state of consternation, by a rumour that the bank -the bank in which Peter Mowbray, and many others, had deposited their all-was about to stop payment. Phœbe, half distracted by the news, made haste to find her father, in order to hurry him off to present his claim before actual bankruptcy should have taken place; and found him, as latterly was his wont, with the quart-pot at his elbow, and with barely sufficient sense remaining to comprehend the danger he ran of being reduced to actual indigence. Roused by the intelligence she communicated, he staggered off to swell the crowd of unfortunate claimants besieging the doors of the bank; and in somewhat less than an hour returned home sober, and a beggar.

From that hour old Peter Mowbray never held up his head. His mind, always weak, lapsed into a kind of

idiotism; and Phoebe saw herself reduced to the necessity of providing for his and her own maintenance by personal labour. This was a sad change to one who had been all along over ambitious to act the lady; but, to do her justice, she behaved better in adversity than in prosperity. At the suggestion of some generous individuals, who sympathised with her in her affliction, she established a small school; and thus she managed to keep a roof, but a humble one indeed, over the gray hairs which her girlish vanity had deprived of a home.

It was at this period that the young sailor, to whom allusion has already been made, returned to Lyme from a long cruise. He was high-born, gallant, and generous hearted, but withal had much of the recklessness, and some of the loose principles too often generated by a roaming life. No sooner did he set foot on shore than he flew on the wings of love to devote himself to Phoebe. He became the confidant of all her sorrows; and had it been in his power, would have made her the richest and happiest lady in the land. But he was little else than a boy, dependant on a proud kinsman, and unable to obtain advancement in his profession without that kinsman's countenance. Many and long were the walks in which the lovers indulged for the purpose of canvassing their hopes and fears. Prudent people blamed Phœbe; and

such as were ill-natured made ungenerous comments; but she was too much in love, and too disconsolate at the prospect of parting with her lover, to heed either warning or reproof.

At length the young sailor sailed away. Phoebe watched his vessel till its tall masts sank down beyond the intervening waves, and her ashy cheeks and teardimmed eyes told that she watched it in agony. Two months afterwards the newspapers conveyed the tidings, that the frigate, mistaking a casual light on a perilous part of the coast for a friendly beacon, had gone ashore in a tempestuous night, and been wrecked. All on board