Return? Alas, my Arab steed, what shall thy master do,

When thou, who wert his all of joy, hast vanish'd from his view?
When the dim distance cheats mine eye, and through the gathering tears,
Thy bright form for a moment like the false mirage appears.
Slow and unmounted will I roam with weary foot alone,

Where with fleet step and joyous bound thou oft hast borne me on:
And, sitting down by that green well, will pause and sadly think,
'Twas here he bow'd his glossy neck when last I saw him drink.

When last I saw him drink! Away! the fever'd dream is o'er;
I could not live a day, and know that we should meet no more;
They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger's power is strong;
They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long:
Who said that I had given thee up? Who said that thou wert sold?
'Tis false, 'tis false! my Arab steed! I fling them back their gold.
Thus, thus, I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains-
Away! Who overtakes us now shall claim thee for his pains!

A MOTHER.

Ah! bless'd are they for whom, 'mid all their pains,
That faithful and unalter'd love remains;

Who, Life wreck'd round them-hunted from their rest-
And, by all else forsaken or distress'd-

Claim, in one heart, their sanctuary and shrine-
As I, my Mother, claim'd my place in thine!
Oft, since that hour, in sadness I retrace
My childhood's vision of thy calm sweet face;
Oft see thy form, its mournful beauty shrouded

In thy black weeds, and coif of widow's woe;
Thy dark expressive eyes all dim and clouded

By that deep wretchedness the lonely know:
Stifling thy grief, to hear some weary task,

Conn'd by unwilling lips, with listless air;
Hoarding thy means, lest future need might ask
More than the widow's pittance then could spare.
Hidden, forgotten by the great and gay,

Enduring sorrow, not by fits and starts,
But the long self-denial, day by day,

Alone amidst thy brood of careless hearts!

Striving to guide, to teach, or to restrain,

The young rebellious spirits crowding round,

Who saw not, knew not, felt not for thy pain,

And could not comfort-yet had power to wound!
Ah! how my selfish heart, which since hath grown
Familiar with deep trials of its own,

With riper judgment looking to the past,
Regrets the careless days that flew so fast,

Stamps with remorse each wasted hour of time,
And darkens every folly into crime

SONNET-TO MY BOOKS.

Silent companions of the lonely hour,
Friends, who can never alter or forsake,
Who for inconstant roving have no power,
And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take-
Let me return to You; this turmoil ending
Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought,
And, o'er your old familiar pages bending,
Refresh my mind with many a tranquil thought,
Till haply meeting there, from time to time,
Fancies, the audible echo of my own,
"Twill be like hearing in a foreign clime

My native language spoke in friendly tone,
And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell
On these, my unripe musings, told so well.

SONNET THE WEAVER.

Little they think, the giddy and the vain,
Wandering at pleasure 'neath the shady trees,
While the light glossy silk or rustling train
Shines in the sun or flutters in the breeze,
How the sick weaver plies the incessant loom,
Crossing in silence the perplexing thread,
Pent in the confines of one narrow room,

Where droops complainingly his cheerless head:
Little they think with what dull anxious eyes,

Nor by what nerveless, thin, and trembling hands,

The devious mingling of those various dyes

Were wrought to answer Luxury's commands:

But the day cometh when the tired shall rest

Where weary Lazarus leans his head on Abraham's breast!

COMMON BLESSINGS.

Those "common blessings!" In this checker'd scene
How little thanksgiving ascends to God!

Is it, in truth, a privilege so mean

To wander with free footsteps o'er the sod,
See various blossoms paint the valley clod,
And all things into teeming beauty burst?
A miracle as great as Aaron's rod,
But that our senses, into dulness nurst,
Recurring Custom still with Apathy hath curst.

They who have rarest joy, know Joy's true measure;
They who most suffer value Suffering's pause;
They who but seldom taste the simplest pleasure,
Kneel oftenest to the Giver and the Cause.

Heavy the curtains feasting Luxury draws,

To hide the sunset and the silver night;

While humbler hearts, when care no longer gnaws,

And some rare holiday permits delight,

Lingering, with love would watch that earth-enchanting sight.

THE PRISON CHAPLAIN.

I saw one man, arm'd simply with God's Word,
Enter the souls of many fellow-men,

And pierce them sharply as a two-edged sword,
While conscience echoed back his words again;
Till, even as showers of fertilizing rain
Sink through the bosom of the valley clod,

So their hearts open'd to the wholesome pain,
And hundreds knelt upon the flowery sod,

One good man's earnest prayer the link 'twixt them and God.
That amphitheatre of awe-struck heads

Is still before me: there the Mother bows,
And o'er her slumbering infant meekly sheds
Unusual tears. There knitting his dark brows,
The penitent blasphemer utters vows

Of holy import. There, the kindly man,

Whose one weak vice went near to bid him lose
All he most valued when his life began,

Abjures the evil course which first he blindly ran.
There, with pale eyelids heavily weigh'd down
By a new sense of overcoming shame,
A youthful Magdalen, whose arm is thrown

Round a young sister who deserves no blame;
As though like innocence she now would claim,
Absolved by a pure God! And, near her, sighs

The father who refused to speak her name :
Her penitence is written in her eyes-

Will he not, too, forgive, and bless her e'er she rise?

THOMAS CARLYLE. 1796.

