thing but a splashing puddle. Altogether it was such a habitation as the most self-mortifying anchorite never could have imagined, and standing in a most lone and desolate situation, out of sight of any human place of abode, though the view on every side was extensive, and melancholy enough, on the brink of a wild, spreading, and shrubless ravine, an object on which the tempest might expend its fury in winter, and the stroke of the midnight lightning might descend in summer: it looked the very picture of desolation. Its habitant, herself, was an object of fear and aversion to the whole neighbouring country. From her haggard, and repulsive appearance, and the uncouth and secluded life she led, she was popularly suspected of holding intercourse with things of a dark and unearthly nature, and, through a natural malevolence of disposition, inflicting deadly evils on those who crossed or offended her. Certain it is, that the whole district around her habitation was as scrupulously avoided as if the plague had remained within it, and nothing but bare necessity could tempt one to pass across it, especially after night had fallen. What could have led to this dark and mysterious seclusion, except a natural dislike of human fellowship, no one knew. She had tenanted the hut on the Dyke for many years, and her appearance had been as abrupt and unaccountable as her whole course of life. She rarely spoke to a soul; her subsistence was picked up in a way no one could divine, and set down by the country people as half crazy, or perhaps wholly so, her mode of life became familiar, she ceased to be the object of attention, and was seldom mentioned but as the wild woman of the Dyke. For the better understanding of what is to follow, it is necessary to mention, that at about the distance of thirty miles, resided an old miser, who, lord of a small manor, had contrived to scrape together a considerable quantity of wealth, and inhabited an old, rambling, manorial building, which though once, in its time, a place of much grandeur, had, for want of repair, fallen gradually into the extreme of ruin. Its gloomy walls, their crumbling battlements, lichened by the accumulated damps of centuries, into the hue of the autumnal leaf, looked down upon unweeded courts, cloistered avenues, and lengthening groves of venerable trees. The latter being of majestic growth, and standing closely together, even in the ardency of the noon-day summer sun, cast a sepulchral species of shade upon every thing that greeted the eye. Moss-grown, gabled gateways, their filigreed defences falling from their straining hinges, were deepened into solemnity corniced parapets, vandyked roofs, antique chimneys, and unglazed oriels, seeming each a feature in some dark, spell-bound, and abandoned building, reared their ghost-like shapes in the sylvan twilight that streamed around them, and caught fresh melancholy from its softness. Silence held always here undisputed dominion, the bark of the surly watch-dog alone excepted: within were bars, bolts, and security, without the silence of the desert: the red sun sank behind the distant masses of wood, but no eye beheld its departing glories; the yellow moon rose solitarily over the far steeps of a remote, hilly district, but no foot wandered along the murmuring stream that gleamed beneath its pensive radiance. In short, to quote the lines of Pope Oct. 1835.-VOL. XIV.-NO. LIV. L "Like some lone chartreux stands the good old hall, Cursed the saved candle, and th' unop'ning door, The name of the owner of this ruinous and inhospitable mansion was universally execrated throughout the country. He was distinguished for his many oppressions, by the which indeed he had acquired his ill-gotten quantum of wealth, the sarcastic ungraciousness of his manners, and the uniform hardness of his heart. Many families, that had lived respected around, owed their ruin to him: totally destitute of charity, all his tenants, and he had many, were griped to the utmost; and from inability to make up the smallest sums, those who held under him were turned out of their tenements, and often plunged in consequence into the most abject poverty. He lived in a style of most inexorable penury: childless-wifeless-for he had treated her, who had been his wife, in the most barbarous manner; and even various dark and mysterious reports were circulated in the neighbourhood respecting the cause of her decease. He stood, unblessed by human sympathy, or association, alone in the world in which he had played so ill a part, and was fast descending a blighted, unconnected remnant, into a grave, over which no tear of regretful affection would be shed, no sigh of tender remembrance would be breathed, but on which the curse of the poor man would descend with aggravated bitterness, and around which, to time immemorial, the tale of callousness, revenge, and cruelty, would hourly circulate. He lies buried in the village churchyard of A plain tombstone, never or seldom pointed out but on inquiry, marks the spot where he awaits the judgment of the Infinite, and on which is simply the following: "MICHAEL SWinford, Obiit September —, 17-." But to return to that with which we set out. It was one evening in September. The wind was wailing, not loudly but deeply, along the ridge of the Devil's Dyke. The atmosphere was unusually warm for the season; the day had been oppressive and clouded, and over the distant hills still hung the haze which had canopied them during the day. A sort of preternatural stillness, augmented by the contrast, reigned over the scene in the intervals of the wind; the sun, dilated to an unusual breadth and half-smothered in lurid-looking clouds, to whose deep and eccentric outline an intense illumination had been imparted, had just sunk beneath the horizon, and the rosy lights of early twilight softening nearer shadows and remoter tints into a luxuriant purity, on which an artist would have been delighted to dwell, were beginning rapidly to decline into the grey obscurity of advancing night. Before lay the precipitous depth of the wide and singular Dyke. Sloping broadly down in majestic abruptness, absorbing the damp autumnal light, covered with the scanty herbage peculiar to the comparative aridity of the soil, its lower parts, as they