richly ribboned dame who came to invite her solitary child; and then fell back into that stupor which, to many eyes, often appeared to be a midday sleep. But the influence of this annual spring-holiday could not be wholly unfelt, far gone as she was in woe and want; and as the merry minstrelsy passed the door, she opened her eyes, and for one blessed moment thought she beheld little Alec, with some flow ers wreathed round his hat, and dancing in his glee: but the visions and the music died away together, and she only muttered," Perhaps it was his ghost!" In an hour there was a knock at the door, which then slowly opened, and a soldier came in, seemingly off a long march.-"Are you Mary Atherton?" said he, with a kind voice." Yes, I am Mary Atherton;-has my husband inlisted, and is he going away to a foreign country?-Oh! that he could be suffered to stay for a week or two, and then he would have no widow to forsake."-"I am come, my good woman, to tell you good tidings of your lost boy; his name he says, is Alec, and he is not far off."-He was indeed near at hand: for almost, while the soldier was speaking, Alec was upon his mother's bosom-not in her arms-for they hung lifelessly,—but in her bosom, and upon her neck, and perhaps his sobbings were not unheard in her swoon. The mother recovered her senses, but not her speech;-she held him now fast in her arms, as if about to bear him away from a devouring fire; she loved more in that one dreadful clasp than she had ever loved in her whole life; and the thought of the great God was along with that of her firstborn;-so too was forgiveness of her husband,-penitence for her impious sorrows,-willingness now to die, and a desire-oh! how profound!-of yet a few days, months, years of this mortal life! A few words from her boy told the tale of a whole winter's miseries. A father had sold his child into slavery! All those pretty curls were gone whose golden lustre had once been the joy of a proud mother's heart;-the roses had left his cheek;---and his little hands were wasted to the very bone, and covered with scars and wounds;-his voice was low and timid, as if terror had pitched its key; but still, in all that rueful change, it was the same cheek,-the same forehead,--the same hair,-the same hands,-the same voice,-the same smile!"O bitter, bitter cold,-dreadful, more dreadful heat, and cruel, cruel stifling of that sweet breath, hast thou, my blessed Alec, too long endured !-Yet beautiful is my boy as ever;-nor think that I could not have known my boy had I seen him in all his wretchednessheard but his small pattering footsteps had it been even in the uttermost parts of the earth!" The soldier who had rescued the poor sweep from slavery now rose to depart. The grateful mother began to request him to take some refreshment, and then her voice all at once ceased. After a pause she said,-“ You have brought riches into the house of poverty, for we have not at this blessed moment one morsel of bread!" Mary was now left alone with her restored son, and that cold, dreary, desolate chamber was to her like one of the many mansions in the house of her heavenly Father. With what divine happiness did she gaze on him kneeling once more by the bed-side, and saying distinctly his unforgotten prayer!-Hardly could she believe that he had indeed been brought back to her from the dreadful darkness of some remote region, till she lay down and took him into her bosom. Wearied and worn with his long journey homewards, and, all at once made perfectly happy after so many horrid months, the boy soon fell asleep, and his warm breath thrilled through his mother's heart, to the entire possession of all its affections, and utter oblivion of all its long distress. When little Alice came home from the merriment, her smiles met with a joyful return that startled the affectionate girl with a new kind of happiness. Awe-struck by the face of her long-lost brother, covered with the placid light of sleep, Alice muttered not a word, as her mother withdrew the curtain, saying," Bless God for his return." Hours passed away; and the grey light of dawn saw husband and wife yet kneeling as in morning prayer. Mercy and forgiveness are the attributes of the Eternal, and, like an effluence from his spirit, may be breathed from one human heart to another, destroying both grief and guilt. Remorse had long preyed upon its victim, but now he was delivered up to penitence. Evil found no abiding-place in his spirit; and after many sudden visits,—many ghostlike hauntings and midnight knockings at its gate forsook it for ever, leaving but a salutary and monitory dread of its return. In a few months the summer flowers were again bright in the garden, and clustering round the porch; and before the summer was gone, as the family, in decent