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vain of a thing, and being happy that we have it; and that beauty, however little merit a woman can claim to herself for it, is really a quality which she may reasonably rejoice to possess, demands, I think, no very laboured proof. Every one naturally wishes to please. To this end we know how important it is that the first impression we produce should be favourable. Now this first impression is commonly produced through the medium of the eye; and this is frequently so powerful as to resist for a long time the opposing evidence of subsequent observation. Let a man of even the soundest judgment be presented to two women, equally strangers to him, but the one extremely handsome, the other without any remarkable advantages of person, and he will, without deliberation, attach himself first to the former. All men seem in this to be actuated by the same principle as Socrates, who used to say, that when he saw a beautiful person, he always expected to see it animated by a beautiful soul.

The ladies, however, often fall into the fatal errour of imagining that a fine person is, in our eyes, superiour to every other accomplishment, and those who are so happy as to be endowed with it, rely, with vain confidence, on its ir resistible power, to retain hearts as well as to subdue them. -Hence the lavish care bestowed on the improvement of exterior and perishable charms, and the neglect of solid and durable excellence; hence the long list of arts that administer to vanity and folly, the countless train of glittering accomplishments, and the scanty catalogue of truly valu able acquirements, which compose, for the most part, the modern system of fashionable female education. Yet so far is beauty from being in our eyes an excuse for the want of a cultivated mind, that the women who are blessed with it, have, in reality, a much harder task to perform, than those of their sex who are not so distinguished. Even our self-love here takes part against them; we feel ashamed of having suffered ourselves to be caught like children, by mere outside, and perhaps even fall into the contrary extreme.

Could the statue that enchants the world,"-the Venus de Medicis, at the prayer of some new Pygmalion, become suddenly animated, how disappointed would he be, if she were not endowed with a soul, answerable to the inimitable perfection of her heavenly form? Thus it is with a fine woman, whose only accomplishment is external excellence.

She may dazzle for a time; but when a man has once thought, "what a pity that such a masterpiece should be but a walking statue !" her empire is at an end.

On the other hand, when a woman, the plainness of whose features prevented our noticing her at first, is found, upon nearer acquaintance, to be possessed of the more solid and valuable perfections of the mind, the pleasure we feel in being so agreeably undeceived, makes her appear to still greater advantage: and as the mind of man, when left to itself, is naturally an enemy to all injustice, we, even unknown to ourselves, strive to repair the wrong we have involuntarily done her, by a double portion of attention and regard.

If these observations be founded in truth, it will appear that, though a woman with a cultivated mind may justly hope to please, without even any superiour advantages of person, the loveliest creature that ever came from the hand of her Creator can hope only for a transitory empire, unless she unite with her beauty the more durable charm of intellectual excellence.

The favoured child of nature, who combines in herself these united perfections, may be justly considered as the masterpiece of the creation-as the most perfect image of the Divinity here below. Man, the proud lord of the creation, bows willingly his haughty neck beneath her gentle rule. Exalted, tender, beneficent is the love that she inspires. Even Time himself shall respect the all-powerful magick of her beauty. Her charms may fade, but they shall never wither; and memory still, in the evening of life, hanging with fond affection over the blanched rose, shall view, through the veil of lapsed years, the tender bud, the dawning promise, whose beauties once blushed before the beams of the morning sun.

LESSON XLVII.

*

A morning in the Highlands of Scotland.-Punishment of a Spy whose employers had betrayed Rob Roy MacGregor.* ROB ROY.

I SHALL never forget the delightful sensation with which At the time this celebrated Highland Chieftain was taken prisoner, Morris had been sent as a hostage for his personal safety, which being violated, excited the wrath so powerfully described in this extract.

I exchanged the dark, smoky, smothering atmosphere of the Highland hut, in which we had passed the night so uncomfortably, for the refreshing fragrance of the morning air, and the glorious beams of the rising sun, which, from a tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the left lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its easterly course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill, with all its garland of woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay the bed of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of the morning breeze, each glittering in its course under the influence of the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks, waving with natural forests of birch and oak, formed the borders of this enchanting sheet of water; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity. Man alone seemed to be placed in a state of inferiority, in à scene where all the ordinary features of nature were raised and exalted.

