"Mary!" She turned abruptly and said rapidly, "I am in haste; Alfred has gone on to the church. I shall be back soon,-oh! yes, very soon ;" and she stood a moment and looked mournfully on her husband, and, sighing gently, passed on. That look told more than tongue could tell. Fearful is the glare of anger-the leer of malice-the fixed, forlorn gaze of despair; but more fearful far to feel the eye that lacks the lustre of reason. The lid—the lash—the pencilled vein were there,—the soul of that beautiful feature was gone. She was crazed. Sir Walter staggered against the railings: it was a moment he never forgot. The awful hand that deprived her of her reason, touched his heart. He became an altered being. He returned home, and having secured the unfortunate Mary, foreswore gaming from that very hour; and fearful lest his old associates should again induce him to play, he gathered the relics of his fortune together, and left London for ever. Mary was conveyed to a retreat in the country. A large garden surrounds the house, and some have seen her wander there; and some have heard her, pausing amidst the flowers, gently speak of Alfred.

Sir Walter lives at a small farm amongst the mountains of Wales, a strange and desolate man-his rod or gun his only companions; and yet we know that even the deepest solitudes ring with wild voices of the past.

PARODY.

REFLECTIONS OF A YOUTH ON LEAVING SCHOOL.

FORGET thee! if to laugh by night, and fear the birch by day;
If all the hatred deep and strong, a schoolboy's heart can pay ;
If joys in absence, during these, the glad vacation's hours,
If paining thoughts that flit to thee, and tell me of thy powers;
When trembling fear is blending thee, with all my future lot,
If this thou call'st forgetting, thou indeed shalt be forgot.
Forget thee! bid the soldier boy forget his crimson sash;
Forget thee! bid the slave forget the wale-inflicting lash;
Bid the truant boy forget to seek his well-remembered home ;
Thyself forget thy stern command, and give me leave to roam;
Forget each well-worn, ill-used cane, and leave each birch to rot:
When these things are forgot by thee, then thou shalt be forgot.
Keep if thou wilt, thy powerful hand, thy stern imperious sway,
Retain thy joys, nor grow less glad, while other boarders stay,
But while a school I yet require, for I am bid to rove;
On such as this I'll ne'er bestow my ill requited love.
If all I've learnt in this one year, at last avail me not,
Forget me then, but ne'er believe that thou canst be forgot,

IGNOTUS.

PETER PEEPSKIN.

"The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet,
Are of imagination all compact."

SHAKSPEARE.

WE parted with Peter in the square; but as his conduct on that occasion might possibly provoke the wonder or ridicule of a few unsympathising fellow-mortals, we shall attempt, by a few remarks on his early career, to account for its eccentricity.

There can be no doubt that, from infancy, he had been remarkable for peculiarities similar to those which distinguished him in riper years; and that a disappointment experienced by that unfortunate gentleman when quite a young man, had considerably unhinged the equilibrium of his ideas. As the circumstances, however, attending that disappointment, were of rather an uncommon description, and are considered by his friends as more than a sufficient apology for his future eccentricities, it will not perhaps be deemed superfluous if we lay them before the reader's notice.

Peter was the only son of an extremely respectable gentleman in the medical profession-one of those men who, combining the ornamental with the useful, adorn the windows of their habitations with brightshining vases-and was bordering on his one-and-twentieth year when the superior charms of Miss Hewitt, the daughter of a wealthy baronet in the county of Essex, filled his poetic soul with such lofty notions and sublime ideas, that he straightway discarded from his thoughts, with a facility peculiar to such dispositions, no less than four beauties who had formerly engaged his attentions, and centred his affections on the elegant and accomplished Eliza Hewitt. Long and bitter were Peter's reflections on the subject: unacquainted, except by sight, with either the lady or her family-hopeless of being able to procure an introduction, he grew more violent from the very difficulties which surrounded him. But people argue themselves into the belief of any thing they really desire to credit with great facility; and so, before long, the little man began to picture in imagination those happy days when he should possess Eliza, and become the cherished son-in-law of Sir Henry Hewitt. From this conceit to that of being in return beloved, was an easy and natural transition; and as, upon a certain occasion, he had not merely picked up a parasol which his Eliza had dropped into the mud, but had moreover removed the dirt of it on his own trowsers, he settled as incontrovertible fact that Miss Hewitt, who had thanked him with a smile for his civility, was desperately enamoured of him, and that consequently, as a man of honour, it was incumbent on him to render her supremely happy by declaring his own sentiments at once.

Agreeably to this determination, Peter, whose object was not

NO. VII.-VOL. III.

2 B

merely to reveal his passion, but to do so in a manner calculated to place his gallantry in the most favourable light, set to work in order to devise some means of accomplishing his purpose-he meditated writing, but that was too milk-and-water a step for a man who had worked up his mind to such a pitch of irritability and excitement, -he thought of bribing the family coachman to gallop furiously to some fixed spot, when he (Peter) would rush out, and having waited till the driver had nearly stopped the animals, fly furiously to their head and hang on desperately by the bit,-a piece of heroism which would, doubtless, attract the gratitude of the family, and probably gain him an introduction to the house ;-but a far more happy idea flashed across his mind, and put the rest to flight. He ascertained that it was not unfrequently the young lady's custom to walk on a fine evening in the extensive pleasure grounds adjoining the house, for the purpose of enjoying the air,-what a moment for a lover. Peter determined to avail himself of the opportunity, and as he reflected on his penetration, he shook his head in a Solon-like, impressive manner, and smiled contentedly—he hoped, as he remarked to himself, that he had some sense-he thought he had a little, he was not quite a chicken :-oh, no; he knew what he was about.