apparel, walked duly every Sabbath to church, the neighbours had almost entirely forgotten how grievously one had erred, and all had been afflicted. But it was on the Sabbathday that the penitential man most remembered all his sins; and, in its blessed freedom from worldly cares, he then communed with his own heart, and knew that it had been desperately wicked. His son's face was a perpetual memento of his guilt, but one that he loved to look on; and the beauty of returning health on that other face which, in its most deadly weakness, never had upbraided him, reminded him, almost every time it smiled, of the long-continued cruelty that had nearly brought it to the dust. But contrition settled down within his heart; for he felt as if he had finally made his peace with God, and that the past ought to be remembered only for sake of the future. SONG. Delusive hope, ah cease Nor wound a broken heart; With colours frail as fair; A. R. HEART'S-EASE. And nothing, save the fiery pointed dart Of Eros, can the remedy approved Administer; but that, like magic wand, Swaying the heart, can make e'en pain be loved, Wednesday, 25, at Truro, Mrs. Ferris, of a son. Wednesday, 25, at Truro, Mrs. Moore, of a daughter. Wednesday, 25, at Truro, Mrs. Woolcock, of a daughter. Wednesday, 25, at Helston, Mrs. W. Trevennen, of a daughter. Wednesday, 25, at Helston, Mrs. Symonds, of a daughter. Monday, 16, at Truro, Mrs. Woothon, of a son. Monday, 22 at Bodmin, Mrs. Elson, of a daughter. Saturday, 28, at Carvendon, Mrs. Harris, of a daughter. Monday, 30, at Bodmin, Mrs. Pearce, of a son. Wednesday, 25, at Camelford, Mrs. Jones, of Tuesday, 14, at Withiel, Mrs. Selham, of a daughter. DEATAS-IN JANUARY. Tuesday, 23, at Truro, Charles, eldest son of Mr. J. Carpenter. Saturday, 20, at Bodmin, Henry, fourth son of Friday 27, at Penzance, Mr. J. Fleming. Tailor, born and died in the same Bedroom, aud Bed, aged 83, years. Sunday, 29, at East Looe, Catherine, youngest daughter of Mr. Tickle. Sunday, 29, at Launceston, Mrs. Lenn. IN FEBRUARY. Wednesday, 1, at Truro, Rev. T. Carlyon. Thursday, 2, at Marazion, Mr. W. Julian, aged 95. Thursday, 2, at Marazion, Samuel son of Mr. Laity. Tuesday, 14, at Tregony, Mr. D. Whilley, aged 70.. Tuesday, 14, at Perranathnoe, Mr. T. Cock, aged 86. Tuesday, 14, at Newlyn, Mr. G. Weymouth, aged 59. Tuesday, 14, at St. Austle, the infant child of Wednesday, 15, at Penzance, Mrs. Bromley. Tuesday, 14, at East Love, Mrs. C. Warn, of Sunday, 5, at Penryn, Mr. W. Edgcombe. a son. Sunday, 6, at Chacewater, Mrs. Hicks, of a son. Monday, 5, at Chacewater, Mrs. Paul, of a daughter. Saturday, 4, at Merther, Mrs. Varcoe, of a son. Thursday, 9, at Barbican, Mrs. Clogg, of a daughter. MARRIAGES-IN JANUARY. Wednesday, 24, at St. Mary, Mr. T. Toogood, to Miss A. Bruce. Thursday, 18, at Lanteglos, Mr. W. Dingle, to Miss A. Hicks. Sunday, 29, at St. Agnes, Mr. R. Doble, to Miss J. Tregelles. Tuesday, 31, at Oakampton, Mr. Howard, to Miss A. Pearce. Thursday 2, at Gunwallow, Mr. E. Freeman. Thursday, 2, at Wendron, Mr. Cowden. Thursday, 2, at Penryn, Mr. J. Slade. Saturday, 11, at Pleynt, Mr. A. Burney. Saturday, 4, at West Looe, Mr. Langmaid. Friday, 10, at East Looe, Mr. J. Deeble. NOTICES. We have much pleasure in noticing, that ANTI SLAVERY PETITIONS; have been forwarded from almost every Town of consideration in the County. 10401 The Public Reading, News, and Billiard Rooms, at Falmouth, are in a great state of forwardness; and bid fair to be in every respect worthy of a Town of such general resort. Printed and Published by J. Philp, Falmouth, and sold by most Booksellers in the County. The Selector. "WE CULL THE CHOICEST." No. 4.] OBSERVATIONS APRIL, 1826. ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY. Ir is attempted, in the following observations, to state the chief grounds of the interest acknowledged to belong to the study of history, in the hopes of throwing some light on the cause of the defective ardour with which that study is, notwithstanding, prosecuted amongst us. One obvious reason of such an interest is found in the various and striking representations which history affords us of human nature. Within the limited range of our personal observation, the character of the human mind, in the many original forms into which it is cast, is one source of interest to our intercourse with our fellow-beings; not in the arrogance of critical and philosophic observers of our species, but from simple human feeling, because we bear in our own bosoms the seeds and principles of that nature which is discovered to us in them; and which, whether it shews itself in strength or in weakness, in its greater and more beautiful qualities, or in its widest disorder, still draws us by a strong instinctive love towards the manifestations of that living spirit