When the red round moon was deep'ning her The cageless eagle more than the dove; light, But none knew whither our footsteps bent, For we crept away to the rocky bay, And wild and happy souls were we, Where the cave and craft of a fierce band lay; All secrets were ours-a word might destroy, We gave the signal cry, "Ahoy!" And found a mate in the smuggler boy. His laugh was deep, his speech was bold, But we never betray'd the smuggler boy. The place of his home, or a word of his fate; now, With the red cap toss'd on his dauntless brow; If any of our young readers should chance to ask what a Smuggler is, we should tell them that he is a man who makes it his business to bring into his country merchandise of any kind which is forbidden by law to be brought in, unless a duty is paid upon it. In England it is forbidden to bring rum, brandy, gin, &c. &c. but, living along the seashore are families who make it a business to watch night after night any vessel who wishes to land these contraband articles in small kegs, and they are secretly conveyed to caves and dark places, whence they are brought out and sold through the country cheaper than the regular importing merchant can sell, because he has a high rate of duty to pay to the government. The smugglers are sometimes caught, and punished; sometimes they battle with the king's troops and obtain the victory. There is always war between the smugglers and the custom-house officers; and always will be. In this country of America, there are no smugglers that we know of. Every thing is permitted to come here with so low duties, that it is no object to cheat the government out of the duties which are wanted for its support. THE JUDGMENT OF SIR THOMAS MORE In the pleasant fields of Battersea, near the river side, on a spot which is now covered with houses, dwelt, three hundred and ten years ago, the blind widow, Annice Collie, and her orphan grandchild, Dorothy. These two were alone in the world, and yet they might scarcely be said to feel their loneliness; for they were all the world to each other. Annice Collie had seen better days; for she was the daughter of a substantial yeoman, and her husband, Reuben Collie, had been a gardener in the service of good queen Catherine, the first wife of king Henry the eighth ; and Annice had been a happy wife, a joyful mother, and a liberal housekeeper, having wherewithal to bestow on the wayfarer and stranger at their need. It was, however, the will of God that these blessings should be taken from her; the queen fell into adversity, and being removed from her favourite palace at Greenwich, to give place to her newly exalted rival Anne Boleyn, her faithful servants were all discharged; and, among them, Reuben Collie and his son Arthur were deprived of their situations in the royal gardens. This misfortune, though heavy, appeared light, in comparison with the bitter reverses that had befallen their royal mistress: for the means of obtaining an honest livelihood were still in the power of the industrious little family; and beyond that their ambition extended not. Reuben Collie, who had spent his youth in the Low Countries, had acquired a very considerable knowledge of the art of horticulture, an art at that time so little practised in England, that the salads and vegetables with which the tables of the great were supplied, were all brought, at a great expense, from Holland, and were, of course, never eaten in perfection. Reuben Collie, however, whose observations on the soil and climate had convinced him that these costly exotics might be raised in England, procured seeds, of various kinds, from a friend of his in the service of the duke of Cleves, and was so fortunate as to rear a few plants of cabbages, savoys, brocoli, lettuces, artichokes, and cucumbers, to the unspeakable surprise of all the gardeners in London and its environs; and honest Reuben narrowly escaped being arraigned as a wizard, in consequence of their envy at the success of his experiment. He had hired a cottage with a small field adjoining, and this he and his son Arthur had, with great care and toil, converted into a garden and nursery ground, for rearing fruit-trees, vegetables, costly flowers, and herbs of grace: and this spot he flattered himself would, one day, prove a mine of wealth to himself, and his son after him. That golden season never arrived; for Arthur, who had, during a leisure time, obtained work in a nobleman's garden at Chelsea, for the sake of bringing home a few additional groats, to assist in the maintenance of his wife Margaret, and his little daughter Dorothy, who lived with the old people, was unfortunately killed by the fall of an old wall, over which he was training a fig-tree. The news of this terrible catastrophe was a deathblow to Reuben Collie. The afflicted mother and wife of Arthur struggled with their own grief to offer consolation to him; but it was in vain, for he never smiled again. He no longer took any interest in the garden, which had before been so great a source of pleasure to him: he suffered the weeds to grow up in his borders, and the brambles to take root in his beds. His flowers bloomed unheeded by him, and his fruit-trees remained unpruned: even his darling exotics, the very pride of his heart and the delight of his eyes, whose progress he had heretofore watched with an affection that almost savoured of idolatry, were neglected; and, resisting all the efforts which his wife and daughterin-law could make to rouse him from this sinful state of despair, he fell