It was rather evident that the enamoured Miss Hewitt was not equally aware of his intentions, or the probabilities are that the little gentleman would have been disappointed in his expectations, and would not, as he stood one evening with his little nose hardly peeping over a little paling, have observed the lady in question approaching slowly towards the spot where he lay concealed, but his patience was rewarded though his heart,-a heart, we have reason to believe, large for the frame destined to contain it, palpitated at the sight of her youthful form with a violence so great that it was with difficulty he could support himself on his legs, while the inquisitive character of a little dog that was her companion, by no means allayed his apprehensions.

Between the avenue in which Miss Hewitt was quietly strolling, and the paling behind which her lover had ensconced himself, there grew shrubbery in abundance. It was our friend's intention to seize his opportunity, fly over the palings, throw himself at his Eliza's feet, and declare, in a speech which he had taken some pains to compose the night before, his undying affection. Like the knights of old, he offered up a prayer for the success of his undertaking, and the next moment was in the shrubbery on his knees.

"Never! Oh, never! my adorable Miss Hewitt," exclaimed the dying hero, in a voice wavering between that of Macready in the Stranger and the Clown when struck hard in the Pantomime., "Never will I rise me from this spot until-Oh, oh! my leg."

Had Peter forgotten the little oration which had occupied so much

From the

time and trouble? or had the violence of his affection, or the fact of Miss Hewitt's falling with terror on the ground, caused a confusion in his ideas, that he should upon an occasion of such moment enter into dissertations on his leg? No; it seemed, on the contrary, to arise from a sense of pain in that member for on attempting to rush to the lady's assistance, he could by no means manage it, being apparently detained by some hidden and mysterious power. In vain he struggled -in vain screamed with agony and terror-he merely spread consternation in the minds of all the domestics, who rushed wildly to the spot, and were accosted by a complication of the most peculiar and unearthly sounds-the bellowing of the prostrate hero, and the barking of little Pincher, who, under the impression that he was engaged in terrific combat with a cat or badger, had seized him by the ear, and was tearing his flesh in a scientific manner. They say love is blind: the probabilities are that it must be short-sighted in the extreme, or Peter would surely have observed certain notices which warned poachers and other illegal characters from venturing within that quarter of the park, hinting of the existence of traps and guns, and observing that any one detected within them should be punished with the utmost rigour of the law. frying-pan he was removed to be placed quietly on the fire in other words, he was extricated from the difficulties we have described, to undergo others of a still more depressing nature; and grateful would Peter have felt, could he that instant have been converted into a rabbit or a pebble, or any thing but the wretched creature that he was. The police, but why dwell upon his woes? Suffice it to say, that from that moment he was an altered man. He was not, indeed, rendered wretched and misanthropical by the event; nor did he consider it necessary to detest the whole female race, or inveigh against them as a set of cruel and artful deceivers. On the contrary, his respect for the fair sex seemed gradually to increase, though at the same time his eccentricity (ever a leading feature in his character) became gradually converted into a something approximating very closely to insanity. He applied himself to poetry, and the art of making love; retiring on the death of his father, which took place shortly afterwards, to the square before mentioned, where, in company with Tobiah, of whom more hereafter, he had many amusing adventures in his peculiar style. We have mentioned his first love; let us resume the thread of our narrative, and detail the last, H. B.

(To be continued.)

LIFE'S WORST ILL.

There's a flush upon thy cheek, my friend,-
There's a frown upon thy brow;

To what may the dark index tend?

What care afflicts thee now?

What deep chagrin thus makes thee lower?
Is thy love false? thy wine turned sour?

Nor love, nor wine would tinge my cheek,
Or wrinkle o'er my brow;

But I've a care one should not speak,

That reigns within me now:

The tale will chill where'er 'tis told;

List! thou shalt hear, I have no gold!

I have not that, which here withheld,
"Tis better life to want;

Would'st live by sordid pride repelled,
And brook the glance askant,—
The passant sneer-the frown oblique,—
The scorn fools think-but dare not speak?
Nor love, nor wine, affect thy thought!
Why gold is but a bait,

By which your fools and knaves are caught;
But worth should patient wait;

Nor vainly its possession crave,
And live, and feel its trembling slave.
What! tho' no heaps of gold are thine,

Or treasures round thee flow,
Thou hast within deep fancy's mine,

A wealth which passeth show.
Assay the ore,-the test employ,
It may not now be all alloy.

J. E.

MR. OBSERVER,-Permit me to address a few remarks to you upon a subject which, though it has been often handled before, and in the opinion of some will be deemed trite, may nevertheless have the effect, trite though it be, of drawing the attention of many for the first time to a grave and serious evil.

Among the indolent there is a species of moral disease commonly known by the name of Day-dreaming,-a disease which works its