gradually receded, were indistinguishable in the deepness of the shadow which brooded upon them, and stretched on either side in chill and melancholy length, till confounded with the cloudiness of distance. The crimson light of the fast-departing evening had disappeared from the lower country, and was now only discernible on the gleaming summits of the far-off ridges of hills. A few pale stars, struggling into quivering existence through the breaks of cloud above, were shedding a tremulous lustre; the last vesper flush was dying in the west; and to add to the solemnity of the landscape, the darkness of an approaching storm was majestically spreading in the southwest, and the rumbling of advancing thunder booming deeply in the gloom of distance. Before the door of her wild habitation sat the form of the mad woman of the Dyke. She was intently watching the approach of the tempest which threatened, and every minute glancing behind her, as if she distrusted the protection her crazy residence was capable of affording; her skinny and attenuated hand rested on her knee, and there was nothing in her quick and penetrating eye that indicated insanity. Beside her lay a basket of herbs and wild fruit, which she had that day with much pains collected, and about her feet hopped a half-starved raven, for which she seemed to entertain a particular attachment. But now a dim and fast approaching figure was observable coming from the seaward. It caught the old woman's eye, who turned round and occupied herself apparently with speculations of its character. The thunder had by this time come nearer, and a heavy roll reverberated above. The former rapidly neared its observer, who in the increasing darkness sought in vain to define its lineaments: it seemed to be hurrying on without regard to the difficulty of the ground over which it passed, and fast approaching the ridge of the far-famed Dyke, the dangers of further passage seemed to threaten an increase. On however it went, apparently totally regardless of the old woman's hurried intimation of peril, towards that part which was most precipitous. She now perceived that this reckless and mysterious stranger was enveloped in the cloudy folds of a dark and voluminous mantle, and that its face and shape baffled discernment. In the greatest astonishment and incapable of utterance, she saw this figure descending, seemingly unhurt and with the greatest velocity, the steepest part of the glen before her and as rapidly surmounting the opposite side. She watched it for some time with breathless attention, till at length its proportions melted into uncertainty, and the whole form became blended with the shadows of distance. As if urged by a sudden impulse, she fled shrieking into the house, while the last glimmer of twilight faded into the darkness of night. The next day it was whispered throughout the neighbouring country that on the evening preceding, Michael Swinford had been gathered to his fathers: who it was that crossed the Dyke, at the time the event intimated took place, was never satisfactorily determined; but the superstitious peasantry identified him with the personage whose name it since has borne, and insinuated that the supposed fate of the oppressor was amply deserved by that of which he had been guilty. W. R. LORD BROUGHAM'S DISCOURSE OF NATURAL Paley's Natural Theology illustrated. Preliminary Discourse, by LORD BROUGHAM. (First title.) A Discourse of Natural Theology, showing the Nature of the Evidence and the Advantages of the Study. By HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., and Member of the National Institute of France. (Second title.) Charles Knight, Ludgate Street. SIR, To the Editor of the Metropolitan Magazine. CAN you make room for a few remarks on some of the arguments used by Lord Brougham in his "Discourse of Natural Theology?" They are but few, though I could have wished to go through the book page by page; but that I knew you could not give insertion to an article which, in that case, must necessarily have been so lengthy. When I remember the great learning, the unquestioned talent, and uncommon ingenuity which all must acknowledge Lord Brougham possesses, I am apt to wonder at my own temerity in daring to question the validity of any argument of his. But the truth is, while I read his book I did not think at all of his lordship-I only thought of his lordship's arguments. Allow me further to premise that, in impugning Lord Brougham's arguments, I am by no means to be considered as questioning the doctrine-the general doctrine-which those arguments were intended to advocate a doctrine which no man could disprove if he would, nor, I think, would wish to disprove even if he could. It is precisely because I am a friend to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul that I am anxious to show the feebleness and fallacy of Lord Brougham's arguments; because I believe that one bad argument in favour of any doctrine is more injurious to that doctrine than twenty against it; more especially if it happen to be advanced by a man of acknowledged learning and talent. For mankind, who are ever ready to shuffle off the trouble of thinking for themselves, reason thus. They say,-" This man is a friend to the doctrine, therefore he will select the very best and strongest possible arguments that can be brought to bear upon it; he is, moreover, a learned and a talented man, therefore he is able to see and know which are the best and the strongest." And when they find that this advocate of the doctrine, with all his talent and all his learning, can produce no better arguments than such as those contained in the "Discourse of Natural Theology," they are then, very naturally, likely to conclude that the doctrine is itself unsound, and that no good argument can be brought to support it. Let no one draw such a conclusion in the present in stance. To the "Discourse of Natural Theology" may well be applied the old Greek proverb ακαπνος θυσία. It is indeed Bancketje van drie hazelnooten, a small banquet of three hazel-nuts. For the reasons above stated, I have only glanced at a few of the most superficial fallacies; but I assure you, I have searched it most diligently through without being once able to exclaim, "Ecco lo fico!" Behold the fig ! |