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It was under the burning influence of revenge that the wife of MacGregor commanded that the hostage, exchanged for her husband's safety, should be brought into her presence. I believe her sons had kept this unfortunate wretch out of her sight, for fear of the consequences; but if it was so, their humane precaution only postponed his fate. They dragged forward, at her summons, a wretch, already half dead with terrour, in whose agonized features, I recognised, to my horrour and astonishment, my old acquaintance Morris.

He fell prostrate before the female chief with an effort to clasp her knees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution, so that all he could do in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was to kiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forth with such agony of spirit. The ecstasy of fear was such, that, instead of paralyzing his tongue, as on ordinary occasions, it even rendered him eloquent, and, with cheeks as pale as ashes, hands compressed in agony, eyes that seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, he protested, with the deepest oaths, his total ignorance of any design on the life of Rob Roy, whom he swore he loved and honoured as his own soul.-In the inconsistency of his terrour, he id, he was but the agent of others, and he

muttered the name of Rashleigh. He prayed but for life -for life he would give all he had in the world;-it was but life he asked-life, if it were to be prolonged under tortures and privations ;-he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in the damps of the lowest caverns of their hills.

It is impossible to describe the scorn, the loathing, and contempt, with which the wife of MacGregor regarded this wretched petitioner for the poor boon of existence.

"I could have bid you live," she said, "had life been to you the same weary and wasting burden that it is to methat it is to every noble and generous mind. But you→ wretch! you could creep through the world unaffected by its various disgraces, its ineffable miseries, its constantly accumulating masses of crime and sorrow, you could live and enjoy yourself, while the noble-minded are betrayed,while nameless and birthless villains tread on the neck of the brave and long-descended, you could enjoy yourself, like a butcher's dog in the shambles, battening on garbage, while the slaughter of the brave went on around you! This enjoyment you shall not live to partake of; you shall die, base dog, and that before yon cloud has passed over the sun.'

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She gave a brief command, in Gaelic, to her attendants, two of whom seized upon the prostrate suppliant, and hurried him to the brink of a cliff which overhung the flood. He set up the most piercing and dreadful cries that fear ever uttered-I may well term them dreadful, for they haunted my sleep for years afterwards. As the murderers, or executioners, call them as you will, dragged him along, he recognised me even in that moment of horrour, and exclaimed, in the last articulate words I ever heard him utter, "O, Mr. Osbaldistone, save me !-save me !"

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I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentary expectation of sharing his fate, I did attempt to speak in his behalf, but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternly disregarded. The victim was held fast by some, while others, binding a large heavy stone in a plaid, tied it round his neck, and others again eagerly stripped him of some part of his dress. Halfnaked, and thus manacled, they hurried him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep, drowning his last death-shriek with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph, over which, however, the yell of mortal agony was distinctly heard. The

heavy burden splashed in the dark-blue waters of the lake, and the Highlanders, with their pole-axes and swords, watched an instant, to guard, lest, extricating himself from the load to which he was attached, he might have struggled to regain the shore. But the knot had been securely bound; the victim sunk without effort; the waters, which his fall had disturbed, settled calmly over him, and the unit of that life for which he had pleaded so strongly, was for ever withdrawn from the sum of human existence.

LESSON XLVIII.

April Day.-ANONYMOUS.*

ALL day the low-hung clouds have dropt
Their garnered fulness down;
All day that soft, gray mist hath wrapt
Hill, valley, grove, and town.
There has not been a sound to day
To break the calm of nature;
Nor motion, I might almost say,
Of life, or living creature ;-
Of waving bough, or warbling bird,
Or cattle faintly lowing;-

I could have half believed I heard
The leaves and blossoms growing.
I stood to hear-I love it well-
The rain's continuous sound;
Small drops, but thick and fast they fell,
Down straight into the ground.

For leafy thickness is not yet

Earth's naked breast to screen,

Though every dripping branch is set

With shoots of tender green.

Sure, since I looked at early morn,

Those honey-suckle buds

Have swelled to double growth: that thorn

Hath put forth larger studs.

* Extracted from the Review of "The Widow's Tale, and other poems, by the author of Ellen Fitzarthur," in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1822.

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