of humanity to which we feel at every moment our own to be related. But the knowledge we can personally acquire, the intimacy into which we can thus enter with our species, is insufficient and unsatisfactory, because it is restrained within the narrow circle in which we ourselves move and observe. History alone subjects MAN to our knowledge in all conditions and circumstances. States of existence, the VOL. I. E [Price 3d. most widely separated in nature, are here brought together under our inspection. Circumstances the most dissimilar to those comprehended by our own experience are delineated; and the human spirit in the midst of them, unfolded or perverted as it has been by their agency, or impenetrable as in its stronger character it has shewn itself, on one side of their benign, on the other to their noxious influence, is given to our contemplation. This, then, is one claim of history on our interest, that it makes known to us our nature in its fullest extent and capacity,-an interest which addresses itself, in the first place, to the feelings merely; but which gives to history, as furnishing authentic matter of the knowledge of human character, an especial title to the regard of the more intellectual mind, either exercising its sagacity in practical acquaintance with men, or enlightening its philosophy by the more extended and profounder speculative study of their nature For either investigation, the delineations which history furnishes of its subject, appear to be absolutely indispensable. A second kind of interest, from a source altogether different, is that which is found in the greater actions of history, from their grandeur as objects to our imagination; and from that strong emotion which always takes possession of us while we witness the progress of events, momentous in their consequences to those who have part in them. While these great births of the times that are gone by are called up again before us in living representation, we are affected as at the acting of some mighty drama. The high personages who present themselves,--the proud and dear interests which are in Another species of interest which may be marked as belonging more or less to ali historical narrative, is that which discovers itself in its strongest and most peculiar character with respect to rational history. The regards of the human being attach themselves with peculiar fondness to the race of which he himself is sprung. Their fortunes-their virtues touch him, not merely by the perpetuated benefits which may flow down from them upon himself, but on their own account, by the union he feels with them in the tie of kindred, exulting in their glory, and acknowledging a participation by af fection in their prosperous successes and in their misfortunes. Even unimportant incidents, which relate to ancestry and kindred, have a seeming importance; perhaps because they impart something of life and reality to a connexion felt otherwise as too undefined, and offer visible forms on which that indeterminate affection may fix itself, which, awake and alive in the human breast, seeks indulgence and gratification. Many of the recollections of national history owe their value to such feelings merely. In the same manner, the bare enumeration of reigns, names, and dates of events, are a part of history which all nations have been solicitous to preserve, not so much from any more thoughtful and intelligent interest which might be connected with them, but simply as in these there was preserved a MEMORY of the past; and the voluntary relinquishment of that memory, barren and uninstructive as it might be, was understood by them as the willing consignment to oblivion and annihilation of a fame of which they were the proper depositaries and guardians; as if, while some relics of old renown survived on the tongues and in the minds of men, the past national existence were in some sort prolonged; and to surrender it to forgetfulness were to destroy those poor remains of great departed life which time and mortality had spared. The feeling, quick and strong in human bosoms in certain simpler states of society, seems to be the principle in our nature which gave origin to history. When the subjects of remembrance are such as draw to themselves eager and generous affections, so that proud or glowing emotions may blend with national recollections, this reverence of the preceeding times of a people assumes a more vivial and a loftier character. But the strong, original, elementary feeling, out of which history arose, is not this noble pride and more impassioned love, but the simple zeal for the preservation of the past, as if to lose it were to part with something out of actual existence, and to incur a dereliction of duties involved in the relationship of blood. But this zeal of |