Heaven," cried the chieftain, coming towards myself and my two fellowprisoners, "what can be done?-I always thought we should one day or other be thus surprised."

I trust that I may be at liberty to ascribe my own actions, even where they may seem indefensible, to the best possible motives. I felt pity for the situation of one who had always treated me with extreme kindness, and accordingly told him that he had better ride along the line, and pick out those who appeared to be least intoxicated, and form them into line-he did so, and very speedily had a front rank of about one thousand men. A gentleman, who shall be nameless now, because he held no commission in the rebel service, acted upon that occasion as second in command, and formed a second rank somewhat superior to the first in point of numbers, though more variable in their positions, from the effects of the "cratur," of which they had been taking a drop. Two other gentlemen, who had very little business to interfere, attempted to form a third rank, but the attempt was ineffectual, and all were bundled off, bag and baggage, in a squad, with a very unmartial-like appearance; for though the squad retreated, it was still any thing but a military retreat.

The imposing aspect of these two lines caused the King's troops to halt, and night coming on, the rebel army took advantage of its shadows to effect a retreat. I subsequently became a favourite, and was treated with the greatest confidence by the Chieftain, while I continued a prisoner with him, which was only for three weeks after the retreat to which I have alluded. The manner in which I became once more attached to my regiment was rather singular. The army entered the town of- by night. It was defenceless, and there was of course no opposition to our entrance. I was despatched at the head of a party, of which my two comrades formed a part, to liberate the prisoners confined in the jail, and having done so, what was my astonishment, on making my exit from the gates, to find myself in the midst of a troop of British cavalry!, It was my good fortune to be always gifted with presence of mind. I accordingly made a virtue of necessity, and acquainted the commander that the rebels were in possession of the place. It was a singular fact that both parties had entered the town in the dark at the same time, and that neither was aware of the neighbourhood of the other. He was astonished at the intelligence, and gave immediate orders to attack them. The rebels, however, had already evacuated the town-their intelligence being earlier than that of the King's troops. Indeed it was surprising how rapidly information was conveyed amongst the rebels during the whole period of the rebellion. I was questioned as to the manner in which I had become their prisoner, and told my story as candidly as prudence and a due regard to personal safety would permit. It was plausible, it was believed, and I was sent to rejoin my regiment.

G. J. N.

*As I am not particularly anxious to identify myself, I omit names. Precision might prove somewhat inconvenient.

THE SPANISH CHAPEL.*

I MADE a mountain-brook my guide
Through a wild Spanish glen,
And wander'd, on its grassy side,
Far from the homes of men,
It lured me with a singing tone,
And many a sunny glance,
To a green spot of Beauty lone,
A haunt for old Romance:
A dim and deeply bosom❜d grove
Of many an aged tree,

Such as the shadowy violets love,
The fawn and forest-bee.

The darkness of the chesnut bough
There on the water lay,

While, as in reverent love below,

The bright stream check'd its play;

And bore a music all subdued,
And led a silvery sheen,

On through the breathing solitude
Of that rich leafy scene.

For something viewlessly around
Of solemn influence dwelt,

In the soft gloom and whispery sound,
Not to be told, but felt.

While, sending forth a quiet gleam
Across the wood's repose,

And o'er the twilight of the stream,
A lowly Chapel rose.

A pathway to that still retreat

Through many a myrtle wound,

And there a sight-how strangely sweet!
My steps in wonder bound.

For on a brilliant bed of flowers

Even at the threshold made,

As if to sleep through sultry hours,

A

young fair Child was laid.

To sleep?-oh! ne'er on childhood's eye

And silken lashes press'd,

Did the warm living slumber lie

With such a weight of rest!

Yet still a tender crimson glow

Its cheek's pure marble dyed ;

'Twas but the light's faint streaming flow
Through roses heap'd beside.

I stoop'd-the smooth round arm was chill,
The soft lip's breath was fled,

And the bright ringlets hung so still

The lovely Child was dead!