THOMAS CARLYLE, the renowned essayist, reviewer, and historian, was born at Middlebie, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1796. His father, an elder in the Secession church, was a small farmer, and Thomas received the rudiments of a classical education at a school in Annan.' At the age of seventeen, he went to the University of Edinburgh, where he was distinguished for his attainments in mathematics, of which he was particularly fond. After leaving the university, he remained a little time in Edinburgh, supporting himself by teaching, and writing for the booksellers. He then went to Aberdeen, where he continued for some time as a schoolmaster, determining to devote himself to general literature. About the year 1824 he contributed to Brewster's "Edinburgh Encyclopædia" the articles "Montesquieu," "Montaigne," "Nelson," "Norfolk," and those on the two "Pitts," and completed a translation of "Legendre's Geometry," to

'Annan is in Dumfriesshire, on the Solway Frith, about sixty miles south of Edinburgh.

662

CARLYLE.

which he prefixed an "Essay on Proportions," and also published his translation
of Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister." On the completion of this, he commenced his
"Life of Schiller," which appeared by instalments in the "London Magazine.”
About 1826 he married, and resided in Dumfriesshire, where he continued writing
for the "Foreign" and other reviews until about 1830, when he went to London,
Frazer's Magazine," in which ap-
and became one of the chief contributors to "
"Sartor Resartus." In 1837 he published his "French Revolution,"
peared his
and two years after his "Chartism" appeared, and with it his "Critical and Mis-
cellaneous Essays," in five volumes, collected and republished from reviews and
Since that, he has given
magazines. In 1840 he delivered in London a course of lectures on "Hero-
Worship," which were published in the following year.

to the world his "Past and Present," "Life of Oliver Cromwell,"
Pamphlets,"
," "Life of John Sterling," &c. &c.

Latter-Day

It will readily be seen, by the above list of works, that Mr. Carlyle has been a But this industry is accompanied by a genius of a very very industrious man. high order, and no man of the present century has made a more decided mark upon the age than he. While, however, his writings show great depth as well as originality of thought, and are remarkable for their "suggestiveness," his style is so quaint and eccentric as to be any thing but a model for imitation. And yet a large number of young writers have affected his "tone of quaint irony and indulgent superiority," hoping thereby that they may be thought to have some of the genius of their great prototype, while, in fact, "they have shown nothing of Cicero but his wart, nor of Demosthenes but his stammer."

The trait of Mr. Carlyle's character, which has gained him so many admirers, is the perfectly fearless and unreserved manner in which he utters his thoughts; for mankind love to see earnestness of purpose and independence of spirit, even if they do not coincide with the views thus manly uttered. We could wish, indeed, that our author were less Germanized in his philosophy, and less quaint in his style; but still we are glad to take him as he is, and to profit by his valuable teachings. If he be not a popular writer, and is not read by the masses, it may truly be said that the influence he has exerted upon the thinking men of the age is hardly exceeded by that of any other man now living.

MARIE-ANTOINETTE.

On Monday, the 14th of October, 1793, a cause is pending in the Palais de Justice, in the new revolutionary court, such as these old stone-walls never witnessed: the trial of Marie-Antoinette. The once brightest of queens, now tarnished, defaced, forsaken, stands here at Fouquier Tinville's Judgment-bar; answering for her life! The indictment was delivered her last night. To such changes of human fortune what words are adequate? Silence alone is adequate.

Marie-Antoinette, in this her utter abandonment and hour of

"North British

Her

extreme need, is not wanting to herself, the imperial woman. look, they say, as that hideous indictment was reading, continued calm; "she was sometimes observed moving her fingers, as when one plays on the piano." You discern, not without interest, across that dim revolutionary bulletin itself, how she bears herself queenlike. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of laconic brevity; resolution, which has grown contemptuous without ceasing to be dignified, vails itself in calm words. "You persist then in denial ?" "My plan is not denial: it is the truth I have said, and I persist in that." Scandalous Hébert has borne his testimony as to many things as to one thing, concerning Marie-Antoinette and her little son,-wherewith human speech had better not further be soiled. She has answered Hébert; a juryman begs to observe that she has not answered as to this. "I have not answered," she exclaims, with noble emotion, "because Nature refuses to answer such a charge brought against a mother. I appeal to all the mothers that are here." Robespierre, when he heard of it, broke out into something almost like swearing at the brutish blockheadism of this Hébert, on whose foul head his foul lie has recoiled. At four o'clock on Wednesday morning, after two days and two nights of interrogating, jury-charging, and other darkening of counsel, the result comes out: sentence of death. "Have you any thing to say?" The Accused shook her head without speech. Night's candles are burning out; and with her, too, Time is finishing, and it will be Eternity and Day. This hall of Tinville's is dark, illlighted, except where she stands. Silently she withdraws from it, to die.

Two processions, or royal progresses, three-and-twenty years apart, have often struck us with a strange feeling of contrast. The first is of a beautiful Archduchess and Dauphiness, quitting her mother's city, at the age of fifteen; towards hopes such as no other daughter of Eve then had: "On the morrow," says Weber, an eye-witness, "the dauphiness left Vienna. The whole city crowded out; at first with a sorrow which was silent. She appeared: you saw her sunk back into her carriage; her face bathed in tears; hiding her eyes now with her handkerchief, now with her hands; several times putting out her head to see yet again this palace of her fathers, whither she was to return no more. She motioned her regret, her gratitude to the good nation, which was crowding here. to bid her farewell. Then arose not only tears; but piercing cries, on all sides. Men and women alike abandoned themselves to such expression of their sorrow. It was an audible sound of wail in the streets and avenues of Vienna. The last courier that followed her disappeared, and the crowd melted away.

The young imperial maiden of fifteen has now become a worn discrowned widow of thirty-eight; gray before her time; this is the