bition of a renewal of their correspondence, was ignorant, till informed of the fact by Godfrey himself, of the heartless and unpardonable act of her testy uncle. The Squire had gone to the grave with the lie on his heart, leaving her but the comparatively poor recompense of his great worldly wealth. Emily had resolved on bearing the crucifix of disappointed yet virgin love with her to the grave, only relieving the tedium of her heart's load by frequent and prolonged travelling on the continent; while, on the other hand, the profile-next, in the estimation of Godfrey, to the possession of the reality itself-alike lost with this to the ardent lover, had passed through many ignoble hands till thus so mysteriously met with.

The meeting of the lawyer-lover with his fair client need not be further described. The scene was shortly changed from the bar to the altar of Hymen—the law submitted to the church-the judge yielded his jurisdiction to the priest-and the unanimous verdict of matrimonial union was pronounced upon Godfrey Dybal and Emily Challis! The judge thus descended to the position of special pleader, but the very act became better the dignity and benevolence of the man; for Judge Dybal, it need not be said, had more happiness in the thought of the symbolic ring of matrimony, than he had ever felt when wielding the hangman's whip, or condemning to a more unequal and revolting yoke-the noose of the grim and ghostlike gallows!

OLD LETTERS.

OLD letters! old letters! what thoughts ye throw back,
To valued friends met in life's tear-watered track!
What pictures crowd round-what shadows enfold ye,
Of tales that old Time long, long ago told ye!
Of misery the memory-of mirth, too, the soul—
Your ghost who can shun, or your tongue who 'll control;

So pregnant are ye of the thoughts of the past,
Our hopes ye make buoyant, or prospects ye blast.

Old letters! old letters! though sorrow surround
The facts and the fancies with which ye are crowned,
There's a magical spell in your hist❜ry 'shrined,
And pleasant sun-flowers in your girdle are twined.
The poet and painter have each had a share

In gath'ring minds' wealth that lies slumbering there;
And lovers' hands, too, have your chronicles traced,
But love, like old letters, is oft times misplaced.

Old letters! old letters! I'd cautiously read

The morals ye teach, for your counsel I need;
Though cold now the fingers your lines that erst drew,

Your maxims are sage as your friendship is true.

Here's a casket of gems, enclasped with love knot,
By fairy hand sent-can first love be forgot?

Ah, never,

for faithful as clings to the tree

The ivy, as firm, love, my heart cleaves to thee.

Old letters! old letters! I find with you yet

Mind-pictures of dear friends in younger years met;
Kind feelings I trace in your time-tattered folds-
So sternly the heart by an old letter holds!
In this was a fond father's blessing expressed-
That other informs me the hand that had blessed,
All pulseless and still, from this paper had dropped,
A tear-mark still points where the old man stopped.

Old letters! old letters! I prize you the more
That ye teem with the fruits of such sanctified lore-
Experience hath graven, in symbols of gold,
The lessons that wisdom to folly hath told.

And here is a tale that a rash youth indites,

(One well can make out why the hand falt'ring writes,) The heart that 's betrayed is of courage forsaken"The soul," says the seal, " is first melted, then broken!"

Old letters! old letters! 'mid grave thoughts and gay,
Companioned with you how the hours flit away!
Though pain ye impart, there is profit I wot,
In dullest discourse from an old letter got.

The friends ye unite, by the mystical band

The hand ever open-a heart in that hand

Are drawn, e'en though absent, by love's sacred fetters, To one's own heart and home by these old silent letters!

K

THE WAY OF THE WILL.

'People must mount by slow degrees to glory-
"T is stairs must lead us to the attic story."

THUS thought, and thus wrote, Peter Pindar, of undying memory. But we have had writers among ourselves who thought, and people, too, who have never written a line have imagined, that, because some men are born with silver spoons in their mouths and others with wooden ladles, all men are necessarily linked to the wealth or the penury they first looked upon. In many honourable instances has the idea been falsified; but we are sorry to say in as many has it, by a strong secret influence, been exerted in keeping, as the saying has it, "the nose to the grinding-stone." It is to give what little check we can to this nostrum, in its fixing or making firm the destinies of the poor, that we write on the present occasion, being convinced that, in the destiny of most men, there are means at hand, and opportunities to be laid hold of, which will act as steps in raising them to honour and influence. It is true, indeed, that, at the head of government, there are too often men who,

"Pleas'd, as old Nero, on each falling dome,
Sublimely fiddling to the flames of Rome,"

disregard the wants and interests of their charge, and thus put an embargo on the spirits and energies of those beneath them.

That every man in the enjoyment of health, or having employment for his hands, can rise superior to the early circumstances in which he was placed, we do not now say, nor far less imagine. But this we will say, there are many men now lagging behind in the progress of their nature and their kind who might, by a strong effort, emancipate themselves both from slavery of mind and body, and stand examples to posterity. What good has not been effected by such men as Franklin and Ferguson, Hutton and Newton, and a host of other ornaments to both literature and society? The achievements such men have made, amid the difficulties they have had to brave, have ranked their names as objects for the pen of history, and stamped their characters with an endless reputation. It is not wholly to the labour they bestowed (much as that labour was) in the acquirement of their knowledge that we have to trace the origin of their honours; but it is to the pointed perseverance which guided their research.

"There is a knack in doing many a thing,
Which labour cannot to perfection bring."

Perseverance, then, more than the mere drudgery of toil, can accomplish what most men wish for, and what is most honourable in all. It is natural for some minds