into a languishing disorder, and died a few months after the calamity that had rendered him childless. And now the two widows, Annice and Margaret Collie, had no one to work for them, or render them any comfort in their bereavement, save the little Dorothy; nevertheless, they did not abandon themselves to the fruitless indulgence of grief, as poor Reuben had done; but, the day after they had, with tearful eyes, assisted at his humble obsequies, they returned to their accustomed occupation, or rather they commenced a course of unwonted labour in the neglected garden, setting lit tle Dorothy to weed the walks and bor ders, while they prepared the beds to receive crops, or transplanted the early seedlings from the frames. And Dorothy, though so young, was dutifully and industriously disposed, and a great comfort to them both: it was her especial business to gather the strawberries and currants, and to cull the flowers for po sies, and carry them out to sell daily; nor was she afraid to venture, even to the great city of London, on such errands, though her only companion and guard was a beautiful Spanish dog, called Constant, which had been given to her, when quite a little puppy, by her royal mistress, good queen Catherine, who was wont to bestow much notice on the child; and she, in her turn, fondly cherished the dog for the sake of her former benefactress. But Constant was, for his own sake, very deserving of her regard, not only for his extraordinary sagacity and beauty, but for the faithful and courageous attachment which he manifested for her person, no one daring to attack or molest her while he was at her side. Constant was moreover very useful in carrying her basket of posies for her, while she was loaded on either arm with those which contained the fruit; and so they performed their daily peregrinations, with kindly words on the one part, and looks and gestures of mutely eloquent affection on the other. Very fond and faithful friends were this guileless pair; and they were soon so well known, and excited so much interest, in the environs of London, that they were treated and caressed at almost every gentleman's house on the road: and the little girl found no difficulty in disposing of her fruit and flowers, and was as happy as a cheerful performance of her duties could render her. But these pleasant days did not last; the small-pox broke out in the neighbourhood:-Dorothy's mother was attacked with this fatal malady, and after a few days' severe illness, died; and the very night after the melancholy and hurried funeral of her beloved daughter-in-law took place, Annice Collie was laid upon But the illness of herself and her deceased daughter-in-law had consumed the little reserve that poor Annice had made, for the payment of their rent ; and their landlord, a hard and covetous man, who had, ever since the death of Reuben Col lie, cast a greedy eye on the garden, which he and his son had made and planted with such labour and cost, called upon the poor widow on the quarter-day, and told her, with many harsh words, that, unless she resigned the lease of the garden to him, he would distrain her goods for the rent she owed him, and turn her and her grand-daughter into the street. the bed of sickness with the same cruel hath taken away; though these eyes disease, and Dorothy was roused from shall behold his glorious works no more, the indulgence of the intense sorrow into yet shall my lips continue to praise him which she was plunged by the unexpec- who can bring light out of darkness.” ted death of her last surviving parent, to exert all her energies for the succour of her aged and helpless grandmother. "I know not how it was that I was enabled to watch, day and night, beside her bed, without sleep and almost without sustenance," would the weeping orphan say, whenever she referred to that sad period; "but of this I am assured, that the Lord, who feedeth the young ravens when they cry unto him, had compassion upon us both, or I never could have been support ed, at my tender years, through trials like those. In the multitude of sorrows that I had in my heart, His comforts refreshed my soul;' and it was through His mercy that my dear grandmother recovered: but she never beheld the light of day again, the cruel disease had destroyed her sight." Yes, in addition to all her other afflictions, Annice Collie was now blind, a widow, childless, and destitute; yet was repining far from her: and, raising her sightless orbs to heaven, when she was informed by the sorrowful Dorothy of the extent of the calamity that had befallen her, in the loss of her daughter-in-law, she meekly said, with pious Eli, "It is the Lord, and shall I complain or fret myself because he hath, in his wisdom, resumed that, which, in his bounty, he gave? Blessed be his holy name for all which he hath given, and for all that he "It is hard to resign the lease of the garden, which has not yet remunerated us for the sum my poor husband laid out upon it, just as it is becoming productive; but I am in your debt, Master Barker, so you must deal with me according to your conscience," said the blind widow; on which he took the garden into his own hands, and made a merit of leaving the two forlorn ones in possession of the cottage. And now Dorothy betook herself to spinning, for the maintenance of herself and her helpless relative; but it was not much that she could earn in that way, after having been accustomed to active employment in the open air: and then her grandmother fell sick again of a |