This little poem was suggested by a scene beautifully described in the “Recollections of the Peninsula."

"Alas!" I cried, "fair faded thing!
Thou hast wrung bitter tears,
And thou hast left a woe, to cling
Round yearning hearts for years!"
But then a voice came sweet and low-
I turn'd-and near me sate
A woman with a mourner's brow,
Pale, yet not desolate!

And in her still, clear, matron face,
All solemnly serene,

A shadow'd image I could trace

Of that young slumberer's mien.
"Stranger! thou pitiest me," she said,
With lips that faintly smiled,

"As here I watch beside my dead,
My fair and precious Child.

"But know, the time-worn heart may

be

By pangs in this world riven,

Keener than theirs who yield, like me,
An Angel unto Heaven!"

F. H.

BOSWELL REDIVIVUS,-NO. IV.

N―― said, he had been reading Kelly's "Reminiscences." I asked what he thought of them? He said, they were the work of an innocent man, who thought all those he knew good people, and every thing they uttered clever. I said, I recollected his singing formerly with Mrs. Crouch, and that he used to give great effect to some things of sentiment, such as that, "Oh! had I been by fate decreed," &c. in "Love in a Village." N▬▬ said, he did not much like him: there was a jerk, a kind of brogue in his singing; though he had, no doubt, considerable advantages in being brought up with all the great singers, and performed on all the first stages in Italy. I said, there was no echo of all that now. "No," said N--, "nor in my time, though I was there just after him. He asked me once, many years ago, if I had heard of him in Italy, and I said no, though I excused myself by stating that I had only been at Rome, where the stage was less an object, the Pope there performing the chief part himself." I answered, that I meant there was no echo of the fine singing at present in Italy, music being there dead as well as painting, or reduced to mere screaming, noise and rant. "It is odd," he said, "how their genius seems to have left them. Every thing of that sort appears to be at present no better than it is with us in a country-town or rather it wants the simplicity and rustic innocence, and is more like the daggled-tailed finery of a lady's waiting-maid. They have nothing of their own: all is at second-hand. Did you see Thorwaldsen's things while you were there? A young artist brought me all his designs the other day, as miracles that I was to wonder at and be delighted with. But I could find nothing in them but repetitions of the Antique, over and over, till I was surfeited." "He would be pleased at this." "Why no! that is not enough it is easy to imitate the Antique :-if you want to last, you must invent something. The other is only pouring liquors from one

8

vessel into another, that become staler and staler every time. We are tired of the Antique; yet, at any rate, it is better than the vapid imitation of it. The world wants something new, and will have it. No matter whether it is better or worse, if there is but an infusion of new life and spirit, it will go down to posterity; otherwise you are soon forgotten. Canova, too, is nothing, for the same reason he is only a feeble copy of the Antique, or a mixture of two things the most incompatible, that and opera-dancing. But there is Bernini; he is full of faults; he has too much of that florid, redundant, fluttering style, that was objected to Rubens; but then he has given an appearance of flesh that was never given before. The Antique always looks like marble, you never for a moment can divest yourself of this idea; but go up to a statue of Bernini's, and it seems as if it must yield to your touch. This excellence he was the first to give, and therefore it must always remain with him. It is true, it is also in the Elgin marbles; but they were not known in his time; so that he indisputably was a genius. Then there is Michael Angelo; how utterly different from the Antique, and in some things how superior! For instance, there is his statue of Cosmo de Medici, leaning on his hand, in the chapel of St. Lorenzo at Florence; I declare it has that look of reality in it, that it almost terrifies you to be near it. It has something of the same effect as the mixture of life and death that is perceivable in wax-work; though that is a bad illustration, as this last is disagreeable and mechanical, and the other is produced by a powerful and masterly conception. It was the same with Handel too: he made music speak a new language, with a pathos and a power that had never been dreamt of till his time. Is it not the same with Titian, Correggio, Raphael? These painters did not imitate one another, but were as unlike as possible, and yet were all excellent. If excellence were one thing, they must have been all wrong. Still, originality is not caprice or affectation it is an excellence that is always to be found in nature, but has never had a place in art before. So Romney said of Sir Joshua, that there was that in his pictures which we had not been used to see in other painters, but we had seen it often enough in nature. Give this in your works, and nothing can ever rob you of the credit of it.

