Be stilled. Oh! that thy father's soul could bear Cla. Forgive thee what? "T is so the headsman speaks Rie. ms.] Ay! Dost call me father once again, my Claudia, Mine own sweet child! [Rienzi gives the ring to Camillo-Exit Camillo. MISS MITFORD. LESSON CLXXIV. ON APPARITIONS. Ar a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among the ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged elms, which are shot up so very high, that, when one passes under them, the rooks and crows, that rest upon the tops of them, seem to be cawing in another region. I am very much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who supplies the wants of his whole creation, and who, in the beautiful language of the Psalms, feedeth the young ravens that call upon him. I like this retirement the better, because of an ill report it lies under of being haunted; for which reason (as I have been told in the family) no living creature ever walks in it besides the chaplain. My good friend the butler desired me, with a very grave face, not to venture myself in it after sunset, for that one of the footmen had been almost frightened out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse without a head; to which he added, that, about a month ago, one of the maids, coming home late that way with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling among the bushes, that she let it fall. I was taking a walk in this place last night between the hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper scenes in the world for a ghost to appear in. The ruins of the abbey are scattered up and down on every side, and half covered with ivy and elder-bushes, the harbors of several solitary birds, which seldom make their appearance till the dusk of the evening. The place was formerly a churchyard, and has still several marks in it of graves and burying places. There is such an echo among the old ruins and vaults, that, if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated. At the same time, the walk of elms, and the croaking of the ravens which from time to time are heard from the tops of them, seem exceeding solemn and venerable. These objects naturally raise seriousness and attention; and when night hightens the awfulness of the place, and pours out her supernumerary horrors upon, every thing in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds fill it with specters and apparitions. Mr. Locke, in his chapter on the Association of Ideas, has some very curious remarks to show how, by the prejudice of education, one idea often introduces into the mind a whole set, that bear no resemblance to one another in the nature of things. Among several examples of this kind, he produces the following instance. "The ideas of goblins and spirits have really no more to do with darkness than light: yet, let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he will never be able to separate them again so long as he lives; but darkness will ever after ward bring with it those frightful ideas, and they will be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other.” As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of the evening conspired with so many other occasions of terror, I observed a cow grazing not far from me, which an imagination, that was apt to startle, might easily have construed into a black horse without a head; and I dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon such a trivial occasion. My friend, Sir Roger, has often told me, with a great deal of mirth, that, at his first coming to his estate, he found three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after eight o'clock at night; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. The knight, seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother, ordered all the apartments to be flung open, and exorcised by his chaplain, who lay in every room, one after another, and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in his family. ADDISON. I REMEMBER a little boy who was a lexicographer from his birth, a language-master, and a philosopher. From the hour he was able to ask for a piece of bread and butter, he never hesitated for a word, not he! If one would not serve, another would, with a little twisting and turning. He assured me one day, when I was holding him by the hand rather tighter than he wished, (he was but just able to speak at the time,) that I should choke his hand; at another, he came to me, all out of breath, to announce, that a man was below shaving the wall. Upon due inquiry, it turned out that he was only whitewashing. But how should he know the difference between white-wash and lather, a big brush and a little one? Show me, if you can, a prettier example of synthesis or generalization, or a more beautiful adaptation of old words to new purposes. I have heard another complain of a school-fellow for winking at him with his lip; and he took the affront very much to heart, I assure you, and would not be pacified till the matter was cleared up. Other children talk about the bones in peaches; osteologists are they: and others, when they have the toothache, aver that it burns them. Of such is the empire of poetry. I have heard another give a public challenge in these words, to every child that came near, as she sat upon the door-step, with a pile of tamarind-stones, nut-shells, and pebbles lying before her. "Ah, I've got many-er than you!" That child was a better grammarian than Lindley Murray. And her wealth, in what was it unlike the hoarded and useless wealth of millions? Never shall I forget another incident which occurred in my presence between two boys. One was trying to jump over a wheel-barrow. Another was going by; he stopped, and after considering a moment, spoke, "I'll tell you what you can't do," said he. "Well, what is it?" "You can't jump down your own throat." "Well, you can't." "Can't I, though?” The simplicity of "Well, you can't," and the roguishness of "Can't I, though?" tickled me prodigiously. They reminded me of sparring I had seen elsewhere, I should not like to say where, having a great respect for the temples of justice and the halls of legislation. "Well, I Here "I say "I say 't is white-oak." "I say 't is red-oak." say 't is white-oak." "I tell you 't is n't white-oak." they had joined issue for the first time. "I say 'tis." 'tis n't." "I'll bet you ten thousand dollars of it." "Well, I'll bet you ten ten thousand dollars." Such were the very words of a conversation I have just heard between two children, the elder six, the other about five. Were not these miniature men? Stockbrokers and theologians? "Well, my lad, you've been to meeting, hey!" "Yes, Sir." "And who preached for you?" "Mr. P—:” "Ah! and what did he say?" "I can't remember, Sir, he put me out so." "Put you out?" "Yes, Sir; he kept lookin' at my new clothes all meetin' time!" That child must have been a close observer. Will any body tell me, that he did not know what some people go to meeting for? It was but yesterday that I passed a fat, little girl, with large, hazel eyes, sitting by herself in a gateway, with her feet stretching straight out into the street. She was holding a book in one hand, and, with a bit of stick in the other, was pointing to the letters. "What's that?" cried she, in a sweet, chirping voice, "hey! look on! What's that, I say? F. No-o o-oh!" shaking her little head with the air of a schoolmistress, who has made up her mind not to be trifled with. But children have other characters. At times they are creatures to be afraid of. Every case I give, is a fact within my own observation. There are children, and I have had to do with them, whose very eyes were terrible; children, who, after years of watchful and anxious discipline, were as indomitable as the young of the wild beast, dropped in the wilderness, crafty, and treacherous, and cruel. And others I have known, who, if they live, must have dominion over the multitude, being evidently of them, that, from the foundations of the world, have been always thundering at the gates of power. Parents! Fathers! Mothers! if it be true that, "just as the twig is bent the tree is inclined," how much have you to answer for! If "men are but children of a larger growth," watch your children forever, by day and by night! pray for them forever, by.night and by day! and not as children, but as men of a smaller growth; as men with most of the evil passions, and with all the evil propensities, that go to make man terrible to his fellow-men. JOHN NEAL. THE return of the victorious Russian army, which had conquered Finland, was attended with a circumstance which, it is |