"I was looking into Mandeville since I saw you (I thought I had lost it, but I found it among a parcel of old books); and you may see by that the hold that any thing like originality takes of the world: for though there is a great deal that is questionable and liable to very strong objection, yet they will not give it up, because it is the very reverse of common-place; and they must go to that source to learn what can be said on that side of the question. Even if you receive a shock, you feel your faculties roused by it and set on the alert. Mankind do not choose to go to sleep."-I replied, that I thought this was true, yet at the same time the world seemed to have a wonderful propensity to admire the common-place and traditional. I could only account for this from a reflection of our self-love. We could few of us invent, but most of us could imitate and repeat by rote; and as we thought we could get up and ride in the same jog-trot machine of learning, we affected to look up to this elevation as the post of honour. N said, "You are to consider that learning is of great use to society; and though it may not add to the stock, is a necessary

vehicle to transmit it to others. Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountain-heads. They are only wrong in often claiming respect on a false ground, and mistaking their own province. They are so accustomed to ring the changes on words and received notions, that they lose their perception of things. I remember being struck with this at the time of the Ireland controversy:-only to think of a man like Dr. Parr going down on his knees and kissing the pretended Manuscript! It was not that he knew or cared any thing about Shakspeare (or he would not have been so imposed upon); he merely worshipped a name, as a Catholic priest worships the shrine that contains some favourite relic." I said, the passages in Ireland's play that were brought forward to prove the identity, were the very thing that proved the contrary; for they were obvious parodies of celebrated passages in Shakspeare, such as that on death in Richard II." And there the antic sits," &c. Now, Shakspeare never parodied himself; but these learned critics were only struck with the verbal coincidence, and never thought of the general character or spirit of the writer. "Or, without that," said N, "who that attended to the common sense of the question would not perceive that Shakspeare was a person who would be glad to dispose of his plays as soon as he wrote them? If it had been such a man as Sir Philip Sidney indeed, he might have written a play at his leisure, and locked it up in some private drawer at Penshurst, where it might have been found two hundred years after but Shakspeare had no opportunity to leave such precious hoards behind him, nor place to deposit them in. Tresham made me very mad one day at Cosway's, by saying they had found a lock of his hair and a picture; and Caleb Whitefoord, who ought to have known better, asked me if I did not think Sheridan a judge, and that he believed in the authenticity? I said, 'Do you bring him as a fair witness? He wants to fill his theatre, and would write a play himself, and swear it was Shakspeare's. He knows better than to cry stinking fish."

I observed, this was what made me dislike the conversation of learned or literary men.. I got nothing from them but what I already knew, and hardly that: they poured the same ideas and phrases and cant of knowledge out of books into my ears, as apothecaries' prentices made prescriptions out of the same bottles; but there were no new drugs or simples in their materia medica. Go to a Scotch professor, and he bores you to death by an eternal rhapsody about rent and taxes, gold and paper-currency, population and capital, and the Teutonic Races-all which you have heard a thousand times before: go to a linen-draper in the city, without education, but with common sense and shrewdness, and you pick up something new, because nature is inexhaustible, and he sees it from his own point of view, when not cramped and hoodwinked by pedantic prejudices. A person of this character said to me the other day, in speaking of the morals of foreign nations" It's all a mistake to suppose there can be such a difference, sir: the world are, and must be moral; for when people grow up and get married, they teach their children to be moral. No man wishes to have them turn out profligate." I said I had never heard this before, and it seemed to me to be putting society on new rollers. N. agreed, it was an excellent observation. I added, this self-taught shrewdness had its weak sides too. The same person was arguing